“Az enqelab mirisim be azadi!” “From Revolution we’ll get to Freedom!” A kid in the Internet cafe had, minutes earlier, made a clever pun, referring to today’s march from Revolution Square to Freedom Square. Saturday afternoon was to be a repeat of last Monday’s massed millions but after the most recent Friday Prayers and the supreme leader’s injunctions, the march had been called into doubt. Around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, there came word that another warning not to come had just been issued, that the regime’s “patience” had run out. The kid was putting on a strong, defiant face.

Standing outside, looking at this show of force, the kid’s bravura seems silly. So does mine. Power is about force and place. In Tehran it is quickly becoming about who can stand where and when.

Spooked, I walk away from the square and make my way home using an alternate route.

Back at my apartment, I realize that, like an idiot, I have left an opposition newspaper with notes scribbled all over it — in English, source material for these dispatches — in the Internet cafe. I return to retrieve it, taking back alleys.

I call a few folks along the way. Cellphones for some reason are working, perhaps so that people can tell each other not to go to the march. That is more or less the message I received from my friends. It’s becoming less and less worth it, they’re saying, only the fully committed to seeing this thing through will show and their numbers will no doubt be dwindling.

I reach the cafe. The paper is still there. I grab it and set out for home. I stiffen my spine, walk right into the circle, the newspaper curled up into my hand. I make a point of walking past a row of the officers waiting at one corner of the plaza. I need to do this. Some are bored, others are keeping themselves busy with stupid things. They help each other strap and tighten their helmets, one taps his fingers against the top of his plastic shield. I see that one or two of the guys have on fashionable glasses, vestiges of their other life.

As I pass, I look them in the eye. Iranians in general stare. This habit isn’t antagonistic. Fixed eye contact is a normal thing, part curiosity and partly a way to size up the person walking toward them. A friend observes that Iranians have been lied to so much the only device left to them for ascertaining truth is the zaher, or appearance. As with the ancient Greeks, the assumption is that the external reveals true character.

The cops look back at me with little interest.

I receive a very different response from the young basijis coming up the road. They show up after the police, in beige camo trucks traveling in convoy. Today, under daylight, they emerge from whatever hole it is they hide in, wearing uniforms to go with their oversize helmets. Think “Spaceballs.” In the back of each transport truck a large red flag is flapping.

When I fix my eyes on them, the look is deadly, menacing.

Basijis. The lesser cousin of the police, they are the more serious of the two. For the cops it’s a job, and so far at least their hearts don’t seem to be in it. For these basijis, it’s their reason to be. They bring an enthusiasm to their “work” that only an ardent hobbyist can. As a member of my family notes, this is their good time. They don’t screw, they don’t drink or smoke pot (bet you didn’t know that went on in Iran). What else are they going to do with all of that energy? For 360 days of the year basijis don’t do shit, but for the past week …

Ke chi bishe? What’s the point? It feels so unnecessary. Every rally has been peaceful, folks have really done their best, truly taken great care not to antagonize. They deserved better than this. Delam vaghan misooze. My heart aches …

And I am feeling isolated, and losing my nerve. I figure it’s all over, I give up.

The shit hits the fan

Saturday evening, not yet sunset. The little guy is cracking himself up silly. “Moo … ! Moo … ! Akharesh shod … Mousavi!” I sit in the front of the shared taxi ride. The small boy wraps his hands around my headrest and repeats the chant. “Moo … ! Moo … ! Akharesh shod … Mousavi!” Moo …! Moo …!” He’s saying, “At the end it became Mousavi!” His mom sitting in the back, her voice barely above a whisper, tells him, “Na azizam, aqasare agha ye Mousavi na shod.” No dear, at the end it did not.

The three of us, the adults in the car, grouse about everything that was happening. Ba zoor hamichi ra mikhand. Yemosh havoon. They want everything by force. Animals.

We are on Sattar Khan Street, heading south toward Tohid Square, or Unity Square. Tohid, formerly known as Kennedy, was once an up-and-coming neighborhood, a fashionable enclave for young and newly married couples to make their first move outside of their parents’ home. Duplex-style housing from the mid- and late 1970s still lines the street, the bottom floors of many now converted into offices and small shops. The area around Tohid is where the first fast-food joints opened up, some of the original pahtoghs, or hangouts. Though no longer unique in Tehran, on Thursday nights certain stretches and bends of Satter Khan above Tohid are full of cars filled with families. Tehran has elements of the American small town. For want of better options, diversions consist of cruising and hanging out at burger and ice cream joints late into the night. 

The traffic is horrific. No one is moving. Cars stop, engines turn off, people get out to see what is happening. There is dark smoke ahead. We can see at least two helicopters circling above. I see families gathered on the rooftops. Everyone is looking south toward the square. What has happened?

On the other side of the street comes a pack of protesters chanting. I didn’t expect this. I was wrong. It is not over: “Marq bar diktator! Marq bar diktator!” Unable to move, the vehicles have effectively become the fixed seats of a street theater. With nowhere to go, drivers and their passengers get out. They stand up on the edge of their doors to take pictures with their mobile phones.

One of the marchers points across at us, her face screwed up in anger and frustration: “Hemayat, hemayat, Iraniane BIGHEIRAT!” Help, help, Iranians WITHOUT honor!

