What the Iranians want......
As the Iranians are upping the stakes in their seizure of 15 British soldiers by charging them with espionage, what they want seems to be becoming a bit more clear.
As far as I can tell, there's no direct statement of the Iranian wants, but the consensus seems to be coalescing not around the UN sanctions, but around the 5 Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized in Iraq and still held by the US.
And, USNews adds a report of a US/Iranian border clash in September, but it was well before the US began openly seizing Iranians in Iraq.
(Has anybody noticed that the policy of arresting Iranians in Iraq appears to have stopped? Either the Iranians pulled their people back, the intelligence ran out, the US stopped arresting them, or the Iranians got better at hiding.
Interestingly, The "Iranians are behind everything bad in Iraq" rhetoric has also faded, at least as the top level headlining claim. It was always a claim of utility, but has that utility changed?)
(I probably should note one more possibility, that the seizure of the British soldiers is part of a larger effort to exert pressure on the Brits to fully withdraw from the Iraqi Shia south. Since the Brits announced their partial withdrawal, violence in Basra and elsewhere in the Shia south has gone up, and pehaps this seizure may also be intended to generate political pressure for the Brits at home. Just speculation.)
As far as I can tell, there's no direct statement of the Iranian wants, but the consensus seems to be coalescing not around the UN sanctions, but around the 5 Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized in Iraq and still held by the US.
And, USNews adds a report of a US/Iranian border clash in September, but it was well before the US began openly seizing Iranians in Iraq.
(Has anybody noticed that the policy of arresting Iranians in Iraq appears to have stopped? Either the Iranians pulled their people back, the intelligence ran out, the US stopped arresting them, or the Iranians got better at hiding.
Interestingly, The "Iranians are behind everything bad in Iraq" rhetoric has also faded, at least as the top level headlining claim. It was always a claim of utility, but has that utility changed?)
(I probably should note one more possibility, that the seizure of the British soldiers is part of a larger effort to exert pressure on the Brits to fully withdraw from the Iraqi Shia south. Since the Brits announced their partial withdrawal, violence in Basra and elsewhere in the Shia south has gone up, and pehaps this seizure may also be intended to generate political pressure for the Brits at home. Just speculation.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:10 AM
6 Comments:
Not directly related, but since I've pretty much given up on political blogging I use your blog to post observations....
Telling lead on a BBC story...
"The US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has flown back to the Middle East in her latest attempt to broker peace in the region.
But with the conflict in Iraq now four years old, prospects of reaching agreements among the various factions in the Middle East appear remoter than ever."
If the Middle East is the fulcrum of global peace, tipping the balance between coexistence and global conflagration, everything this administration has done, vis a vis foreign policy, has pushed the wold closer to destruction.
Have we become not only irrelevant in the Israeli-Palestinian process, but now an actual impediment to peace? I think, yes.
By
-epm, at 8:43 AM
"Has anybody noticed that the policy of arresting Iranians in Iraq appears to have stopped? Either the Iranians pulled their people back, the intelligence ran out, the US stopped arresting them, or the Iranians got better at hiding."
Or, as you might have already guessed, the claims were all smoke and mirrors...
By
Anonymous, at 9:12 AM
EPM - "pushed the world closer to destruction." I don't think I'm going to see that in the American press.
I read the NYTimes artiocle on Rice's latest trip and it pretty much said she was going with nothing so I tuned the trip out.
.....
Romunov - Yeah, I tore apart those arguments way back when, but I'm still surprised that they abandoned that argument, you know?
It's not like this administration needs facts to make their arguments.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 11:44 AM
The fact that Rice is heading to the Middle East on a non-mission mission in a way is note worthy. Even more so than NOT heading out to the Middle East, going over in a fog of disinterested resignation draws global attention -- once again -- the this administration's complete lack diplomatic competence. Could it be any clearer that the Bush administration is simple running out the clock... like a high school senior in April.
Given we have but one Secretary of State, the fact that we employ her in show-diplomacy rather than pragmatic, effective diplomacy speaks volumes to the world, even if it fall on the dull minds of the the American general public, many of whom could not find Isael on an un-labeled globe.
But now I just sound like a pompous, grouchy old man...
By
-epm, at 12:44 PM
It's true, facts rarely get in their way. :)
By
Anonymous, at 1:34 PM
EPM "like a high school senior in april" Hah!
I'm not a fan of Trump, but his criticism of Rice that she goes from place to place waving but never makes any deals was dead on.
If you look at her performance as National Security Advisor where she was railroaded by Rumsfeld and Cheney, this isn't surprising.
Like so many before her in this administration, she was clearly promoted for loyalty not ability.
....
Romunov, yeah. that's why it intrigues me that they let the argument go. It wasn't working very well, but it still was useful as a lever against the Iranians. Maybe the domestic blowback about attacking Iran made it not worthwhile?
By
mikevotes, at 3:15 PM
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