Dealing with Iran
September 28th, 2007 by Celest
After both the House and Senate passed bills calling for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to be officially designated a “foreign terrorist organization,” commentators are arguing about the merits of this action. An article in the Wall Street Journal (free feature) praises Hillary Clinton for voting for the amendment. On the other side, Karim Sadjadpour, in the Washington Post, argues that the US is pressuring Iran in the wrong way. “The United States should seek to tip the balance within the guard in favor of pragmatists, rather than hard-liners who thrive in a state of isolation and confrontation.”
Danielle Pletka, in the Wall Street Journal (subscription only), argues that the US should focus on the sanctions the UN has already approved that are not being enforced rather than try to obtain more sanctions against Iran.
Posted in Diplomacy, Iran |
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September 28th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
The United States and Israel have been working for at least the last couple of years to isolate Iran from the world community and have been failing miserably. InternetActivist.Org has done a comprehensive recent media survey of how this effort has been going among all United Nations member states. The results are that 79 UN member states are currently entering into new agreements with Iran, expanding existing agreements, or otherwise enhancing cooperation with the Islamic Republic. Conversely, only 11 states are actively trying to isolate Iran and/or are threatening violence; all of whom except one are primarily white and dominated by right-wing governments. The remaining member states aren’t really involved at all, neither dealing with Iran nor actively campaigning against it.
To see who is enhancing their relationships with Iran (with documentation & links), to see who is trying to isolate or pressure Iran (also with documentation and links), as well as who is just staying uninvolved, visit: http://iablog.blogspot.com/ or specifically:
http://iablog.blogspot.com/2007/09/so-how-have-usisraeli-efforts-to.html
This is a very comprehensive “report card” on how the US/Israeli effort to isolate Iran has fared.