Iran Breaking: Nuke Talks to Resume?

This was the first clue we had that there might be a resumption of talks between Iran and the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, Germany, France, China, and Russia) on Tehran's uranium enrichment programme. From Press TV:

Iran's Foreign Minster Manouchehr Mottaki has flown to the Belgian capital, Brussels, to attend a key gathering of 26 countries meant to look at the impact of recent flooding on Pakistan.

Mottaki will join foreign ministers and dignitaries from the "Friends of Democratic Pakistan" on Friday to urge Pakistan to pledge far-reaching political reforms. 

Co-hosts EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi and US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, will also attend the gathering. 

While nothing there said "nukes", it was notable that Mottaki and Ashton, who has been making noises about a return to the negotiating table, are in the same place, as is Holbrooke, who has been a keen supporter of engagement with Iran on regional issues.

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Bombing Our Way to Peace? Afghanistan 2010 and Vietnam 1972

Airstrikes on Taliban insurgents have risen sharply here over the past four months, the latest piece in what appears to be a coordinated effort by American commanders to bleed the insurgency and pressure its leaders to negotiate an end to the war.

American pilots pounded the Taliban with 2,100 bombs or missiles from June through September, with 700 in September alone, Air Force officers here said Thursday. That is an increase of nearly 50 percent over the same period last year, the records show.

The stepped-up air campaign is part of what appears to be an intensifying American effort, orchestrated by Gen. David H. Petraeus, to break the military stalemate here as pressure intensifies at home to bring the nine-year-old war to an end....

Operation Linebacker II ordered by President Nixon, lasted 11 days (18-29 December 1972). The primary objective of the operation was to coerce North Vietnam to re-enter into purposeful negotiations concerning a peace agreement that helped end the war in terms acceptable to the US.

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Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu Approves New Homes in East Jerusalem (Haaretz)

Amidst Israel-Palestine talks and the tension of the issue of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Haaretz reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved tenders for the construction of 240 new housing units in areas of Jerusalem across the Green Line, Israeli media sources reported on Friday.

The Housing and Construction Ministry, along with the Israel Lands Administration, released its list of 3,500 newly approved tenders set for construction across the country.

The list includes residential buildings in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Pisgat Ze'ev and Ramot. While both neighborhoods are technically set in the northern part of the city, they are considered East Jerusalem due to their location east of the Green Line.

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The Latest from Iran (15 October): Back to Tehran, Back to Reality

1715 GMT: Music and Politics. An EA reader tips us off to this nugget from a documentary on the musical legend Mohammad Reza Shajarian.

Asked why he became more vocal in his protests after the 2009 election, Shajarian says, "Some guy [Ahmadinejad] described the people as dirt and dust. In a typhoon, dust can blind you. I want to speak for that dust."

Then this. Q: "Are you not afraid?" Sharjarian: "What can they do to me?" Q: "They can arrest you" Shajarian: "I have no fear."

The exchange is in the last quarter of the documentary.

1700 GMT: Khatami's Appeal to Hezbollah. It has emerged that former President Mohammad Khatami wrote to Sayyid Hassan Nasrullah, the head of Hezbollah, about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to Lebanon:

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Iran and Lebanon: Ahmadinejad Plays Second Fiddle to Hezbollah's Nasrullah (Younis)

Many Lebanese would have a lot to say about claims that Iran is a "unifying force in the region", but the speech did make clear that Nasrallah's crowd appeal is unmatched and that his power among many Shias does not need to be enforced by Iran. If anything, Hezbollah deftly staged a welcome for Ahmadinejad designed to encourage the Iranians to dig deeper and give more generously to Hezbollah's cause.

While Ahmadinejad was still speaking, I whispered to the teenage girl sitting in front of me: "Who do you prefer; Ahmadinejad or Nasrallah?" "Nasrallah!" she replied rolling her eyes. "Nasrallah is one of us. And anyway, Ahmadinejad is boring."

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Terrorism 101: How the Powerful Turn Threat into Political Advantage and Profit

It’s not just terrorists who can use terrorism as a tool. Here's how those in power can use the threat to get to their goals....

Example Number One: Avoiding Responsibility

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been in the news a lot recently, of course, with no relationship whatsoever to the autobiography he is pushing.

Taking a break from book signings, Blair offered a speak at the conservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His headline was a warning that the West was failing to challenge an Islamist extremist “narrative” that Islam was being oppressed by the West.

What Blair failed to acknowledge was his own contribution to that narrative. Apparently, in his eyes, the invasion of a Muslim country that had no connection to the 9/11 attacks was designed to counteract the narrative that is now concerning Blair. However, statistical evidence makes clear that the 2003 war in Iraq fuelled terrorism and served as a recruiter for al-Qaeda, a point even admitted by a report from a British military think tank.

In other words, Tony Blair --- who may or may not have profited from the 2003 war as British Prime Minister, who may still be profiting from it as author and speaker --- is directly complicit in fuelling the very narrative that he now presents as a primary threat to the world.

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Afghanistan: US and NATO Support Taliban Talks with Government (Shanker/Sanger/Schmitt)

United States-led forces are permitting the movement of senior Taliban leaders to attend initial peace talks in Kabul, the clearest indication of American support for high-level discussions aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, senior NATO and Obama administration officials said.

While the talks involve senior members of the Taliban, officials emphasized that they were preliminary, and that they could not tell how serious the insurgents — or the weak government of President Hamid Karzai — were about reaching an accord.

But comments by administration officials in Washington and a senior NATO official in Brussels on Wednesday indicated that the United States was doing more to encourage a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan than officials had previously disclosed, and might reflect growing pessimism that the buildup of American forces there will produce decisive gains against the Taliban insurgency.

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Lebanon Eyewitness: Watching Iran and Hezbollah's Public Diplomacy (Khatib)

Iran’s latest public diplomacy event has not won Iran new hearts and minds in Lebanon --- [although] those supporting Iran used the occasion to display their loyalty and gratitude --- but it did send a strong message about Iran’s primacy in the local politics of Lebanon to Iran’s dissenters and supporters alike, and an image of solidarity to the Shiites of the Middle East at large. With Iran’s influence on the formation of the next Iraqi government taking precedence over other external influences (neither the USA nor Saudi Arabia has managed to push its own preferred candidates for the position of prime minister), and with Bahrain’s forthcoming parliamentary election witnessing arrests of Shiite activists ahead of the election, Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon is perhaps Iran’s shrewdest public diplomacy statement about where it stands, and where it wants to be in the region’s political game.

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Afghanistan: How Peace Was Lost in the North (Foust)

Staunching the north's slide into chaos doesn't require the same investment as it would in the south and east. But the consequences of inaction are just as severe. If we can't at least preserve the local government's sovereignty, then the north's downward slide can only continue, adding a new front in our efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan -- and a new complication for our hopes one day to leave it.

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Chile Video: All 33 Miners are Rescued

CNN's compilation video of the rescue in Chile of 33 miners trapped almost half a mile underground for 69 days: