Developing countries must boost broadband: U.N.

 

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) – Developing countries risk missing out on the benefits of information technology because of their lack of broadband infrastructure, a U.N. agency said.

Lack of broadband Internet access deprives countries of the possibility of building up offshoring industries, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a report late Thursday.

It also prevents people from tapping into all the advantages of mobile phones, whose use is exploding in poor countries.

"The narrowing of the digital divide remains a key development challenge," UNCTAD Deputy Secretary-General Petko Draganov said.

"What is known as the broadband gap for example is becoming a serious handicap for companies in many poor countries," he told a briefing to launch UNCTAD’s Information Economy Report.

Companies and consumers are 200 times more likely to have access to broadband in developed countries than in the poorest Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the report shows.

And the cost of broadband access varies widely — over $1,300 a month in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and Swaziland against less than $13 in Egypt or Tunisia.

Broadband is essential for offshoring industries such as call centers and back offices, which many developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia want to develop and expand.

Such industries are likely to expand despite the economic crisis because they enable companies in rich countries to cut costs, UNCTAD notes.

Broadband allows consumers to make better use of their mobile phones — rapidly overtaking computers as the information and communications technology (ICT) tool of choice in developing countries.

People in poor countries are using mobile phones for banking, to check markets and monitor the weather — reducing the need for travel and boosting productivity, UNCTAD noted.

As a result mobile phone usage is growing. In Africa there are already 20 times more mobile subscribers than fixed lines, and India added almost 100 million new mobile subscribers in the first seven months of this year, it said.

However, the economic crisis has hit sales of ICT goods such as phones and computers and trade in them declined dramatically last year, according to figures from the top six exporters — China, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, United States and Germany.

Exports have recovered this year, especially from China, now by far the biggest ICT goods exporter.

This is part of a continuing shift to dominance of the sector by Asia, which already accounted for more than half of ICT goods exports by 2007, UNCTAD said.

ICT exports are not only growing faster in China than elsewhere, but are also the fastest growing sector in China.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

(For the full report go to http://link.reuters.com/sad64f )

Developing countries must boost broadband: U.N.

Neocons Salivating Over Their Next Great Exaggerated "Threat": Electromagnetic Pulse Attack | Politics | AlterNet

 

By Robert Farley, Right Web. Posted October 22, 2009.

A diverse array of rightwing factions have united behind the effort to promote the EMP threat thesis.

Last month, Christian conservatives’ favorite presidential hopeful, Mike Huckabee, headlined a national conference in Niagara, New York, titled “Protecting America Against Permanent Continental Shutdown From Electromagnetic Pulse.”

Sponsored by EMPACT America, an organization allied with several leading rightwing advocacy groups, the conference drew some 800 people who came to hear about what organizers regard as a growing threat to the United States: an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that allegedly could destroy much of the country’s infrastructure and send it back to the 19th century. The conference represents the latest step in the effort to hype the supposed menace of EMP, as well as yet another angle on the purportedly diverse array of threats posed by “rogue” states like Iran and North Korea and transnational terrorist groups.

Also addressing the conference via video feed were Republican heavyhitter Newt Gingrich and conservative Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), who has been one of Congress’ loudest advocates of EMP awareness.

Despite the conference’s association with prominent Republicans, however, this quixotic threat-mongering project has yet to gain traction with the broader public.

Origins of the EMP Campaign

Electromagnetic pulse results from a nuclear detonation, and under certain conditions, it can damage electronic equipment in a wide radius from the blast. The EMP effect was first discovered in 1962, when an aerial nuclear weapon test over the Pacific Ocean affected electronic equipment in Hawaii. High-altitude nuclear detonations release gamma rays, which interact with air molecules to create an energy field that disrupts electronic equipment. At a high enough altitude, an EMP could affect a wide area. The resultant damage, it was believed, might in wartime sever command and communication links between military assets, as well as do significant harm to the civilian infrastructure and economy. The U.S. military took the threat of EMP seriously, and began in the 1960s to harden and shield its electronic equipment from such a blast.

Along with their Soviet and Chinese counterparts, U.S. military planners and scientists studied the potential dangers—and opportunities—presented by EMP. However, since only one nation, the United States, has ever attacked another country with an atomic bomb, the precise extent of EMP’s power to damage electronic-dependent infrastructures is not fully understood. Testing bans have also prevented the established nuclear powers from fully investigating the EMP effect (prompting some EMP awareness activists to argue for a resumption of nuclear testing).

Attention to EMPs waned with the end of the Cold War, and the apparent reduction of the Soviet nuclear threat. However, some influential figures still tried to keep the flame alive. In 1997, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) convened a Congressional hearing on the threat that an EMP attack presented to the United States. Minimal action resulted, but the 9/11 attacks helped spark a new wave of interest, and in 2001 Rep. Bartlett led a Congressional effort to create the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack. In 2004, the commission’s first report on EMP preparedness concluded that the United States was vulnerable, and that the government should take steps to protect commercial electronics and expand missile defense.

A Network of Hawks

The EMPACT conference revealed the diverse array of rightwing factions that have united behind the effort to promote the EMP threat thesis. For example, several panels at the conference were led by missile-defense enthusiasts closely associated with neoconservatism, notably Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Other presenters with a rightist ideological bent included Brigitte Gabriel and Guy Rodgers from Act for America, a hardline advocacy group preoccupied with “Islamofascism”; and Larry Greenfield from the rightwing Claremont Institute, which promotes “multi-layered” missile defense via a website called MissileThreat.com.

The EMPACT conference also included a Christian Zionist element. Larry Greenfield, who moderated a panel on Iran and North Korea, sits on the board of Israel-Christian Nexus, which unites Jewish and Christian Zionists in support of Israel. The controversial pastor John Hagee is a member of the group’s board of advisors. May and Gaffney spoke about Iran and the EMP threat at the 2008 convention of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the influential Christian Zionist group headed by Hagee.

Gingrich, now a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, has stood at the vanguard of the EMP awareness movement. In his video address to the conference, Gingrich said, “I’ve long believed that EMP or electromagnetic pulse may be the greatest strategic threat we face, because without adequate preparation, its impact would be so horrifying, that we would basically lose our civilization in a matter of seconds.”

The Heritage Foundation has also advocated EMP awareness, and one of its homeland security experts was a panelist at the Niagara conference. It has published numerous articles linking the danger of EMP attacks with the need to beef up missile defense, something it has avidly pushed for many years. Two Heritage writers, Jena Baker McNeill and James Jay Carafano, have proposed an EMP Recognition Day to be held on March 23. On this day, Congress would work without electricity, electronic equipment, and food in order to simulate the effects of an electromagnetic pulse attack. The proposed day of recognition falls on the anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s March 23, 1983 announcement of the “star wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. According to Heritage, EMP Recognition Day would further the goal of establishing missile defense, which it claims “will allow our nation to intercept and destroy a missile bound for the United States regardless of the launch point or whether the attack is aimed at destroying a city or engaging in an EMP attack on the nation.”

Op-eds in favor of EMP awareness have appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and a host of conservative publications. In a Post op-ed on March 4, 2007, novelist Mark Helprin argued that the People’s Republic of China might, in an emergency, detonate several high-megaton warheads in the atmosphere over the United States, destroying the country’ electronic infrastructure. U.S. response would be toothless, Helprin argued, because the United States would be reluctant to launch a nuclear counterstrike, and retaliating with an EMP attack would be useless since “China is not as technically dependent as we.” Helprin advocates presumptive nuclear superiority as a solution, although he doesn’t explain how such superiority would prevent such a relatively low-cost nuclear strategy. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) have also weighed in with op-eds in favor of greater EMP preparedness.

The EMPACT conference represents a culmination of sorts for the EMP awareness movement. In his keynote speech, Mike Huckabee warned against complaisance. “We should not minimize the threat of EMP,” he said. “There’s always going to be cynics. There were cynics who didn’t believe the Japanese were a threat (to attack Pearl Harbor) and there were cynics who didn’t believe radical Islam was a threat.” Huckabee said he agreed with Fritz Ermarth, former chair of the National Intelligence Council, who the day before had told conference attendees that an EMP attack would most likely come from Iran, North Korea, or an Al Qaeda-type terrorist network. Huckabee also compared the EMP’s effects on the electric grid to that of a particularly bad ice storm.

