EU foreign policy czar Javier Solana is in Rome today to meet with Said Jalili, the new Iranian nuclear negotiator, and to bid farewell to Jalili’s predecessor, Ali Larijani. It is doubtful that Solana will enjoy the same quality of conversation with Jalili that he experienced with Larijani, whose profound knowledge of Western philosophy made him a valued companion for Solana, according to Brussels rumors. Jalili is expected to deliver his messages more bluntly than Larijani, and that might be a good thing. Larijani had fooled his European interlocutors into believing he was a moderate, inciting his European counterparts to budge while he held his ground. Jalili might not be as sophisticated.
But it is equally doubtful that Iran’s abrupt change of negotiator will induce Europe to shift its posture on the means to curb Iran’s nuclear program. As Italy’s weekly L’espresso reports in a lengthy and detailed piece on sanctions and their effectiveness, Iran still very much gets what it wants. Europeans are keen to circumvent sanctions and have not adopted the necessary practical measures to ensure that the sanctions regime works.
Last year’s bilateral trade volume for Italy and Iran exceeded five billion euros, making Italy the second biggest European trading partner of Iran, after Germany. L’espresso reveals that the Italian office in charge of trade inspections—a branch of the Ministry for Foreign Trade under Minister Emma Bonino—contains only twelve functionaries and four technicians. By comparison, its German equivalent, in charge of export control, has 200 people on its payroll. In practice, this means thousands of contracts annually and larger financial operations on a huge scale. The paucity of human resources invested in monitoring these activities means that almost no effective regulation of them exists. The scope for violations of all kinds is broad.
Whether Europeans will agree to a broader sanctions’ regime in weeks to come remains to be seen. It is clear, though, that what will matter ultimately is Europe’s willingness to give teeth to these measures. Without coupling UN resolutions with the practical means of putting the squeeze on Iran—like, say closely examining the huge business it does every year with Italy, or cutting off or restricting that business—even the toughest sanctions will fail.
I notice you studiously avoid any discussion of the column itself, instead “cherry picking” things about his person. neo cons and cherry picking seem to go together alot
Another use-full idiot ,you Lester.
Avi said in 2004,
“This is one of the great contradictions in the neocon outlook on the Middle East: the belief that democracy would lead to pro-Western and pro-Israeli governments in the Arab world. In fact, the reverse is true. The Arab ruling elites are much more pro-American in their attitude to Israel than the Arab street. The rulers are better informed and more pragmatic. The Arabs and the wider Muslim world are bitterly hostile to Israel because of the oppression of the Palestinians; therefore this is a misconception of the neoconservatives, to think that Arab democracies would be friendlier toward the West and Israel.”
Neo-Con belief in this doctrine will die hard,but Iraq will be the disillusionator.
“He may have served loyally in the mid-1960’s, but he has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of Israel, called it an “Ashkenazi trick,” supported the one-state solution and gone so far as to argue that “Zionism today is the greatest enemy of the Jews.” Should you not be a bit more honest, Mr. Shlaim?”
Sounds like an Israeli version of Rev Jeremiah Wright.
Someone should ask Avi Shlaim to show his IDF discharge papers!
The reason I say this–and I should know, having sat next to Abe Shlaim for three years, 1961-1964 at the JFS in Camden Town, 5th, Lower and Upper 6th–was that Mr. Shlaim went straight from school to Cambridge University, where I assume he did not defer taking his BA or MA finals, which would have taken him through to 1968.
I fell out of touch with my best buddy, Abe, after 1964, so it’s just possible that he MAY have joined the IDF earlier, but knowing Abe’s feelings about Israel and the IDF (not so very different then from now!) I truly doubt it!
If Abe did indeed serve in the IDF it MIGHT have been in the LATE 60′s for it could not possibly have been in the MID 60′s! And I truly doubt that too!
Do you want to change your story, or show the papers, Abe?
Oh! and just in case anyone believes that my last post was simply an ad hominem attack on a well-respected historian (well, well-respected by those who buy his historiography!) let’s ask Abe if he and his family and his community and a thousand other Jewish communities were disinterred from the Arab lands, from Pakistan to the Maghreb, immediatly following the Declaration of the State of Israel because “the Arabs and the wider Muslim world are bitterly hostile to Israel because of the oppression of the Palestinians.”
Abe suffered from an anti-Israel psychosis long long before Yasser Arafat even dreamt of the PLO.
I know; I heard him say so!
Elixelx, thanks for your insights. I know Avi almost as well, having been his colleague at the Middle east centre of St Antony’s College in Oxford for eight years. I have also heard from other peers from JFS who recall how his views, even as a teenager in the early sixties, before Israel’s 1967 victory, were consistent with the current worldview of Professor Shlaim. On his bio though I have to cast doubts on what you say. This is the link to his official bio at Oxford (http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/shlaim.html) and his time in the IDF is wholly consistent with his earlier and later education.
Thanks, Emanuele, for putting me and your readers straight, and I’m glad now that I surrounded my doubts about Abe with caveats.
Would that we could trust every official bio issued by OxBridge as much as you trust this one!
Be that as it may, Abe should be challenged on every word that he speaks or writes about Israel, for, in his case, “the child is truly father to the man” as he continually sublimates his own infantile nightmares into his pernicious interpretation of Jewish, and Israeli History!
Elixelx, could not agree more! Incidentally, you should read my article from Dec 2005 in Commentary (here’s the link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/europe-s–good-jews–9997 ) and my subsequent exchange with Avi (link here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/-good-jews–11145). Cheers!
Great historians of England: Arnold Toynbee, Avi Shlaim, David Irving- a rarefied circle of friends