Intrade Airstrike-Iran Options (Update 3)

Airstrike.Iran.Jun07 : $2.60
Airstrike.Iran.Sep07 : $13.70
Airstrike.Iran.Dec07 : $17.40

Average : $11.23, down from $22.00 on March 29th.

The Case for Bombing Iran

The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
May 30, 2007

[...]Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States. Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs. [...]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010139

Gasoline Rationing in Iran

IEA Monthly Oil Market Report May 2007 - page 15

In our last commentary on Iran’s gasoline market (Oil Market Report dated 11 October 2006), wespeculated about how the country would tackle its galloping gasoline demand, which had led to asignificant surge in imports (some 40% of total demand, given the lack of domestic refining capacity) andwhich was being prompted by possibly the cheapest retail prices in the world (as in many oil producing countries, cheap fuel is almost considered an entitlement). The issue was quite sensitive, we then argued, because the government had to balance financial imperatives (the growing burden of subsidies and imports) and political considerations (triggering social unrest by rationing demand and/or raising prices, which would also likely stoke inflation), not to mention the issue of tackling waste (spills at service stations and the poor fuel economy of most of the Iranian vehicle fleet).

The government, though, prevaricated for a few months, releasing instead extra funds in January 2007 (about $2.5 billion) to finance gasoline imports until March (the end of the Iranian fiscal year). In late March, however, both the Majlis (parliament) and the Council of Guardians finally approved a long debated scheme to ration supply and raise prices, which will reportedly be implemented from mid-May. Under the scheme, private car owners will be allocated 90 litres per month (300 litres for taxis), priced at Rials 1,000 per litre (approximately 12 cents) instead of Rials 800 per litre (that is, a 25% price increase). Supply above the quota will be priced at Rials 5,000 per litre (five times more than subsidized prices and roughly equal to gasoline’s import cost). In addition, the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) intends to launch a five-year refinery upgrade and expansion plan, aimed at raising throughput to 2.9 mb/d from the current 1.6 mb/d.

Ahmadinejad Says Nuclear Work Nearing "Peak"

Iran's President Says Nuclear Work Nearing "Peak"
By REUTERS
May 24, 2007

Iran's nuclear work is nearing a ``peak,'' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, while the U.N. atomic watchdog chief said Tehran was probably at least three years from making atom bombs even if it chose to do so.

Ahmadinejad dismissed Western pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear drive. ``With God's help the path to completely enjoying all nuclear capacity is near its end and we are close to the peak,'' he told a rally in the central town of Isfahan.

``The Iranian nation today has industrial nuclear technology and ... it will never retreat even one step from this path.''Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, as the West suspects, saying its program aims purely to generate electricity.

Underlining what he called the growing risk of a major confrontation between the West and Iran, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei appealed for the two sides to restart negotiations on a compromise as soon as possible.

``I tend, based on our analysis, to agree with people like John Negroponte and the new director of the CIA, who are saying that even if Iran wanted to go for a nuclear weapon, it would not be before the end of this decade or sometime in the middle of the next decade. In other words three to eight years from now,'' ElBaradei told a news conference in Luxembourg.

``Iran needs to suspend its enrichment activities as a confidence-building measure but the international community should do its utmost to engage Iran in comprehensive dialogue,'' he told a conference on nuclear non-proliferation.

In a report on Wednesday, the IAEA said Iran was making substantial advances in uranium enrichment, but repeated there was no evidence it was trying to ``weaponise'' nuclear material. Several months ago, ElBaradei predicted Iran was four to eight years away from being able to produce an atom bomb.

U.S. President George W. Bush said Washington would work with European, Russian and Chinese leaders to impose a third, stronger round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.

``The first thing these leaders have got to understand is that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing for the world. It's in their interests that we work collaboratively to continue to isolate that regime.''

CAUTIOUS ON SANCTIONS

Asked at a news conference whether he felt more stringent sanctions should now be discussed, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need for more diplomacy.

