The mind boggles

Despite my deep-seated skepticism and cynicism regarding the international law apparatus and its ability and willingness to protect human rights and improve the lot of the world's downtrodden, I am simply amazed at the double standard that the world's governments and international organisations are applying to two current crises: the uprising in Iran and the removal of Honduran president Mel Zelaya. Obviously I am most disappointed in the attitude of the Western democracies (and their supposedly impartial media organisations), because after all what can one expect of the tinpot dictators who hold court at the UN General Assembly.
In the case of the popular uprising in Iran which followed the sham presidential election, the caution with which the West, particularly the pitifully Carteresque US administration, reacted was truly emabrassing. Of course (despite my ongoing support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) I am not saying that the West should have threatened immediate military action. However there are plenty of policies that fall short of breaching a country's sovereignty and at the same time could effectively defang one of the more despicable regimes we have to contend with nowadays. Instead the US has only been able to muster this:

Protesters take to the streets in Iran in opposition to election fraud, and against a regime which is openly hostile to the U.S., and Obama treads with the greatest of care. First silence, then mixed messages assuring the regime we want to negotiate with it regardless of election fraud. Only after almost two weeks are there strong statements against regime violence.

It is heartbreaking to say so, but one had hoped that after all that has happened the Western pundits who have been endlessly going on about the "demonisation" of Iran by the ghastly Bush regime and who have gone on for years insisting that Iran is really quite a progressive democracy, would have finally come to their senses (and maybe felt a bit shamefull and penitent. Instead we have the blind leading the blind.
Meanwhile there has been a constitutional crisis in Honduras.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.
The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

This time, unlike with Iran, the international community reacted with fury, firmness and unity:

The United Nations General Assembly has approved a resolution calling for the reinstatement of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
[...]
It was co-sponsored by a group of Latin American and Caribbean nations and was supported by the United States.
[...]
Our correspondent notes that even US President Barack Obama and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez have found themselves in rare agreement over the issue - with both declaring that his expulsion was illegal.
A number of countries in the region have withdrawn ambassadors from Honduras.
[...]
Meanwhile, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the institution had "put a pause" on its lending to Honduras.
Mr Zoellick said the bank was "working closely with the OAS and looking to the OAS to deal with its handling of the crisis under its democratic charter".

And the US particularly has been incredibly harsh and outspoken compared to their muted reaction in the Iranian case.
Have they all taken leave of their senses? If, for argument's sake, the Italian prime minister tried to push through some extra-constitutional referendum after being repeatedly told by the other branches of government that this was illegal and he was, as a consequence, stopped by the military which was following Supreme Court orders, nobody in their right mind would call that a coup. They would thank their lucky stars that a megalomaniac anti-democratic bully was prevented from perverting the democratic process. Why is this any different? And what is the Obama administration thinking?!

Discussing Iraq

I have been involved in a discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine over the War in Iraq. However, since my response is rather complex and formatting things on Facebook is a nightmare, I have decided to post it here.
The whole thing started with Charlie (my friend) pointing to this video of Dick Cheney defending the decision of the Bush père administration (in which he served as Defense Secretary) not to topple Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War:

Charlie asks: "What changed in ten years?"
Echoing a previous comment, I wrote:

Indeed, September 11th. That's not to say that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 (although he did foster indisputable connections to various terrorist networks including Al Qaeda), but that 9/11 alerted us to a threat gathering on the horizon, and the War in Iraq is one of the responses to that threat.
Also, I would contend that it is premature to claim that Iraq is a hopeless quagmire, as I suspect the Democrats will find to their embarassment over the coming months.

In response to this comment Charlie posted his point of view, which I would like reply to.
Charlie writes:

None of what happened on 11th September 2001 changed the fundamental problems with an Iraqi invasion that Dick Cheney so eloquently points out above.

