The Israeli air raids on Hamas’s infrastructure along with troop movements around Gaza’s enclave and the shelling of Israel by the jihadist organization are both troubling developments in the Middle East but they are certainly neither new nor surprising. Dramatic images of bloody Palestinian civilians fleeing from attacks and pictures of Israelis rushing to the shelters while under fire will always bring chills to observers and depress the entire international community.
Sadly, it’s hardly the first time we’ve seen these images and tragically seven years after 9/11 they seem to connect with similar bloodshed in Mosul, Kabul and Mumbai. Even if both sides in the current Gaza conflict insist that their confrontation is at the center of the world, in reality it isn’t anymore. Car bombs and missiles in Beirut, Baghdad and Islamabad are all horrifying. There is no “top horror” anymore, even in the never- ending cycle of Gaza’s turmoil. It has all become part of the so-called “War on Terror” even though the Palestinian-Israeli quarrel is a conflict all its own. Still, why is this escalation so dramatic, why did it happen, who triggered it at this particular moment and what can we expect going forward? It’s too grandiose to claim that anyone has all the answers, but here is my take.
A Deadlock in the Peace Process
After decades of unstoppable enmity, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization struck a deal in 1993 under the sponsorship of the United States: The Oslo Agreements. The two parties at the negotiations continued to complain about difficulties in the final stage but nevertheless moved forward in implementing piece after piece. A Palestinian Authority (PA) was established and funded by the West to become the partner in Peace of the state of Israel, as a first stage of Palestinian statehood. But by the mid-90s, the Syrian-Iranian “axis” armed and funded Hamas and other jihadi organizations to “sink” the process.
Wahabi quarters joined in funding the rejectionist forces. The equation was simple: Hamas attacks Israel, causing a collapse in the negotiation process; Israelis and Palestinians blame each other; suicide bombings blast inside the Jewish state triggering air raids on the Palestinian territories. The history of the past 17 years is one of obstruction toward any attempt to reach a final agreement between the two parties and one of efforts by the United States, Europe and the rest of the international community to push the process forward. In short, it’s a struggle between the fledgling peace process and an Iranian strategy designed to destroy it. Everything else is just a facet of this image, but the Iranian-imposed deadlock is the root cause for all frustrations, failures and bloodshed on both sides.
The Gaza Blockage
Despite the barrage by the “Iranian axis” via Hamas and Hezbollah against the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, which escalated even further after 9/11 and the Iraq US campaign, still small steps were achieved between Israeli Governments and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Authority. By 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and the Palestinian Authority was closer to statehood than ever. But Hamas, which won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 thanks to massive Iranian support and its armed omnipresence, refused to follow the course of the Camp David process. According to its ideologues and leaders, and unlike Arafat and Abbas, the radical group “cannot” recognize the existence of the state of Israel. Perfectly in line with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad’s stance on the “Jewish state,” Hamas is not simply another part of the Palestinian national movement (as many asserts) but is a Jihadist organization with a clear ideological goal: Establishing an “emirate” in Palestine — not a secular Palestinian state — similar to what Al Qaeda wants to establish worldwide — but with a much better international reputation.
Soon enough Hamas and Abbas’s Presidency clashed over the future of the Palestinian people. Hamas (per its Iranian and ideological commitments) wanted an endless “Jihad” against the pre-1967 Israel while the PA was moving forward towards the two-state solution. In June 2007, Hamas executed a bloody coup d’état in Gaza: Hundreds of Fatah members and other opponents were eliminated and tortured. A Hamas “regime” was established in the enclave. As I wrote then, “two Palestines” emerged: The Iranian-supported entity in the south and the embattled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Since that coup, Gaza’s forces blocked the process while the rest of the Palestinian territories moved slowly to normalization. As of this fall, for example, the number of tourists spending time in Bethlehem and other Palestinian Authority locations has reached the highest azimuths. One Palestine in the West Bank was slowly rising while another Palestine in Gaza was sinking rapidly. Meanwhile, Israel imposed a blockage on Gaza. Hence Hamas had to act to avoid a rotting process. Last week, the Islamist militant movement ended the cease fire, which obviously triggered this war.