What’s going on ahead? Why aren’t we moving? Motorists coming back the other way tell us that Tohid is on fire, they’ve burned Cinema Bahman. They tell us to turn back, turn back. Our taxi driver, a young man sporting a beard (“I just grew it out so that they won’t mess with me!”), pulls a classic Tehran move and wheels the old Iranian-made Paykon 180 degrees. He cuts into an alley. Maybe we can get to Tohid this way. He’s not the only one with this idea and as he pulls the car down toward the square we get stuck again. This time it’s worse.

It’s not looking good. Cars are backing up and we’re off the main road. Our driver gives up. “Sharmandam, I am deeply sorry, but I’ve got to go back home. Please, forget the fare, I’m so sorry.” The mom and her son get out, she tries to take his hand but he rushes forward between the cars, then stops. Karate stance.

Shit. I get out. Ahead I see a group of basijis. They are lined up against a wall, awaiting their orders. I notice that one holds a lead pipe at his side. The pipe is the length of his leg.

I decide to try to walk to Tohid. Can anyone help me? I ask the crowd for directions. I want to go to Vali Asr. “Go that way, but I don’t think that you’ll make it. Tohid is a mess, they say that they burned a 13-year-old girl.” I keep cutting south. Cars that have come off of the main road and into the warren of this neighborhood remain stuck, not moving. I weave my way through the grid, leaning into windows, asking here and there how things are from where they’ve come. Agha, in var shoolooq e? Sir, is it safe? The answer is always, “Yes.” I begin to worry. I don’t know this neighborhood, I don’t have anyone to take me in just in case, and it’s getting close to sunset. I have to laugh. It’s like a disaster and zombie movie all rolled up in one.

I continue to cut south toward Tohid. The black smoke coming from Satter Khan and the square grows thicker, continues to climb into the pale evening light. The neighborhood that I am in is faring no better. At a corner I see an incredible sight, two street battles raging perpendicular to each other. I stand at their juncture. In one direction, at least three fiery heaps stretch out straight down the middle of the street, there is smoke everywhere, and beyond the haze a crowd of men marches toward a line of armed and waiting basijis. At the top of the street is the burned and tinny carcass of a motorcycle, a basiji mount, its rider nowhere to be found.

To my left, at the end of the street, another group of young men face off against the paramilitaries. They show no fear, the chants come faster and faster.

I turn back. This is not going to work. I need to get back home.

Back on Satter Khan, now heading north, it only gets worse. It’s really an unbelievable scene. Every 50 to 100 meters there is a confrontation or a fire, people are chanting, they are defiant. And in between there are the cars, in both directions just sitting there, not moving, engines off. Everyone is out and watching. This has become an accidental march. Everyone, without planning to, has taken the side of protest.

What are they going to do with all of these people? What’s going to happen when the cops pour in? I wonder. These people can’t move. At bus stops I see citizens sitting on the benches and railings, either waiting for the bus or hanging around until the commotion passes. One old lady is peeling oranges and sharing with her husband and the others seeking refuge inside of the shelter. Car horns up and down the road are honking, nearly in unison, “doot-doot-de-doot-doot, doot-doot-de-doot-doot.” There is no letup.

Near Patrice Lumumba Street I stop to get something to drink. I’ve got several kilometers to go yet. Bottled water is out at all of the stores and kiosks. All that is left is Rani, a juice drink (with real but unnervingly way-too-big fruit chunks inside), and Delster, Iranian non-alcoholic beer. It’s quite a sight, people kicking back a few brews, watchin’ a riot, no worries at all …

A pedestrian asks me what is happening further down the road, using the alliterative phrasing that Iranians are so fond of: “Bezan bezan hast?” “Na, bekosh bekosh.” Is it hitting hitting going on? No, comes the answer from a man standing next to me, it’s killing killing. 

Across from a police substation, officers stand poised with their plastic shields in front of them, facing north. Rocks are being thrown at them, one by one, then two by two. The officers stand their ground. I am on the other side of the street, watching. Two young men turn the corner and walk toward me. They are both eating chocolate-glazed donuts. I tell them, “Bi khial, Wow, you two are really taking it easy!” One of them answers, “Come on man, gotta take care of the stomach first.”

The rocks now start to rain in by the dozen and the police run. They rush to their motorcycles and hop on, flying south. Protesters pour down the street, a full assault. One of the officers awkwardly throws rocks back at his tormentors. Unable to get off a good shot he wheels toward us and throws in our direction and I, the Donut Brothers, and about 20 other people run away, around the corner.

This is a glimpse of what is to come. The decision to prevent people from marching calmly and peacefully through the squares and main boulevards has thrown the action into the kuches and mahals of Tehran. It’s gone into the neighborhoods, the alleys and corners of where people permanently live, not the public squares and intersections that they occasionally pass through.

You have to understand the importance of the “kuche” or alley if you want to understand Tehran, especially now. Sar e kuche, too ye kuche, boro kuche — the beginning and end of everyday life happens in a kuche, the alley.

“Alley” as it is used here isn’t the same as what we might imagine in the U.S., the dark and dangerous spaces of a big city where bad things might happen. Back in the day, Tehran neighborhoods consisted primarily of single-family homes, many with a hayat, or yard, with a central hoz, or fountain (the film “Children of Heaven” is a good depiction of what I’m talking about). The buildings were close to each other and the kuche served as the shared ground between entrances. You had to walk down an alley to get home and the odds were that you would run into your neighbor along the way. Likewise, the alley provided a crude form of security. If someone had no business being there or was up to no good it would be immediately known.

