* Iran’s president uses his first trip to west Europe to launch a new attack against Jews
* Leading Iranian cleric calls feminists “whores”
All the items in this dispatch concern Iran’s fundamentalist Islamic regime.
CONTENTS
1. Photos of the day
2. Ahmadinejad says Israel will “disappear”; “Erase Israel” call repeated by his FM
3. Jordan latest country fearful of Iranian nuclear threat
4. Who will stop Iran?
5. We will never recognize Israel, says Meshal
6. Ahmadinejad arrives in Rome, attacks Jews
7. Iranian cleric calls feminists “whores”
8. “Koran critic (and British citizen), and a Kurdish teacher face death”
9. “Iran arrests ten converts to Christianity”
10. Iran: film about Christ based on the Koran
11. Iranian chemical fire near nuclear plant kills at least 30
12. “The threat did not come from France as a state but from the French Revolution”
13. Obama: Don’t know much about history?
14. “The Problem With Talking to Iran” (By Amir Taheri, WSJ, May 28, 2008)
15. “Ahmadinejad attacks Jews at UN food summit in Rome” (Telegraph, June 3, 2008)
16. “UK Foreign secretary Miliband ‘queries’ Obama’s Iran policy” (Times of London)
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
The Iranian holy city of Qom is hosting an exhibition of caricatures making fun of the Holocaust. Pictures here.
IRAN’S AHMADINEJAD SAYS ISRAEL WILL “DISAPPEAR”
Iran’s president said on Sunday that Israel would soon disappear off the map and that the “satanic power” of the United States also faced destruction.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking at a gathering of foreign guests marking this week’s 19th anniversary of the death of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989, the official IRNA news agency said. “You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime will soon disappear off the geographical scene,” Ahmadinejad said.
Since he assumed the presidency in 2005, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that Israel should be “wiped off the map” and threatened to do so. In February, he called Israel “a filthy bacteria,” the exact same term Hitler used about the Jews. At the same time, it seems that his regime is moving full speed ahead in its pursuit of nuclear weapons while the international community is doing next to nothing to stop him.
***
“ERASE ISRAEL” CALL REPEATED BY IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER
Iran’s foreign minister is the latest senior Iranian politician to join President Ahmadinejad in threatening Israel. In a speech on Sunday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called on the world’s Muslims to work to “erase” Israel, reports the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain.
In April, a senior Iranian army commander also threatened Israel with “elimination.”
* Please note that this list focuses on the Middle East but the Iranian threat is to Europe, Russia, America and India too.
JORDAN LATEST COUNTRY FEARFUL OF IRANIAN NUCLEAR THREAT
As I have argued before, the weakness already shown by the whole world towards the Iranian nuclear program, has led the leaders of several Middle East states to begin nascent nuclear programs of their own. Syria, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE are among those countries already exploring options. (These states were never fearful of Israeli nuclear weapons, knowing full well that Israel would never use them, if Israel has them, unilaterally. They are, however, very fearful about the Iranian regime gaining hold of such weapons.)
Last week, The Jordan Times reported that Jordan and France would sign a nuclear cooperation agreement which would include the “extraction and mining of uranium.” Like Iran and the other Arabs states now rushing to sign similar agreements (Egypt has just announced one with Russia), Jordan and France insist it is “for peaceful purposes.”
WHO WILL STOP IRAN?
The International Atomic Energy Agency last week released yet another report expressing alarm over Iran’s lack of cooperation and candor on its nuclear programs.
In response, The Wall Street Journal noted:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice immediately warned that Iran could face more sanctions, while the European Union’s Javier Solana announced another trip to Tehran to see if another dozen or so carrots might induce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop enriching uranium.
For a better flavor of this latest exercise in “Groundhog Day” diplomacy, type the words “Rice” and “Iran” into Google’s search engine. Here’s what we found among the first 10 results:
* “Rice: Iran must halt nuclear program” – February 9, 2005
* “Rice on Iran: ‘We can’t let this continue’” – April 12, 2006
* “Rice: Iran ‘lying’ about nuke program” – October 11, 2007
And so on. These rebukes have often coincided with the IAEA’s quarterly reports about its dealings with Iran, which have, without exception, stressed that Tehran has failed to be fully forthcoming about its nuclear programs. The new report makes for especially bracing reading.
According to the report, not only have the Iranians continued to enrich uranium (in flat contravention of three allegedly binding Security Council resolutions), they are adding thousands of new centrifuges. Some of these are of a more powerful and efficient second-generation type.
