U.S. Forges New Ties With Iran’s Gulf Neighbors

WASHINGTON — With America, Britain, and France preparing new sanctions to ban missile and nuclear technology sales to Iran, America is quietly forging new security ties with the Islamic Republic’s Gulf neighbors.On October 29, American, Kuwaiti, and Bahraini ships will conduct a naval exercise under the Proliferation Security Initiative, a program created in 2002 aimed at interdicting shipments of weapons of mass destruction to rogue regimes.The proposed military exercises caught the attention yesterday of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, according to the BBC. The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying the planned maneuvers are “dangerous and suspicious.”The joint military exercises are part of a series of new technical security cooperation agreements the Bush administration has forged with Gulf countries in recent weeks. Details of the new pacts are expected to be announced at a December 8–9 conference of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alluded to the exercises in a speech yesterday when he warned Arab nations against “any initiative which could help the Zionists and the United States.”The security cooperation with Gulf allies against Iran represents a backup plan should U.N. diplomacy fail. It also dovetails with an aggressive American initiative to persuade European and Japanese banks to stop doing business with Iranian concerns suspected of funneling cash to terrorist groups or the Iranian nuclear program. Already, this banking diplomacy has convinced two Japanese banks and three European banks not to do business with Iran. The American pressure on the banks is aimed at increasing the insurance costs and other business expenses for Iranian front companies.But gains on this track are being matched by setbacks in the push for U.N. sanctions against Iran. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, hinted on Monday that he still favors negotiations with Iran, despite the country’s unwillingness to suspend uranium enrichment.Because of Russian and Chinese concerns about future sanctions, the draft resolution worked out yesterday in Vienna by the three other U.N. Security Council members has reduced the earlier proposed American penalties against Iran. The latest sanctions proposals would allow Iran to keep its Bushehr reactor, which is being built with Russian cooperation. Also, the latest versions of the resolution lack a travel ban on senior Iranian officials or restrictions on Iran’s import of dual use technologies.America originally wanted to ban all technical cooperation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency and Russia, as well, the Associated Press quoted a diplomat yesterday as saying.One factor that is emerging in the complex diplomacy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program is the role of the one state most threatened by an Iranian nuclear weapon, Israel. In the last two weeks, Israeli leaders have ratcheted up their rhetoric against Iran. On Monday, Prime Minister Olmert announced a political deal to include the Israel Beitenu Party, which favors the swap of Israeli and Palestinian Arab populations to create a more Jewish state, in his coalition government.As a result of the deal, the party’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is now the vice premier and minister of strategic threats, a portfolio puts him in a position to influence Iran policy inside the Israeli Security Cabinet. In public speeches, Mr. Lieberman has said Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.Israel has an arsenal of F–15i aircraft, capable of reaching Iranian airspace, that it has been accumulating for at least 10 years.

U.S. Forges New Ties With Iran’s Gulf Neighbors

U.S. Forges New Ties With Iran’s Gulf Neighbors

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