Gaza on the Arab Map
Viewers and readers in the West have been overwhelmed since the Israeli air strikes began with footage and pictures from the so- called “Arab street.” This term was coined by regimes and ideologues in the Middle East to claim that the “region” as a whole has one voice, one set of feelings and one direction when it comes to the Arab Israeli conflict and all issues related to the “Umma” (Arab or Islamic nation). In fact the “street” in mostly non-Democratic societies reflects the desired agenda of either radical regimes or ideologues. Hence getting a real grasp on reality in the region is more subtle. When it comes to the public attitudes regarding any Israeli action in the region, there is a strong ideological force which will always drive all governments, regimes, political parties to be against the Jewish state, regardless of the context. That is a fact. But below the ideological level, there is a divided Arab map regarding Gaza. While Syria, Sudan, Hezbollah, the Wahabis, Qatar and also the (non-Arab) Iranian regime support Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, most of the Gulf States are nervous about Iran’s influence in Gaza. More importantly the Palestinian civil war initiated by Hamas against Fatah in June 2007 is still on. President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority wants to resume peace negotiations but cannot confront Hamas head on. In short Arab governments are simply unable to solve the issue at this point.
Israel’s Options
From Israel’s perspective, the room for maneuvering is very tight. Hamas is a direct ally of Iran and strategic decisions by the jihadi group are made in Tehran. The Israelis seem to have decided to respond to the Hamas challenge now before their own elections and before the Palestinians also go to the polls and especially during the transition period in the United States. It looks like Israel has three options: Pursuing an air bombardment before reaching a cease fire; engaging limited ground troops at the edges of Gaza to alter the capacity of Hamas in shelling Israel; or going for a full-fledged incursion inside the enclave. The bottom line: Once Israel begins the operation they can’t return to the status quo. With this in mind, the minimal goal for Israel seems to be a Lebanon-like arrangement with a UN Security Council resolution separating the forces and freezing violence or a UN sponsored security deployment in Gaza to change the military landscape and bring about civil peace and stability. We will know more in the next days and weeks.
Iran’s Gaza Battlefield
The big picture is obvious. The current conflict is not really about the classic Arab-Israeli process, which can resume between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League anytime it is not obstructed. The Gaza fight is about Iran’s confrontation with Israel, and perhaps with the U.S. globally. A global strategic reading leads us to conclude that — just as we saw in Lebanon in 2006 -Tehran is pulling the strings and very smartly. Timing the Hamas end to the cease fire between two American presidencies in Washington and just before the Israeli and Palestinian elections, the Mullahs thought they would drag Israel into the Gaza battle on an Iranian timetable, triggering a “street” show of anger, boosted by the jihadi propaganda machine in the region with all the usual ramifications in the West. The astute Iranian move is to drag Israel enough into Gaza’s mud to indict it internationally so that any future Israeli strikes at Iran’s nuclear program will be seen as catastrophic. Tehran is calculating the minutia hoping Hamas will win at the end of the day, and that the Obama administration will begin its “talks” with Iran from an inferior position (since Israel will be blamed for the violence not the jihadists in Gaza). But the game has lots of risks, including the possibility that Hamas may lose its ability to be a military event maker after this campaign is over.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Life Inside Apple by Chuq von Rospach
Even two years after I left Apple, I still feel like I celebrate two Christmases: the one I celebrate with my family, and the one in January that we celebrate when Steve Jobs gets up on stage and says: "I have a few things to show you today that I think you'll really like."
When I worked there, the MacWorld speech was always the point at which most of us stopped work and gathered around the screens – there was always a big gathering and a special screen in the restaurant. Work would stop for a while as everyone enjoyed the surprise. And for most of us it was a surprise; only for those in the small teams working on, say, the iPhone or the new release of Apple's office suite iWork would know precisely what was coming; and even they didn't know what the other teams had. And afterwards people talk about it for days; and the staff discount means that there are plenty of orders right after the speech ends.
Only, of course, this year it won't be Steve. It'll be Phil Schiller, Apple's own Vice President of Demos, as we liked to call him, because he'd always be the second guy who'd come out to help Steve out.
I'll still tune in with great anticipation, and while people are already predicting there will be no major announcements, I'm not so sure. Instead, I think this is the first step in proving to the Apple community (and investors) that while Steve's vision is important to Apple, Apple is not Steve, and Apple will not disappear when Steve retires from the company – which he is going to do, sooner or later.