Dick Cheney is generally considered a Realist in terms of international relations. As Realist and Neoconservative thought (which is where my sympathies lie) have very strong disagreements on a host of IR issues, I do not aim to defend his every position. I was certainly in favour of pushing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein well before September 11th. However I can speculate that the event which convinced some Realists, including Dick Cheney, that the risks and costs of an invasion of Iraq were outweighed by the potential benefits, were in fact the September 11th attacks, which alerted many people to a threat which had until then been underestimated. At any rate, my position on foreign policy is much closer to Christopher Hitchens' (unlike on some other subjects) and Norman Podhoretz's.
Charlie continues:

I have never heard of a convincing link between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda - there are many other Middle Eastern countries which have far more connection with the current terrorism and even back then it would seem Iran was more of a threat on the WMD front. I'm still not convinced we're fighting an advanced network vis a vis Al Queda at any rate - its a viral idea we're fighting against, an idea that has motivated disparate groups to make relatively low tech explosive devices and cause indiscriminate mass carnage on several occasions.

I certainly cannot claim to be an expert on the subject, but it seems to me that while Al Qaeda may be loosely organised and highly flexible it is far from being only a "viral idea." As far as I can tell, although Al Qaeda lacks a clear hierarchy and bureaucracy, it is still a sufficiently organised network to warrant viewing it as a single entity and fighting it on such terms (somewhat like the Mafia). I agree that there are other countries that are very much involved in encouraging terrorism and doing other unsavoury things, and I think our (the West's) policies towards them should be much more robust. On the WMD front, I don't know what "back then" is referring to but it seems to me that Iran was not a focal point of WMD/Nuclear development until more recent years. Not only did Saddam Hussein develop and in fact use chemical weapons against his own citizens decades ago, but he was only prevented from developing nuclear capabilities by a "rogue" Israeli raid.
This brings me back to why, since the mid-1990s, when I started following current events as a teenager, I have been in favour of increasing international pressure on Iraq and if ultimately necessary intervening militarily. The reason is not tied just to one specific justification, each of which taken separately may be too weak to impel the West to breach another country's sovereignty (a concept which I think is important, but should not be absolute). However, by the end of the last century Iraq's situation was such that the threat of a military intervention seemed to me the best course to address several festering problems.
Even ignoring Saddam's connections to Al Qaeda (and there is proof that some connection did exist), his regime supported terrorism through other channels, such as his harbouring Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal (and then purportedly assassinating him) and his sponsoring of suicide bomber families in the West Bank (just to mention a few). In addition, as I noted above, Saddam had developed and used chemical weapons on his own people in the 1980s and almost succeeded in developing nuclear capabilities at the same time (not to mention more recent suspect activity). He invaded Kuwait and demonstrated a repeated disregard for human rights and principles of common decency. Over a period of decades the brutality of the regime, the repeated invasions of Iraq's neighbours, the continued and longstanding flouting of Security Council resolutions regarding the Gulf War, Saddam's ability to completely corrupt the UN and its already ineffective and unpopular Oil-for-Food program, his use of chemical weapons on his Kurdish subjects without scruple and his close brush with success on the nuclear front, all indicated that Saddam needed to be removed for both humanitarian and security reasons. At the time there was, in my opinion, no other regime on earth which had posed such varied, sustained and worrying challenges to the international community, and it is precisely the mushy response of the international community which forced the Anglosphere's hand: if the entire West had presented a united front, my bet is that Saddam would have folded and outright war would have been avoided. Incidentally, the case in favour of the Bush Doctrine is presented with clarity and elegance by Norman Podhoretz in a series of articles for Commentary Magazine (and in his new book World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism).
Charlie goes on to write:

Right now Iraq is a hellhole, let alone a Quagmire - just as Cheney predicted - a Kurdish-Turk war now looks inevitable. Iran arms insurgents in the east and gradually increases its influence over those oil rich regions. As yet, the Western Iraqi problems - in Anbar Province - seem to have marginally subsided with the troop surge and the loss of civilian support for the Jihadists trying to stir up more trouble.

