The World

Posted 5/27/07

Steaming Toward an Iran Showdown?

With American ground forces obviously busy elsewhere, the Pentagon dispatched two aircraft carriers along with landing ships carrying 17,000 marines and sailors into the Persian Gulf for exercises off the coast of Iran. The show of force—nine U.S. warships conducting air, submarine, anti-mine, and other activities—coincided with the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, showing that Tehran continues to defy demands to give up uranium enrichment work that could produce a nuclear bomb.

SYRIA. The only suspense going into a national referendum was whether President Bashar Assad would top the 97.3 percent of the vote he got in 2000.

BASSEM TELLAWI-AP

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei endorsed the CIA estimate that Iran may be three to eight years away from being able to make nuclear weapons. The IAEA report says that Iran has increased the number of enrichment centrifuges operating at its Natanz facility and has obstructed inspections elsewhere. President Bush said he will seek further economic sanctions on Iran through the U.N. Security Council, where such moves face resistance from Russia and China. In an early signal from the new leadership in France, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called for quick action on sanctions.

Saying he will press Russian and Chinese leaders to go along, Bush added that "the first thing these leaders have got to understand is that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing for the world."

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is in another tussle with ElBaradei, who angered the White House before the Iraq war by (correctly) declaring that Baghdad had eliminated its nuclear program. Now, he is suggesting that western countries, as a face-saving, war-avoiding measure, permit Tehran to retain limited uranium-enrichment capability.

The Iraqi Firebrand Is Back in Black

After months in hiding, reportedly in Iran, firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr appeared publicly last week in Kufa, Iraq, to deliver an anti-American sermon to some 6,000 followers. He denounced the performance of the current U.S.-backed government and, taking a newly nationalistic tone, called on Sunnis to join in opposing the "occupation forces." This latter point is notable, given that elements of his militia are responsible for the abduction, torture, and killing of Sunnis. Sadr also condemned fighting between his Mahdi Army militia and Iraqi security forces, calling instead for peaceful protests.

Sadr's re-emergence comes just as a major Shiite political rival, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, has gone to Iran for chemotherapy following a diagnosis of lung cancer. Hakim got his bad medical news last week at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson CancerCenter in Houston. Also on the political-medical front, 73-year-old Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the senior Kurdish politician, said he will be out of Iraq for at least several weeks for what was described as medical tests and weight-reduction treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Pinning Blame on Kurdish Separatists

Trouble is brewing along Iraq's northern border, where Turkey has some 150,000 troops gathering for possible action against Kurdish separatists. There is growing anger among Turkish officials who suspect that the violent Kurdistan Workers Party, the rebel group known as the PKK operating from northern Iraq's Kurdish region, is behind last week's suicide bombing in the capital, Ankara, which killed six people.

Although a PKK statement denied responsibility, Turkish authorities say they have evidence—including intercepted shipments of plastic explosives like those used in the Ankara attack—that the PKK is preparing to step up its long-running battle for autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast region.

The Best Courts Money Can Buy

Judicial corruption—ranging from bribery to political influence—is corroding legal systems throughout much of the world and denying citizens the basic right to a fair trial, according to a new report by Transparency International. Bribery was identified as common in Albania, Greece, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco and Venezuela, among many others. The problem of political influence is also widespread, afflicting such diverse nations as Russia, Turkey, and Guatemala, the report says.

You Already Know About the Movie

In a case of life imitating Hollywood, customs officers in Egypt reported detaining a man trying to smuggle 700 snakes on a plane bound for Saudi Arabia. Officials at the Cairo airport said the man, Yahia Rahim Tulba, was carrying the snakes—including two poisonous cobras—concealed in small cloth sacks. He said he hoped to sell the snakes as pets or for research purposes. Tulba was charged with violating export laws and endangering passengers.

With Associated Press