Lots of people are making noise about this change, because they find change unsettling – but Apple's history shows that these kind of changes are common, and once people settle in and get used to the changes, they generally find they had nothing to worry about and that the new Apple is pretty good. We'll probably look back to this event in a couple of years and wonder why we were so worried, too.
The fact is, MacWorld causes all sorts of problems for Apple's workers, and is an expensive proposition for the company to be ready for. It usually meant a bunch of people had to work through the Christmas break to make deadlines, and then get compensatory time later. It's terribly timed to Apple's sales cycle: right after the holiday buying season. Who really wants to announce new stuff then? It tended to force products out on a schedule Apple couldn't affect, so sometimes products missed the deadlines and had to wait for another opportunity like WWDC, or it was pushed out the door early. Early on, Apple needed Macworld and the hype to generate interest and excitement, but it's been pulling back from it for about five years, moving introductions to other venues or to special events – or in many cases, just issuing press releases.
The hype machine was part of the plan to get people interested in Apple again, back when Steve needed to save the company, but today, the need for flexibility in releasing things outweighs the advantage of the large stage Macworld presents Apple.
Apple has proven it can create its own events when it needs them, too, which limits the need to continue supporting and being part of Macworld. Why is Apple pulling out now? The budget was probably the last nail in the coffin, but this one's been in the shop for years, being built for when it was needed.
So it's going to change. But that's life at, and with, Apple. Most people don't know what to think when they find out I spent 17 years at Apple; in a time and an industry where job longevity sometimes seems counted in hours, spending that much time with one company seems almost impossible. When I'm asked how I stayed that long, the only honest answer I can come up with is "one day at a time".
I went to work for Apple in February of 1989 for simple reasons: I loved the technology. It was a company that I felt could make a difference and improve society, and I wanted a chance to help make those changes. I think it's safe to say that most people who go to work for Apple go for similar reasons; Apple is a rare breed of company, one not afraid to try to improve the world around it. It is constantly reinventing itself – five years ago, it was a computer company; today, it's a consumer products company that also makes computers.
When I joined, John Sculley was CEO and the Macintosh II was the state of the art. Few people had heard of the internet, and nobody had URLs or web pages, because they weren't invented until years later. Music came on CDs, videos came on VHS tapes, and the mobile phone was big, expensive and along with pagers more a sign of corporate servitude. Cable systems may have had 15, 20 channels. Your VCR probably had a clock flashing 12:00.
When I left, Steve Jobs was in charge and the Macbook Pro was the best of the best, the iPod was a global success and Apple was reshaping the music industry (much to that industry's dismay).
Life there wasn't always fun. Apple had its problems. I rode the rollercoaster through four different layoffs, and was laid off once in the summer of 1993 – but talked them out of it. I've never regretted that decision, even though I left a stack of money on the table to stay with a company whose future wasn't certain at the time. Why? Because I still believed Apple was worth fighting for.
I came to Apple to work on its Unix products – at the time, a version of Unix called A/UX. I spent the first half of my time there working with a wide array of things, mostly enterprise products – A/UX, Data Access Language, AppleShare, AppleSearch, 3270 and Token Ring. Other than Unix, most of the products were at best marginal successes and generally soon cancelled. AppleSearch was by far my favorite – a technology to help you find content on your server. You may have heard of its grandson, called Spotlight, standard since April 2005 on Mac OS X. Ten years? That's a pretty long gestation for a feature.
AppleSearch was considered an enterprise product, with an enterprise pricetag, and a hardware requirement a generation or so ahead of the computers Apple sold at the time. This was actually a common problem with Apple products during the bad years: really great ideas a bit ahead of the hardware or the market's ability to understand them. Many of the ideas, such as AppleSearch, got recycled later.
I also built and managed things designed to help Apple communicate with its users, or to help users communicate with each other – some of Apple's first websites, Apple's first public mailing list server, Apple's first web forums, used for communicating with beta testers of various products. The list server eventually grew into lists.apple.com, the key communication tool for Apple developers. The forums were the model for what became the Applecare support forums; the goal for these systems to act as a way for users to support each other.