More worrying is what the IAEA delicately calls the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s programs...
The report notes in an annex that some of these weaponization experiments took place in 2004. This means the Iranians continued to work on weaponization well after the December U.S. National Intelligence Estimate claimed they had abandoned them. That estimate has already been discredited for suggesting that uranium enrichment and ballistic-missile development fall outside the definition of a “nuclear weapons program.” But now it seems this U.S. intelligence “consensus” was wrong even on its own misleadingly narrow terms.
... As for the U.S., Secretary Rice’s threat of still-more sanctions will be seen in Tehran for the diplomatic evasion it is.
(For background, please see previous dispatches, including: British intelligence: Israelis are right, U.S. is wrong; Iran is rushing to acquire nukes (Dec. 11, 2007). )
WE WILL NEVER RECOGNIZE ISRAEL, SAYS MESHAL
Hamas’s leader, Khaled Meshal has said on a visit to Iran, that: “We will never recognize Israel.” Meshal was addressing “The Decline of the Zionist Entity” conference at Tehran University last week.
Referring to President George W. Bush’s recent speech at the Israeli Knesset, Meshal said, “When the United States cannot even defend its own troops in Iraq, how does it propose to protect the Israeli regime from collapse?”
During his visit, Meshal met with high-level Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad, former President Rafsanjani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Sayid Jalili, Foreign Minister Mottak, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards Jaafari, Commander of the Qods Forces Amid Qassem Suleimani, and senior members of Iran’s military elite.
Click here to see official Iranian photos of terrorist leader Meshal being granted an audience with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
***
The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat also reported that Iran has agreed to increase support for Hamas to $150 million in the second half of 2008, and promised to deliver the advanced weapons Hamas requested. According to the paper, the Iranian aid will be given only on the condition that Hamas holds neither direct nor indirect negotiations with Israel. It was also reported that the commander of the Revolutionary Guards promised Meshal they would deliver upgraded rockets manufactured especially for Hamas at the Bakri Center.
***
Sources in Iran also report that the possibility of moving the Hamas political bureau from Damascus to Tehran was raised during Meshal’s visit.
***
Iran is Shia, Hamas in Sunni, and as I have noted before, John McCain was right (and The New York Times and others, including Barack Obama, wrong) when McCain said that Shia Iran helps Sunni terror groups. For other examples of Shia Iran helping Sunni groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere, see here.)
AHMADINEJAD ARRIVES IN ROME, ATTACKS JEWS
Yesterday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad began a visit to the Italian capital Rome to attend the high-level conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on global food security, climate change and energy. Other than a visit to the dictatorship of Belarus last year, it is Ahmadinejad’s first trip to Europe since taking office in 2005.
Other world leaders in attendance include French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Tehran has reportedly also given the Iranian embassy to the Holy See instructions to ask for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. As technically Iran’s supreme leader is Ayatollah Khamenei and not Ahmadinejad, the Vatican may set up a meeting between Ahmadinejad and the Holy See’s cardinal secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone, instead of the Pope.
Ahmadinejad has also asked for a meeting with Italy’s new prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, but both Berlusconi and his foreign minister, Franco Frattini, have ruled out meetings with the Iranian president.
Together with Germany, Italy is Iran’s most important trading partner of all the 27 European Union countries. Trade between the two countries was worth around $10 billion last year.
After arriving in Rome, Ahmadinejad said: “The people of Europe have suffered the most harm from Zionists and today the costs of that falsified regime, whether political or economic, are on Europe’s shoulders.”
“I do not believe my statements [at the conference] will cause any problems. People love what I say because they are trying to save themselves from the oppression of Zionists.” (For more details, see the second article below, from the London Daily Telegraph.)
***
Yesterday, the Rome correspondent for the important pro-democracy Iranian radio station, Radio Farda, was refused entry to the conference, even though Ahmadinejad and Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe were invited in. The International Federation of Journalists today urged the United Nations agencies being bullied by member states to deny access to journalists to stand up for media freedom.
IRANIAN CLERIC CALLS FEMINISTS “WHORES”
A leading Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Elmalhoda, has called Iranian women demanding basic rights “whores and foreign spies.” “These whores, clutching a piece of paper in their hands to gather signatures, are working for foreign powers and want to destabilize the Islamic Republic,” he said.
A few weeks ago, Elmalhoda said women who do not wear the Islamic veil as instructed “turned men into animals.” Elmalhoda is the highly influential prayer leader in the northeastern holy Shia city of Mashad. The Iranian authorities have in the last two weeks closed down twelve websites demanding rights for women.
