Iran: Stuck between U.S. and a hard place

If war with Iran is to be avoided, then negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group have to succeed. 

Turkey has already offered to host any talks, and Iran has said it’s ready to attend. It also seems likely that the P5+1 will also be willing to proceed. But with no date having yet been set despite tensions running so high, U.S. President Barack Obama should be willing to offer to go the extra mile and hold bilateral talks with Iran during any negotiations.

Yet doing so won’t be easy. Although the situation is delicate enough to make it well worth Obama’s while, Republican presidential candidates have been breathing down his neck demanding that he take a tougher line.

And they aren’t alone - allies the U.K., France and Israel have also been pressing him, meaning Obama’s room for maneuver would likely be limited even if such talks take place.

Either way, negotiations are about give and take. So just what exactly would Obama be able to offer?

At the least, he would probably offer to lift some of the current sanctions against Iran. At the most, he could also offer a modified version of the October 2009 Geneva deal. But this time, instead of Iran shipping out 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in return for nuclear fuel (as was the case in Geneva),  Iran could be asked to ship out 100 percent of its 20 percent enriched uranium. This could be in addition to at least 75 percent of the remaining stock of uranium enriched at levels below 20 percent.

In return, all the shipped LEU would be turned into nuclear fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, which would allow it to make medical isotopes. Such a high percentage of LEU being shipped out would ensure that the regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wouldn’t have sufficient LEU to make a bomb, if he were indeed inclined to try in the next year or so.

But what would Obama want from Iran in return?

At a bare minimum, the Obama administration would likely expect immediate answers from Iran to all outstanding International Atomic Energy Agency queries, which would probably entail immediate access to all sites of interest to the IAEA.

And what about Iran?

For Khamenei, it’s not going to be easy to offer much. On the one hand, he’s facing crushing economic and diplomatic pressure from Obama, the likes of which he hasn’t seen since becoming supreme leader. Should he ignore it, the Iranian economy, the health of which is crucial to the survival of the regime, could collapse.

On the other hand, the supreme leader is facing unprecedented problems at home. The regime is divided, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becoming a more divisive figure every day. One has to ask how much longer Mahmoud Bahmani, the current head of Central Bank, will put up with him before resigning.

More importantly, Khamenei's position and policies are being questioned and criticized both directly and indirectly - in full view of the Iranian public - by former officials who have ties with conservative factions.

A good example is a recent opinion piece by Adm. Hossein Alaei, the founding father of the Revolutionary Guards Navy and former IRGC Joint Force chief. In his article, he mentioned some of the Shah’s regrets after he lost power, such as not allowing people to demonstrate peacefully and shooting demonstrators. Hardliners saw this as an indirect criticism of Khamenei and a warning against him that he’s making some of the same mistakes.

Alaei’s opinion piece was condemned in the press (including the IRGC’s publication Sobh-e Sadegh), and demonstrations took place outside his home. But this op-ed was followed by further criticism of Khamenei’s position by Emad Afrugh, a former member of parliament who is believed to be close to the “principalist” faction. During a live interview he criticized the fact that the position of the supreme leader can’t be challenged by the public.

For decades Khamenei has portrayed the United States as Iran’s enemy. So how can a leader whose regime is apparently scared of Barbie dolls (having banned them over fears of a Western cultural invasion) reach any kind of deal with Obama that could end up helping him win the 2012 presidential election?

Iranian hard-line revolutionaries take pride in arguing that Ayatollah Khomeini destroyed Jimmy Carter’s reelection chances with the U.S Embassy hostage crisis in 1979. Will Khamenei want to go down in history as the man who helped Obama stay in office? How could he justify this to his hard-line supporters without creating even more infighting?

For years, Khamenei has stonewalled efforts by presidents Rafsanjani  and Khatami (and to a lesser extent Ahmadinejad) to improve relations with the U.S., even by reportedly rejecting a recent U.S offer to set up a hotline in October 2011. Khamenei’s ideologically driven animosity and hostility toward any improvement in relations with the United States has been a major factor in his calculations. And the anti-U.S. card has also, until now, served him well as a way of securing legitimacy at home, a necessity given that Khamenei had weaker religious credentials than his predecessor.

All this means that Khamenei isn’t in a particularly enviable position. He’s stuck between Obama and a hard place - with very little room to maneuver in between.

Source :

Bid to Topple Govt : No room for bigots

Chief of general staff says religious fanatics tried to misguide pious army officials in a planned way.

 

There should be no room for religious fanaticism in the army, Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Md Mainul Islam said yesterday.

Speaking at a seminar titled “National Security Strategy for Bangladesh”, he also warned that those who were behind the recent “coup attempt” to topple the government would be tracked down, private television channel ATN Bangla reported. 

Lt Gen (retd) ATM Zahirul Alam was the keynote speaker at the discussion, organised by Centre for Security and Development Studies (CSDS).