Longtime EMP awareness advocate and Iran hawk Frank Gaffney made the most inflated statement during the conference, arguing that “within a year of that attack, nine out of ten Americans would be dead. … That would be a world without America, as a practical matter. And that is exactly what I believe the Iranians are working towards.” Gaffney’s source for the 90 percent kill rate might have been William Graham, chair of the EMP Commission, who told the House Armed Services Committee last year that an EMP attack could so thoroughly damage the country’s electronic infrastructure—including its transportation and food and water delivery systems—that within a year only about 30 million Americans would still be alive.

Alarmist Predictions

Uncertainty regarding the effect of EMP has fed alarmist predictions about overall impact. For example, although there is agreement that high-altitude nuclear detonations can cause widespread damage to the electric grid and to electronic and digital equipment, there is little agreement on the size of the nuclear weapon necessary to cause significant, long-lasting destruction. The test that damaged electronic equipment in Hawaii measured 1.4 megatons, roughly one hundred times larger than the most powerful nuclear test attributed to North Korea. However, numerous EMP awareness advocates (and some members of the EMP Commission) have argued that a much smaller warhead could destroy electronics from the East Coast to the Midwest. In the absence of conclusive research and testing, the exact size of the explosion necessary to create a devastating EMP remains unknown.

Many weapons experts doubt that an EMP attack could cause lasting or irreversible damage. Stephen Younger, former senior fellow at Los Alamos National Lab and director at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, argues that while an EMP might create problems in the short term, it is unlikely to cause long-term devastation.

Similarly, observers have questioned the capacity of North Korea or Iran, much less a terrorist organization, to develop a warhead sophisticated enough to cause widespread EMP damage. Nick Schwellenbach, a former researcher at Project on Government Oversight, suggests that the idea of a small, EMP-optimized warhead is absurd: “You have a lot of points of failure in order to get to a warhead that is EMP optimized. … [Y]ou need specialized machine tools, you need capital, but to create a weapon that creates the secondary effect that you’re talking about, that’s something even we can’t do right now.”

At this point, neither Iran nor North Korea possess a missile capable of delivering an EMP attack against the United States. However, Graham, as well as Peter Pry, the president of EMPACT America and former senior staffer with the EMP Commission, have argued in Congressional testimony that Iran could launch a medium-range ballistic missile from an offshore barge or freighter, thus giving the Islamic Republic first-strike capability. Moreover, EMP awareness advocates have argued that if terrorists acquired a ballistic missile and a nuclear warhead, they could conduct the same kind of offshore attack.

The strategic logic of an EMP attack on the United States remains unclear, and skeptics’ doubts mostly focus on the strategic implausibility of such attacks. Under the most aggressive assumptions, a first-strike EMP attack might cause widespread economic damage. However, under no scenario would the attack eliminate the ability of the U.S. military to respond. Al Mauroni of the defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation argues that “the national command authority would be able to identify where a missile came from, determine the effects of such an attack, and respond with nuclear weapons—not necessarily just for an EMP effect—against the adversarial nation.”

Former Rep. Curt Weldon, who gave the EMPACT conference’s opening address, argued back in 1997 that it would be politically difficult for the United States to respond to such an attack, as no cities will have been destroyed and no lives lost (at least initially), a claim which other EMP awareness advocates have echoed. However, that the United States would not respond with overwhelming military force to a successful EMP attack strains credulity.

EMP awareness advocates have thus far failed to offer a convincing motive for why a rogue state would use its scarce nuclear weapons in a first-strike that might not work, and that would in any case leave the attacker open to a devastating counterattack. EMP as a second-strike deterrent fares no better; the strategic logic of deterrence demands that any retaliatory strike be as lethal and as secure as possible, and it is highly unlikely that any state would rely on unproven weaponry of uncertain lethality to dissuade an attack. While terrorists may have different incentives, the road to a functional EMP capability is much rockier for a terrorist group than a state. At a minimum, the terrorist group would need to acquire and master the operation of a nuclear weapon and a ballistic missile, two steps further than any known group has gone.

Ulterior Motives

The central political purpose of the EMP awareness movement appears to be advancement of the cause of missile defense. The most extreme estimates of the effect of EMP restore the Cold War-era existential fears of nuclear war. Schwellenbach argues “what’s driving it is the political global context—it gives the right an issue that allows them to justify hawkish behavior. It is almost a perfect solution to any argument against missile defense—North Korea and Iran.”

The 90 percent casualty estimate advanced by EMP awareness advocates hypes the notion that the United States faces potential annihilation at the hands of its enemies, and goes a step farther: even the smallest nuclear power can destroy the United States with a small number of warheads. This, in turn, reaffirms the need for both a secure missile defense shield (including space-based interceptor weapons) and a grand strategy of preventive war against potential nuclear and ballistic missile proliferators. Almost all EMP awareness advocates—including Gaffney, Gingrich, and Huckabee—call for increased spending on missile defense. Gaffney and Gingrich have also called for a “robust” policy of preemptive war, including attacks on Iranian and North Korean missiles on their launching pads.

The fact that EMP is poorly researched and not well understood works in its favor as a scare tactic. Since evidence of EMP’s allegedly lasting impact is purely theoretical, EMP awareness advocates can make outlandish claims regarding the threat that even the smallest nuclear arsenal poses. They can also point to allegations made by the official EMP Commission, ignoring the fact that many outside experts dispute its findings.

The Niagara conference’s emphasis on strategic and policy considerations shows that alarmist predictions about EMP attacks serve as fodder for promotion of a larger nuclear weapons stockpile, for missile defense, and for preventive attacks.

Little Traction

Despite the effort that conservatives have devoted to this cause, it appears to have gained little traction in the mainstream media. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and other major television news organizations declined to cover the EMPACT conference. Indeed, even the neoconservative Weekly Standard, which seems perpetually on the lookout for ways to plug purported existential threats to the homeland, stayed away from Niagara. One Standard editor said in an interview with the author, “I don’t go for that EMP stuff. Kind of more interested in dangerous scenarios that might actually happen.”

Nevertheless, the presence of Huckabee and Gingrich at the conference indicates that some major Republican Party politicians see EMP either as a splendid political opportunity, or as their latest conservative litmus test.

Neocons Salivating Over Their Next Great Exaggerated “Threat”: Electromagnetic Pulse Attack | Politics | AlterNet

Islamist conspiracy theorists with nuclear weapons: Why Iran has to be stopped – Telegraph Blogs

 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes Iran must ‘export’ the Iranian revolution (Photo: AP)

Those who dismiss the threat of a nuclear Iran fail to appreciate the true nature of that country’s regime. Consider, if you will, the suicide bomb which yesterday killed 42 people in Sistani-Baluchistan (a region of Iran which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan). General Noor Ali Shooshtari, the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground forces, was killed – along with five other officers and ten tribal elders.

A Sunni insurgent group called Jundallah quickly claimed responsibility. But that didn’t stop General Mohammad Pakpour, head of the Guard’s ground forces, from blaming Britain and America. “The terrorists were trained in the neighbouring country by the Americans and British,” he said. “The enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran are unable to tolerate the unity in the country.” And, more ominously: “The Guards will give a very harsh and crushing response to this group, so the group will never be able to launch another act like this in the country.”

Let’s be clear. There a very few journalists who have inside knowledge of the CIA’s activities, and I am not claiming to be one of them. Although the US has denied any involvement, it is not impossible that American funding has reached Jundallah in the last few years (a 2008 New Yorker article explores the issue here, and Con Coughlin doubts it here). But General Pakpour’s comments surely represent something more profound. Iran, as a dictatorship, views unity as paramount. So whether it’s Shia/Sunni infighting or tribal disobedience, it will always be the West, rather than deep-rooted domestic problems, which is to blame.

The Iranian regime is peopled by conspiracy theorists, and its supporters are of a similar mindset. I have been continuously emailed by one such man since I wrote some weeks ago that we cannot rule out bombing Iran if its nuclear aims continue to near fruition. His last email arrived with a 17-page paper which described The Guardian as “a liberal, non-conformist wing of the British Establishment”. I’ve yet to work out if my correspondent is an Iranian agent, but I’m beginning to think not – reading his emails is like being stuck at a bar next to a boring drunk.

