China This Week: Severing Contacts with Japan, Meeting Obama, Awaiting European Plans

Chinese Premier to Meet Obama in New York:  Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will meet with US President Barack Obama during his visit to the United Nations in New York this week.

China-Japan Dispute Escalates over Detention of Captain:  China has again urged Japan to immediately set free the Chinese trawler captain who was detained two weeks ago near the Diaoyu Islands, saying the detention is "a protruding obstacle" to Sino-Japanese ties.

[Editor's Update: On Sunday Beijing severed high-level contacts and called off a visit by Japanese youth. Tokyo urged China to remain calm and to avoid escalating the conflict.  

Today Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, has said all officials "should be careful not to arouse narrow-minded extreme nationalism".]

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The Latest from Iran (21 September): Protests and Gasoline

2025 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. AFP has now picked up the story that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani met the families of political prisoners and promised to raise their cases with the Supreme Leader.

2015 GMT: Attacking the Judiciary. A curious and possibly significant editorial in the official Islamic Republic News Agency --- which is generally in league with the President's office --- criticising Iran's judiciary for allowing political prisoners to write letters which are then publicised.

1930 GMT: Economy Watch. Vice President Mohammad Reza Mirtajoddini has denied that the Government is postponing the implementation of its subsidy cuts, scheduled for next week.

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Latest Iran Video: Tonight's Rooftop Protests (20 September)

Several videos are circulating of claimed rooftop chants in Tehran tonight. These are two of the most striking....

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Israel-Palestine Memories: Prime Minister Olmert's 2008 Offer and the Palestinian Response

On Sunday, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that if the current Israel-Palestine talks are to succeed, the agreement would have to resemble the plan the Palestinians turned down two years ago in negotiations.

Israel offered the Palestinians close to 94 percent of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and holy sites governed jointly by Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the US. In addition, less than 20,000 refugees would have returned Israel and 100,000 Palestinians would be given US citizenship.

Olmert blamed the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for no resolution: "There is no choice but to say that this agreement was not achieved when that was possible because the Palestinian side was not prepared to make the extra step that I believe we made."

The Palestinians have a different recollection. In March 2010, their top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told an audience at the University of Birmingham that a counter-proposal had been offered to Olmert and nothing had been received in return.

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Israel Analysis: Freezing Out Foreign Minister Lieberman?

Talking to supporters of his party Israel Beiteinu in early September, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman explained why the results from direct Israel-Palestine talks were "unachievable": 

It must be understood that signing a comprehensive agreement in which both sides agree to end the conflict and end all of their claims and recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a goal that is not achievable in the next year or in the next generation, so any historic compromises or painful concessions won’t help.

On Sunday, Lieberman brought his "wise" solution as an alternative to this failure. He said that the main principle for negotiations must not be "land for peace" but "an exchange of territories and populations", ruling out the Palestinian side's insistence on basing the peace talks on the pre-1967 borders. This would guarantee the status of settlements under the Israeli flag and save Israel's "Jewish" identity. 

Not all have been converted by the Foreign Minister's wisdom, however.

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Iran Feature: Top Tehran Analyst Zibakalam "Sanctions Have Worked"

These remarks from Professor Sadegh Zibakalam, one of Iran's top analysts of international affairs are striking, especially when set against President Ahmadinejad's all-is-well assurances. They were featured in Aftab News last week:

We should not wonder why the Koreans have joined the group of countries sanctioning us....South Korea exports $40 billion worth of car parts to the United States. Should Korea not give into American pressure, it could lose the American market....

I believe the next countries to sanction Iran will be China and Turkey....Turkey exports $15 billion to the 25 countries of the European Union each year. Should the EU give Turkey trouble and should Turkey be forced to choose between Iran and the EU, it is only natural that the Turks will choose them, just like...when Japan and South Korea chose to do so.

It would be most unpleasant if the Americans make trouble for the Chinese....China has for some time decreased its investments in and oil purchases from Iran. There was a time when we were the second-largest oil exporter to China in the Persian Gulf region, but today we come in eighth. Our oil exports to China have decreased to 200,000 barrels per day from 800,000 barrels per day.