Although Iraq is certainly going through a difficult time, I think it is hardly a hellhole and certainly not the most violent spot on the planet. In fact, there seems to be an increasing consensus that - for the moment at least (and as I expected) - things are looking much better than they have for years. That is why the Democrats are starting to fret over what to do if, God forbid, the surge actually continues to do well.
At the same time I think it is quite clear that while Iran is rattling sabers, it is actually having quite a few problems of its own both economically and politically. Therefore it is only by obtaining nuclear weapons that Iran will pose a truly daunting threat, which is why a stop should be put to Ahmadinejad's plans.
Charlie concludes:

I hope Iraq can come out of its current troubles and I hope the limited success of the surge in some areas spread to others and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish-Turk problem can be found. I am skeptical though. Cheney still knew in 2003 what he knew in 1994 so I am guessing he was either over-ruled or there is some larger imperative in which the problems he describes are deemed an acceptable cost. Whatever that is, I very much doubt it's the destruction of 'Al Queda'.

I'm glad to hear that Charlie hopes Iraq can overcome its troubles, and I am much more confident than him that indeed it will. It seems to me that some people who oppose the War, do not in fact share Charlie's hopes, which I find both a pity and objectionable. As I note above, the Iraq War was not fought on the narrow justification of an Al Qaeda connection, and there certainly were larger imperatives at stake. I don't think changing one's mind (as Cheney seems to have done) is necessarily a bad thing, not least when he has moved from a deeply cynical, short-termist, balance-of-power view of the world - to a neconservative (more idealistic but robust) vision.

Sarkozy

It will not come as a surprise to those who know me that I supported Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential race: in addition to the appeal of several of his campaign themes (encouragement of hard work, toughness on crime, pro-Americanism, etc.), his rival, Mlle Royal's proposals on the economy were truly appalling, and she didn't strike confidence in foreign policy either). Nonetheless I have no great expectations of his presidency, as truly thorough and positive reforms will likely enrage and outrage a vast majority of French people (although I must say that it would be fun to see the French labour unions – the "enemy within" as Maggie would say – being cut down to size).
Having said that I have been impressed with Sarkozy's swift and impressive moves since he was inaugurated on May 16th. His cabinet appointments were mostly a welcome breath of fresh air, as well as being politically shrewd.
And now he also seems to be starting to show his mettle in international affairs. The Jerusalem Post reports:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Wednesday for sanctions on Iran to be tightened if the country does not adhere to the West's demands to cease its nuclear agenda.
If Iran attains nuclear weapons, Sarkozy warned, a road to an arms race will be paved that could endanger Israel and southeast Europe, he said during an interview with a German magazine.
Sarkozy announced that France will join the official US-led struggle against head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei, who recommended that Iran be allowed to enrich uranium in some of its nuclear plants.
On Tuesday, American officials urged allies to back a formal protest against ElBaradei, saying his comments could hurt UN Security Council efforts to pressure Teheran over its enrichment program.
"We were indeed surprised by several comments from Mr. ElBaradei over the weekend," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei. "We share the gist of concerns expressed by our American partners - along with several other partners, for that matter."

As I said, my expectations are quite low, but the initial signs are certainly encouraging. It's early days yet, but you never know!

Bluffing one's way to influence

As in years past, I spent the holidays skiing in Lech am Arlberg, in the Austrian Alps. There was a bit less snow than usual, but plenty for skiing, and I had a lot of fun. I hope everyone else had a nice time during their holidays.
While I was there, I didn't have regular access to the internet, but I bought the Wall Street Journal Europe, which ran an interesting editorial (subs. required; free version here) about Russia's gas reserves:

At first sight the prospect of a significant supply shortage appears improbable. After all, Russia has 47 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves. On closer examination, including research by former Russian Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov and the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is clear that Russian gas production is marked by two salient features. First, reliance on three old, declining, Soviet-era supergiant gas fields in the Nadym Pur Taz (NPT) region and the Zapolyarnoye field, a Soviet legacy project. Second, the lack of investment in opening up new major gas fields.
When challenged on this issue, Gazprom responds that it spends $11 billion annually on infrastructure, just as the IEA recommends. The trouble is that it's making the wrong sort of investments. Gazprom is not investing in new gas wells, pipelines and compressor stations, but in export infrastructure such as the North European Pipeline to Germany and the acquisition of foreign downstream energy assets. Taken together, the declining old fields and the lack of investment in new ones create a potentially major supply problem.
Mr. Milov, who now heads the Institute for Energy Policy in Moscow, estimates that by 2010 the deficit between Gazprom's supply and expected demand could be 126 billion cubic meters (bcm). To give that figure some context, the European Union imported approximately 155 bcm from Russia in 2005. Worse still, there are strong grounds for believing that the 126 bcm gap could grow. Mr. Milov assumes that the Central Asian states will be able to deliver 105 bcm annually. Unfortunately, there are doubts as to whether the Central Asian fields, which have seen even less investment than the Russian fields, can produce that amount of gas. And even if they could produce 105 bcm, according to the IEA they could only transport 50 bcm to Russia thanks to decayed pipelines. There are also concerns over the rate at which homes and factories in Russia are being hooked up to the main gas network, further increasing demand, and concerns that as the NPT fields begin to dry up their depletion rate, just as with the U.K. continental shelf fields, will accelerate.
Given the number of variables it is difficult to put a definitive number on the size of the deficit. But it looks as if the gap could be somewhere between 125 bcm and 200 bcm. Even at the lower end, such a deficit would severely strain EU gas supplies. Ironically Russia's greatest Western ally, Germany, stands to suffer most since it is at the end of the Russian supply system and it takes more Russian gas than any other country in Western Europe. The North European Pipeline will not be finished by 2010 -- and even if it were, there is the question of whether there would be enough gas for it.

Do read the whole thing, in which the author also proposes a way in which Europe can minimise the problem.
In a similar vein, there seems to be a growing number of voices arguing that the West should not adapt its foreign policy based on the fear that unsavoury regimes will use their energy supplies to blackmail us, particularly in the case of Iran. In a recent peer-reviewed paper entitled "The Iranian petroleum crisis and United States national security" which is to appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Roger J. Stern, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University sets out a convincing argument that the so-called "oil-weapon" is in reality toothless (see the press release). The Telegraph summarises (via Instapundit; emphasis mine):

Iran's oil exports are plummeting at 10pc a year on lack of investment and could be exhausted within a decade, depriving the world economy of its second-biggest source of crude supplies. A report by the US National Academy of Sciences said rickety infrastructure dating back to the era of the Shah had crippled output, while local fuel use was rising at 6pc a year.
"Their domestic demand is growing at the highest rate of any country in the world," said Prof Roger Stern, an Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. "They need to invest $2.5bn (£1.28bn) a year just to stand still and they're not doing it because it's politically easier to spend the money on social welfare and the army than to wait four to six years for a return on investment," he said. "They've been running down the industry like this for 20 years."
Prof Stern said Teheran faces impending disaster since it relies on oil revenues for 70pc of its budget. "They cannot afford to carry out their threats to shut off oil supplies," he said. "There is no oil weapon, it's just a bluff."

Meanwhile, M. Simon of Power and Control, who is guest blogging at Classical Values notes (via Instapundit), that the situation is so bad that Iran seems to be having difficulties maintaining supply (in this case of natural gas) even now, as UPI reports:

Iran has stopped exports of natural gas to Turkey due to a tight domestic market caused by cold weather, but vows to restart shipments soon. Iran supplies Turkey from the Tabriz to Ankara pipeline as part of a 1996 contract. This year Turkey was to receive a total of 10 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas, the state-run IRNA news agency reports. "Currently our export to Turkey is zero," Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said. He said he called the Turkish energy minister and apologized "and promised to address these problems as soon as possible."