Neighbors knew who belonged there. Neighborhoods were populated by men with colorful names: Behrooz Sibili (Moustache Behrooz), Ali Hezar Dawshi (Ali 10 Cents), Mahmad Damagh (Mahmad Nose), Jangir Khiki (Fat Jangir). Neighbors simultaneously spied on and looked after each other. A patriarchal code of honor, with all of its blessings and vices, held sway, and woe onto the young man who wandered into the neighborhood. Hava ye ham digar ra dashtand. While this code has dimmed considerably because of shifts in demographic and housing patterns — more and more people live away from their families in apartment towers –  the familiarity remains. Tehran, despite its size, remains an intimate big city, the reason being that the base of social life outside of the family remains the kuche. Even if they don’t personally know their neighbor nor care to, residents of a block will come to each other’s aid when threatened from without (read Asef Bayat’s important book “Street Politics” to see what I’m talking about).

The geography of Tehran’s urban life is going to play a big role in the coming days and months. Every time the police manage to squeeze down on protesters on the main road, the kids run sideways and backward into the crisscrossing alleys. It will be different now …

The walk home is many kilometers. Under a bridge a crowd is chanting. Half of a car is on fire and a host of people have gathered to watch. A fire truck shows up, the crowd hoots and whistles. They rush over and surround the truck. Do they want it to leave? Before I can figure it out the truck abandons the street.

It takes me two hours to get home. Along the way there is wonderment. Life goes on. I smell freshly sliced cucumber. A young boy sits on a storefront stoop and sees about the business of eating folded flatbread with feta and cucumber. Kids on bikes race each other. Three boys walk past me on the sidewalk with ping-pong paddles; they are coming back from the park (Tehran’s parks, like those of Paris, come equipped with ping pong tables). Satter Khan Park is filled with families and couples on blankets eating seeds and sharing tea. Many are enjoying traditional ice cream, Akbar Mashti made with pistachio and cardamom. There is a guy selling fish, a guy selling meat. Old men stand outside their fruit stand. The car wash under Satter Khan Bridge continues its business. A father and his daughter come plodding down the sidewalk, three grocery sacks hangs between them, cucumber, tomatoes, watermelons.

I finally make it to where I need to be. I spot a man selling DVDs. Iranians are notorious film buffs and before this ruckus began if you were to see a crowd gathered on the street in Tehran odds were they were buying up the latest Hollywood film, frequently while the picture was still in the theaters. I flip through the pile of plastic sleeves and choose “Night at the Museum, Part Two” and “Frost/Nixon.” How’s business in all of this haye hoo, I ask the man? Eh, it’s not bad, what can I say? Don’t you want to buy more, he asks me. No, this’ll do.

That night, with reports coming in of the newly dead and wounded, they sang “Allah Akbar” with renewed verve. “ALLAH u AKBAR!!!! ALLAH u AKBAR!!!!” The calls had never been louder. We sit in the kitchen and listen. A girl’s voice leads. Tonight she is without restraint. She doesn’t wait for the response. Voices heave, swinging back and forth, call and response.

Natarsin! Natarsin! Ma hame ba ham hastim! Don’t be scared! Don’t be scared! We are all in this together. 

This deal would have been a major diplomatic breakthrough. It would have greatly reduced Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon, defused tensions in the region, calmed the oil markets, driven prices at the pump down and made it impossible for Netanyahu to attack Iran. In a presidential campaign as tight as this one, a significant drop in gas prices could be the difference between Obama being reelected and Romney defeating him. So why didn’t the Obama administration take the deal?

The ostensible reason, piously mouthed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is that the U.S. believes that the upcoming, even harsher round of sanctions on Tehran will generate even further concessions. According to this line of reasoning, Iran only came to the bargaining table because of sanctions, and more sanctions will produce better results.

But this justification is transparently false. First, Iran has made it clear again and again that it will never allow itself to be seen as folding under U.S. pressure. It is prepared to negotiate, but successful diplomacy requires not just sticks but carrots. The carrot the P5+1 offered at Baghdad was ridiculous: If the Iranians agreed to suspend 20 percent enrichment, what they would receive in return was not a reduction in sanctions, but rather spare aircraft parts. For Tehran, accepting this deal would have been tantamount to surrendering. As Iranian analyst Hasan Abadini said, “Giving up 20 percent enrichment levels in return for plane spare parts is a joke.” These are not arcane diplomatic mysteries. As Iran expert Gary Sick pointed out in an interview on NPR, what it will take to reach a resolution of this issue is clearly understood by all the players involved. It is no more possible that the Iranians would have taken that deal than that the Palestinians would agree to establish their state in Jordan.

Second, Clinton’s argument that the Iranians will make more concessions begs the question: what concessions? The only remaining significant concession Iran could make would be to agree to give up enriching uranium altogether – and it has made it clear that it is never going to give up that right, which it is guaranteed as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Agreement. In an interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, former Iranian negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian made it clear that Iran would be prepared to give up 20 percent enrichment if its rights to enrich uranium were recognized.

All of this makes clear that the U.S. knew going into the negotiations that they were not going to succeed. The entire process was an elaborate ritual whose dual purpose was to inoculate President Obama against charges that he was “soft on Tehran” and to make it impossible for Netanyahu to go postal.

In fact, despite the conventional wisdom, it is extremely unlikely that the far-right Israeli leader will attack Iran. His constant threats to do so were the reason that Congress imposed the latest round of sanctions, against the Obama administration’s wishes. But despite Congress’s lockstep support for Netanyahu and anything he decides to do, up to and including an attack on Iran, it would be far too risky for Netanyahu to actually do it. The American people, unlike their bought-off, coerced and/or ideologically myopic political representatives, are sick of Middle East wars. Many, including increasing numbers of American Jews, are growing weary of Israeli intransigence and extremism. They’re also broke. An Israeli attack on Iran would draw in the U.S. and plunge the world into a depression – and the American people would hold Israel to account. Netanyahu may, as the former head of Israel’s spy service said, be “messianic,” but even he knows better than to jeopardize his country’s relationship with America. However, in order to manipulate America, it is essential that he constantly give the impression that he is about to attack Iran.

The Obama administration probably knows that Netanyahu is bluffing. But it has to play out this farce to placate Congress, keep pro-Israel Democrats writing checks, remove a Romney attack line and generally appear tough on Iran.

The irony is that the U.S. and Israel are always claiming that Iran uses negotiations over its nuclear program to play for time while it works feverishly to develop a bomb. But playing for time is precisely what the U.S. just did.

Obama is trying to run out the clock on Iran before the November election. He adroitly stalled the nuke-Iran hysteria that built up during the AIPAC conference in March, but he did so at a price, painting himself into a corner with tough rhetoric denying that containment of a nuclear Iran was an option and threatening to use military force. The negotiations in Baghdad had to fail in order for him to maintain that posture.

His strategy may work. He may stumble over the finish line in November, still dragging out negotiations. And he may overcome the serious headwind of high gas prices and beat Romney. But there is nothing good to be said about his weak and pandering approach. It will not stop the Iranian nuclear program, it is causing the Iranian people to suffer, and it hurts the average U.S. citizen. At bottom, it is an approach predicated not on achieving real progress in dealing with the Tehran regime but on overthrowing it. As such, it is antithetical to Obama’s proclaimed desire to reach out to Iran and to reset America’s relationship with the Middle East. In the long run, he will have to decide whether he really wants to continue a brinkmanship game that locks the U.S. into the self-defeating Middle East policies it pursued during the Bush years.

For the truth is that Obama’s Iran policy represents the last vestige of Bush-era neoconservative extremism. The moralistic, shrill, militaristic Manichean worldview that brought us the “Axis of Evil” and the Iraq war is gone – except when it comes to Iran.

Obama’s schizoid foreign policy – extreme and ideological on Iran, pragmatic and flexible everywhere else — was brought into sharp relief this week. Even as the Baghdad summit broke down, events elsewhere in the Middle East and South Asia demonstrated the utter failure of Bush’s approach – and provided a cautionary warning to Obama of the follies of continuing it with Iran.

Start with Iraq, where Bush’s nine-year-long military adventure is coming to an inglorious end. That unprovoked invasion was supposed to bring an end to an evil regime and transform the Middle East – the same reasons neocons now give for attacking Iran. It left an ethnically fractured, horribly wounded land in the grip of a strongman that is just now emerging from a nightmarish civil war and is still plagued by sectarian violence and terrorism. Our moral responsibility predates the war: America’s crippling pre-war sanctions devastated Iraq’s entire society, and they were one of the reasons why it was so difficult to rebuild it. Congressional proponents of sanctions against Iran should take note.

Then there’s Afghanistan, where after 11 agonizing years we have essentially given up. Afghanistan has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that even a superpower cannot always succeed in imposing its will, that cultural and anthropological differences are critical, and that trying to combine nation building and counterinsurgency in one of the most backward and impoverished places on Earth is a recipe for disaster. The best we can hope for now is that not too many more U.S. troops are shot dead by the Afghans they are training – and that the Taliban does not roll into Kabul the moment we roll out.

Next there’s Syria, where an appalling regime is locked in a brutal struggle with a murky opposition and where all the options are so bad that we have no choice but to remain on the sidelines.

Finally, there’s Egypt, where a nascent democracy is fighting to be born. Everything about this inspiring, painful and threatened revolution, culminating in this week’s elections, was generated by the Egyptian people themselves. America had nothing to do with it. Contrary to claims made by Bush apologists, the appalling example of Iraq was actually a disincentive to throw off Mubarak’s tyranny. As for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, that dire event so feared by neoconservatives and Islamophobes, they may turn out to be the stable, conservative, don’t-rock-the-boat party.

The lessons these different situations hold for our dealings with Iran are very simple. First, we have far less ability to control what happens in the Middle East than we think. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we tried to impose our will directly and failed. In the other two, we either do not have the ability to intervene (Egypt) or the risks of doing so would be too high (Syria). Second, none of these situations are susceptible to the kind of good-and-evil moralizing that characterized Bush’s approach to the Middle East. Individually they are incredibly complex, and as a whole they are even more complex. There is no simple way to approach any of them. Basing our policy toward them on a Manichaean, good guys vs. bad guys worldview is self-defeating. Bashir Assad is a bad guy, but if we sided with the rebels, we could unleash a civil war even more catastrophic than the one going on now. Some of the Salafis in Egypt may be planning to ban beer and abrogate the Camp David treaty, but if we tried to prevent them from taking power, we would be thwarting the will of those Egyptian people who want those outcomes. Nouri al-Maliki may be a sectarian thug, but the alternative could be worse. Hamid Karzai may be a corrupt, drug-addled charlatan, but he’s the guy who’s there.