But the conspiracy theories of the Iranian regime are far more dangerous. And they come into sharper focus when the religious beliefs of President Ahmadinejad and his colleagues are properly examined. As Con Coughlin has written for Standpoint magazine, these are very religious men. As Shia Muslims, many of them are devoted to the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who they expect to return at the End of Days (after a period of bloody violence) to lead the world into an era of peace.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as devoted to the coming of the 12th Imam as he is to Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution. Indeed, Con Coughlin’s has noted that Ahmadinejad once “made the outlandish suggestion that the Western powers were so concerned about the [12th Imam's] possible return that they were scouring the world trying to find him, to prevent him returning to Iran and establishing justice on earth.” The US and Britain should remember all of this while they try to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Ahmadinejad religiously believes he should export the Iranian revolution – and it is this, combined with the conspiracy theorist’s promise of “revenge”, that will be a much graver threat should Iran obtain a nuclear capability.

Islamist conspiracy theorists with nuclear weapons: Why Iran has to be stopped – Telegraph Blogs

First black hole for light created on Earth – physics-math – 14 October 2009 – New Scientist

 

An electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time.

The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Narimanov and Kildishev reasoned that it should be possible to build a device that makes light curve inwards towards its centre in a similar way. They calculated that this could be done by a cylindrical structure consisting of a central core surrounded by a shell of concentric rings.

There’s no escape

The key to making light curve inwards is to make the shell’s permittivity – which affects the electric component of an electromagnetic wave – increase smoothly from the outer to the inner surface. This is analogous to the curvature of space-time near a black hole. At the point where the shell meets the core, the permittivity of the ring must match that of the core, so that light is absorbed rather than reflected.

Now Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have turned Narimanov and Kildishev’s theory into practice, and built a "black hole" for microwave frequencies. It is made of 60 annular strips of so-called "meta-materials", which have previously been used to make invisibility cloaks.

Each strip takes the form of a circuit board etched with intricate structures whose characteristics change progressively from one strip to the next, so that the permittivity varies smoothly. The outer 40 strips make up the shell and the inner 20 strips make up the absorber.

"When the incident electromagnetic wave hits the device, the wave will be trapped and guided in the shell region towards the core of the black hole, and will then be absorbed by the core," says Cui. "The wave will not come out from the black hole." In their device, the core converts the absorbed light into heat.

Quick work

Narimanov is impressed by Cui and Cheng’s implementation of his design. "I am surprised that they have done it so quickly," he says.

Fabricating a device that captures optical wavelengths in the same way will not be easy, as visible light has a wavelength orders of magnitude smaller than that of microwave radiation. This will require the etched structures to be correspondingly smaller.

Cui is confident that they can do it. "I expect that our demonstration of the optical black hole will be available by the end of 2009," he says.

Such a device could be used to harvest solar energy in places where the light is too diffuse for mirrors to concentrate it onto a solar cell. An optical black hole would suck it all in and direct it at a solar cell sitting at the core. "If that works, you will no longer require these huge parabolic mirrors to collect light," says Narimanov.

First black hole for light created on Earth – physics-math – 14 October 2009 – New Scientist

Establishing the Right Precedent in Supplying Fuel to Iran – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

Establishing the Right Precedent in Supplying Fuel to Iran

George Perkovich, Pierre Goldschmidt Proliferation Analysis, October 7, 2009

Note: The initial posting of this analysis, on October 6, contained an error which is corrected here. UN Security Council resolutions 1737, 1747, and 1803 do allow Iran to import fuel for light water reactors, including the Tehran research reactor.

The reported agreement to refuel the Tehran research reactor by shipping Iranian-made low enriched uranium (LEU) to other states for further enrichment and fuel fabrication could be a good precedent for meeting Iran’s future and potentially larger nuclear fuel needs. This precedent could be seen as a first step to accept at a later stage that the UN Security Council would reverse its present decision and allow Iran to continue its ongoing practice of enriching uranium to less than five percent under what should be rigorous safeguards (including having a so-called “Additional Protocol” in force).

Given Iran’s numerous legal transgressions, and three UN Security Council resolutions (1737, 1747, and 1803) that prohibit Iran from continuing to enrich uranium, the agreement could be a major gain for Iran and a major concession if it meant that there would be no additional sanctions if Iran continues to enrich. Moreover, helping Iran’s operation of a reactor using uranium enriched to 19.75 percent could strengthen Tehran’s arguments that it should not be blocked from enriching uranium to that level in the future.

These are serious risks. However, the proposed fuel-supply arrangement is intended to establish different precedents. If these are clearly articulated and if the agreement includes two critical additional steps, the net result could be a significant positive precedent and a net nonproliferation gain.

One is that Iran would ship the LEU it produces to other states for further enrichment if necessary. A second should be that all LEU produced in Iran should regularly be sent abroad to be manufactured by foreign entities into fuel loads for the Tehran and Bushehr reactors. Iran should expect that it would be required to send back to Russia or the U.S. all the spent fuel that would be produced from the Tehran reactor as is already the case for Bushehr.

However, for this to happen, three legally binding UN Security Council resolutions would have to be amended. These resolutions require Iran not to export a number of specific items, including LEU, and all member states to prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran.

Amending these Security Council resolutions to allow the supply of fuel enriched to 19.75 percent for a research reactor would be a major concession to Iran and should be acknowledged by Iran as a confidence-building measure. To make such a reversal acceptable, and provide some assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, the UNSC should also decide in a new Chapter VII resolution that all states will suspend any and all military cooperation with Iran as long as Iran has not ratified the Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement and fully implements these agreements and their Subsidiary Arrangements (including the early provision of design information—Code 3.1—signed in February 2003). In addition Iran, which has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), should be required to place all its sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle facilities under permanent safeguards. Such safeguards—called INFCIRC/66-type—do not expire if and when a state withdraws from the NPT.

None of these measures endanger Iran’s rights to peaceful nuclear technology. But if the much discussed global expansion of nuclear energy is to occur, permanent safeguards on sensitive nuclear facilities will have to become the norm. Nuclear vendors are likely to insist on this in contracts so as to limit the reputational risks that a customer would break out of the NPT and use fuel or equipment supplied by the vendor for manufacturing nuclear weapons. Similar industry interests will augment the IAEA’s and many governments’ insistence that the Additional Protocol be adopted in all states with peaceful nuclear programs.

In short, if handled wisely, the negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany can yield several useful precedents, turning what has been a nearly disastrous episode in nuclear history into merely a traumatic one.

If Iran chooses not to accept international cooperation on these most forgiving and fair terms, then it should be left to its self-isolation. This isolation would not be due to a lack of constructive effort by those who were willing to meet Iran halfway in restoring international confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

George Perkovich is director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pierre Goldschmidt is nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, head of the department of safeguards.

Establishing the Right Precedent in Supplying Fuel to Iran – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Terrorists could use internet to launch nuclear attack, says report | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

The risk of cyber-terrorism escalating to a nuclear strike is growing daily, according to a study

• 

Photograph: U.S. Department of Energy-Nevada/Corbis

Terrorists groups could soon use the internet to help set off a devastating nuclear attack, according to new research.

The claims come in a study commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), which suggests that under the right circumstances, terrorists could break into computer systems and launch an attack on a nuclear state – triggering a catastrophic chain of events that would have a global impact.

Without better protection of computer and information systems, the paper suggests, governments around the world are leaving open the possibility that a well-coordinated cyberwar could quickly elevate to nuclear levels.

In fact, says the study, "this may be an easier alternative for terrorist groups than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves".

Though the paper admits that the media and entertainment industries often confuse and exaggerate the risk of cyberterrorism, it also outlines a number of potential threats and situations in which dedicated hackers could use information warfare techniques to make a nuclear attack more likely.

While the possibility of a radical group gaining access to actual launch systems is remote, the study suggests that hackers could focus on feeding in false information further down the chain – or spreading fake information to officials in a carefully orchestrated strike.

