In snubbing “the Iran protester”, and thus the entire Green movement, Time magazine has managed to succeed where the Iranian regime has failed.
A group of US Congressmen introduced two proposals yesterday aimed at helping people in Iran and targeting the business interests of the regime. Meanwhile, the US State Department is trying to take control of other Congressional bills pursuing strict sanctions, asking for no introduction of the measures until 2010.
All the latest news is available on our live weblog.
Israel and Britain: There’s still some confusion over Britain’s plans with regard to Israeli opposition chair Tzipi Livni and the UK arrest warrant issued last year.
Palestine: Will President Abbas cling to his office indefinitely?
Afghanistan: Tom Englehardt points out, through “The 9 Surges of Mr Obama’s War”, how the US is committed to a long-term stay in and around its military intervention.
1140 GMT: Checking in briefly from Holland, I find that economist and journalist Saeed Laylaz has been given a nine-year prison sentence, according to his lawyer. Reports yesterday indicated that Laylaz might receive a 15-year sentence.
0600 GMT: First, the resolution. Iranian state radio are reporting that the five British sailors, detained last week on a racing yacht that strayed into Iranian waters, will be released. So quiet diplomacy seems to have trumped any thoughts that an Iranian faction — let’s say, the Revolutionary Guard — might have had of using the incident to assert authority.
It’s not just the Christmas shopping season that has begun. The undeclared political campaign is well underway as the clock ticks inexorably towards a general election in the spring of 2010. Seemingly, that would now make Afghanistan a key political issue in the battle between the Conservatives and Labour for power. The conflict certainly is in the news but not as a pivotal determinant of the election outcome for the simple reason that there is no real difference between the position of the two main political parties and neither really has an answer regarding how to emerge from the mess. The Liberal Democrats do offer an alternative approach, but, according to the polls, they are not in position to form a government. Thus, Afghanistan has become like the weather: everyone complains about it but no one does anything about it.
One reason for the current stalemate over Afghanistan policy is an external factor. There is a sense of suspended animation across Whitehall as “America’s Gurkha,” as apparently some in the government now describe Washington’s faithful servant, waits for the Obama administration to decide what strategic path to follow. The options under discussion include dramatically increasing the troop commitment, with a consensus apparently building around 30,000 more soldiers, or downscale, largely giving up on notions of nation building, and take a different approach with an emphasis on counter-terrorism as the defining factor of the mission.
Not waiting to make a decision about Afghanistan is a majority of the British public. According to a recent poll, almost two-thirds believe that the war is unwinnable and almost an identical number want British troops withdrawn. In their view, this now eight-year-old conflict is no longer worth additional British lives. Hence, the need for Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s reselling of the cause of Afghanistan in his speech of 6 November, points he reiterated in his monthly press conference. Nation-building and the dream of a new democratic Afghanistan are not doing well after the corruption that surrounded President Hamid Karzai’s recent re-election. The goal of achieving a stable Afghanistan has been damaged by the election. It is further weakened by the fact that even with a surge in U.S. troops the number would simply not be sufficient according to the US’s own counterinsurgency manual to have a chance at success. And that point applies simply to numbers of troops and not to the additional commitment in aid that would also be required from the United States and its allies.
A major piece by Ian Cobain in today’s Guardian examines the significant part torture has played in Britain’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism policy:
Today, however, there is mounting evidence that torture is still regarded by some agents of the British state as a useful and legitimate investigative tool. There is evidence too that in the post-9/11 world, government officials have been prepared to look the other way while British citizens, and others, have been tortured in secret prisons around the world. It is also clear that an official policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured.
In a series of case studies Cobain shows how torture has become a standard method of interrogation for the British intelligence services, and how everyone involved- from personnel on the ground to high-ranking government ministers- may be complicit.
Shirvin Zeinalzadeh, interviewing Iranian voters in London, offers his viewpoint on the Iranian election:
The Interior Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran has just officially announced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to serve a second term. This news has come as a shock to some, but no surprise to others as he seals an overwhelming landslide victory.
The celebrations and tension will of course continue into the night and for the rest of the week as Mir Hussein Moussavi declares false results and unfair issues within the voting booths, however, the sheer difference in the vote percentage, and support for Ahmadinejad has shown that once again Iran’s high voting turnout has stunned the West with its ever growing strength and belief in the Islamic Republic.
The NATO summit is due to begin, with France set to rejoin the NATO fold. Here’s what we’re hearing so far:
US-French relations appear to be strong- Obama says he did not have to drag France “kicking and screaming” back into NATO; Sarkozy evokes France’s sense of unity with America post-9/11, and suggests that France may accept a Guantánamo detainee.
Obama, under cover of praising French involvement in Afghanistan, has said that, “it is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States because of proximity. This is not an American mission, this is a Nato mission, this is an international mission.”
We reported earlier that the UK was unlikely to send more troops to Afghanistan. Gordon Brown has now said that troops may be sent in a temporary security role for the upcoming Afghan presidential elections- but that they will number in the hundreds rather than thousands.
The press is havingafieldday over the Michelle Obama-Carla Bruni ‘glam-off’. (The Guardian has a dedicated live-blog.)
UPDATE (10pm): talks have closed for the night with no decision reached on a new secretary general.
The Durban II Conference, also known as the Second World Conference against Racism, is going to commence on April 20. Since the articles of draft documents were being discussed and shaped during the preparatory meetings, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzip Livni, has warned the UN that Israel would not attend to the upcoming conference if the Israeli politics labeled as “Zionism” were considered as racist again. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Belgium, Brussels, Frankfurt, Germany, Iran Elections, Iranian protests, Italy, London, Munich, Oslo, Rome, The Netherlands, UK 
Iran: Mr Azadi has written a 
Entries (RSS)