I think Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be a powerful force
in the Middle East for the next 10 - 20 years.
On May 2, 1:07=A0pm, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Bush and Chenney, far from frightening Iran into submission, has
> instead focussed Iran's attention to its place in the bigger scheme of
> things. =A0The article below outlines compelling reasons for an
> energized Iran =A0as the linchpin for pan regional co-operation and
> therefore regional power and a major player in the global power
> league. =A0Such a development will of course greatly diminish US Israeli
> power in Arab affairs. =A0It will certainly reduce China's clout in
> dealings with Arab countries (should they band together as described
> below). =A0
>
> The empowerment of peoples who have little if any power now can only
> be good. =A0It is not a development China fears for China has always
> maintained correct diplomatic and economic realtions with every
> country. =A0China treats them all as independent countries and respects
> their sovereignity and independence by not interfering in their
> internal affairs. =A0China pays a fair price for everything she buys
> from them. And China does not impose onerous and insulting conditions
> on the trade, the aid and the loans she provides. =A0Its a very simple
> policy rich countries should make an effort to emulate.
>
> Iran moving into the big league
> By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
> May 3, 2007http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE03Ak03.html
>
> Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's three-nation tour of Pakistan,
> Sri Lanka and India and the welter of agreements and understandings
> reached between Tehran and these governments serve notice beyond the
> mere issue of energy security and Iran's expanding role in the
> sub-continent's energy market; rather, these developments signify a
> new stage in Iran's foreign policy that is best described as
> "pan-regionalism".
>
> From the Persian Gulf to the Caspian region, the Caucasus, Central
> Asia, South Asia and beyond, thanks to its unique geographical
> location, Iran is in many ways an ideal connecting bridge that has not
> until now fully exploited its advantageous "equidistance" from India
> and Europe.
>
> Straddled between the two energy hubs of the Persian Gulf and Caspian
> Sea, Iran is a suitable conduit for trade, energy and non-energy,
> between the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which are members of the
> Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the landlocked Central Asian
> states. The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
> and the United Arab Emirates.
>
> Also, with ambitious trans****tation links projected under the veneer
> of a "north-south corridor", Iran, Russia and India have conceived new
> areas of cooperation that connect northern Europe to the Indian Ocean
> via Iran and the Russian Federation [1] . Already, Iran is an energy
> ex****ter to Europe through Turkey, funneling through Turkmenistan's
> gas and swapping oil with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
>
> Also, Iran has plans not to lag behind the so-called new "Silk Road"
> project that involves China, India and the GCC states first and
> foremost and yet for every conceivable reason must be considered
> Iran-inclusive because of the country's proximity, its expanding trade
> and economic cooperation with the GCC, and its own trade
> liberalization policies, reflected in the expansion of free-trade
> zones.
>
> This is one reason why Iran is modernizing its Persian Gulf islands of
> Kish and Qeshm, hoping to turn them into tourist hotspots as well as
> hubs for trade and even finance in the near future [2].
>
> The $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI), meanwhile, has
> the potential more than any other existing Iranian project to extend
> the purview of Iran's "pan-regional" approach, by organically
> connecting Iran to the sub-continent on a long-term basis and by
> providing a new Iran-Pakistan-India nexus that could in turn be used
> for addressing what is lacking so far, that is, more than paltry
> inter-regional trade.
>
> The 2,600-kilometer IPI pipeline, which was conceived in 1994,
> envisages trans****ting Iranian gas to Pakistan and then on to India.
> Following Ahmadinejad's visit to India this week, Iran re****ted the
> three countries were close to signing a "final agreement".
>
> The poor state of Iran's trade with South Asia is reflected in the
> sub-optimal trade between Iran and Pakistan, as is the case between
> Iran and other members of the region's 10-nation Economic Cooperation
> Organization (ECO) [3].
>
> Attempts to make the ECO a fulcrum of regional cooperation have by and
> large failed and the ECO's struggle to achieve a major breakthrough in
> terms of regional cooperation has not brought significant tangible
> fruits.