Also see this interesting Power and Control post, about Iran's current internal problems more in general. All this underlines the fact that, as I noted here and here, the West should stop telling itself that nothing can be done to resolve crises in these countries because they will ruin our economies by stopping fuel exports.
This is even more true in light of an interesting prediction made a few days ago by R. James Woolsey in the Wall Street Journal (free link; via Instapundit). After discussing various alternative fuels, he says:

All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.
The change is being driven by innovations in the batteries that now power modern electronics. If hybrid gasoline-electric cars are provided with advanced batteries (GM's announcement said its choice would be lithium-ion) having improved energy and power density--variants of the ones in our computers and cell phones--dozens of vehicle prototypes are now demonstrating that these "plug-in hybrids" can more than double hybrids' overall (gasoline) mileage. With a plug-in, charging your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket in your garage lets you drive 20 miles or more on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery before the car lapses into its normal hybrid mode. If you forget to charge or exceed 20 miles, no problem, you then just have a regular hybrid with the insurance of liquid fuel in the tank. And during those 20 all-electric miles you will be driving at a cost of between a penny and three cents a mile instead of the current 10-cent-a-mile cost of gasoline.
Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles.
[...]
Environmentalists should join this march with enthusiasm. Replacing hydrocarbons with fuels derived from biomass and waste reduces vehicles' carbon emissions very substantially. And replacing gasoline with electricity further brightens the environmental picture. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute has shown that, with today's electricity grid, there would be a national average reduction in carbon emissions by about 60% per vehicle when a plug-in hybrid with 20-mile all-electric range replaces a conventional car.
Subsidizing expensive substitutes for petroleum, ignoring the massive infrastructure costs needed to fuel family cars with hydrogen, searching for a single elegant solution--none of this has worked, nor will it. Instead we should encourage a portfolio of inexpensive fuels, including electricity, that requires very little infrastructure change and let its components work together: A 50 mpg hybrid, once it becomes a plug-in, will likely get solidly over 100 mpg of gasoline (call it "mpgg"); if it is also a flexible fuel vehicle using 85% ethanol, E-85, its mpgg rises to around 500.

Do read the whole thing.

The Holocaust conference and anti-semitism

What a surprise... The Telegraph reports (via Hot Air):

Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police.
One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.
Police forces started recording the religion of faith-hate crime victims only this year. They did so on the instruction of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which wanted a clear picture of alleged community tensions around the country, following reports of Muslims being attacked after September 11 and the July 7 London bombings last year.
However, the first findings, for July to September, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under freedom of information legislation, show that it is Jews who are much more likely to be targeted because of their religion.
The figures also suggest that many faith-hate crimes remain unsolved, contrary to the picture painted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in a report this month. The CPS said only 43 people were charged with "religiously aggra-vated" offences last year, and concluded that the large rise expected after the July 7 bombings had not materialised.

And if you go back to the Hot Air post (via Instapundit), it also links to an essay about the infamous Teheran Holocaust conference by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal:

In fact, anti-Zionism has become for many anti-Semites a cloak of political convenience. But anti-Zionism has also become an ideological vehicle for an anti-Semitism that increasingly feels no need for disguise. In January 2002, the New Statesman magazine had a cover story on "The Kosher Conspiracy." For art, they had a gold Star of David pointed like a blade at the Union Jack. This wasn't anti-Zionism. It was anti-Zionism matured into unflinching anti-Semitism. And it was featured on the cover of Britain's premiere magazine of "progressive" thought.
The scholar Gregory Stanton has observed that genocides happen in eight stages, beginning with classification, symbolization and dehumanization, and ending in extermination and denial. What has happened in Tehran--denial--may seem to have turned that order on its head. It hasn't. The road to Tehran is a well-traveled one, and among those who denounce it now are some who have already walked some part of it.

