Published: March 27, 2007
Iran Democracy Monitor No. 38, March 27, 2007
By Ilan Berman, Editor, Iran Democracy Monitor
Tehran Defiant
On March 24th, the United Nations Security Council voted to impose new penalties on the Islamic Republic for failing to abide by international demands concerning its nuclear program. The new measures, which are intended to expand and strengthen the sanctions initially approved by the Security Council back in December, impose restrictions on arms sales to and from Iran, and call for a freeze on the assets of 15 additional Iranian individuals and organizations. The UN resolution also urges member nations to limit new "grants, financial assistance, or concessional loans" to the Iranian regime.
Iranian officials, however, are already making clear that these steps are too little, too late. "If certain countries have pinned their hopes that repeated Resolutions would dent the resolve of the great Iranian nation, they should not doubt that they have once again faced a catastrophic intelligence and analytical failure vis-à-vis the Iranian people's Islamic Revolution," Iranian Foreign Minister Manucher Mottaki warned the United Nations Security Council ahead of the decisive vote.
"As the Iranian nation paid a heavy price for its nationalization of its oil industry and its 8 years of sacred defense [during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War], we realize now that we must be prepared to pay the price for our dignity and our independence." But, Mottaki made clear, "the world must know - and it does - that even the harshest political and economic sanctions or other threats are far too weak to coerce the Iranian nation to retreat from their legal and legitimate demands." (Associated Press, March 24, 2007; Tehran Baztab, March 25, 2007)
The Dangers of Dialogue
Amid growing talk of engagement with the Islamic Republic, at least one Arab official is warning of the potentially disastrous consequences of "doing a deal" with Tehran. "At the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, Algeria was facing a very serious challenge from Islamic extremists who wanted to impose their ideology and way of life on Algeria," writes former Algerian Prime Minister Sayyid Ahmad Ghazalli in the Arabic-language Al Sharq al-Awsat daily. "After a while, we realized that Tehran's hands were involved in worsening the situation... the Mullahs of Tehran used the openness of the Algerians towards them to push and incite Islamic extremism by exporting their aggressive ideologies under the cover of Islam."
Now, Ghazalli warns, Europe faces the same situation. "[A]t the same time that Tehran is headed towards possessing nuclear weapons, it is standing behind a wave of violence and barbarism throughout the Islamic world and even in Europe itself. Thus it is time for the European politicians to implement a new policy towards Tehran." (London Al Sharq al-Awsat, March 22, 2007)
Tilting The Palestinian Playing Field
Slowly but surely, the Iranian regime is altering the political landscape of the Palestinian Territories, a top U.S. military official has warned. According to Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the U.S. government's security coordinator for the Palestinians, intensive Iranian assistance is fueling a major military and political expansion on the part of the radical Hamas movement. Iran's assistance, which includes sophisticated training and weapons, as well as financial aid, could allow Hamas to decisively eclipse the struggling Fatah movement if left unchecked, Dayton told Congressional leaders in a series of closed door Capitol Hill briefings in mid-March. (Tel Aviv Ha'aretz, March 21, 2007)
[IDM Editor's Note: The growing imbalance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has not gone unnoticed in Washington. Since January, the Bush administration has been asking Congress to allocate some $86 million to strengthen the security forces of the Palestinian Authority's increasingly marginalized president, Mahmoud Abbas. However, members of Congress, worried that the funds could end up in the hands of the Hamas government, have so far failed to authorize the expenditure.]
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