Target Centermass

Day: January 20, 2006

  • Iran Moving Financial Assets

    Having learned a harsh lesson a quarter of a century ago, Iran is preparing itself financially for possible United Nations sanctions.

    Iran is moving its foreign assets to an undisclosed destination, apparently to shield them from any U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, the central bank governor was quoted as saying on Friday.

    Iran, threatened with referral to the Security Council for possible punitive measures, has bitter memories of its U.S. assets being frozen shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

    “We transfer foreign reserves to wherever we see as expedient. On this issue, we have started transferring. We are doing that,” Ebrahim Sheibani told the ISNA students’ news agency when asked about the need to shift Iran’s holdings.

    There was no immediate confirmation of the Iranian action, but Sheibani’s remarks indicated how seriously the Islamic republic is taking the threat of U.N. sanctions.

    The West suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic program. Tehran denies this.

    The United States and the European Union want the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the Security Council when the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s governing board holds an emergency meeting on February 2.

    Russia and China, which both have major commercial interests at stake in Iran, have urged caution.

    China’s state-run press on Friday urged Iran to halt nuclear work and return to talks with Britain, France and Germany, but argued against taking Tehran to the Security Council.

    “Negotiations remain the best option, as sanctions will muddy the waters,” the China Daily said in an editorial. “The crux of the matter is encouraging Iran to come back to negotiations with the European Union.”

    The EU trio scrapped the talks last week after Iran removed IAEA seals on uranium enrichment equipment and resumed a suspended nuclear research program. U.S. and EU officials say there can be no more talks unless Tehran reverses these steps.

    “The international consensus is unmistakable and important,” said the China Daily, which generally echoes official thinking. “Iran should respond to the diplomatic efforts of the international community.”

    Europe cuts off donations and pushes for referral to the UNSC. China urges more, certainly pointless negotiations. Iran begins a financial three-card monte.

    Follow the money.

    ISNA asked Sheibani whether the money was being moved to Asian accounts, as reported in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat, which said on Thursday that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had ordered foreign holdings to be sent to Asia.

    Sheibani did not say where the funds were going. He told reporters earlier this week that Iran stood ready to repatriate the money it held abroad should this prove necessary.

    It is far from clear how placing assets in Asia or anywhere abroad would protect them from being frozen as few governments or major banks would be willing to flout U.N. sanctions openly. [emphasis added]

    Sure, go ahead and get this matter to the UNSC. That is a mere formality already doomed to worthlessness in the matter. As I’ve stated in the past, this matter will almost certainly only end in flames.

  • Iraqi Shiites Fail to Get Majority, Need Coalition

    The Iraqi parliamentary election results have been announced, and the news is good.

    Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-based religious parties won 128 out of 275 seats in the December vote for a permanent parliament, requiring them to form a coalition government, according to results released today.

    The United Iraqi Alliance, which controlled the transitional assembly with 146 seats, fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to form a government, according to a tally given by Safwad Rasheed Sidqi, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission, in a televised news conference from Baghdad.

    The minority Sunni Muslims, who boycotted the January 2005 election of the transitional assembly, made the biggest gains after their leaders encouraged participation in the Dec. 15 vote to gain representation in the new government. The National Concord Front won 44 seats and another Sunni-based party, the National Dialogue Front, won 11, Sidqi said.

    “The elections have now confirmed that Sunnis are not the majority in Iraq and that they will not call the shots,” said Vali Nasr, professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The Bush administration has expressed hope that the participation of Sunnis in the new government will help to stem a Sunni-led insurgency, allowing the withdrawal of U.S. troops to begin.

    The Kurdish Alliance, which voted with the Shiite bloc in the current parliament, saw its presence reduced to 53 from 75. The rival Kurdish Islamic Party won five seats, a gain of three. Former premier Ayad Allawi’s secular Iraqi National List party took 25 seats, down from 40, according to the commission. Small parties won a total of 14 seats, according to the commission.

    No date has yet been set for lawmakers to take their seats in the new Council of Representatives, formerly the National Assembly. Council members will serve four-year terms.

    Politicians have four days to appeal the outcome, which were largely in line with the Dec. 21 preliminary returns. Officials then have 10 days to study any complaints before they certify the results.

    Allawi and some Sunni politicians have already made complaints saying there was voting fraud and intimidation by Shiites. Sunnis dominated ousted President Saddam Hussein’s regime, which suppressed the Shiite majority and the ethnic Kurds.

    Excellent. The best hope for Iraq right now is a continued pressure towards political compromise. Had the Shiites achieved a threshold allowing them to dictate the formation of the government, Iraq’s fledgling democracy may have taken quite a hit with non-Shiites as it struggles to continue its momentum forward.

    The results are hopeful but must be kept in perspective.

    “The fact that elections have gone forward now three times shows that the political process is taking root in Iraq and the insurgency is losing ground,” Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a former adviser to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said in a telephone interview. “That said, the insurgency is still going to be with us for years. There’s no magic formula to end it, and most insurgencies on average last 10 years.”

    Quite right. There remains still a long row to hoe in Iraq, both politically and militarily, but progress is undeniable.

  • Leftist Peacenik Group Caught Photoshopping

    Code Pink has been caught red-handed manipulating a photo in a rather disgusting manner by Publius Pundit‘s A.M. Mora y Leon.

    Unbelievable. Code Pink, an anti-American, anti-Iraqi-freedom, anti-Iranian-democracy full-Sandalista nuisance group, has taken to photoshopping photographs of Iranian freedom babes brave enough to protest against the monstrous mullahs of Iran, and used their beautiful images as recruiting tools for their own odious, anaphrodisiac cause. This cause just happens to be cut-and-run from Iraq, so that mullahs will be free to oppress women in ‘peace.’ That’s Code Pink’s cause! It is so disgusting!

    They can’t even tell the difference between Iranians and Iraqis, among other things, and just don’t care. But that’s not nearly as bad as changing the message the women were putting their lives on the line to get across.

    Go check out the photographic evidence. Realize, of course, that the useful idiots of Code Pink are the newest friends of pro-retreat Congressman John Murtha (D-IsForDefeat).