And so on, down the list, from Pakistan to Hamas to Netanyahu to Libya. The real world, as opposed to the black-and-white world of the neocons, is all about complexity, grey areas, compromises, diplomacy, flexibility. It’s about accepting that America will have to deal with regimes that do not toe our line. It’s about realizing that our soft power is more effective than our military power. It’s about putting down the Big Stick and trying to actually listen to what the people in the region are saying. It’s the opposite of the Bush Doctrine.

Obama knows this, but the dead hand of neoconservative ideology still drives his Iran policy. Until he shakes it off and accepts that Iran is a regional power and must be dealt with realistically, even though it does not always share our interests, his Middle East policy will continue to resemble that of his predecessor.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict — all tied to energy supplies — that have made news in just the first few months of 2012:

* A brewing war between Sudan and South Sudan: On April 10th, forces from the newly independent state of South Sudan occupied the oil center of Heglig, a town granted to Sudan as part of a peace settlement that allowed the southerners to secede in 2011.  The northerners, based in Khartoum, then mobilized their own forces and drove the South Sudanese out of Heglig.  Fighting has since erupted all along the contested border between the two countries, accompanied by air strikes on towns in South Sudan.  Although the fighting has not yet reached the level of a full-scale war, international efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and a peaceful resolution to the dispute have yet to meet with success.

This conflict is being fueled by many factors, including economic disparities between the two Sudans and an abiding animosity between the southerners (who are mostly black Africans and Christians or animists) and the northerners (mostly Arabs and Muslims).  But oil — and the revenues produced by oil — remains at the heart of the matter.  When Sudan was divided in 2011, the most prolific oil fields wound up in the south, while the only pipeline capable of transporting the south’s oil to international markets (and thus generating revenue) remained in the hands of the northerners.  They have been demanding exceptionally high “transit fees” — $32-$36 per barrel compared to the common rate of $1 per barrel — for the privilege of bringing the South’s oil to market.  When the southerners refused to accept such rates, the northerners confiscated money they had already collected from the south’s oil exports, its only significant source of funds.  In response, the southerners stopped producing oil altogether and, it appears, launched their military action against the north.  The situation remains explosive.

* Naval clash in the South China Sea: On April 7th, a Philippine naval warship, the 378-foot Gregorio del Pilar, arrived at Scarborough Shoal, a small island in the South China Sea, and detained eight Chinese fishing boats anchored there, accusing them of illegal fishing activities in Filipino sovereign waters.  China promptly sent two naval vessels of its own to the area, claiming that the Gregorio del Pilar was harassing Chinese ships in Chinese, not Filipino waters.  The fishing boats were eventually allowed to depart without further incident and tensions have eased somewhat.  However, neither side has displayed any inclination to surrender its claim to the island, and both sides continue to deploy warships in the contested area.

As in Sudan, multiple factors are driving this clash, but energy is the dominant motive.  The South China Sea is thought to harbor large deposits of oil and natural gas, and all the countries that encircle it, including China and the Philippines, want to exploit these reserves.  Manila claims a 200-nautical mile “exclusive economic zone” stretching into the South China Sea from its western shores, an area it calls the West Philippine Sea; Filipino companies say they have found large natural gas reserves in this area and have announced plans to begin exploiting them.  Claiming the many small islands that dot the South China Sea (including Scarborough Shoal) as its own, Beijing has asserted sovereignty over the entire region, including the waters claimed by Manila; it, too, has announced plans to drill in the area.  Despite years of talks, no solution has yet been found to the dispute and further clashes are likely.

* Egypt cuts off the natural gas flow to Israel: On April 22nd, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company informed Israeli energy officials that they were “terminating the gas and purchase agreement” under which Egypt had been supplying gas to Israel.  This followed months of demonstrations in Cairo by the youthful protestors who succeeded in deposing autocrat Hosni Mubarak and are now seeking a more independent Egyptian foreign policy — one less beholden to the United States and Israel.  It also followed scores of attacks on the pipelines carrying the gas across the Negev Desert to Israel, which the Egyptian military has seemed powerless to prevent.

Ostensibly, the decision was taken in response to a dispute over Israeli payments for Egyptian gas, but all parties involved have interpreted it as part of a drive by Egypt’s new government to demonstrate greater distance from the ousted Mubarak regime and his (U.S.-encouraged) policy of cooperation with Israel.  The Egyptian-Israeli gas link was one of the most significant outcomes of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, and its annulment clearly signals a period of greater discord; it may also cause energy shortages in Israel, especially during peak summer demand periods.  On a larger scale, the cutoff suggests a new inclination to use energy (or its denial) as a form of political warfare and coercion.

* Argentina seizes YPF: On April 16th, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced that her government would seize a majority stake in YPF, the nation’s largest oil company.  Under President Kirchner’s plans, which she detailed on national television, the government would take a 51% controlling stake in YPF, which is now majority-owned by Spain’s largest corporation, the energy firm Repsol YPF.  The seizure of its Argentinean subsidiary is seen in Madrid (and other European capitals) as a major threat that must now be combated.  Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel García Margallo, said that Kirchner’s move “broke the climate of cordiality and friendship that presided over relations between Spain and Argentina.”  Several days later, in what is reported to be only the first of several retaliatory steps, Spain announced that it would stop importing biofuels from Argentina, its principal supplier — a trade worth nearly $1 billion a year to the Argentineans.
As in the other conflicts, this clash is driven by many urges, including a powerful strain of nationalism stretching back to the Peronist era, along with Kirchner’s apparent desire to boost her standing in the polls.  Just as important, however, is Argentina’s urge to derive greater economic and political benefit from its energy reserves, which include the world’s third-largest deposits of shale gas.  While long-term rival Brazil is gaining immense power and prestige from the development of its offshore “pre-salt” petroleum reserves, Argentina has seen its energy production languish.  Repsol may not be to blame for this, but many Argentineans evidently believe that, with YPF under government control, it will now be possible to accelerate development of the country’s energy endowment, possibly in collaboration with a more aggressive foreign partner like BP or ExxonMobil.

