A little more imagination please on Iran
Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 5:09PM The story:
U.S. Push for Democracy Could Backfire Inside IranBy Karl Vick and David Finkel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; Page A01TEHRAN -- Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don't need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.
In a case that advocates fear is directly linked to Bush's announcement, the government has jailed two Iranians who traveled outside the country to attend what was billed as a series of workshops on human rights. Two others who attended were interrogated for three days ...
We need a different relationship with Iran that allows the floodgates of economic connectivity to tap into all that unmet ambition trapped within.
I don't see this as the way. Look at how pissed we get whenever foreign governments spend money or seek any sort of influence in our elections. Why do we think it works overseas?
We should be dangling investments, not getting local reformers in trouble by tainting them.
Reader Comments (4)
There is another side to this story by Karl Vick. I have run across several articles that say he is being taken in. Here's one. "Mullahs Now Write Articles for the Washington Post"
http://www.penraker.com/archives/003623.html
Why would Iran want economic connectivity? They're working very hard to cut off what connectivity they have already. They apparently *understand* the soft kill and will impoverish themselves in order to avoid it. How much do they have in hard currency reserves? What little I can find says it's about $40B. Ahmadinejad's 2006 budget is so off kilter that he's printing currency and substantially using up all his foreign currency reserves just to fill the budget gap for this year. Instead of opening up Iran and earning more foreign currency, helping his political constituency, Ahmadinejad is very busy making it harder for the urban poor to get a job.
The soft kill would be nice if the current regime would sit still for it but they aren't. The soft kill would be nice if the current regime would be stable enough so that we could use it. I'm starting to think that it's not, that they're moving into a "expand or die" dynamic similar to Germany's pre-WW II economic house of cards.
Iran supports terrorist movements, has for years. Iran needs massively higher oil prices. Anybody want to connect some dots? What happens if they get caught at a little international oil infrastructure sabotage? In the best case, it's DPW all over again. *We* aren't flexible enough with $100 oil to engage with Iran and Iran has the manpower, the ideology, and the will to blow up some KSA facilities sufficient to get us to $100, even $120.
Iran is very well equipped to make themselves too odious to engage with. They have enough factions that control international terrorists that somebody's going to send these guys against oil infrastructure, if they haven't done so already. High oil prices caused by somebody else's infrastructure going boom are in *every* major oil producer's interest. The only factor restraining this "beggar they neighbor" strategy is the knowledge that others can get at your infrastructure too. If you think the Mahdi's coming this decade, you might just not care if you have (or think you have) a head start on bombers.
Because we live in a liberal federalism, we should be able to participate in government decision-making. How do we do it? If sanctions did any good anytime, will you please tell me where to find the information. I wonder if the executive branch can understand that they are insulting the intelligence of the population.
I am reading reports that NK is screaming right now about the financial sanctions we have put in place. We have enormous influence on the International Banking System and we can interfere with their cash flow. This could work with the Mullahs. They and their families love to vacation in Europe.