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The Latest from Iran (20 September): A Quieter Monday --- So Far

1915 GMT: Clerical Challenge. Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani, in his latest criticism of the Government, has said that Iran's main problem today is the lack of tolerance for opposition votes and opinions. He added that "unfortunately" religions are abused to confront civilisations and people instead of supporting dialogue and rapprochement.

1900 GMT: Fact-Checking. Earlier we cast some doubt on the President's ability to tell the truth. Looks like his 1st Vice President might also need some help....

Mohammad Reza Rahimi, on the eve of scheduled subsidy cuts, has said that inflation is single-digit (official rate 10,4%) and rice is imported only to cover deficiencies (Iran's heavy imports of rice and sugar have led to widespread bankruptcy of domestic producers).

Meanwhile Iran's banking experts have called published inflation data "an insult to people's intelligence". One said, "You have to add 15% due to subsidy cuts to the official rate of 10%."

1850 GMT: Parliament v. President. Reformist Emad Afrough strikes back at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "I Rule" statement with a call to fellow legislators to get tough.

Afrough said it is a reality that the Majlis is not at the head of affairs, even though it should be and would be had it not retreated from its rights in many cases. He calls on the Parliament to demand "why Ahmadinejad talks like this and why he falsifies Imam Khomeini's words" about the need for an Iranian legislature to prevent government becoming a dictatorship.

It's not just reformists speaking out. Key conservative Hossein Sobhani-Nia has also said that Khomeini's injunction is "not temporary" and announced that a joint Majlis-Government-Guardian Council commission on the legal powers of the three bodies will discuss Ahmadinejad's latest statement. 

On the clerical front, Isfahan Friday Prayers leader Mohammad Taghi Rahbar has warned that no one should "freely interpret" Khomeini's words, for what he said about the government and Majlis was "still valid". Isfahan's head of seminary Ayatollah Mazaheri declared that "insults against the Majlis are not acceptable".

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Afghanistan: Petraeus' Bait-and-Switch Victory over Obama's "Withdrawal" (Porter)

Gareth Porter writes for The Seminal:

In interviews in recent weeks, Gen. David Petraeus has been taking a line on what will happen in mid-2011 that challenges President Barack Obama’s intention to begin a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by that date.  This new Petraeus line is the culmination of a brazen bait and switch maneuver on the war by the most powerful military commander in modern U.S. history. 

It represents a new stage in the process by which Petraeus, abetted by his allies in the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, has appropriated much of the power over decisions on war policy that rightly belongs to the commander-in-chief.

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Iran Analysis: Mahmoud's New York Sideshow

On Sunday afternoon, a reporter noted simply and incisively, "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be feeling like he's in Heaven now. He loves New York, and he loves media attention."

For those of us who do not equate New York City with God's kingdom, that statement was a bit jarring. But as I watched Mahmoud Ahmadinejad skip and swagger his view through media interviews --- and, more importantly, as I saw the "Ahmadinejad" in the accounts of US journalists --- I saw the point.

The Iranian President is being portrayed as a villain, of course; to do otherwise would ruin the dramatic narrative of conflict. However, like the villain in any long-running pantomime, he is never actually vanquished. The media's blows are those of soft bats rather than hard questions, letting the audience boo and hiss but leaving Ahmadinejad to take his bows at the end of the performance. 

And to return the next night.

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Church and State: The Religious Right, Tax Exemption, and Glenn Beck's "Black Robe Regiment"

As the Tea Party enjoys considerable success by concentrating its message on fiscal responsibility and a constitutionally -imited government, these conservative principles go hand-in-hand with the beliefs of conservative Christians. If the Tea Party is as successful in the November election as is predicted, there will be a titanic struggle not only in Congress but within the Republican Party over the relevance of Christian social values to America’s political future.

The Religious Right, now roused, will not walk from conservative political victories. This will be its mandate to change American society as well as American government.

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