Amazing how all the “Axis of Evil” stuff rebounded so badly on the US. 
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-09-11-iran-power_x.htm
Iran’s strength is becoming bigger problem for U.S.
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
Iran, one of two remaining members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” is gaining strength and confounding U.S. attempts to curb its growing influence, several experts on Iran say. Higher oil prices and political progress by Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and Lebanon are empowering a country that is developing nuclear technology and supporting groups the United States regards as terrorist. As a result, Iran is better able to cause problems for the United States and its allies. In an interview last week, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Iran is becoming more isolated because of its resumption last month of efforts to produce nuclear fuel. Burns predicted that the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, would refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council when the board meets Sept. 19. “This is an issue of credibility for the entire international community,” he said.
Recent developments may give Iran some advantages:
• The price of oil has hit new highs, enriching a nation that sits on the second-largest known oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.
• Iran resumed a nuclear fuel program last month but has faced no punishment apart from a mild rebuke from the IAEA. Despite Burn’s comments, Russia on Sept. 5 joined China in rejecting punishment of Iran by the U.N. Security Council. Both have veto power on the council. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Tehran, “There is no legal or legitimate reason … that Iran be referred” to the council." (Related story: Iran warns against U.N. referral)
• Hezbollah, a Shiite party Iran organized in the early 1980s, won a record 14 seats in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament in June and its first Cabinet post, in charge of electricity. The United States has branded Hezbollah a terrorist group.
• Iraqis have drafted a new constitution that lays the groundwork for an autonomous Shiite state in Iraq’s oil-laden south.
U.S. actions since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have improved Iran’s strategic position, says Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief in the Bush and Clinton administrations.
He says Iran has achieved its goals from the 1980s: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in 1980; political rights for Iraq’s Shiite majority and free access to Shiite holy sites in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala. Iran still faces adversaries in Iraq, including a nationalistic young Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, and long-term domestic challenges that require Western investment, particularly in its oil industry, says Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service. Clifford Kupchan, an Iran expert at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based research body, says there is a danger that Iran’s leaders “will become overconfident and trip.” But U.S. options may be diminishing. “I’m not hopeful that Iran will give much away,” says Vali Nasr, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. The top U.S. option — talks between Iran and Britain, France and Germany — has collapsed. Iran last month rejected a European proposal for enhanced economic and political ties in return for giving up efforts to make nuclear fuel.
Other options for dealing with Iran are also problematic:
•Sanctions by Europeans. In return for U.S. backing for their negotiating effort, Germany, France and Britain promised the Bush administration to get tough if Iran resumed its nuclear fuel program. But despite strong rhetoric from France in particular, European governments may balk for fear of further inflating world oil prices. Iran last year produced an average of 4.1 million barrels a day, nearly 5% of the world’s total, according to the U.S. Energy Department. “I think the Europeans will cave but it will be a slow-motion cave,” says Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.
•Military action. While Bush has said he prefers a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he has refused to rule out attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. Even Iranians opposed to the Islamic regime believe their country has a right to peaceful nuclear technology. Any attack would push Iran to increase its support of anti-U.S. groups in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, Clarke says. Iranian media have also pointed to U.S. government disarray over Hurricane Katrina. “Katrina proved that America cannot solve its internal problems and is incapable of facing these kinds of natural disasters, so it cannot bring peace and democracy to other parts of the world,” wrote an Iranian newspaper, Siyasat-e Ruz, last week.
• Direct negotiations. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and possible candidate for president in 2008, has suggested that the administration offer talks with the new Iranian president, who is due in New York City for a U.N. summit this week. Nasr says such talks would be popular with the Iranian public and could bolster the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose conservative faction thwarted efforts by Iranian reformers to improve ties. However, neither side has requested a meeting. Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to see the Iranian this week