Some former senior officials including ex-army chiefs were present at the seminar, held at the Retired Armed Officers Welfare Association (Raowa) Club in the capital.

A number of speakers there advised that the government form a National Security Council.

Referring to the latest developments in the army, Lt Gen Mainul said some religious bigots had tried to indoctrinate the pious officers in a planned manner. They were so clever that they had targeted the religion-fearing officers to execute their coup plot. He cautioned that these kinds of schemes must not be allowed to succeed.

“We all are pious, and the meaning of our secularism is [that] each and everyone will follow their own religion but no one will intervene in others' religion,” Mainul observed.

But unfortunately, he added, there are layers in the religion. Besides those pious, there are layers such as Dharma Praan, Dharma Parayan, Dharma Bhiru (pious, god-fearing) Goda (dogmatist), Dharmandho (zealots) and Dharma Babosayee (someone who exploits religion for something sinister). 

"In the army, we can accept Dharma Praan and Dharma Parayan, and if we can provide some knowledge to those who are Dharma Bhiru, they too can come along with the first two layers. But it's not fair to leave space for Dharmio Gorami, Dharmandho and Dharma Babosayee in the institution. The time has come to speak out about these and by saying these [we] will have to keep the organisation on the right track," Mainul said. 

Meanwhile, sources in the army said they were carrying out an investigation from a broader perspective to unearth the details of the “coup attempt” and the plot to assassinate the country's top leadership including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Source :

Kadar sues ex-Khilgaon OC

Dhaka University student Abdul Kadar sued former officer-in-charge of Khilgaon Police Station Helal Uddin on Monday for torturing him in custody and filing false cases against him. 

He filed the case with the same police station in the noon.

The move came in line with recommendations by a probe committee of the law ministry and an order from the High Court, said Anwar Hossain, deputy commissioner (Motijheel Division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Earlier in the day, a Dhaka court acquitted Kadar, who was tortured in police custody last year, of a carjacking case.

Metropolitan Magistrate MA Salam passed the order following an appeal submitted by Detective Branch (DB) of Police Inspector Abdur Noor, also investigation officer of the case.

Abdur Noor filed the petition before the court after submitting a probe report in the case on Thursday and appealed to it to exempt Kadar from the carjacking charges.

Another court in the city will pass its decision on January 26 on the probe report submitted by DB Inspector Mohammad Shahjahan in connection with a robbery case filed against Kadar with Khilgaon Police Station.

The cases were filed after Kadar was picked up by Khilgaon police from the capital's Segunbagicha around 1:30am on July 16.

The carjacking case in which Kadar was implicated was filed with Mohammadpur Police Station on July 14, two days before his arrest.

Kadar, a student of biochemistry and molecular biology, said he was walking to his DU dormitory when police detained him.

On November 3 last year, Kadar was relieved from another case filed with Khilgaon Police Station for possessing sharp weapons.

He said police made the arrest and tortured him in custody even after he had shown them his identity card. Helal even chopped the calf muscle of his left leg with a cleaver, Kadar told a court in July.

Police also tried to implicate him as a robber although a departmental probe later found him innocent. The probe also found that police had tortured Kadar, falsely charging him with robbery and carjacking.

Following a media outcry, the High Court on July 28 ordered the inspector general of police to probe the incident.

Kadar was released on bail on August 3.

A HC bench also ordered the IGP to suspend three officials of Khilgaon police including Helal for torturing Kadar in custody.

OC Helal, Sub-inspector Alam Badsha and Assistant Sub-inspector Shahidur Rahman were closed on July 29.

Source :

Incumbents may not be worried, people are

THE statement of the local government, rural development and cooperatives minister of the Awami League-Jatiya Party government, Syed Ashraful Islam, on Saturday that the state was not worried about the killing and torture of Bangladeshi nationals by the Indian Border Security Force along the Bangladesh-India border is deeply disturbing. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Sunday, Syed Ashraf, also the general secretary of the ruling Awami League, said the ‘state cannot put aside everything and only think about what is going on along the border’ because such killing and torture ‘are nothing new… were there in the past, are now, and will be in the future.’ Incidentally, on the same day, the Indian finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, during a programme at the Petrapol land port in West Bengal, where his Bangladesh counterpart, AMA Muhith, was present, said there was no point in blowing the torture of a Bangladeshi national by BSF member out of proportion. The apparent similarity between the views of Syed Ashraf and Pranab Mukherjee tends to lend credence to the allegations of the AL-led government pursuing a subservient India policy.