Meanwhile Melanie Phillips notes a hair-raising article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the Los Angeles Times:

I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.
I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.
With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."
She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.
[...]
What's striking about Ahmadinejad's conference is the (silent) acquiescence of mainstream Muslims. I cannot help but wonder: Why is there no counter-conference in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinejad? Why are the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference silent on this?
Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: For generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed — that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.
The world needs to be informed again and again about the Holocaust — not only in the interest of the Jews who survived and their offspring but in the interest of humanity.

Do read the whole thing.

Iran's bargaining chip

BusinessWeek has an interesting report on Iran, which lends credence to what I mentioned recently about the way forward on that front:

Yet Iran has a surprising weakness: Its oil and gas industry, the lifeblood of its economy, is showing serious signs of distress. As domestic energy consumption skyrockets, Iran is struggling to produce enough oil and gas for export. Unless Tehran overhauls its policies, its primary source of revenue and the basis of its geopolitical muscle could start to wane. Within a decade, says Saad Rahim, an analyst at Washington consultancy PFC Energy, "Iran's net crude exports could fall to zero."
That's not to say Iran doesn't have abundant resources. The country's 137 billion barrels of oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's, and its supply of gas trails only Russia's, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Getting it all out of the ground, though, is another matter. Iran has been producing just 3.9 million barrels of oil a day this year, 5% below its OPEC quota, because of delays in new projects and a shortage of technical skills. By contrast, in 1974, five years before the Islamic Revolution, Iran pumped 6.1 million barrels daily.
The situation could get even tougher for the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), which is responsible for all of Iran's output. Without substantial upgrades in facilities, production at Iran's core fields, several of which date from the 1920s, could go into a precipitous decline. In September, Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh suggested that with no new investment, output from Iran's fields would fall by about 13% a year, roughly twice the rate that outside oil experts had expected. "NIOC is likely to find that even maintaining the status quo is a mounting challenge," says PFC Energy's Rahim.

As I said, this story only underlines the fact that bringing the Mullahcracy to its knees should be a cinch (well, almost). That is not to say that they should be brought to their knees immediately, but if it was made much clearer - both to us and to them - that it is possible (which much of the West does not seem to realize), and that we are willing to do so if necessary, I imagine we would get a much more compliant attitude from the world's peanut gallery. It would certainly beat this approach.

Post Scriptum:
One more reason to start making clear that bad behaviour has consequences:

U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006. This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. "There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval," says a senior official.

How hard is it for the West to realise that there is only one language these autocrats understand?

Dealing with Iran

Jules Crittenden has an interesting take on what should be done about Iran:

An erroneous assumption has been made by the Iranians and by many in the west that because our ground forces are hyper-extended in Iraq, and Iranian nuke facilities are buried deep, there is nothing the United States can do about an Iranian nuclear program. This is not true. There is no need to invade or occupy Iran. We do not want to do that. We would prefer to see the Iranian people's desire for free elections honored, but that doesn't appear likely any time soon.
What we have to do to influence Iran is explain that if Iran does not begin to cooperate with the international community, we will substantially isolate Iran and destroy its means of supporting terrorism and pursuing nuclear weapons. This can be done incrementally, to give the Iranians an opportunity to reconsider their policy. Our Navy, not hyper-extended in Iraq, can blockade their ports. Our Air Force, also not hyper-extended in Iraq, can begin reducing their terrorist-support infrastructure. Things like oil fields, refineries and roads leading toward Syria and suspected nuclear sites. This can continue ... pretty much as long as the Iranians want it too.

Do read the whole thing. Interestingly it mirrors a more detailed - and very interesting - analysis in this month's Commentary by Arthur Herman, entitled Getting Serious About Iran: A Military Option (will require subs. after the end of the month; a free version can be found here).
Another aspect of the Iran "question" which I think generally goes unnoticed in the West, is the regime's increasing fragility. This is underlined in another essay in Commentary's November issue by Amir Taheri, Getting Serious About Iran: For Regime Change (will also require subs. after the end of the month; a free version can be found here or here):