The biggest criticism of the forums is the strong moderation (some would say censorship). I can see both sides of this argument – inside Apple, I always lobbied for more discussion, more disclosure, more transparency. That's not always compatible with Steve's focus on controlling the message. When Steve was fighting to restructure the company and keep it relevant, that control really was necessary. Today, I believe it hurts more than it helps, but there are signs that Apple is slowly opening up and starting to move in these directions. Don't expect Steve ever to blog, though. But maybe his successor will.
My not-so-covert goal was always to find ways to make it easier for Apple and customers to communicate with each other. I spent a lot of time and energy talking to whoever would listen about how Apple could use blogging and other communication techniques to reach out to users.
That kind of informal communication just isn't in Apple's DNA, and won't be as long as Steve is in charge. If you look at how Apple's done, it's hard to argue it's wrong, too. Still, I have hope that some day, this will change and Apple will open up further.
I built a number of custom email systems for Apple. If you get an email from Apple, it probably passed through a system that at one point I built or managed. Those tools have allowed Apple to rethink how it markets its products and how it communicates with its users – they bring the customer and Apple closer together. To me, that's my best accomplishment. It doesn't hurt that these systems have saved a huge number of trees from being pulped into paper along the way.
But Apple doesn't always get it right. Remember the launch of MobileMe in June 2008? It was that rare reminder that Apple could, in fact, royally screw up. When Apple released it, it simply wasn't ready. Early users, myself included, suffered from committing to it before it was ready, and the Mac faithful had a field day complaining about it (legitimately) and using it to declare everything from the upcoming death of Apple to the impending nova of the sun and loss of all life in the solar system.
Not that it wouldn't have felt like that internally. To people who wondered how what the atmosphere would be like inside 1 Infinite Loop, I said: "Just imagine Steve Jobs wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people 'do you work on MobileMe?'"
I never had Steve's flamethrower aimed at me, although I came close a couple of times; all in all, I was close to getting my butt fired three times – and all three times, I probably would have deserved it. I do know friends who did. It wasn't always pleasant – but one thing I give Steve credit for is he held himself to the same high standards he held those around him. He is a perfectionist, and that's what makes him successful and what made Apple succeed. But that kind of perfectionism isn't easy, and isn't done with gentle criticism.
Apple is a place where you work hard, but you get rewarded, and you help create things that are special. I found being part of something that was able and willing to fight to change society a real adrenalin rush. Seeing people react to what we did was even more of one.
In the end, I left to look for new challenges. Even so: would I recommend people work for Apple? Absolutely, if you get the chance. Think about the things that Apple innovation has fostered, from the mouse and the graphical user interface we all take for granted today, all the way to the iPod and the iTunes store and the revolution of music into an online, electronic industry. And the iPhone, which is revolutionising how society works with data while on the move: I can do things with my iPhone that were difficult on a desktop machine five years ago, and were inconceivable in any way 10 years ago. How awesome is that?
Which is why I'll even be watching Phil Schiller on Monday – just as I know hundreds of Apple staff will be too. If Apple keeps turning out the kind of products it's become known for, I'll keep buying them. And if the circumstances were right, I'd go back and do it again. So would most of the ex-Apple people I know. After all, how many companies will you work for that give you an opportunity to be part of something that fundamentally changes society?
When I worked there, the MacWorld speech was always the point at which most of us stopped work and gathered around the screens – there was always a big gathering and a special screen in the restaurant. Work would stop for a while as everyone enjoyed the surprise. And for most of us it was a surprise; only for those in the small teams working on, say, the iPhone or the new release of Apple's office suite iWork would know precisely what was coming; and even they didn't know what the other teams had. And afterwards people talk about it for days; and the staff discount means that there are plenty of orders right after the speech ends.
Only, of course, this year it won't be Steve. It'll be Phil Schiller, Apple's own Vice President of Demos, as we liked to call him, because he'd always be the second guy who'd come out to help Steve out.
I'll still tune in with great anticipation, and while people are already predicting there will be no major announcements, I'm not so sure. Instead, I think this is the first step in proving to the Apple community (and investors) that while Steve's vision is important to Apple, Apple is not Steve, and Apple will not disappear when Steve retires from the company – which he is going to do, sooner or later.
Lots of people are making noise about this change, because they find change unsettling – but Apple's history shows that these kind of changes are common, and once people settle in and get used to the changes, they generally find they had nothing to worry about and that the new Apple is pretty good. We'll probably look back to this event in a couple of years and wonder why we were so worried, too.