"Despite claims that nuclear launch orders can only come from the highest authorities, numerous examples point towards an ability to sidestep the chain of command and insert orders at lower levels," said Jason Fritz, the author of the paper. "Cyber-terrorists could also provoke a nuclear launch by spoofing early warning and identification systems or by degrading communications networks."

Since these systems are not as well-protected as those used to launch an attack, they may prove more vulnerable to attackers who wish to tempt another nation into a nuclear response.

Governments around the world have recently stepped up their commitment to increasing cyber-defence, after a number of high-profile incidents in which hackers launched attacks on foreign nations. Recent online conflicts, as well as reported attacks on government computer systems in the US, UK and elsewhere have increased the stakes.

In Britain, Gordon Brown recently announced plans to step up online intelligence operations – while in the US, President Obama has said he intends to appoint a cyber-security tsar to ensure that protecting America’s computer systems "will be a national security priority".

"Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it," he said in May, adding that online attacks are "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face".

However, the study suggests that although governments are increasingly aware of the threat of cyberwar with other nations, action to bolster those defences does not alleviate the threat of a rogue group that circumvented the expected strategies for online warfare.

"Just as the 9/11 attacks were an unprecedented attack with unconventional weapons, so too could a major cyber attack," it says.

Terrorists could use internet to launch nuclear attack, says report | Technology | guardian.co.uk

A Response to Jon Kyl and Richard Perle – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

A Response to Jon Kyl and Richard Perle

James Acton, Pierre Goldschmidt, George Perkovich Proliferation Analysis, July 7, 2009 Published: July 07, 2009

President Obama’s speech on April 5, 2009, in Prague, in which he pledged “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” was the most important statement of nuclear weapons policy in a generation. It is absolutely right to subject this policy to scrutiny. The critique by Senator Jon Kyl and Richard Perle in the Wall Street Journal last week is to be welcomed as a stimulus to analysis and debate.

The Kyl and Perle op-ed is, however, based on a series of invalid premises. It focuses on arguments not actually made by those who advocate the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. It divides states into US allies and US enemies, thus ignoring the majority that are neither, while also overlooking the different perspectives of many US allies and friends. The article’s reading of expert opinion—particularly scientific opinion—is highly selective.

Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle repeat the over-worn line that it is naïve to expect determined proliferators to halt their pursuit of nuclear weapons in response to disarmament efforts by the US and others. We agree. And so, contrary to their assertion, does the Obama administration and its advisers.

Former Senator Sam Nunn, for instance, recently restated his reasons for supporting the goal of abolition in partnership with Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and William Perry (who, incidentally, Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle happily cite when it suits them):

The four of us are not saying that if Russia and the United States set a shining example that Iran and North Korea will suddenly see the light and immediately abandon their nuclear programs. That is not our point.

But we do believe that if we take this path, many more nations are likely to join us in a tough approach to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials and prevent catastrophic terrorism.

The US frequently finds itself trying to motivate large numbers of other states to agree to tighten nonproliferation rules and their enforcement, including through sanctions and possible interdiction efforts. Experience shows that many states express unwillingness to do so when the US and other strong nuclear powers appear determined to retain their own nuclear arsenals for the indefinite future. For example, the United States’ strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program has foundered, in part, on the refusal by the Non-Aligned Movement to isolate Iran politically because of frustrations with the United States’ lack of progress in meeting its disarmament commitments.

Moreover, if the US—the world’s strongest conventional power—bases its security on nuclear weapons indefinitely and eschews any program of action to work towards their elimination, how is it possible to persuade much more vulnerable states that they do not need nuclear weapons to defend their national integrity?

US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a touchstone of its commitment to work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, as every American administration in the nuclear age has recognized, except that of George W. Bush. Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle claim the treaty “simply is not verifiable.” In doing so they are selectively ignoring the overwhelming majority of scientific expertise, the pleas of the allies about whom they profess so much concern, and a substantial number of the experts who served on the Perry-Schlesinger Commission.

Mr. Perle hardly has an impressive record on this score. In the 1980s, using evidence that was at best ambiguous, he regularly asserted that an agreement to ban nuclear tests over 150 kT, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, was being repeatedly violated by the Soviet Union—a claim now definitively proven to be wrong. When a government-sponsored study argued that seismology—which undermined his claims—was the most accurate method for assessing the yield of nuclear tests, then Assistant Secretary of Defense Perle made the telling admission that “I didn’t particularly care much what their answer was. It doesn’t have any profound bearing on our policy.”

If verification really is the key issue for Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle then they should clearly lay out why the vast majority of independent expert opinion is wrong. If, however, they once again “don’t particularly care” about the technical details of verification then they should honestly explain their real opposition to the treaty.

It is remarkable that in June 2009, Indonesia, a key non-aligned country and one of the nine states (with China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the US) that must ratify the CTBT for it to come into force, pledged to ratify the treaty as soon as the US does. For any party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to delay or obstruct the entry into force of the CTBT is incompatible not only with the spirit of the original nonproliferation bargain, but also with the explicit conditions by which the NPT was indefinitely extended in 1995.

Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle paint a picture of a nuclear-weapons infrastructure in crisis. While we—and, more importantly, President Obama—share their aim of maintaining a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear arsenal for as long as nuclear weapons exist, there is room for disagreement about whether an urgent modernization program is required. Science-based “stockpile stewardship” has been effective to date at ensuring the viability of existing US nuclear weapons. What is needed is an unhurried and sober analysis of exactly what is required to ensure that the US nuclear arsenal remains safe and reliable—exactly what the Obama administration is doing.

This analysis must take into account the effects on other states of a decision by the US to modernize its nuclear arsenal. Too many people, especially those connected with the American defense establishment, seem to ignore the vast majority of states that are neither close allies nor sworn adversaries of the US. These states vehemently reject the discriminatory nature of the nonproliferation regime and are urging the US and other nuclear-armed states to live up to their commitments to work towards disarmament.

Even when it comes to US adversaries, Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle overstate their case. They state that “a robust American nuclear force is an essential discouragement to nuclear proliferators.” Yet, the United States’ huge nuclear arsenal failed to deter North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs and has done nothing to help it resolve these crises.

President Obama stated this week in Moscow that it is essential for the US to lead the world by example. He correctly believes that if there is to be the required international support for a much-needed strengthening of the nonproliferation regime the US must take its disarmament commitments seriously. Ratification of the CTBT before the 2010 NPT Review Conference should be a top priority.

James M. Acton and George Perkovich are, respectively, associate and director in the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-editors of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate. Pierre Goldschmidt is nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, head of the department of safeguards

A Response to Jon Kyl and Richard Perle – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Iranian: Arabs in Persian literature

 

Based on a painting by Khosro Roshan

Bani Ajam

September 1997
The Iranian

Bani aadam a’zaay-e yekdigarnd.
Human beings are parts of one body.
- Sa’di, 13th century Iranian poet

Arab dar biyaabaan malakh meekhorad, sag-e esfahaan aab-e yakh mikhorad .
In the desert, the Arab eats locusts; the [Iranian] dog from Isfahan drinks cold water.
– Persian proverb

From “The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature“ by Joya Blondel Saad (1996, University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland. $28.50). Pages 127-132:

Main topics

* The Arab Other is a reverse definition of the Iranian Self
* Iranian nationalism: Defining the Iranian Self is by defining the Other
* Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh objects to Arabness
* Sadeq Hedayat loathes the Arab Other
* Sadeq Chubak portrays Arabs as hypocritical, ugly and cruel
* Mehdi Akhavan Sales blames the Muslim Arab invader
* Nader Naderpour rejects Arabs and Islam as alien
* Different approach by women writers
* Forough Farrokhzade has no need to establish her Iranianness
* For Tahereh Saffarzadeh, Islam is universal, not Arab
* Simin Daneshvar: Arab and Islamic elements have Iranian character
* Women never use the terms “Aryan” or “Semite”
* Racial purity encoded in sexual purity; possessed by women, enforced by men

Iranianness has an important theme in modern Persian literature from its very beginnings. As part of the answer to the question of self-definition, some Persian Iranian writers, like Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Sadeq Chubak, Mehdi Akhavan Sales, and Nader Naderpour, have used images of Arabs to define Iran as a nation and themselves as Iranian in contrast to an Arab Other.