There remains another option: regime change. The very mention of this term drives some people up the wall, inspiring images of an American invasion, a native insurgency, suicide bombers, and worse. But military intervention and pre-emptive war are not the only means of achieving regime change.
What matters is to be intellectually clear about the issue at hand. The U.S. will not be safe as long as Iran, a key country in a region of vital importance to the world economy and to international stability, remains the embodiment of the Khomeinist cause. Nor can the U.S. allow the Khomeinist movement, itself a version of global Islamism, to achieve further political or diplomatic gains at the expense of the Western democracies.
For consider the consequences if that were to happen. The most immediate would be to strengthen the mullahs and demoralize all those inside Iran who have a different vision of their country’s future and an active desire to bring it about. In 1937 and 1938, many professional army officers in Germany, realizing that Hitler was leading their nation to disaster, had begun to discuss possible ways of getting rid of him. But the Munich “peace” accords negotiated by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain handed Hitler a diplomatic triumph and, with it, a degree of international legitimacy that, from then on, any would-be putschists could hardly ignore.
In the Middle East, this story has been repeated many times. The West helped Gamal Abdel Nasser transform the Suez fiasco into a political triumph, thereby encouraging an even bigger and, for Egypt, more disastrous, war in 1967. The 1991 ceasefire that allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power in Baghdad, interpreted by him as a signal of American weakness, emboldened him quickly to eliminate his domestic opponents and to begin preparations for a bigger war against the “infidel.” After the first al-Qaeda attack on New York’s World Trade Center in 1993, President Clinton dispatched a string of envoys to Afghanistan to strike a bargain with Mullah Muhammad Omar and the Taliban. Not only, to quote the Taliban foreign minister, was this seen as "a sign of weakness by the Crusader-Zionists," and one that immensely enhanced the prestige of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but it discouraged the anti-Taliban forces, many of whom concluded there was no point in fighting a foe backed by the world’s only superpower.
[...]
But—some might object—even granting the virtue of the idea, how realistic is regime change in Iran? Can it happen?
The short answer is yes. Without underestimating the power still held by the mullahs over the Iranian people, let alone their ability to wreak devastating havoc in places near and far, a number of factors suggest that, like other revolutionary regimes before them, their condition is more fragile than may at first appear.
One sign is the loss of regime legitimacy. The Islamic Republic owed its initial legitimacy to the revolution of 1979. Since then, successive Khomei-nist administrations have systematically dismantled the vast, multiform coalition that made the revolution possible. The Khomeinists have massacred their former leftist allies, driven their nationalist partners into exile, and purged even many Islamists from positions of power, leaving their own base fractured and attenuated.
The regime's early legitimacy also derived from referendums and elections held regularly since 1979. In the past two decades, however, each new election has been more "arranged" than the last, while the authoritarian habit of approving candidates in advance has become a routine part of the exercise. Many Iranians saw last year's presidential election, in which Ahmadinejad was declared a surprise winner, as the last straw: credited with just 12 percent of the electorate’s vote in the first round, he ended up being named the winner in the second round with an incredible 60 percent of the vote.
Still another source of the regime's legitimacy was its message of "social justice" and its promise to improve the life of the poor. This, too, has been subverted by reality. Today, more than 40 percent of Iran's 70 million people live below the poverty line, compared with 27 percent before the Khomeinists seized power. In 1977, Iran’s GDP per head per annum was the same as Spain's. Today, Spain's GDP is four times higher than Iran's in real dollar terms. As the gap between rich and poor has widened to an unprecedented degree, the corruption of the ruling mullahs, and their ostentatious way of life, have made a mockery of slogans like "Islamic solidarity."
A second sign is the presence of a major split within the ruling establishment itself. The list of former Khomeinists who have distanced themselves from today’s regime reads like a who's who of the original revolutionary elite. It includes former "student" leaders who raided the U.S. embassy in 1979, former commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and dozens of former cabinet ministers and members of the Islamic Majlis (parliament). Most have adopted a passive stance vis-à-vis the regime, but a surprising number have clearly switched sides, becoming active dissidents and thereby risking imprisonment, exile, or even death. Any decline in the regime’s international stature could deepen this split within the establishment, helping to isolate the most hardline Khomeinists.
A third harbinger is that the regime's coercive forces have become increasingly reluctant to defend it against the people. Since 2002, the regular army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the professional police have refused to crush workers’ strikes, student demonstrations, and other manifestations of anti-regime protest. In many instances, the mullahs have been forced to deploy other, often unofficial, means, including the so-called Ansar Hizballah ("Supporters of the Party of God") and the Baseej Mustadafeen ("Mobilization of the Dispossessed").
A fourth sign is the emergence of alternative sources of moral authority in Iranian society. Even in religious matters, more and more Iranians look for guidance to non-official or even anti-official mullahs, including the clergy in Iraq. (Admittedly, this is partly due to the fact that the present "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, is a mid-ranking mullah who would never be accepted by senior Shiite clergy as a first among equals.)
As for non-religious matters, there was a time when the regime enjoyed the support of the overwhelming majority of Iran's "creators of culture." Today, not a single prominent Iranian poet, writer, filmmaker, composer, or artist endorses the Khomei- nists; most have become dissidents whose work is either censored or banned. Opposition intellectuals, clerics, trade-union leaders, feminists, and students are emerging as new sources of moral authority.
Finally, there are at least the outlines, although no more than the outlines, of a political alternative. Like nature, society abhors a vacuum. In the case of Iran, that vacuum cannot be filled by the dozen or so groups in exile, although each could have a role in shaping a broad national alternative. What is still needed is an internal political opposition that can act as the nucleus of a future government.