The fact is, MacWorld causes all sorts of problems for Apple's workers, and is an expensive proposition for the company to be ready for. It usually meant a bunch of people had to work through the Christmas break to make deadlines, and then get compensatory time later. It's terribly timed to Apple's sales cycle: right after the holiday buying season. Who really wants to announce new stuff then? It tended to force products out on a schedule Apple couldn't affect, so sometimes products missed the deadlines and had to wait for another opportunity like WWDC, or it was pushed out the door early. Early on, Apple needed Macworld and the hype to generate interest and excitement, but it's been pulling back from it for about five years, moving introductions to other venues or to special events – or in many cases, just issuing press releases.
The hype machine was part of the plan to get people interested in Apple again, back when Steve needed to save the company, but today, the need for flexibility in releasing things outweighs the advantage of the large stage Macworld presents Apple.
Apple has proven it can create its own events when it needs them, too, which limits the need to continue supporting and being part of Macworld. Why is Apple pulling out now? The budget was probably the last nail in the coffin, but this one's been in the shop for years, being built for when it was needed.
So it's going to change. But that's life at, and with, Apple. Most people don't know what to think when they find out I spent 17 years at Apple; in a time and an industry where job longevity sometimes seems counted in hours, spending that much time with one company seems almost impossible. When I'm asked how I stayed that long, the only honest answer I can come up with is "one day at a time".
I went to work for Apple in February of 1989 for simple reasons: I loved the technology. It was a company that I felt could make a difference and improve society, and I wanted a chance to help make those changes. I think it's safe to say that most people who go to work for Apple go for similar reasons; Apple is a rare breed of company, one not afraid to try to improve the world around it. It is constantly reinventing itself – five years ago, it was a computer company; today, it's a consumer products company that also makes computers.
When I joined, John Sculley was CEO and the Macintosh II was the state of the art. Few people had heard of the internet, and nobody had URLs or web pages, because they weren't invented until years later. Music came on CDs, videos came on VHS tapes, and the mobile phone was big, expensive and along with pagers more a sign of corporate servitude. Cable systems may have had 15, 20 channels. Your VCR probably had a clock flashing 12:00.
When I left, Steve Jobs was in charge and the Macbook Pro was the best of the best, the iPod was a global success and Apple was reshaping the music industry (much to that industry's dismay).
Life there wasn't always fun. Apple had its problems. I rode the rollercoaster through four different layoffs, and was laid off once in the summer of 1993 – but talked them out of it. I've never regretted that decision, even though I left a stack of money on the table to stay with a company whose future wasn't certain at the time. Why? Because I still believed Apple was worth fighting for.
I came to Apple to work on its Unix products – at the time, a version of Unix called A/UX. I spent the first half of my time there working with a wide array of things, mostly enterprise products – A/UX, Data Access Language, AppleShare, AppleSearch, 3270 and Token Ring. Other than Unix, most of the products were at best marginal successes and generally soon cancelled. AppleSearch was by far my favorite – a technology to help you find content on your server. You may have heard of its grandson, called Spotlight, standard since April 2005 on Mac OS X. Ten years? That's a pretty long gestation for a feature.
AppleSearch was considered an enterprise product, with an enterprise pricetag, and a hardware requirement a generation or so ahead of the computers Apple sold at the time. This was actually a common problem with Apple products during the bad years: really great ideas a bit ahead of the hardware or the market's ability to understand them. Many of the ideas, such as AppleSearch, got recycled later.
I also built and managed things designed to help Apple communicate with its users, or to help users communicate with each other – some of Apple's first websites, Apple's first public mailing list server, Apple's first web forums, used for communicating with beta testers of various products. The list server eventually grew into lists.apple.com, the key communication tool for Apple developers. The forums were the model for what became the Applecare support forums; the goal for these systems to act as a way for users to support each other.
The biggest criticism of the forums is the strong moderation (some would say censorship). I can see both sides of this argument – inside Apple, I always lobbied for more discussion, more disclosure, more transparency. That's not always compatible with Steve's focus on controlling the message. When Steve was fighting to restructure the company and keep it relevant, that control really was necessary. Today, I believe it hurts more than it helps, but there are signs that Apple is slowly opening up and starting to move in these directions. Don't expect Steve ever to blog, though. But maybe his successor will.