The Arab Other is a reverse definition of the Iranian Self, for some in terms of race or language, for others in terms of religion, history and culture as well. Moreover, the Arab Other is a metaphor which may also represent the Islamic, or Western Other, or certain aspects of Iranian life which the writer would not be able to criticize openly, for example, the monarchy.

However, defining Iranianness is not only a literary concern, but is essential to the creation of an “Iranian” national identity in the 20th century. Indeed, the development of Iranian nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, in literary and political discourse, may be seen as the “ideological creation of the nation” suggested by Benedict Anderson.

According to Anderson, one cannot “define” a nation by a set of external and abstract criteria, or objective social facts. Instead the nation is “an imagined political community,” something which is “thought out,” “created.” Thus, literary works are both a reflection of and, more importantly, a part of an ideological discourse, part of the creation of modern Iranian nationalism and Iran as a modern nation.

Iranian nationalist discourse set for itself the task of defining Iran as a nation and formulating an Iranian nationalism. One way to define the Iranian Self is by defining the Other — Western, Islamic, Arab — in terms of language, race, history, culture, religion or ideology. Thus, Shahrokh Meskoob sets the Iranian Self against the Arab Other, defining Iranianness in terms of Persian language and pre-Islamic history. Manoochehr Dorraj, sees Shi’i Islam, as an essential part of Iranianness, and sets the Iranian Self against the Western (non-Islamic) Other. The terms of these definitions, however, are set by two very different understandings of nationalism.

Leon Poliakov describes the Western paradigm of nationalism, based on myths of a common origin, the linguistic evidence of which became proof of race, and of a Golden Age, to which the nation might return by returning to its original cultural, linguistic and racial purity (all terms being interchangeable).

Indeed, Western nationalist and racist ideas, particularly the existence of an “Aryan” and “Semitic” race, developed hand-in-hand. Indeed, the central motif of racism is “purity,” the same purity which informs the Western national model and so precludes a multi-ethnic nationalism. Meskoob defines Iranianness in terms of this Western nationalist discourse. It is the same understanding of nationalism which was largely propaganda by the Pahlavi government.

However, Dorraj defines Iranianness in terms of the “alternative Islamic ideology” which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in Iran. In what one might call an Islamist rather than a nationalist view, the Other is seen in ideological terms, and it is this view which is reflected in the Islamic Republic.

The same definitions of Iranianness, in terms of the Iranian Self and the Arab or Western Other, and the same formulations of Iranian nationalism appear in literary discourse.

(Back to topics)

In Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh’s “Persian is [as Sweet as] Sugar,” Persian and Iranian are synonymous, as are Arab (or French or Azarbaijani) and foreign. While Jamalzadeh regards Islam as integral to an Iranian national identity, he objects to a backward Islam, and to Arabness as foreign. Jamalzadeh associates an Arab Other with religious superstition and backwardness, and defines the Iranian Self as Persian and Muslim. Yet, while Jamalzadeh uses the Western national model, seeing Iranian nationalism in terms of a common language and identity, he does not support Western racism.

(Back to topics)

Sadeq Hedayat loathes the Arab Other, and abhors Islam as an Arab religion. In “Seeking Absolution” and Parvin the Sasanid Girl, he portrays Arabs as dark-skinned, dirty, diseased, ugly, stupid, cruel and shameless, bestial and demonic. Moreover, Hedayat portrays present-day Iranian Muslims as corrupt and hypocritical. Only his Sasanid Iranians are attractive, courageous, intelligent, cultured and virtuous.

Hedayat idealizes the pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian past as the Golden Age of Iran. In his view, Iran’s true cultural identity, shared with “Aryan” India, was destroyed by the Arab Muslim invaders, who replaced Iran’s superior civilization with the brutal and bloodthirsty culture and religion of their own. Hedayat, often admired as a writer of sensitivity and progressive human values, espouses Western racism and anti-Semitism. He believes that “Aryan” Iranians are racially superior to the “Semitic” Arabs.

(Back to topics)

Sadeq Chubak’s view differs only somewhat from that of Hedayat. In The Patient Stone, Iranian rootlessness and alienation are the result of history: the Arab Muslims destroyed a great Iranian civilization and could not replace it. Iranians, both individually and socially, have consequently suffered because they were cut off from their own, true Iranian history, art, and culture.

Chubak’s characters also reveal racist thinking, and a level of anti-Arab sentiment throughout The Patient Stone. Chubak portrays the Arab (and Indian) Other as hypocritical, ugly and cruel, while the Iranian Self has been defeated and further corrupted by Semitic hypocrisy in the form of Islam, for Chubak sees the institution of Shi’i Islam in Iran only as a tool for oppression.

At the same time, he rejects Iranian chauvinism. Zoroastrianism and the history of Iranian kings hold no answers either. Indeed, Chubak goes so far as to equate Zoroastrianism with Islam, and to reject both. However, he rejects Islam on two levels: because it is a religion, which in Chubak’s view offers no answers, and because it is an Arab religion. For Chubak, there are no answers; life is indeed without meaning. However, alienation and existential despair are both universal, and historically and culturally specific. Existential despair informs the Self more than categories of Iranianness or Arabness, yet Chubak maintains those categories as well. While Chubak rejects Aryanism, his writings do support anti-Semitism.

(Back to topics)

Mehdi Akhavan Sales, like Hedayat, blames the Muslim Arab invaders for destroying Iran’s true cultural identity and longs for a return to pre-Islamic Zoroastrian culture and greatness. According to “The Ending of the Shahnameh,” the ending of Zoroastrian Iranian cultures with the defeat of the Sasanid empire and the coming of Islam has resulted in ruin and despair, which can be resolved only by returning to Iran’s pre-Islamic golden age. The Iranian Self was pure, bright and beautiful, but has been corrupted by the Arab Other, false, dark, and evil.

Akhavan decries “Semitic and Arabic and Islamic” influence on the “heritage of our own Aryan ancestors.” In so doing he echoes Hedayat’s view of Iranians and Arabs as two different and unequal races, one Aryan and superior, the other Semitic and inferior.

(Back to topics)

Nader Naderpour rejects Arabs and Islam as alien, and fundamentally opposed to the true Iranian culture and values. “Here and There” repeats the same image of Arabs as found in Hedayat and Akhavan, as savage, alien intruders who have destroyed a superior Iranian civilization. Nader Naderpour portrays the Arab Other as dark, savage and inhuman, in images of the irrational, blood and the moon; he portrays the Iranian Self as the creator of an enlightened civilization in images of Zoroastrian fire, the sun and springtime.

Naderpour sees Islam not so much as wrong in itself, but wrong because it is Arab, and therefore backward and cruel. In “Here and There,” Naderpour compares the establishment of the Islamic Republic to the Arab Muslim conquest of the Sasanid empire, and suggests that it is in fact a continuation of that same defeat of superior Iranian culture at the hands of the ignorant and intolerant Arabs. In Naderpour’s view, to be a devout Muslim, or a supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is to be Arab and therefore not Iranian, indeed therefore almost less than human. Like Hedayat, Chubak and Akhavan, his is an anti-Islamic and anti-Arab view.

(Back to topics)

All of the men put Iranian nationalism in terms of the Western nationalist paradigm, with its myth of common origin and subsequent insistence on linguistic homogeneity, from which follows an insistence on racial homogeneity, and all but Jamalzadeh, a cleric’s son, espouse Western anti-Semitism as well. All of them set the Iranian Self against the Arab Other, and for all but Jamalzadeh again, the Arab Other is also the Islamic Other. The women’s writings, however, reflect a very different approach.

(Back to topics)

Forough Farrokhzad was not concerned in her poetry with the question of Arabs and Iranians. On some level at least these are issues of masculine history and politics, from which, as a woman, had been excluded and at the same time to which she had attached little importance. Unlike the men, she has no need to establish an historical identity as an Iranian, nor does she need to establish her cultural identity as an Iranian at the expense of another.