* Argentina re-ignites the Falklands crisis: At an April 15th-16th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia — the one at which U.S. Secret Service agents were caught fraternizing with prostitutes — Argentina sought fresh hemispheric condemnation of Britain’s continued occupation of the Falkland Islands (called Las Malvinas by the Argentineans).  It won strong support from every country present save (predictably) Canada and the United States.  Argentina, which says the islands are part of its sovereign territory, has been raising this issue ever since it lost a war over the Falklands in 1982, but has recently stepped up its campaign on several fronts — denouncing London in numerous international venues and preventing British cruise ships that visit the Falklands from docking in Argentinean harbors.  The British have responded by beefing up their military forces in the region and warning the Argentineans to avoid any rash moves.

When Argentina and the U.K. fought their war over the Falklands, little was at stake save national pride, the stature of the country’s respective leaders (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher vs. an unpopular military junta), and a few sparsely populated islands.  Since then, the stakes have risen immeasurably as a result of recent seismic surveys of the waters surrounding the islands that indicated the existence of massive deposits of oil and natural gas.  Several UK-based energy firms, including Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration, have begun off-shore drilling in the area and have reported promising discoveries.  Desperate to duplicate Brazil’s success in the development of offshore oil and gas, Argentina claims the discoveries lie in its sovereign territory and that the drilling there is illegal; the British, of course, insist that it’s their territory.  No one knows how this simmering potential crisis will unfold, but a replay of the 1982 war — this time over energy — is hardly out of the question.

* U.S. forces mobilize for war with Iran: Throughout the winter and early spring, it appeared that an armed clash of some sort pitting Iran against Israel and/or the United States was almost inevitable.  Neither side seemed prepared to back down on key demands, especially on Iran’s nuclear program, and any talk of a compromise solution was deemed unrealistic.  Today, however, the risk of war has diminished somewhat — at least through this election year in the U.S. — as talks have finally gotten under way between the major powers and Iran, and as both have adopted (slightly) more accommodating stances.  In addition, U.S. officials have been tamping down war talk and figures in the Israeli military and intelligence communities have spoken out against rash military actions.  However, the Iranians continue to enrich uranium, and leaders on all sides say they are fully prepared to employ force if the peace talks fail.

For the Iranians, this means blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which one-third of the world’s tradable oil passes every day.  The U.S., for its part, has insisted that it will keep the Strait open and, if necessary, eliminate Iranian nuclear capabilities.  Whether to intimidate Iran, prepare for the real thing, or possibly both, the U.S. has been building up its military capabilities in the Persian Gulf area, deploying two aircraft carrier battle groups in the neighborhood along with an assortment of air and amphibious-assault capabilities.

One can debate the extent to which Washington’s long-running feud with Iran is driven by oil, but there is no question that the current crisis bears heavily on global oil supply prospects, both through Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for forthcoming sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and the likelihood that any air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities will lead to the same thing.  Either way, the U.S. military would undoubtedly assume the lead role in destroying Iranian military capabilities and restoring oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the energy-driven crisis that just won’t go away.

How Energy Drives the World

All of these disputes have one thing in common: the conviction of ruling elites around the world that the possession of energy assets — especially oil and gas deposits — is essential to prop up national wealth, power, and prestige.

This is hardly a new phenomenon.  Early in the last century, Winston Churchill was perhaps the first prominent leader to appreciate the strategic importance of oil.  As First Lord of the Admiralty, he converted British warships from coal to oil and then persuaded the cabinet to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the forerunner of British Petroleum (now BP).  The pursuit of energy supplies for both industry and war-fighting played a major role in the diplomacy of the period between the World Wars, as well as in the strategic planning of the Axis powers during World War II.  It also explains America’s long-term drive to remain the dominant power in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the first Gulf War of 1990-91 and its inevitable sequel, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The years since World War II have seen a variety of changes in the energy industry, including a shift in many areas from private to state ownership of oil and natural gas reserves.  By and large, however, the industry has been able to deliver ever-increasing quantities of fuel to satisfy the ever-growing needs of a globalizing economy and an expanding, rapidly urbanizing world population.  So long as supplies were abundant and prices remained relatively affordable, energy consumers around the world, including most governments, were largely content with the existing system of collaboration among private and state-owned energy leviathans.

But that energy equation is changing ominously as the challenge of fueling the planet grows more difficult.  Many of the giant oil and gas fields that quenched the world’s energy thirst in years past are being depleted at a rapid pace.  The new fields being brought on line to take their place are, on average, smaller and harder to exploit.  Many of the most promising new sources of energy — like Brazil’s “pre-salt” petroleum reserves deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, Canadian tar sands, and American shale gas — require the utilization of sophisticated and costly technologies.  Though global energy supplies are continuing to grow, they are doing so at a slower pace than in the past and are continually falling short of demand.  All this adds to the upward pressure on prices, causing anxiety among countries lacking adequate domestic reserves (and joy among those with an abundance).