Do read the whole thing.

Chirac is a dangerous idiot

In case you weren't aware of this, Chirac is an idiot:

French President Jacques Chirac has said referring Iran to the UN Security Council is not the best way to resolve a crisis over its nuclear programme.
"I don't believe in a solution without dialogue," Mr Chirac told Europe-1 radio, urging countries to remove the threat of sanctions against Iran. The US is leading calls for sanctions to be imposed on Iran if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment.

Independently of what one thinks would be the best strategy to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear programme, Chirac's statement seems to be aimed specifically at ensuring the failure of any diplomatic effort. In fact, I think this policy has two effects: on the one hand it weakens the incentives that Western diplomacies have at their disposal, making it easier for Iran to flout international pressure and obtain nuclear weapons. On the other hand, assuming there are still Western countries determined to impede Iran's nuclear armament, it will make future armed intervention or conflict with Iran much more likely. This is the same pattern that emerged with Iraq: had France, Germany and others presented a united front with the US, a war could easily have been avoided.
What is "I don't believe in a solution without dialogue" supposed to mean anyway? What is this, the Afternoon Tea theory of international relations?! Is there anyone, at any point, with whom Chirac would have refused to have an unconditional dialougue? Hitler? Stalin? And why does he think we always have to have a dialogue with our hands tied behind our backs, while our opponents operate under no restriction whatsoever? For crying out loud, this nutcase is opposing referral to the UNSC, for possible discussions of potential economic sanctions! What would he have proposed be done in the face of Nazi armament and aggression in the 1930's? Dialogue without any consequences? Surrender without a fight? Oh, wait a minute... that's precisely what France did do. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

CND: Iran can have nukes, but not the UK

David T. (Tate) of Harry's Place has a post up in Comment is Free in which he notes an interesting double standard:

Kate Hudson, the chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is implacably opposed to the retention of a modern nuclear deterrent for Britain.
[...]
When it comes to Iran's nuclear programme, however, CND have a rather more, erm, nuanced position. In October 2005, CND invited a very special guest to address its annual conference:

The Iranian Ambassador, Dr Seyed Mohammed Hossein Adeli will speak at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's Annual Conference on the 15-16th October 2005. He will be giving Iran's perspective on the current controversy around the Iranian civil nuclear power programme.

CND members were treated to the Iranian regime's defence of that "civil nuclear programme."

Do read the whole thing.