There are no Arabs or Iranians as such in her poems, only individuals. Like Hedayat, Chubak and Naderpour, Farrokhzad did not believe in Islam, and criticized the institution of Islam in “The Windup Doll” and “I Feel Sorry for the Garden,” but, unlike Hedayat or Chubak, she criticizes it as an Iranian, not as an alien or Arab institution. In “I Feel Sorry for the Garden,” she is equally critical of religion, the mother’s fault, and nationalism, the father’s fault.

At the same time, Farrokhzad uses Islamic imagery in a very positive sense, as in “Someone Who Is Not Like Anyone,” albeit from the perspective of a third-grade girl in South Tehran. Unlike the previous writers, she refuses to participate in the nationalist discourse. Perhaps that is why Farrokhzad’s anti-Islamic sentiments are not anti-Arab.

(Back to topics)

For Tahereh Saffarzadeh, as a practicing Muslim, Islam is a universal, not an Arab phenomenon. She writes as Muslim first, and as an Iranian second. Her world view is not nationalist, but Islamic and universalist. Her Iranianness, in terms of geography, language, culture and history, provide the specific context within which she practices her Islam. Moreover, in poems about Iran, “The Stooping Ones” and “The Love Journey,” Saffarzadeh’s vision of Iranianness includes Persian Iranian elements, other Iranian elements, and Islamic elements.

In acknowledging a multi-ethnic Iran, Saffarzadeh’s Persian Iranianness is but one of many varieties. Saffarzadeh portrays no Arab Other. Arab characters appear in her poems, not as Arabs but as another oppressed people, in “Through the Passageway of Silence Torture,” or as brothers in Islam, in “Homesickness.” Most significant, however, is Saffarzadeh’s view of history, which essentially differs from that of Hedayat, Chubak, Akhavan or Naderpour.

“Salman’s Journey” portrays the Arab Muslim invaders of Sasanid Iran not as Arabs conquering Iran, but as Muslims bringing in the liberating truth of Islam to a people waiting to accept it. Saffarzadeh portrays Salman as the exemplar of all Persian Muslims, just as Balal represents the Africans and Shuaib the Europeans, all Companions of the Arab Prophet Mohammad. Their nationality is important only insofar as it underlines the internationalist character of Islam.

Instead of a national or racial confrontation between Iranians and Arabs, Saffarzadeh sees and ideological confrontation with Western imperialism and materialism, with anti-Islamic ideology. Hers is an Islamic political model, instead of the Western, and so very different, in the absence of Western nationalist and racist ideas, from that of the men previously discussed.

(Back to topics)

Simin Daneshvar’s treatment of Arabs is part of her very different definition of Iranianness. Daneshvar allows for much difference among Iranians, but sees an essential unity at the level of myth and religion, where pre-Islamic Iranian mythology joins with Islam to produce a cultural synthesis which is essentially Iranian. While Jamalzadeh — alone among the male authors treated above — accepts Islam, he still sets an Iranian Self against an Arab Other. For Daneshvar, however, Arab and Islamic elements in Iranian culture have an Iranian, rather than a foreign character.

In Savushun she very nicely turns around Jamalzadeh’s “Persian is [as Sweet as] Sugar,” when what appears to be a villainous Arab turns out to be an unscrupulous Persian clergyman, and again in “Traitor’s Intrigue,” where the character of the Aqa is both specifically Iranian and more generally, as a Muslim, universalist, and where Arabic is not a foreign language to Muslim Iranians.

Like Saffarzadeh, Daneshvar also accepts ethnic diversity, unlike the male writers previously discussed. For Daneshvar, there are Persians, Turkish, and Arab Iranians, but there is no Arab Other. In Savushun, Daneshvar recognizes Arabs simply as Arabs. For Daneshvar, like Saffarzadeh, in “Traitor’s Intrigue” and Savushun the Other is Western imperialism, manifested in Iran as the Pahlavi regime. Daneshvar’s view is very different from the Western nationalist and essentially racist view of men.

(Back to topics)

Unlike Jamalzadeh, Hedayat, Chubak, Akhavan Sales, Naderpour, and [Jalal] Al-e Ahmad, the women do not reflect Western nationalist or racist ideas. They never use the terms “Aryan” or “Semite.” They also accept ethnic diversity, while for the men, “Iranian” means “Persian.” (Of course there are many male writers who do accept Iranian ethnic diversity, such as Samad Behrangi, Reza Barahani, or Gholamhossein Sa’edi.)

(Back to topics)

Curiously, nationalism seems very much a masculine concern, perhaps because Iranian history and politics have been a masculine affair. Yet, to pose the question in those terms suggests that Western nationalism is indeed a patriarchal construct.

Hedayat’s accusations of sexual violation, Chubak’s images of miscegenation, and Al-e Ahmad’s attention to the sexuality of Arabs and beauty (or lack thereof) of Arab women, and his defining Arab men as Arabs (whose province is nationality), but Arab women as women (whose province is sex), are all in line with that central motif of Western nationalism, “purity.” Racial purity is encoded in sexual purity, which is possessed by women and enforced by men, and “miscegenation” is a violation of both.

The Iranian: Arabs in Persian literature

Are Iranians Anti-Arab? Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

 

Are Iranians Anti-Arab?
30/03/2007

Amir Taheri

was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers” Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, “Holy Terror”, as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987

For the past few weeks, the Iranian blogosphere has been buzzing with a debate about two ancient letters the authenticity of which is doubted.

The first is supposed to have been written by Omar Ibn Khattab, the second Caliph of Islam to Yazdegerd III, Emperor of Persia, sometime in the 7th century AD. In it, the Caliph calls on the emperor to abandon his Zoroastrian faith and convert to Islam in order to avoid war in this world and fire in the hereafter.

The second letter, supposed to be Yazdegerd’s reply, is a brief re-statement of the core values of pre-Islamic Iranians.

Although the letters have been available to scholars for centuries, their authenticity was never established.

Some scholars believe that the letters were forged long after their supposed authors had entered history. One hypothesis is that the letters were composed in the 10th century as Iran reached a tipping point, after which it became a Muslim majority nation.

What is remarkable is that both letters express virtually the same values. Both insist that monotheism is the only acceptable truth, and underline such concepts as piety, justice, equity, and self-reliance.

The reader is left with the impression that what is at stake in this epistolary duel is not religion but national identity. In effect, Yazdegerd is saying that if the test of faith is monotheism and ethical life, the Persians passed it soon after they appeared in history.

The two letters reflect some of the traditional anxieties of most Iranians and the schizophrenia that Iran has suffered from since it converted to Islam en masse.

One side of Iran is proud of its Islamic identity, sometimes to the point of arrogance. The average Iranian believes that his nation contributed more to Islam than any other. Some Iranian writers, citing the grammarian Sibuyeh and the lexicographer Ruzbeh as examples, claim that Persians played a key role in shaping the Arabic language. The Persian ancestry of great Arab poets, from Abu Nuwas and Mahyar al-Daylami to al-Jawahiri is seldom forgotten by Iranians.

Soon after Iranians started converting to Islam, a number of fables were invented to facilitate the passage.

One was that Hussein Ibn Ali, a grandson of the Prophet (PBUH) had married Bibi Shahrbanu, the youngest daughter of Emperor Yazdegerd, the author of the supposed letter, thus starting an Arabo-Persian bloodline that would continue through successive Imams of Shi’ism. The deference shown to descendants of Hussein and Shahrbanu, known in Persian as “sayyeds”(gentlemen), helped soften of anti-Arab sentiments.

Another side of Iran, however, is gripped by the fear of being regarded as Arab, or even mildly Arabized, in any form. It is this fear that has prompted anti-Arab sentiments in Persian literature.

But are Iranians in general anti-Arab?

This was the question discussed by Iranian and foreign scholars at a seminar in Tehran last February. Although most participants answered the question in the negative, the seminar did not produce a consensus.

There are two distinct images of the Arab in Persian literature.

One image is that of rapacious marauders.

The classical Persian word for the Arab is “tazi” which means “raider”. The most evil figure in Persian literature is Zahhak, the cruel ruler who becomes an instrument of the devil. He is presented as an Arab, born in Jerusalem and invited by the Persian aristocracy to become king and end dynastic feuds. However, once his cruel nature is exposed, the people, led by the ironsmith Kaveh, revolt and chain Zahhak in Mount Damavand, the majestic summit near Tehran.