My not-so-covert goal was always to find ways to make it easier for Apple and customers to communicate with each other. I spent a lot of time and energy talking to whoever would listen about how Apple could use blogging and other communication techniques to reach out to users.
That kind of informal communication just isn't in Apple's DNA, and won't be as long as Steve is in charge. If you look at how Apple's done, it's hard to argue it's wrong, too. Still, I have hope that some day, this will change and Apple will open up further.
I built a number of custom email systems for Apple. If you get an email from Apple, it probably passed through a system that at one point I built or managed. Those tools have allowed Apple to rethink how it markets its products and how it communicates with its users – they bring the customer and Apple closer together. To me, that's my best accomplishment. It doesn't hurt that these systems have saved a huge number of trees from being pulped into paper along the way.
But Apple doesn't always get it right. Remember the launch of MobileMe in June 2008? It was that rare reminder that Apple could, in fact, royally screw up. When Apple released it, it simply wasn't ready. Early users, myself included, suffered from committing to it before it was ready, and the Mac faithful had a field day complaining about it (legitimately) and using it to declare everything from the upcoming death of Apple to the impending nova of the sun and loss of all life in the solar system.
Not that it wouldn't have felt like that internally. To people who wondered how what the atmosphere would be like inside 1 Infinite Loop, I said: "Just imagine Steve Jobs wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people 'do you work on MobileMe?'"
I never had Steve's flamethrower aimed at me, although I came close a couple of times; all in all, I was close to getting my butt fired three times – and all three times, I probably would have deserved it. I do know friends who did. It wasn't always pleasant – but one thing I give Steve credit for is he held himself to the same high standards he held those around him. He is a perfectionist, and that's what makes him successful and what made Apple succeed. But that kind of perfectionism isn't easy, and isn't done with gentle criticism.
Apple is a place where you work hard, but you get rewarded, and you help create things that are special. I found being part of something that was able and willing to fight to change society a real adrenalin rush. Seeing people react to what we did was even more of one.
In the end, I left to look for new challenges. Even so: would I recommend people work for Apple? Absolutely, if you get the chance. Think about the things that Apple innovation has fostered, from the mouse and the graphical user interface we all take for granted today, all the way to the iPod and the iTunes store and the revolution of music into an online, electronic industry. And the iPhone, which is revolutionising how society works with data while on the move: I can do things with my iPhone that were difficult on a desktop machine five years ago, and were inconceivable in any way 10 years ago. How awesome is that?
Which is why I'll even be watching Phil Schiller on Monday – just as I know hundreds of Apple staff will be too. If Apple keeps turning out the kind of products it's become known for, I'll keep buying them. And if the circumstances were right, I'd go back and do it again. So would most of the ex-Apple people I know. After all, how many companies will you work for that give you an opportunity to be part of something that fundamentally changes society?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
2009's Most Pressing International Issue: Iran by Olivier Guitta
While the recent focus of the world's media has been on the global economic crisis, another issue of major concern is looming: Iran and its nuclear program. The incoming U.S. administration of Barack Obama is going to have to tackle this issue in the first days of office. Indeed, even though it did not get much coverage, the French National Assembly issued an alarming report which assessed that Iran could get its first nuclear bomb between 2009 and 2010.
This assessment is the result of a one-year research where numerous experts were interviewed both in Iran and outside of Islamic Republic.
The president of the commission, Socialist MP Jean-Louis Bianco is certain that the Iranian nuclear program is military.
Said Bianco: "The Iranians have enriched 1,600 kilos of uranium but are unable to give an answer, to show a concrete project when one asks them about the advances of their civilian program. Why?"
The report also points out that Tehran got the plans of a nuclear bomb most likely through the Pakistani connection. Iranians have also developed a miniaturization program of the bomb. Bianco believes that the situation is "very worrisome" and that only negotiations without preconditions can solve this thorny matter.
One would love to believe this, but unfortunately it has been now almost seven years that the international community has been negotiating with Iran to no avail.
Not a single concrete result has come out of these endless talks and Iran's strategy to gain time has been quite successful.
