Bush is smart - he plays word games

President Bush may have been informed that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program, but that hasn't stopped him from insinuating one.

No nukes in Iran

In case you were being whisked away on President Bush's (In)credibility Express (next stop: Iran), check this out. The report from the combined intelligence agencies of the United States - the Intelligence Estimate - says that the 2005 report was in error and that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program.

No nukes, no troops.

Is spending on soft power counterproductive?

This article examines the use of the "$75 million," money appropriated in 2007 to promote democracy in Iran. Ironically, however, the poor relationship with Iran (and the Muslim world in general) means that many recipients of American aid are targeted by the Iranian government. Has the United States entered an era of spiraling soft power where attempts to rebuild are doomed to condemnation as tricks?

The hope for the $75 million was to increase fervor for democracy and to support civil groups working on such issues:

• $36 million for radio and television beamed into Iran
• $10 million for public diplomacy and exchange programs
• $20 million for civil society groups such as NGOs and legal and human rights organizations

But the result has often been that the targets of support become targets of the Iranian government, suspicious of anyone receiving American aid:

For the Iranian government, the democracy fund is just one more element in an elaborate Bush administration regime-change stratagem. (“Is there even a perception that the American government has democracy in mind?” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, asked me recently in New York. “Except among a few dreamers in Eastern Europe?”) In recent months, Tehran has upped the pressure on any citizens who might conceivably be linked to the democracy fund and, by extension, on civil society at large, making the mere prospect of American support counterproductive, even reckless...

It is particularly telling, perhaps, that some of the most outspoken critics of the Iranian government have been among the most outspoken critics of the democracy fund. Activists from the journalist Emadeddin Baghi to the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to the former political prisoner Akbar Ganji have all said thanks but no thanks.

The suspicion isn't entirely unfounded. The democracy fund has a legacy of American meddling in Iran to overcome:

As Martin Indyk, an assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs during the Clinton administration, recently told me: “Don’t forget 1996, when Newt Gingrich proposed an $18 million program, a covert program to overthrow the regime. From then the Iranians were convinced we were coming for them.”

But there's also evidence that the Bush administration has an agenda that's more than promoting American values of democracy and rule of law. Almost half the fund's money was meant to support radio and television broadcasting into Iran, something that had been successfully modeled for years.

Every day at 8 p.m., hundreds of thousands of Iranians around the country tune into the Voice of America’s Persian service on their satellite televisions...Founded in 1996, the television service is based upon the V.O.A. template designed during World War II to target restive populations under Nazi occupation. It is perhaps best known for its work in broadcasting beyond the Iron Curtain during the cold war. By and large, V.O.A. Persian has earned a reputation as a balanced source of news, especially compared with an Iranian state television that has grown increasingly doctrinaire...The fundamental assumption of Voice of America is that the societies to which it is broadcasting are not free and that the best thing you can do to advance their freedom is to show them what fair reporting is like and, along the way, show them the good news about American values.

[With help from the democracy fund,] V.O.A.’s Persian television programming spiked from one to five hours a day.

But the democracy fund money to boost V.O.A. was not without strings attached.

The dedicated funds for Persian-language media increasingly look to many inside the V.O.A. like an opportunity lost, particularly as the money arrived with a bundle of expectations attached. “There was this idea that we had to serve the White House with this money,” one V.O.A. staff member recently told me. “And then there was Archin’s report.” Ladan Archin, a former student of Paul Wolfowitz’s currently serving in the Defense Department, had been asked to write an internal report on Persian-language programming for the N.S.C. and the now-dissolved Iran Steering Group in 2006. Her report, leaked in September 2006, was pithy and damning: she deemed the programming a waste of money. Archin chronicled instances of what she considered the V.O.A.’s giving a platform to “the Islamic Republic’s version of issues” and listed commentators who had gone on air criticizing American policy. Her report was echoed by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who has consistently pressed V.O.A. to be harder on the Islamic Republic...