The world has long been bifurcated between energy-surplus and energy-deficit states, with the former deriving enormous political and economic advantages from their privileged condition and the latter struggling mightily to escape their subordinate position.  Now, that bifurcation is looking more like a chasm.  In such a global environment, friction and conflict over oil and gas reserves — leading to energy conflicts of all sorts — is only likely to increase.

Looking, again, at April’s six energy disputes, one can see clear evidence of these underlying forces in every case.  South Sudan is desperate to sell its oil in order to acquire the income needed to kick-start its economy; Sudan, on the other hand, resents the loss of oil revenues it controlled when the nation was still united, and appears no less determined to keep as much of the South’s oil money as it can for itself.  China and the Philippines both want the right to develop oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea, and even if the deposits around Scarborough Shoal prove meager, China is unwilling to back down in any localized dispute that might undermine its claim to sovereignty over the entire region.

Egypt, although not a major energy producer, clearly seeks to employ its oil and gas supplies for maximum political and economic advantage — an approach sure to be copied by other small and mid-sized suppliers.  Israel, heavily dependent on imports for its energy, must now turn elsewhere for vital supplies or accelerate the development of disputed, newly discovered offshore gas fields, a move that could provoke fresh conflict with Lebanon, which says they lie in its own territorial waters.  And Argentina, jealous of Brazil’s growing clout, appears determined to extract greater advantage from its own energy resources, even if this means inflaming tensions with Spain and Great Britain.

And these are just some of the countries involved in significant disputes over energy.  Any clash with Iran — whatever the motivation — is bound to jeopardize the petroleum supply of every oil-importing country, sparking a major international crisis with unforeseeable consequences.  China’s determination to control its offshore hydrocarbon reserves has pushed it into conflict with other countries with offshore claims in the South China Sea, and into a similar dispute with Japan in the East China Sea.  Energy-related disputes of this sort can also be found in the Caspian Sea and in globally warming, increasingly ice-free Arctic regions.

The seeds of energy conflicts and war sprouting in so many places simultaneously suggest that we are entering a new period in which key state actors will be more inclined to employ force — or the threat of force — to gain control over valuable deposits of oil and natural gas.  In other words, we’re now on a planet heading into energy overdrive.

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But the NYPD’s “covertly follow every single Muslim in the tri-state area” approach to counter-terrorism has its defenders. Like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who believes Americans Muslims have the right to worship wherever they see fit so long as they don’t pay any attention to the unmarked vans parked across the street.

And the department argues that it is allowed to carry out surveillance wherever it chooses, because there’s no law against just going around looking at things and taking some pictures, right? No, of course not, unless you look sort of Middle Eastern.

The NYPD earlier this week announced that they had totally caught some people who were almost definitely probably Iranian spies. These spies were caught red-handed spying all over the place!

Authorities have interviewed at least 13 people since 2005 with ties to Iran’s government who were seen taking pictures of New York City landmarks, a senior New York Police Department official said Wednesday.

The NYPD’s Mitchell Silber told Congress that Hezbollah and Iran definitely want to blow up New York, and the proof is three incidents of people “associated with the Iranian government” getting caught photographing things, in New York. (I am not much of a terrorist, but if you want pictures of New York City landmarks in order to figure out how best to blow them up why not try Flickr? There are hundreds of thousands of photos of every landmark in the city already online!)

While other so-called intelligence experts say ” there are no known or specific threats indicating Iranian plans to attack inside the U.S.,” Long Island-based Islamaphobe Republican Congressman Peter King and documented supporter of terrorism wants us all to be on high alert, because Hezbollah is everywhere:

Opening the hearing, King said, “We have a duty to prepare for the worst,” warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, “it must be presumed, are intelligence officers.”

Stop telling the NYPD not to spy on all the Muslims, everywhere! If they don’t keep tabs on all of them, the Iranians will get us!

Hadley was speaking at a panel at the University of Maryland, alongside former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski went further, saying that even if Iran did obtain nuclear weapons, it could be contained. According to Brzezinski, who was the top policymaker during the time of the Iran revolution and hostage crisis in 1979 and 1980, a nuclear Iran is something the world can live with. “Deterrence needs to be given a chance to work,” he said. “The Iranians are devious, but they are not suicidal.”

The panel was moderated by Shibley Telhami, a veteran pollster and scholar on the Middle East. Telhami released a poll finding that only one in four Americans favor Israel conducting a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Close to 70 percent favor the U.S. and other major powers continuing to pursue negotiations with Iran, a position that is supported by majorities of Republicans (58 percent), Democrats (79 percent) and Independents (67 percent). The poll, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, found only 14 percent of respondents said the U.S. should encourage Israel to strike Iran’s program. Steven Kull, director of PIPA, said, “One of the reasons Americans are so cool toward the idea of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear program is that most believe that it is not likely to produce much benefit.”

Brzezinski agreed heartily. “We have no idea how such a war would end,” he said. “Iran has military capabilities, it could retaliate by destabilizing Iraq.”

Hadley was much more worried about the consequences of a nuclear Iran. “Iran is different than North Korea, which is more inward-directed,” he said. “I worry that they would be more ambitious in support of terrorism and that other countries” in the region would also want nuclear weapons. Still, Hadley believes that the Obama administration has been pursuing the right approach with Iran, focusing on sanctions instead of opting for military action. Even if covert action or taking other approaches to delaying Iran’s nuclear weapons program only worked for two or three years, that would be worth it, he said.