“KORAN CRITIC (AND UK CITIZEN) TO BE EXECUTED WITHIN DAYS”
One of the Iranian exiles that subscribe to this email list tells me that: “Dr. Foroud Fouladvand, a dedicated monarchist, a Ferdousi expert and an expert on the history of Iran and Islam, is to be executed in Iran in the coming days for the crime of being a free thinker. Dr. Fouladvand, a British citizen, openly challenged the Koran in his daily television broadcasts for listeners both inside and outside Iran.
***
KURDISH TEACHER’S DEATH SENTENCE CONFIRMED
Last week, the Iranian regime’s judiciary confirmed the death sentence passed against Farzad Kamangar, a teacher, journalist and civil society activist in Kamyaran (in Iranian Kurdistan).
According to his lawyer, the Revolutionary Court passed this sentence against the 33-year-old Kurdish teacher “with absolutely zero evidence to support its case. The closed-door court hearing lasted less than five minutes with the judge issuing his sentence without any explanation and then promptly leaving the room.”
Kamangar was detained by the regime’s security forces in July 2006. There have been various news reports since then that he has been tortured.
***
IRAN SHUTS CELLPHONE NETWORK IN EFFORT TO HALT PROTESTS
The Pedagogical University of Tehran was on Monday surrounded by security forces following a second day of student demonstrations. According to Iranian news reports, the mobile phone network of the Pardis area of Karaj has been shut down in order to stop the anti-government protests. More details in Farsi here.
“IRAN ARRESTS TEN CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY”
The AKI news agency reports:
Ten Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity in recent months have been arrested in the southern city of Shiraz. According to Goodarz, a spokesperson for the Iranian converts, more than 35 of them have been arrested since the beginning of the year. Goodarz himself has taken refuge in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The new Majlis or Iranian parliament which met for the first time will be discussing in the coming weeks proposed laws presented by the government to reform the penal code. Under the new law, anyone born to a Muslim father who decides to renounce Islam and convert to another faith, faces the death penalty.
The punishment is currently absent from the Iranian penal code even though in the past, dozens of Christian converts and followers of the Bahai faith have been hanged on the basis of Sharia law.
IRAN: FILM ABOUT CHRIST BASED ON THE KORAN
Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh says that he has made the first ever film about Jesus based on the Koran. In the film, titled “Jesus, the Spirit of God”, Judas is crucified instead of Jesus.
The film, which the director describes as “Christ as told by the Koran,” took 10 years to make and cost $5 million. “It is the first time that the life of Jesus has been told from an Islamic point of view,” claims Talebzadeh.
“In the Koran, there are many elements of Jesus’ life that are unique and obviously do not coincide with the version that has been told by Christian historiography,” he said.
Talebzadeh says he put Judas on the cross instead of Christ “because according to the Koran, Jesus was never crucified and was not even killed.”
IRANIAN CHEMICAL FIRE NEAR NUCLEAR PLANT KILLS AT LEAST 30
An explosion and fire at a chemical plant southwest of Tehran last week killed at least 30 people. The incident occurred at Arak, an industrial area where one of Iran’s nuclear reactors is being built. Welding being carried out too close to a 60,000-liter supply of flammable liquid apparently triggered the explosion. The fire – presumed to be accident – was reported in the Iranian media, but went largely unreported in the west.
“THE THREAT DID NOT COME FROM FRANCE AS A NATION-STATE BUT FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION”
I attach three articles below. I urge you to read the first, by Iranian exile Amir Taheri, a longtime subscriber to this email list and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Middle East.
Taheri warns against the utterly foolish pronouncements by presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama about legitimizing Ahmadinejad by holding “unconditional talks” with him.
Taheri writes:
A nation-state wants concrete things such as demarcated borders, markets, access to natural resources, security, influence, and, of course, stability – all things that could be negotiated with other nation-states. A revolution, like Iran’s, on the other hand, doesn’t want anything in particular because it wants everything.
In 1802, when Bonaparte embarked on his campaign of world conquest, the threat did not come from France as a nation-state but from the French Revolution in its Napoleonic reincarnation. In 1933, it was Germany as a cause, the Nazi cause, that threatened the world. Under communism, the Soviet Union was a cause and thus a threat. Having ceased to be a cause and re-emerged a nation-state, Russia no longer poses an existential threat to others.