Any student of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) would be moved by the description of Zahhak’s misdeed.

Another image of the Arab in Persian literature is the opposite. Here, the word Arab denotes wisdom, piety, generosity and courage.

Saadi, one of Iran’s greatest poets, is one example of Arabophilia. In his Golestan (The Rose Garden),a collection of parables, he often closes an argument by stating: As Arabs say….

Many of his heroes such as Luqman, Shibli, Hatam of Tayy and Dhulnun the Egyptian, whom he portrays as models of humanity, are Arabs.

Apart from Ferdowsi and a few minor poets such as Suzani of Samarkand and Athireddin of Akhsikath, who expressed some anti-Arab sentiments, most Persian classical poets had a positive view of the Arabs. Even then, as one speaker at the Tehran seminar noted, the anti-Arab verses ascribed to Ferdowsi may have been added to his Shahnameh by others.

Such great poets as Nizami and Jaami composed long narrative poems with Arab heroes. Qays and Leila and Wameq and Azra became iconic figures for most Iranians.

One speaker at the Tehran seminar argued that xenophobia is a sign of self-doubt. Thus, whenever Iranians felt confident in their identity, they did not manifest anti-Arab sentiments. It was only when they felt that their Persian-ness was under threat that they looked for an “other” to hate. Even then, the “other” that the Persians found was seldom the Arab.

A more frequent object of hatred was the Turk who was identified with war, cruelty, massacre and pillage in both Persian literature and folklore.

The Arabs ruled parts of Iran for some 80 years, before local Persian princes emerged in Sajestan and Khorassan. Various Turkish dynasties, however, ruled Iran for over 1000 years. (The last Turkic dynasty ended in 1925.)

Nevertheless, fomenting anti-Arab sentiments has always been easier than encouraging hatred of the Turks. The reason is that at least a quarter of Iran’s population speaks one of several dialects of Turkish. In most cases, these ethnic Persians have lost their original language and adopted a Turkic dialect. And, yet, they identify with their language, not ethnic origin.

That, in turn, makes it difficult for the mass of Iranians to express anti-Turk sentiments.

As the Tehran seminar showed, much of the anti-Arab sentiment in Iran today was produced over the past century or so, largely due to the emergence of European-style nationalism which emphasized the concepts of blood and soil.

Turkey under Ataturk also exported anti-Arabism to Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi. Just as Ataturk had ordered a “purification” of the Turkish language by replacing as many Arab words as possible, Reza Shah created an academy to purge the Persian vocabulary of its Arab component. Over a 10-year period, some 5000 Arabic words were replaced with Persian ones, often borrowed from obscure texts or coined by academicians.

Ahmad Kasravi, one of Iran’s greatest intellectuals in the 20th century, became an advocate of de-Arabzation along with other prominent writers such as Sadegh Hedayat, Ibrahim Pour-Davoud and Massoud Farzad. Abdul-Hussein Zarrinkub’s book “Two Centuries of Silence”, a damning account of Arab domination, became a best-seller in the 1960s.

The eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s did not lead to any significant increase in anti-Arab sentiments in Iran. But the Khomeinist regime, especially under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has nurtured its version of anti-Arabism. In this version, the Arabs are castigated because they are supposedly not “Islamic” enough!

Are Iranians Anti-Arab? Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

The American Conservative — Saving Israel From Itself

 

The two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the Jewish state’s long-term security—and our own.

By John J. Mearsheimer

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The United States and Israel fundamentally disagree about the need to establish a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. President Obama is committed to a two-state solution, while Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is opposed and has been for many years. To avoid a direct confrontation with Washington, Netanyahu will probably change his rhetoric and talk favorably about two states. But that will not affect Israel’s actions. The never-ending peace process will go on, Israel will continue building settlements, and the Palestinians will remain locked up in a handful of impoverished enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza. Anticipating this outcome, Obama has told Congress to expect a clash with Israel.

This is not a fight Obama is likely to win, even though the United States is more powerful than Israel and most Americans favor creating a Palestinian state and bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a close.

Look at the historical record. Since 1967, every American president has opposed settlement-building in the Occupied Territories. Yet no president has been able to put meaningful pressure on Israel to stop building settlements, much less dismantle them. Perhaps the best evidence of American impotence is what happened during the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. Israel confiscated 40,000 acres of Palestinian land, constructed 250 miles of connector and bypass roads, doubled the number of settlers, and built 30 new settlements. President Clinton did hardly anything to halt this expansion.

The main reason no president has been able to stop Israel from colonizing the Occupied Territories is the Israel lobby. It is an especially powerful interest group that has pushed the American government to establish a “special relationship” with Israel, which is, as Yitzhak Rabin once said, “beyond compare in modern history.”

The special relationship means Washington gives Israel consistent, almost unconditional diplomatic backing and more foreign aid than any other country. In other words, Israel gets this aid even when it does things that the United States opposes, like building settlements. Furthermore, Israel is rarely criticized by American officials and certainly not by anyone who aspires to high office. Recall what happened earlier this year to Charles Freeman, who was forced to withdraw as head of the National Intelligence Council because he had criticized certain Israeli policies and questioned the merits of the special relationship.

Many hope that Obama will be different from his predecessors and stand up to the lobby. The indications thus far are not encouraging. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama responded to charges that he was “soft” on Israel by pandering to the lobby and publicly praising the special relationship. He was silent during the recent Gaza War—when Israel was being criticized around the world for its brutal assault on that densely populated enclave—and he said nothing when Freeman was forced to quit his administration. Like his predecessors, Obama appears to be no match for the lobby.

Israel’s supporters in the United States often claim that the special relationship is not due to the lobby’s influence. The American people, they argue, identify closely with Israel and put significant pressure on their leaders to support it generously and unconditionally. But there is abundant evidence showing that this is not true. Recent polls indicate that over 70 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and only 47 percent of Americans think that Israel’s influence in the world is “mainly positive.” Moreover, 60 percent of Americans have said that the United States should withhold aid to Israel if it resists pressure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

In short, a clear majority of Americans do not favor the special relationship and would back Obama if he leaned on Israel to accept a Palestinian state. The lobby, however, would surely side with Israel and pressure the White House to back off. Given the lobby’s track record—as well as Obama’s—it is difficult to imagine him not caving.

Israel’s supporters defend the special relationship because they believe it is an unalloyed good for both countries. In essence, they think that the two countries’ interests are synonymous, and whatever Israel deems good for Israel is good for the United States. From their perspective, there is no need for Israel to change its behavior on any major policy issue, especially on matters relating to the Palestinians.

But they are wrong. Israel’s interests, like any other country’s interests, are not always the same as America’s. Thus it makes little sense for Washington to back Israel no matter what it does because sometimes there will be circumstances in which the two countries’ interests clash. For example, it probably made good sense for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons in the 1960s, since it lives in a dangerous neighborhood and a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate deterrent. But a nuclear-armed Israel was not in the American national interest.

Both countries would be much better off if the Obama administration treated Israel the way it treats other democracies, such as Britain, France, Germany, and India. In practice, this would mean backing Israel when its actions are consistent with American interests. But when they are not, Washington would distance itself from Jerusalem and use its considerable leverage to change Israeli behavior.

The United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East and has a serious terrorism problem in good part because of its unconditional support for Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Backing Israel at almost every turn also makes it harder for Washington to get open support from moderate Arab states, even when dealing with common threats like Iran.

Israel’s backers often maintain that American support for Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, but this claim is simply not true. Consider the motivations of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, whom the 9/11 Commission describes as the “principle architect of the attacks.” According to the commission, “KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” Numerous independent accounts have also documented that Osama bin Laden has been deeply concerned about the Palestinian situation since he was young, and the 9/11 Commission reports that he wanted the attackers to strike Congress, which he saw as the most important source of support for Israel in the United States. The commission also tells us that bin Laden twice wanted to move the date of the attacks forward because of events involving Israel—even though doing so would have increased the risk of failure.

In short, there is little hope of ending America’s terrorism problem and improving its standing in the Middle East if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved. That will only happen if there is a two-state solution, and that will only occur if the United States puts pressure on Israel.

