generalspeaking

"Be Very Careful"

Cautionary words, words spoken often by those who care about others' welfare, most often mothers speaking to their children, admonishing the young to take especial care lest they come to grief. The phrase has sinister undertones, however, when used as an oblique warning from a figure of authority to those whose unmitigated gall in opposing that authority proves to be an embarrassment and a threat to stability of the authority's regime.

And so, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, who brooks no questioning of his pronouncements, has issued a warning to those high-placed elite within his own government who have publicly denounced the outcome of the June 12 presidential election. He cannot simply authorize the Revolutionary Guard and other government militias to thrash these doubters, to arrest and torture them, as has been done with ordinary citizens-protesters, after all.

But he can, and he did, issue dire warnings that his patience has come to a shuddering end. Those who question the outright electoral victory of the current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when the Supreme Leader has firmly and under the authority of a higher spiritual level, given his assent, risk much. In their purported zeal to act as puppets of the West seeking to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran, they risk being accused as traitors to the nation and worse, to Islam.

"Elites should know that any talk, action or analysis that helps [the enemy] is a move against the nation. We should be very careful." The Supreme Leader's theistic zeal cannot be questioned. He cannot be accused of inciting to view dissenters as traitors to the state and to Islamic ideals. The general paranoia instilled among the population is fairly receptive to his message, giving the dissenters ample opportunity to recant and fall into line.

And the international community which indeed does conspire against the current dedicated interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran's insistence that it can, will and must achieve nuclear sufficiency as a forward-looking nation should now take the opportunity to exercise sound judgement in taking steps to deleteriously affect the country's financial state, already teetering thanks to misrule and misidentification of priorities.

A country that directs its scarce resources toward nuclear advancement while at the same time there are food and energy shortages most certainly represents an administration whose priorities are wretchedly out of tune with need and responsibility. An administration whose leaders and whose religious establishment iterates and reiterates unsubstantiated accusations against other countries, and utters its determination to destroy another country is ripe for destabilization.

Those countries that supply Iran's domestic gasoline could begin rationing it. While Iran is the second-largest importer of gasoline in the world, it is also one of the countries with the largest known fossil-fuel reserves. Instead of wisely investing in its own refinement facilities for its own raw natural resources, it has chosen to invest in nuclear installations and boasts of its nuclear program advancement, its thousands of centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment site.

"With great honor" crowed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale." All of the United Nations Security Council's resolutions have been ineffectual in persuading the country to stand back on its nuclear development. Attempts by the United States, the European Union and others to isolate Iran and sanction it have been useless.

But if the international community is indeed serious about disadvantaging Iran's nuclear program and avoiding having to face the very real possibility of its attaining nuclear weapons, it can and should assume some responsible action that will hit the country in its economy and finally make some inroads in the kind of 'diplomacy' that might be ultimately successful.

Iran's suppliers of gasoline, those who ship and insure and reinsure could be extremely effective if their services and their shipments were curtailed. Countries could conceivably disinvest in Iran, and others could legislate sanctions on any entity providing or helping Iran to obtain refined petroleum. The list of suppliers, shippers, insurance and reinsurance companies could be promulgated so that other countries could decline to do business with them and the choice is thus simplified.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have introduced meaningful legislation to impose sanctions on such entities. The House passed legislation forbidding the provision of U.S. government export support to such entities. And in Canada, MP Irwin Cotler recently introduced the Iran Accountability Act which would divert Canada from investing in Iran. Canada's diplomatic relations with Iran are virtually non-existent, in any event.

But these measures would be a clear response to Tehran's incitement to genocide, illegal nuclear program and their legendary and extensive human rights abuses, inclusive of their huge use of capital punishment on a scale not matched by any other country but China.

Labels: Middle East, Technology, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 21, 2009