Furthermore for diplomacy or sanctions to be effective, a united front is a must. And unfortunately so far the front has been quite fractured, to say the least. Two members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China, have been reluctant to impose tough sanctions on Tehran.
But they are not the only ones to blame for the weak pressure on Iran; some nations within the European Union have been also more than lenient with Tehran.
France has taken the lead in the EU on the Iranian issue. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner have been pretty blunt with Tehran.
Just a week ago, Sarkozy said regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "It is impossible for me to shake hands with someone who dared to say that Israel should be wiped off the map."
This is just an example of how terrible the relations between Paris and Tehran have become. Also each time Ahmadinejad goes on one of his anti-Israeli rants, France summons the Iranian ambassador in Paris to express its indignation.
But other European nations do not do so and France seems isolated in the EU. Another example of this isolation came when the Italian and German defense attaches attended a military fair in Iran while France had called for the EU to boycott it.
On the sanctions front, France has also been at the forefront of zealousness in forbidding French companies to pursue business opportunities in Iran. That cannot be said of other EU countries.
The situation is quite worrying, because one of Sarkozy's goals during the French presidency of the European Union - from Jul. 1 to Dec. 31, 2008 - was to work with his European colleagues to make Tehran feel the heat. But the final result has been a total failure.
This does not bode well for the European Union to adopt a tougher stance on Iran anytime soon; it looks that once again financial and commercial interests speak louder than doing the right thing.
In light of this, how can diplomacy or sanctions work?
The conclusion seems that except for very few countries, Iran's obtaining the nuclear weapon is a given and that the world is going to have to live with it.
But for Israel and many countries in the Gulf, this is not an option. Time is running out and options are too. The news that Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems to Iran seems to indicate that everyone in the region is getting ready for war.
This assessment is the result of a one-year research where numerous experts were interviewed both in Iran and outside of Islamic Republic.
The president of the commission, Socialist MP Jean-Louis Bianco is certain that the Iranian nuclear program is military.
Said Bianco: "The Iranians have enriched 1,600 kilos of uranium but are unable to give an answer, to show a concrete project when one asks them about the advances of their civilian program. Why?"
The report also points out that Tehran got the plans of a nuclear bomb most likely through the Pakistani connection. Iranians have also developed a miniaturization program of the bomb. Bianco believes that the situation is "very worrisome" and that only negotiations without preconditions can solve this thorny matter.
One would love to believe this, but unfortunately it has been now almost seven years that the international community has been negotiating with Iran to no avail.
Not a single concrete result has come out of these endless talks and Iran's strategy to gain time has been quite successful.
Furthermore for diplomacy or sanctions to be effective, a united front is a must. And unfortunately so far the front has been quite fractured, to say the least. Two members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China, have been reluctant to impose tough sanctions on Tehran.
But they are not the only ones to blame for the weak pressure on Iran; some nations within the European Union have been also more than lenient with Tehran.
France has taken the lead in the EU on the Iranian issue. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner have been pretty blunt with Tehran.
Just a week ago, Sarkozy said regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "It is impossible for me to shake hands with someone who dared to say that Israel should be wiped off the map."
This is just an example of how terrible the relations between Paris and Tehran have become. Also each time Ahmadinejad goes on one of his anti-Israeli rants, France summons the Iranian ambassador in Paris to express its indignation.
But other European nations do not do so and France seems isolated in the EU. Another example of this isolation came when the Italian and German defense attaches attended a military fair in Iran while France had called for the EU to boycott it.
On the sanctions front, France has also been at the forefront of zealousness in forbidding French companies to pursue business opportunities in Iran. That cannot be said of other EU countries.
The situation is quite worrying, because one of Sarkozy's goals during the French presidency of the European Union - from Jul. 1 to Dec. 31, 2008 - was to work with his European colleagues to make Tehran feel the heat. But the final result has been a total failure.
This does not bode well for the European Union to adopt a tougher stance on Iran anytime soon; it looks that once again financial and commercial interests speak louder than doing the right thing.
In light of this, how can diplomacy or sanctions work?
The conclusion seems that except for very few countries, Iran's obtaining the nuclear weapon is a given and that the world is going to have to live with it.
But for Israel and many countries in the Gulf, this is not an option. Time is running out and options are too. The news that Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems to Iran seems to indicate that everyone in the region is getting ready for war.
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