The problem that the world, including the U.S., has today is not with Iran as a nation-state but with the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary cause bent on world conquest under the guidance of the “Hidden Imam.”
OBAMA: DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY?
Even prominent Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama’s call for unconditional talks with Iran – among them are Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and former Sen. Gary Hart.
Many other commentators have also warned about Obama’s startling lack of understanding and knowledge about foreign affairs in general, and Iran in particular. For example, Charles Krauthammer wrote last week in The Washington Post:
Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history? Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he’s seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?
During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.
Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin – and then nearly fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?
A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs’ isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements – undermining the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran.
As every seasoned diplomat knows, the danger of a summit is that it creates enormous pressure for results. And results require mutual concessions. That is why conditions and concessions are worked out in advance, not on the scene.
What concessions does Obama imagine Ahmadinejad will make to him on Iran’s nuclear program? And what new concessions will Obama offer? To abandon Lebanon? To recognize Hamas? Or perhaps to squeeze Israel?
FULL ARTICLES
“WE DO NOT AGREE TO A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GREAT SATAN; WE WANT TO DESTROY YOU”
The Problem With Talking to Iran
By Amir Taheri
The Wall Street Journal
May 28, 2008
In a report released this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed “serious concern” that the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to conceal details of its nuclear weapons program, even as it defies U.N. demands to suspend its uranium enrichment program.
Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – in lieu of a policy for dealing with the growing threat posed by the Islamic Republic – repeats what has become a familiar refrain within his party: Let’s talk to Iran.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting to talk to an adversary. But Mr. Obama and his supporters should not pretend this is “change” in any real sense. Every U.S. administration in the past 30 years, from Jimmy Carter’s to George W. Bush’s, has tried to engage in dialogue with Iran’s leaders. They’ve all failed.
Just two years ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proffered an invitation to the Islamic Republic for talks, backed by promises of what one of her advisers described as “juicy carrots” with not a shadow of a stick. At the time, I happened to be in Washington. Early one morning, one of Ms. Rice’s assistants read the text of her statement (which was to be issued a few hours later) to me over the phone, asking my opinion. I said the move won’t work, but insisted that the statement should mention U.S. concern for human- rights violations in Iran.
“We don’t wish to set preconditions,” was the answer. “We could raise all issues once they have agreed to talk.” I suppose Ms. Rice is still waiting for Iran’s mullahs to accept her invitation, even while Mr. Obama castigates her for not wanting to talk.
The Europeans invented the phrase “critical dialogue” to describe their approach to Iran. They negotiated with Tehran for more than two decades, achieving nothing.
The Arabs, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been negotiating with the mullahs for years – the Egyptians over restoring diplomatic ties cut off by Tehran, and the Saudis on measures to stop Shiite-Sunni killings in the Muslim world – with nothing to show for it. Since 1993, the Russians have tried to achieve agreement on the status of the Caspian Sea through talks with Tehran, again without results.
The reason is that Iran is gripped by a typical crisis of identity that afflicts most nations that pass through a revolutionary experience. The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?
A nation-state wants concrete things such as demarcated borders, markets, access to natural resources, security, influence, and, of course, stability – all things that could be negotiated with other nation-states. A revolution, on the other hand, doesn’t want anything in particular because it wants everything.
In 1802, when Bonaparte embarked on his campaign of world conquest, the threat did not come from France as a nation-state but from the French Revolution in its Napoleonic reincarnation. In 1933, it was Germany as a cause, the Nazi cause, that threatened the world. Under communism, the Soviet Union was a cause and thus a threat. Having ceased to be a cause and re-emerged a nation-state, Russia no longer poses an existential threat to others.
The problem that the world, including the U.S., has today is not with Iran as a nation-state but with the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary cause bent on world conquest under the guidance of the “Hidden Imam.” The following statement by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the “Supreme leader” of the Islamic Republic – who Mr. Obama admits has ultimate power in Iran – exposes the futility of the very talks Mr. Obama proposes: “You have nothing to say to us. We object. We do not agree to a relationship with you! We are not prepared to establish relations with powerful world devourers like you! The Iranian nation has no need of the United States, nor is the Iranian nation afraid of the United States. We ... do not accept your behavior, your oppression and intervention in various parts of the world.”
So, how should one deal with a regime of this nature? The challenge for the U.S. and the world is finding a way to help Iran absorb its revolutionary experience, stop being a cause, and re-emerge as a nation-state.