“The Iranian public is watching what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya,” he said. Delaying a military strike may offer a chance for something to change in Iran, either through diplomacy or through the leadership’s reconsideration of its foreign-affairs approach. He believes Iran’s recent agreement to nuclear talks came as a result of increasing pressure on the regime.

Brzezinski is worried about a situation whereby Iran is forced to choose between a humiliating retreat and crippling sanctions. Such an ultimatum offers no chance for the regime to take a face-saving retreat, similar to how the Soviet Union was granted concessions in return for removing its missiles from Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. “The Israelis have been predicting since 1994 every year that Iran will have nuclear weapons the next year,” he said. While the United States has a rightful moral obligation toward Israel, Brzezinski said, offering it protection under America’s nuclear umbrella and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the best way to integrate it permanently into the international community.

In contrast to some top Republicans, Hadley said that America should engage with Islamist and Muslim political parties that have gained power in Egypt and elsewhere. “Just because they have the word ‘Islamic’ or ‘Muslim’ in the name — we should be pushing them to pursue pluralism,” he said.

Hadley’s comments are a marker of how top Bush administration official have been chastened by the Iraq disaster. With the important exception of Cheney and Rumsfeld, all seem to admit that the war did not go as planned — to the extent that it was planned). One of the few good things to come out of the Iraq war is that it has cautioned American leaders against starting another.

In a rhetorical style that was less hostile than usual, Ayatollah Khamenei hailed Obama’s comments as “good words” and called them “an exit from delusion.” Meanwhile, his nuclear negotiator, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, resumed talks in Vienna over Iran’s controversial nuclear program with five western powers including China for the first time in more than a year. He called the talks “a new chapter.”

Both seemed to be efforts to divert threats at a time when hawks in Israel are beating the drums of war and calling for a military strike as soon as spring to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb. Sanctions are crippling Iran’s economy and the value of its currency, the rial, has plunged since fall to half against the U.S. dollar.  

It is too early to take Ayatollah Khamenei’s comments as an overture to the West. “I think we have to wait and see if anything will come out of the nuclear talks,” said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “So far he just seemed glad that war is not imminent.”

The victory of Ayatollah Khamenei’s supporters in the March 2 elections has, at least symbolically, solidified his authority. According to official figures, his supporters won 75 percent of the seats. The fate of the remaining 65 seats in the 290-member assembly will be decided in run-off elections.

The fact that supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won only 2 seats, compared to 70 percent of the seats in 2008, is being interpreted as nothing but a clear victory for Ayatollah Khamenei.

Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final word on state matters, has made Ahmadinejad a target after he challenged his authority. The president tried to reopen relations with the United States, despite opposition from the supreme leader, believing that rapprochement with the West would be popular with Iranian electorate. He appointed his supporters to key ministries that had been historically controlled by the supreme leader. Ayatollah Khamenei lashed back late last year and publically embarrassed the president by reappointing the Intelligence Minister whom Ahmadinejad had fired.

The elections were not only about sidelining Ahmadinejad, but also restoring the prestige and an image of strength to the supreme leader. In the days before the election, Ayatollah Khamenei was concerned only with turn out. The elections were the first since the 2009 presidential race that triggered massive anti-regime protests. Khamenei had gone to extreme lengths to support Ahmadinejad against pro-reform forces that demanded more political and social openness.

Before the vote this month, Ayatollah Khamenei urged people to vote in large numbers to “smack the face” of the enemies, a reference to Israel and the United States. His supporters equated low turnout with an invitation for a military strike, because a low turnout would project an image of weakness at a time when the country had come under increasing threats.

The opposition movement that drew hundreds of thousands into the streets boycotted the election and urged its supporters to stay away from the polls. Their candidates were banned from running and their leaders have been under house arrest for the past year.

No independent reporting confirmed the 64 percent turnout. The regime boasted that it was an “epic victory,” compared to 57 percent that voted in parliamentary votes in 2008. Foreign reporters were not allowed to roam freely and were bused to specific polling stations where they were greeted with enthusiastic voters.

Apathy among the large middle-class generated almost no citizen journalism except for calls from Iran to a call-in program on BBC Persian Service that was beamed into Iran on satellite. Callers said the polling places in Tehran and large cities were deserted.

The contrasting numbers that the government released in the early hours of the count failed to convince people it was different from the 2009 election that was widely viewed as fraudulent. One government official put the turnout at 34 percent while the Interior Minister, Mostafa Najar, said it was 64 percent. Eventually, the Interior Ministry, which was counting the votes, deleted the turnout figure all together from its website. The semi-official news agency, Mehr, even reported the total number of votes as being higher than the number of eligible voters in a small city of Ilam.

Although there were no immediate claims of irregularities, it was Ahmadinejad’s younger sister, Parvin Ahmadinejad, who vowed this time that she would make formal complaints of fraud in her hometown of Garmsar where she lost to a rival candidate.

As for Ahmadinejad, he will become the first president next week in the Islamic regime to be summoned before parliament to answer MP’s questions over alleged mismanagement. The move has been seen as an effort to curb his power. In another blow, the Guardian Council, a watchdog body close to Ayatollah Khamenei, blocked the president from setting up a committee responsible for supervising the implementation of the constitution. The committee would have given Ahmadinejad more leverage to ensure that, as president, he was given all the power the constitution granted him.