“Russia might build more reactors in China, Iran, India and Bulgaria,” Bellona, http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/co-operation/36913.html, 17 January 2005.
“Iran open to ties with U.S,” by Barbara Slavin, USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-01-31-iran_x.htm, 31 January 2005 (from Roth Report).
“Walker’s World: The coming of the Shiite Empire,” by Martin Walker, World Peace Herland, http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050131-025238-1302r, 31 January 2005.
“Low-profile privatization not Iran’s only problem,” Iran Mania, http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=29289&NewsKind=Business%20%26%20Economy, 1 February 2005.
I have previously written that “The shift of Iraq from a sun of a Sunni solar system to a satellite in the Shia sphere is stunning.” More news confirms a shia nova. The Sunni Arabs are alarmed at the rise of Shia Islam. Iraq provides the critical mass for a permanent Shia illumination of the world. At the same time other American policies are forcing Iran to behave responsible, slowly co-opting them in a partner for a connected world.
King Abdullah of Jordan warns that the Sunni hegemony (that wonderful order that gave us terrorism and decay in the Middle East) is over
And now the prospect of their dominance is sending shivers of alarm throughout much of the Sunni-dominated Arab world. Jordan’s King Abdullah warned last month of the emergence of a “Shiite crescent” that ran from Iran, through southern Iraq and west through the Shia of Lebanon to the Mediterranean and south through the Shia of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf. About 15 percent of the Saudi population is Shia, and they happen to live in the eastern provinces where most Saudi oil is to be found.
Iraq’s mass increases the Shia Sphere’s gravity. It gives an alternative focus for Lebanon and Bahrain, as well as beginning the splintering of Saudi’s Eastern Province.
Perhaps His Lordship meant it in another context, but he identified an important consequence of this
“President Bush needs to be aware that the new government of Iraq will write the constitution,” the king said. “The president needs to think out of the box and consider what type of government this will create. If the Americans are so keen to put the Iranians (and their highly controversial nuclear weapons program) in their place, they need to see that Iraq is the soft under-belly of Iran.”
Exactly. Iran is no longer embattled. They are no longer isolated by their religion. Instead, their faith draws them out to the world. In every way that Iraq is different, it provides another model for the Shia world. Open debate, democracy, an academic Shia hierarchy, and no net censorship reign in Najaf. Why not in Qom too?
While the big bang strategy pays its dividends, America’s creation of a globalized order further ensnares (connects) Iran. Whether it involves common interests with the Bulgarian, Indian, and Russian democracies, or an interest in a peacefully rising China…
Alexander Rumyantsev stated this at his internet press-conference in the end of last year, ITAR-TASS reported. He believes Russia will get the opportunity after China, Iran, India and Bulgaria announce the international tenders for nuclear plants construction. ”In China – several nuclear power units on the south of the country. Iran – the second power unit at the Busher. India – 40 power units. Bulgaria – a unit at the Belina NPP” Rumyantsev said. He said two Russian reactors would be put in operation in China this year and two more reactors are currently under construction in India. The co-operation with Iran depends on the settlement of its nuclear program with the world community, the head of Rosatom said.
to the need for a thriving market economy
LONDON, Feb 1 (IranMania) – A senior economic official said the low-profile privatization program is not the whole of Iran’s economic concerns, stressing that there are many more dilemmas that have to be addressed prior to ridding the economy of state-monopoly.
According to Fars News Aagency, Hamid Reza Baradaran-Shoraka, who heads the government’s key executive body, Management and Planning Organization, further told a gathering of senior officials of major state and private organizations that all the country’s economic problems have been blamed on slow privatization process.
“Closed economy, unstable policies, unscientific management systems, lack of adequate assessment systems, etc, are some of many problems that have to be resolved before privatization,” he said, stressing, however, that the government has given top priority to implementing private sector empowerment schemes.
Iran looks at the world, and sees what works. The disconnected Afghanistan of the Taliban was dissected with ease. Saddam’s isolationist policies made him a pariah of the world. And China is becoming great through its openness. How long before the Islamic Republic wants peace and friendship with the United States?
How about now?
Iran’s top national security official said Monday his government wants better relations with the United States, but he advised the Bush administration to stop threatening Iran and said his country will not yield to demands that it permanently stop its effort to enrich uranium — which the White House says is intended to make a nuclear bomb.
We are winning. We destroyed the old order. We are rearranging the world in permanent way. We are unleashing connectivity and peace to lock-in peace.
And we are doing this under a great President. What a beautiful day and what a beautiful Shia sun!