Whenever Iran has appeared as a nation-state, others have been able to negotiate with it, occasionally with good results. In Iraq, for example, Iran has successfully negotiated a range of issues with both the Iraqi government and the U.S. Agreement has been reached on conditions under which millions of Iranians visit Iraq each year for pilgrimage. An accord has been worked out to dredge the Shatt al-Arab waterway of three decades of war debris, thus enabling both neighbors to reopen their biggest ports. Again acting as a nation-state, Iran has secured permission for its citizens to invest in Iraq.
When it comes to Iran behaving as the embodiment of a revolutionary cause, however, no agreement is possible. There will be no compromise on Iranian smuggling of weapons into Iraq. Nor will the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps agree to stop training Hezbollah-style terrorists in Shiite parts of Iraq. Iraq and its allies should not allow the mullahs of Tehran to export their sick ideology to the newly liberated country through violence and terror.
As a nation-state, Iran is not concerned with the Palestinian issue and has no reason to be Israel’s enemy. As a revolutionary cause, however, Iran must pose as Israel’s arch-foe to sell the Khomeinist regime’s claim of leadership to the Arabs.
As a nation, Iranians are among the few in the world that still like the U.S. As a revolution, however, Iran is the principal bastion of anti-Americanism. Last month, Tehran hosted an international conference titled “A World Without America.” Indeed, since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, Iran has returned to a more acute state of revolutionary hysteria. Mr. Ahmadinejad seems to truly believe the “Hidden Imam” is coming to conquer the world for his brand of Islam. He does not appear to be interested in the kind of “carrots” that Secretary Rice was offering two years ago and Mr. Obama is hinting at today.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is talking about changing the destiny of mankind, while Mr. Obama and his foreign policy experts offer spare parts for Boeings or membership in the World Trade Organization. Perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware that one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s first acts was to freeze Tehran’s efforts for securing WTO membership because he regards the outfit as “a nest of conspiracies by Zionists and Americans.”
Mr. Obama wavers back and forth over whether he will talk directly to Mr. Ahmadinejad or some other representative of the Islamic Republic, including the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Moreover, he does not make it clear which of the two Irans – the nation-state or the revolutionary cause – he wishes to “engage.” A misstep could legitimize the Khomeinist system and help it crush Iranians’ hope of return as a nation-state.
The Islamic Republic might welcome unconditional talks, but only if the U.S. signals readiness for unconditional surrender. Talk about talking to Iran and engaging Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot hide the fact that, three decades after Khomeinist thugs raided the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, America does not understand what is really happening in Iran.
AHMADINEJAD ATTACKS JEWS AT UN FOOD SUMMIT IN ROME
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacks Jews at UN food summit in Rome
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
The Daily Telegraph (London)
Last Updated: 12:47 PM BST June 3, 2008
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has used his first trip to Western Europe to launch a new attack against Jews.
Arriving in Rome for a United Nations summit, Mr Ahmadinejad said: “The people of Europe have suffered the most harm from Zionists and today the costs of that falsified regime, whether political or economic, are on Europe’s shoulders.”
He added: “I do not believe my statements [at the conference] will cause any problems. People love what I say because they are trying to save themselves from the oppression of Zionists.”
Mr Ahmadinejad visited both Belarus and New York last year, but this is his first trip to a major European nation. Italy has refused to hold any talks with him, but was powerless to deny him entry because of United Nations rules regarding the summit.
“In the name of God, I love the Italian people, who are so rich with civilisation and history. Our two people have much shared history,” he said.
Hundreds of Roman Jews protested against his presence outside the Colosseum.
Around 40 heads-of-state attended the first day of the Food Summit in Rome and Mr Ahmadinejad was due to be given the opportunity to address them and to hold a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, was also due to get the opportunity to make a speech on Tuesday afternoon and could use the opportunity to lambast the West. At a previous UN food summit, in 2005, Mr Mugabe labelled the United States and Britain as “terrorists”.
His wife Grace, who, at 42, is half his age, accompanied him to the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation where the summit is taking place. Instead of her customary shopping trip, she is expected to attend a lunch inside the building for the wives of the heads of state.
Neither Mr Ahmadinejad or Mr Mugabe have been invited to a banquet this evening at Villa Madama for the other heads of state. The dinner is being hosted by Silvio Berlusconi and Ban Ki Moon, the secretary general of the UN. To avoid the embarrassment of not gaining entry, Mr Ahmadinejad will leave Rome this afternoon.