The special relationship has become a liability for Israel as well. No country has ever pursued a flawless foreign policy, yet the lobby makes it impossible for American leaders to criticize Israel when it does something foolish. Think of the 2006 Lebanon War, when Washington backed Israel to the hilt while it employed a strategy that was, as most Israelis now recognize, boneheaded. The United States would have been a better friend had it pressured Israel to come up with a smarter response or pressed for a quick ceasefire. But that is not how the special relationship works. It is hard to see how this situation makes good sense for Israel.

So how should the Obama administration react to Netanyahu’s opposition to a Palestinian state? The key to understanding this vital issue is to consider two questions. First, what does Israel’s future look like in the absence of a two-state solution? In other words, where is Israel headed if Netanyahu gets his way? Second, what are the likely consequences for America, Israel, and the Palestinians?

Given present circumstances, there are three possible alternatives if the Palestinians do not get their own state, all of which involve creating a “greater Israel”—an Israel that effectively controls the West Bank and Gaza, or all of what was once called Mandatory Palestine.

In the first scenario, greater Israel would become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution has been suggested by a handful of Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. It means abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, however, since the Palestinians would eventually outnumber the Jews in greater Israel. Uri Avnery, a prominent Israeli journalist and peace activist, is surely correct when he says, “There is no chance at all that the Jewish public will agree, in this generation or the next, to live as a minority in a state dominated by an Arab majority.” Israel’s supporters in America would also have virtually no interest in this outcome.

Second, Israel could expel most of the Palestinians from greater Israel, thereby preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. This seems unlikely, not just because it would be a crime against humanity, but also because there are about 5.5 million Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and they would put up fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes.

Still, there are good reasons to worry that Israel might adopt this solution as the demographic balance shifts and concerns about the survival of the Jewish state intensifiy. It is apparent from public-opinion surveys and everyday discourse that many Israelis hold racist views about Palestinians, and the recent Gaza War made clear that they have few qualms about killing Palestinian civilians. A century of conflict and four decades of occupation will do that to a people. Furthermore, a substantial number of Israeli Jews—40 percent or more—believe that the Arab citizens of Israel should be “encouraged” to leave by the government. Indeed, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni recently said that if there were a two-state solution, she expected Israel’s Palestinian citizens to leave and settle in the new Palestinian state.

The final and most likely alternative is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the Occupied Territories, but allows the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves. Israelis and their American supporters invariably bristle at the comparison to white rule in South Africa, but that is their future if they create a greater Israel while denying full political rights to an Arab population that will soon outnumber the Jewish population in the entirety of the land. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he proclaimed that if “the two-state solution collapses,” Israel will “face a South-African-style struggle.” He went so far as to argue, “as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state.

These three outcomes are the only alternatives to a two-state solution, and each would be disastrous for the Jewish state. Apartheid is not a viable long-term solution because the Palestinians will continue to resist until they achieve independence. Their resistance will force Israel to escalate the same repressive policies that have already cost significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished the nation’s global image. More importantly, there would be little support and much opposition to an apartheid state in the West, especially in the United States, where democracy is venerated and segregation is condemned. This is why Olmert said that going down the apartheid road would be suicidal for Israel.

But bringing democracy to greater Israel would also mean the end of the Jewish state because the more numerous Palestinians would dominate its politics. That leaves ethnic cleansing, which would certainly keep Israel Jewish. That murderous strategy, however, would do enormous damage to Israel’s moral fabric, its relationship with Jews in the diaspora, and its international standing. Israel and its supporters would be treated harshly by history. No genuine friend of Israel could support such a heinous course of action.

Given this grim situation, it is not surprising that a significant number of Israelis have moved abroad and many others would leave if they could. There are somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million Israeli Jews living outside the country, many of whom are unlikely to return. Since 2007, emigration has been outpacing immigration in Israel. According to scholars John Mueller and Ian Lustick, “a recent survey indicates that only 69 percent of Jewish Israelis say they want to stay in the country, and a 2007 poll finds that one-quarter of Israelis are considering leaving, including almost half of all young people.” They report, “in another survey, 44 percent of Israelis say they would be ready to leave if they could find a better standard of living elsewhere,” and “over 100,000 Israelis have acquired European passports.” These figures are a bad omen for Israel.

This discussion of where Israel is heading raises the obvious question: would it not be in Israel’s best interests for President Obama to put significant pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a two-state solution? In fact, would it not have been better for Israel if the United States had long ago stopped it from building settlements and instead helped create a Palestinian state? One wonders what future the opponents of a two-state solution envision for greater Israel, for it is hard to see a favorable outcome if the Palestinians do not get their own state. This is not to say that two states living side by side represents an ideal outcome for either side; it is simply better than the alternatives.

Finally, denying the Palestinians their own state is not in the lobby’s interest, and not just because of the consequences for Israel. Over the past two decades, the case for backing Israel—no matter what it does—has become a tough sell in the United States, especially on college campuses. Younger Jews appear to be more willing to criticize Israel than their elders. Americans of all persuasions are becoming increasingly aware of what Israel did to the Palestinians in 1948 and what it has been doing in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Consequently, Israel no longer looks like the victim; it looks like the victimizer, and a ruthless one at that. This situation is sure to get worse if Israel turns itself into an apartheid state in full view of the world.

Because Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians will be increasingly hard to defend, the lobby will have to rely more than ever on threats and intimidation. Facts and reason are not effective weapons when trying to justify an apartheid state. Given the growing awareness of the lobby’s activities—thanks mainly to the Internet—its actions are already being scrutinized in ways they were not in the past. In other words, it has become difficult for the lobby to wield its influence without leaving fingerprints, and greater recognition of its role is likely to trigger greater resentment. Its torpedoing of the Freeman appointment, which was widely discussed in the blogosphere and eventually by the mainstream media, is a case in point. The lobby’s behavior will become more heavy-handed and transparent, which runs the risk of angering large numbers of Americans, including many Jews. It would be much easier for the lobby to defend Israel if it lived alongside a Palestinian state.

President Obama would like to change the situation because he understands that a two-state solution would be good for America, good for Israel, and good for the Palestinians. But Netanyahu seems determined to thwart his efforts. Who is likely to win this fight?

As things stand, Obama has little chance of prevailing, mainly because the lobby’s key institutions will side with Israel, and the American president shows little sign of being willing to take on the lobby. Other factors also weigh against him. There are about 480,000 settlers and a huge infrastructure of roads and settlements in the West Bank. Given that the political center of gravity in Israel has shifted sharply to the right over time, it is hard to imagine any Israeli government having the political will, much less the ability, to dismantle a substantial portion of that enormous enterprise. Consider that a February 2009 poll found that 59 percent of Israelis opposed a Palestinian state; only 32 percent supported it.

Nor is there much sympathy for the two-state solution in the American Jewish community. A 2007 survey found that only 46 percent of Jews in this county favored the establishment of a Palestinian state, probably because 82 percent of those surveyed believed that “the goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.” A 2008 J Street poll showed more support for the two-state solution (78 percent) but also revealed substantial opposition to dismantling Israeli settlements and making East Jerusalem part of Palestine. Those reservations, coupled with deep-seated fears of Palestinian motives, will help the lobby’s hardliners make their case. Of course, Christian Zionists will adamantly oppose the two-state solution: they want Israel to control every square millimeter of Palestine because they believe that will facilitate Christ’s Second Coming.

Obama’s only hope—and it is a slim one—is that a substantial part of the American Jewish community will come to understand Olmert’s warning that Israel will become like white-ruled South Africa if there is no two-state solution. More American Jews need to understand that Israel is in serious peril and that the situation is likely to get worse, not better. Obama would be acting as Israel’s friend if he put pressure on both sides to reach a settlement. If there is no agreement, Israel faces a grim future, and it will become very difficult to defend Israel. In short, more Jewish-Americans need to recognize that it is in their interest to champion the two-state solution.

If that does not happen, Obama will be unable to get tough with Israel. There will be even more trouble ahead for Israel, the United States, and especially the Palestinians. 

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John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

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The American Conservative — Saving Israel From Itself