Iran, and new robots

27Jan09

In a move unlikely to endear Iran, the European Union formally agreed on  Monday to remove the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from a list of terrorist organizations.  The PMOI gained a degree of notoriety in 2002 when it outed Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. 

 

The EU decision on the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) followed a years-long legal row and Iran’s state radio immediately branded it an “irresponsible move”.    Foreign ministers of the 27-nation EU, which has unsuccessfully tried to persuade Iran to curb nuclear activities suspected as part of a bomb programme, approved the removal of the PMOI from a list of terror groups that includes Palestinian Hamas and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers.   The decision follows a number of EU court rulings against its seven-year inclusion on the blacklist.   “What we are doing today is abiding by the resolution of the European court,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the official leading diplomacy with Tehran, told reporters just before the ministers finalised the decision.

In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying removal of the ban amounted to encouragement of terrorism.   “It means becoming friends with terrorists,” the Students news agency quoted a ministry statement as saying. “Iran believes the European Union lacks legitimacy to fight against terrorists.”   The PMOI began as a leftist-Islamist opposition to the late Shah of Iran and has bases in Iraq.

Western analysts say its support is limited in Iran, which denies trying to make a nuclear bomb, because of its collaboration with Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. It remains banned in the United States.  Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the PMOI’s political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said the delisting was a “stinging defeat for Europe’s policy of appeasement” of Tehran and urged Washington to follow.

“The most important part of any change in policy by the new (U.S.) president … would be the removal of the terrorist label of the PMOI,” she said in a statement.  An NCRI spokesman said the PMOI had “tens of millions of dollars of assets, including $9 million in France” which have been frozen in Europe and to which it should now have access.

 

This short-sighted decision is likely to have negative consequences for continuing negotiations with Iran over its ongoing enrichment program.

 

Meanwhile, Susan Rice, President Obama’s ambassador to the UN, said that the US would deal direct with Iran, but also qualified her statement by insisting that Iran suspend uranium enrichment before negotiating on the nuclear program.  

 

“The dialogue and diplomacy must go hand in hand with a very firm message from the United States and the international community that Iran needs to meet its obligations as defined by the Security Council. And its continuing refusal to do so will only cause pressure to increase,” she told reporters during a brief question-and-answer session.   Her comments, reflecting Obama’s signals for improved relations with America’s foes after eight years under President George W. Bush, came shortly after meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on her first day in her new job.

I, robot

One of the most frightening interviews I have ever heard on the airwaves was Terry Gross’ Fresh Air (NPR) interview with the investigative journalist Peter Sanger, whose book on private military contractors, Corporate Warriors, remains the authoritative study on the international security industry.  Sanger’s new book, Wired for War, describes how the Pentagon is moving toward an entirely automated battlefield adapted for a new generation of Xbox-reared soldiers.  What is especially interesting about Sanger is he is one of the few authors who expands his reach to consider the legal and ethical implications of reducing a battlefield to non-human actors, noting that the recent Gaza war was a testbed for Israeli remote technology. 

One of the key issues rarely discussed by most, but contemplated by Sanger, is whether these new technologies may lead to greater ease by First World nations in interventionism since the human cost to the intervenor is reduced.  Likewise, he even touches on the fact that since much of this technology is being developed in the civilian market (and much can be purchased at places like Best Buy), insurrection movements can likewise avail themselves to much of this knowledge, for example, GPS.  It is one of those revelatory discussions akin to the ones we used to have on the roof of our freshman dorm.

The audio is here by following the link.

 

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