``We shall work in cooperation with our partners, as we have always done in the past, not to prevent Iran from developing modern technology but to prevent it from creating a nuclear weapon,'' he said in Luxembourg.

Big powers last year offered Iran trade, technical and other incentives if it stopped enriching uranium first. But Iran refused that precondition and talks were called off before the U.N. Security Council imposed
a first set of sanctions.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is assessing the scope for returning to negotiations. He is expected to meet Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Madrid late next week.

But ElBaradei voiced concern Tehran was moving toward confrontation with the world by speeding up its nuclear work. He said his priority was a compromise capping Iranian enrichment short of ``industrial-scale'' to minimize the risk of bombmaking.

He has angered Western powers by saying, in published remarks, that their strategy of insisting on no enrichment at all to prevent Iran gaining nuclear knowledge had been ''overtaken by events'' since Tehran could already refine uranium.

Diplomats said the U.S., British and French ambassadors to the IAEA planned to meet ElBaradei in his Vienna office on Friday to deliver a ``demarche'' over his remarks, which they saw as questioning Security Council strategy.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said ElBaradei was not trying to undermine the Security Council or United States.

``He's just asking these leaders to deal with reality. He is pleading for direct dialogue, between the U.S. and Iran in particular, to resolve the situation now ... instead of posturing while the number of (enrichment) centrifuges goes up.''

Pletka

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.26209/pub_detail.asp

Klare On Naval Maneuvers

By Michael T. Klare

May 3, 2007

Today, the Nimitz is rapidly approaching the Persian Gulf, where it will join two other U.S. aircraft carriers and the French carrier Charles De Gaulle in the largest concentration of naval firepower in the region since the launching of the U.S. invasion of Iraq four years ago.

Why this concentration now? Officially, the Nimitz is on its way to the Gulf to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is due to return to the United States for crew leave and ship maintenance after months on station. But the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), which exercises command authority over all U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf area, refuses to say when the Eisenhower will actually depart -- or even when the Nimitz will arrive.

For a time, at least, the United States will have three carrier battle groups in the region. The USS John C. Stennis is the third. Each carrier is accompanied by a small flotilla of cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and support vessels, many equipped with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAMs). Minimally, this gives modern meaning to the classic imperial term "gunboat diplomacy," which makes it all the stranger that the deployment of the Nimitz is covered in our media, if at all, as the most minor of news stories. And when the Nimitz sailed off into the Pacific last month on its way to the Gulf, it simply disappeared off media radar screens like some classic "lost patrol."

http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/tomdispatch/klare_constantino_nimitz.html

Klare Predicts War with Iran

Three Charges in the Case for War
By Michael T. Klare
March 2007

Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur -- let it be so! -- but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=169271

Background

Known as Persia until 1935, Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979 after the ruling monarchy was overthrown and the shah was forced into exile. Conservative clerical forces established a theocratic system of government with ultimate political authority vested in a learned religious scholar referred to commonly as the Supreme Leader who, according to the constitution, is accountable only to the Assembly of Experts. Iranian-US relations have been strained since a group of Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979 and held it until 20 January 1981. During 1980-88, Iran fought a bloody, indecisive war with Iraq that eventually expanded into the Persian Gulf and led to clashes between US Navy and Iranian military forces between 1987 and 1988. Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism for its activities in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world and remains subject to US economic sanctions and export controls because of its continued involvement. Following the election of the reformist Hojjat ol-Eslam Mohammad KHATAMI as president in 1997 and similarly a reformist Majles (parliament) in 2000, a campaign to foster political reform in response to popular dissatisfaction was initiated. The movement floundered as conservative politicians prevented reform measures from being enacted, increased repressive measures, and made electoral gains against reformers. Starting with nationwide municipal elections in 2003 and continuing through Majles elections in 2004, conservatives reestablished control over Iran's elected government institutions, which culminated with the August 2005 inauguration of an ultra-conservative layman as president.