Of course, Syed Ashraf may have told the truth when he said torture and killing of Bangladeshi nationals by the BSF ‘are nothing new.’ According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, some 1,000 Bangladeshis have been killed by the BSF over the past decade. The question to ask is why then the AL-led government is so eager to build, and brag about, friendly relations with the establishment of a country that is decidedly unfriendly and demonstrably indifferent to the interest and concern of Bangladesh. The question to ask is why then the key functionaries of the government, the prime minister included, froth in the mouth about turning a corner in the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India. The question to ask is why then they religiously refer to the empty assurances of New Delhi that it would not do anything detrimental to the interest of Bangladesh, when that is what it has consistently been doing since Bangladesh’s independence.

Perhaps, Syed Ashraf and his government may have forgotten the fact that the people took up arms against a theoretically much superior Pakistan army 40 years back and secured independence so that no one could bully them, so that no one could kill their fellows at their whims and wishes, so that no one could dictate what the state should worry about. Hundreds of thousands of people laid down their lives for a state that they hoped would worry about each and every individual within its geographical territory, worry about their life and death. Hence, the LGRD minister’s statement is more than irresponsible; it has made the entire country ashamed. It is all the more shameful when a significant section of Indian society has criticised and condemned their government for failing to rein in the marauding BSF members.'

The statement is also indicative that the AL-led government may be at its wit’s end in handling the state’s foreign policy. Hence, it seems, the incumbents would do well to call a national convention, involving politicians, academics, journalists, experts, etc towards formulation of a national strategy on the country’s dealings with India. Syed Ashraf and his government may not be worried about the excesses and atrocities by the BSF; the people at large are, and very much so.

Source :

BNP gives ultimatum with ill motive: PM

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, Sunday came down heavily on the leader of the opposition for giving ultimatum to the government one after another and said few days ago people had observed her motive of such provocation.

‘The BNP gives all ultimatums with ill motive as the party and its leader do not like to see people live in peace and they don’t believe in people’s power,’ she told a huge public meeting organised by Awami League’s Jaipurhat district unit at Circuit House ground in Jaipurhat in the afternoon.

‘I’m ready to make sacrifice like my father to establish the rights of people . . . I’m not greedy for power, my aim is to establish a Sonar Bangla as dreamt by the Father of the Nation and millions of martyrs of independence,’ she said.

The prime minister said BNP leaders had forgotten that they made the country a terrorists’ haven. Sons of the leader of the opposition were found guilty in the US federal court, bringing an embarrassment for the whole nation, she said.

She asserted that none would be allowed to play with the voting rights of people in future. ‘People are the owners of their voting power and none will be able to snatch their power,’ she added. Criticising the BNP leader for her demand for restoration of the caretaker government system, the prime minister said, ‘Once they could not even realise what is a caretaker government. But now, they’re shedding crocodile tears on the issue’.

President of the unit Shamsul Alam Dudu presided over the meeting. Party advisory council member Abdul Jalil, former minister Mohammad Nasim, joint secretary Mahbul Ul Alam Hanif, Abdullah Abu Sayeed Swapan, Shahin Monwara Haque, MP, spoke, among others, on the occasion.  Minister for fisheries and animal resources Abdul Latif Biswas, state minister for liberation war affairs ABM Tajul Islam, state minister for science and technology Yeafez Osman, state minister for law Quamrul Islam, state minister for youth and sports Ahad Ali Sarkar, Fazley Rabbi, MP, Abdul Mannan, MP, and Khaled Mahmud Chowdhury, MP, were present.

Hasina, also the president of the Awami League, said her government was working for socio-economic development of the people. ‘People get something when they vote for boat (election symbol of the Awami League),’ she said.

During the Awami League tenure in 1996-2001, she said the government chalked up a plan to fulfil the basic demands of people. But, the next BNP-Jamaat government halted many programmes depriving people of getting access to food, shelter, health and education.

‘In the past, the Awami League was always beside people, and in future, we will also remain beside them,’ she said adding that in the last three years the government spent most of its time and resources to recover the loss and damage caused by misrule of BNP-Jamaat alliance and global economic recession.

She said her government worked with highest sincerity which helped keep our economy stable and expand our social safety net in the last three years. The next two years would be the period of development, she added.

The prime minister said her government had taken all measures to enhance the purchasing power of people and keep the prices of essentials within their buying capacity. Reserve of foreign exchange has been raised to $10 billion in last three years from $6 billion, she said.

Referring to her party’s defeat in all constituencies in Jaipurhat in the last general election, the prime minister said, ‘Despite that we have undertaken massive development programme for the district’.

Five food warehouses were constructed in Jaipurhat in the last three years and six more are now under construction, she said.

During BNP-Jamaat regime, Hasina said Jaipurhat was the sanctuary of militants. But, now people of the district can live in peace as the militants were uprooted by our government’.

The prime minister urged the leader of the opposition to refrain from its movement aimed to save the war criminals. ‘When the countrymen are united for their trial, the leader of the opposition is waging movement for their protection,’ she regretted.

Earlier, the prime minister laid the foundation stones of Youth Training Centre, Muktijoddha Complex and Vocational Training Centre in Jaipurhat.

Source :