As the summit kicked off, the head of the United Nations called for farming to increase by 50 per cent by 2030. Jacques Diouf, the head of the FAO, warned leaders that the amount of money spent on food aid for the third world had more than halved in real terms from £4 billion in 1980 to £1.7 billion in 2004.
“Resources to finance agricultural programmes in developing countries are decreasing, not rising,” he said. He said his attempt to draw attention to the problem last December, and to ask for £800 million in grants for fertilizer and seed in the third world, had been ignored.
He also criticised the emphasis placed by Western countries on global warming but the lack of attention to food. “Nobody understands how a carbon market of $64 billion can be created in developed countries to offset global warming, but that no funds can be found to prevent the annual deforestation of 13 million hectares.
“Nobody understands how $11 billion to $12 billion a year subsidies in 2006 have had the effect of diverting 100 million tonnes of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel for vehicles,” he said.
He called for the world to find £15 billion a year to give 862 million hungry people the right to food.
BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY “QUERIES” BARACK OBAMA’S IRAN POLICY
Foreign secretary David Miliband “queries” Barack Obama’s Iran policy
The Times (of London)
May 24, 2008
British Foreign secretary David Miliband has raised questions over Barack Obama’s policy on Iran, which officials in Washington and Europe fear threatens to undermine the tough stance adopted by the West towards Tehran over recent years. The Foreign Secretary, on his visit to the US this week, has held talks with all three presidential campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. But when he met Mr Obama’s team of foreign policy advisers on Wednesday, Mr Miliband is understood to have queried the presumptive Democratic nominee’s declared willingness to meet leaders from rogue states such as Iran.
... British intelligence chiefs are understood to have identified Iranian nuclear proliferation as the second greatest security threat, behind Islamic terrorism but ahead of renewed aggression from Russia. There is also deep concern about Iran’s support for Iraqi Shia militias or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. “The role of Iran as a source of instability in the region is undoubtedly a concern,” Mr Miliband said this week. “No one can watch armed militias coming on to the streets in defiance of UN resolutions with equanimity.”
Exact accounts of the conversation with Mr Obama differ and there is certainly acute anxiety on the part of the British not to be seen as stoking political controversy in America’s presidential elections. In the past week Mr McCain has repeatedly hammered Mr Obama for what he claims is a “naive” commitment to hold direct talks with foreign dictators.
In a televised debate last summer, Mr Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet the leaders of countries such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions during his first year in office. He replied: “I would.” But this week he appeared to pull back, saying he would still be willing to meet Iranian leaders but not before what he described as “preparations” – and not necessarily with President Ahmadinejad. Nevertheless, Mr Obama says that “tough but engaged diplomacy” – of the type carried out by President Kennedy or President Reagan with the Soviet Union – would represent “a different approach, a different philosophy” to the “failed Iran policy” of the current administration.
Mr Miliband, in a press conference with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, reiterated Britain’s support for the united front on Iran adopted by the US and its European allies, which he believes is beginning to pay dividends. “Our position, jointly, has always been that as long as Iran exercises responsibilities, then it will be able to forge a more productive and positive relationship with the international community,” Mr Miliband said.
An aide later told The Times that the Foreign Secretary was being very careful to avoid direct criticism of any presidential candidate’s positions. But the same source added: “We know Obama wants to engage more, but we don’t know what route he will take or what he means by ‘no pre-conditions’. It has not unravelled yet and, when it does, we will be able to see where it converges or conflicts with what we’re doing.”
A Foreign Office spokesman later said: “I just want to stress that David Miliband is not confused about Obama’s policy. It would be quite wrong to say that.”
Mr McCain’s foreign policy chief, Randy Scheunemann, would not comment on his own meetings with Mr Miliband. But he said: “Obama’s position is obviously different to that of Britain and France. Otherwise Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy would have already met the President of Iran without conditions.
Although Britain – unlike the US – maintains diplomatic relations with Iran, the West has been more or less united in seeking to isolate the Iranian leadership. The US, Britain, France and to some extent Germany have pressed for tighter sanctions against Iran, including measures directed against the country’s ruling elite, for failing to comply with UN resolutions calling for a halt to its uranium enrichment programme.
British intelligence chiefs are understood to have identified Iranian nuclear proliferation as the second greatest security threat, behind Islamic terrorism but ahead of renewed aggression from Russia.
There is also deep concern about Iran’s support for Iraqi Shia militias or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“The role of Iran as a source of instability in the region is undoubtedly a concern,” Mr Miliband said this week. “No one can watch armed militias coming on to the streets in defiance of UN resolutions with equanimity.”