The charged climate may have given free rein to a disturbing variety of political actors. On occasion, V.O.A. has lurched toward Reza Pahlavi, the shah’s son. The 40-something would-be monarch, who lives in Maryland, is often on the program and on occasion is invited to bestow New Year’s wishes on the Iranian people. And on April 1 of this year V.O.A. featured Abdolmalek Rigi, the head of Jondollah, a militant Sunni group that operates inside Iran’s southeastern border and claims to advance the interests of the Baluch minority. Jondollah is responsible for dozens of hostage takings and terrorist attacks. On this particular round-table program, Rigi was introduced as the leader of an armed national resistance group...The new administrators at V.O.A. “do not seem to be able to distinguish between journalism and propaganda,” Khalaji told me. “If you host the head of Jondollah and call him a freedom fighter or present a Voice of America run by monarchists, Iranians are going to stop listening.”

In other words, the Bush administration's efforts are fouling what has been a long-standing practice of promoting values without promoting regime change. Instead, with the waters muddied, many of the activists who in the past appreciated American aid are now suspicious of it, as is their government.

We might have more luck promoting democracy and rule of law if our president was a better model...

Iran teaches us supply and demand

Iran is - ironically - providing the United States with a supply-and-demand lesson, if anyone's paying attention. Yesterday the Iranian government increased gas prices 25% (from the ridiculously low 40 cents per gallon) to help reign in surging demand for fuel. It's not sufficient, of course, when the rest of the world is paying 6-10 times that price, which is why Iranian fuel rationing will begin in two weeks.

So when Americans worry about price gouging, we need to consider the alternative. If we artificially limit the price of fuel, demand will stay artificially high, and we will run out. As R-Squared Energy blog puts it:

In times of shortage, price needs to rise to choke off demand. I may like to go visit my Aunt Bettie in the midst of this emergency, but I can put that trip off. However, if you have a dying relative, the price is not going to stop you. But you will be glad that it stopped me, and others whose need was not critical, from draining supplies.

The Iranians are going to learn very quickly that in a supply-constrained world, charging less than market price means there's not enough to go around.

Iran: energy policy isn't easy in an Islamist state, either

Energy policy to address global warming, technology, and higher gas prices isn't just the problem of the United States, although President Bush's meeting with the Big 3 automakers today suggests we have a long way to go (no, the proposed 4% per year increase in fuel efficiency standards was not discussed).

Iran's conflict with the United States and other Western powers also has to do with energy - primarily, the Iranians' dramatically increasing energy use. Demand for electricity and gasoline has been rising at double digit rates as government subsidies reduce any market pressure to conserve.

Image from the Wall Street Journal Story

Demand for electricity is rising along with the rest, as Iranians avail themselves of cheap imports of basic consumer goods from China - TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioning (with summer highs exceeding 110 F, I can understand why). Thus, Iran wants to develop nuclear energy since its fossil reserves clearly can't keep pace.

Ironically, Iran's energy crisis is a problem of political will. In addition to subsidizing gasoline to reduce prices to $0.40 per gallon, oil-exporter Iran has to import gasoline to meet this subsidized demand. With $7 billion spent on gasoline imports last year - Iran lacks sufficient refining capacity for its crude oil - and $9 billion projected this year, they know consumption must be curtailed. But in a country with one all-powerful Supreme Leader (See: Iranian government structure), cutting subsidies is apparently as hard as cutting Congressional pork projects in the United States.

This time, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the government is serious about cutting back consumption, though he acknowledged recently it's politically impossible to get rid of subsidies and raise pump prices the 40% to 50% that would require anytime soon. (emphasis mine)

And we thought leaders of democratic countries had it rough.

The final irony in the Iranian energy debacle is that the brinkmanship with the West might not be the economic hope they envision (although if it's nukes they want, they may not care). Uranium prices have increased ninefold since 2002 as demand for carbon-free energy has rejuvenated interest in nuclear power. In other words, there's no cheap solution to the energy crisis, whether it's more expensive nuclear power for Iran or carbon taxes in the United States.