>
> Yet that may change, particularly if Iran (a) is inducted in the
> Shanghai Cooperation Organization, at which it is presently an
> observer [4], and (b) the IPI project finally gets underway, in which
> case Iran's greater integration into larger entities will bolster its
> attempt within the ECO to make this regional organization, which is
> headquartered in Tehran, more effective.
>
> With respect to the Persian Gulf, the GCC, which continues to shun
> Iran's olive branch of cooperation, is under new pressures to rethink
> that attitude as a result of the ****'ite-led government in Iraq, a
> potential Iran allay in the politics of the Persian Gulf. It is not
> far-fetched to think that Iran and Iraq will one day join the GCC
> states in a new regional cooperative framework.
>
> Certainly, that is how Iran wants it today, as seen in the recent
> unveiling of Iranian plans for cooperative security and the like put
> forward at their hitherto recalcitrant GCC neighbors [5], perhaps
> better pitched as part of an Islamic common market.
>
> Certainly, significant hurdles confront Iran's "pan-regional" approach
> that seeks to make the country an integrative, nodal point of
> cooperation between and among various regions, ranging from United
> Nations and US sanctions out of fear of Iran and its pur****ted
> "nuclear ambition", as well as a host of purely economic and technical
> difficulties, such as poor trans****tation links and ***bersome custom
> regulations.
>
> Regarding the latter, one of the ECO's key contributions has been in
> the area of prioritizing a customs agreement, as well as tariff
> reduction schemes, between the member states that would facilitate
> trade in the ECO region. Still, the low level of trade between the ECO
> states is a harsh reminder of the long road ahead before Iran's lofty
> objective of "pan-regionalism" can be fully realized.
>
> Irrespective, the tangible gains mentioned above illustrate the
> viability of Iran's "pan-regional" approach that could conceivably
> elevate its status beyond a mere regional power and add to the cluster
> of values in its arsenal as a global power.
>
> In fact, as reflected in a recent statement by Iranian National
> Security Advisor Saeed Jalili regarding Iran as a "global power",
> Iran's self-image and self-understanding is global-looking and fuels
> an activist foreign policy that is fully within the camp of the
> Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and which constantly prioritizes "global
> justice".
>
> Economically, however, for Iran and other NAM states seeking a
> redistribution of global wealth, concentrated in Western hands today,
> there is no alternative but to push for greater cooperation between
> themselves and achieve better coordination at international
> institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), in light of
> the WTO's ongoing trade wranglings known as the Doha rounds.
>
> Although Iran is not yet a WTO member, it will be directly impacted by
> the final agreements of the Doha rounds, due later this year, which is
> why it is in***bent on Iranian policymakers to focus on the Doha
> rounds and to scrutinize the agricultural and non-agricultural new
> policies of the WTO that distinguish between developed and developing
> nations. Yet these fall short of addressing the adverse impacts of
> globalization and WTO-induced trade liberalization for a whole host of
> Third World nations.
>
> One thing is clear, the greater the impetus for Iran's "pan-regional"
> goals and objectives, the more Tehran will find itself entangled in
> complex regional, extra-regional and global issues and controversies
> that impact the country's foreign policies, trade, and security both
> directly and indirectly.
>
> One of the understudied aspects of Iran's "pan-regionalism" is,
> indeed, how it connects to the issue of globalization that, so far,
> has been a mixed blessing for the developing world. After all,
> regionalism and globalization have unhappy kindred relations, with the
> former simultaneously strengthening and weakening it.
>
> Notes
> 1. For more information on the International North-South Trans****t
> Corridor, click here.
> 2. For more on the free-trade zones, click here.
> 3. For more on the Economic Cooperation Organization, click here
> 4. For more on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, click here 5.
> See Iran unveils a Persian Gulf security plan by Kaveh L Afrasiabi,
> Asia Times Online, April 14, 2007.
>
> Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
> Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
> "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs,
> Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also
> wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
> Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus
> Fiction.
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