When the Oil Spill Does Matter!

It seems that the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico is going to deteriorate Obama’s political future and overshadow his internal agenda. The Spill makes Obama to talk to his nation for the first time from the Oval Office of the White House and call the event as “the worst environmental and economic disaster” for America. He also mentioned that this is “an assault on American shores and citizens”. A sentence which reminds me of George W. Bush’s rhetoric after the 9/11 attacks. I am not going to say that the Oil Spill is the 9/11 of president Obama but it seems that he himself insist on that. Obama accused British Petroleum of failing to do proper measures to control the Spill and requested from BP to pay compensation to the victims. Obama’s strong rhetoric against BP made British new prime-minister to react to the accusation. It seems that after a century of “special relation” between the US and UK the environmental event deteriorated the liaison. This event has some implications on the US administration and also has some lessons for the International Relations as an academic discipline as follow.
First of all, as I mentioned before the Obama’s political gesture is now at risk by this environmental crisis. Because of the importance of the issue he traveled four times to Louisiana to show his commitment to solve the problem. This is exactly what we can call it a showdown of Obama. According to a poll 52 percent of American people disapprove Obama’s handling of the crisis. This a clear reason for Obama’s concerns. His second term of office may be at stake, so he angrily makes pressure on BP and deployed 27000 national guardsmen to curb the oil leakage to the gulf. History shows the Obama’s legacy in the subject.
The second point is incremental importance of environmental issues in domestic politics and international relations. We are witnessing some kinds of tensions happening in the US-UK relations because of environmental issue. It’s not new but it shows the importance of low politics in International Relations discipline. Some events like climate change, the Iceland volcanic ash, poverty, infectious diseases, Louisiana oil spill etc are going to shape the agenda setting of international arena.
The last point not the least, is the growing significance of NGOs in International Relations. In Oil Spill issue once again we are witnessing that a super-power confronted with an NGO which is simply BP. This event shows that the states are not sole actors of International Relations and some new actors which are not necessarily weak have been appeared. After September 11th the world has recognized terrorist groups as NGOs which can change the trace of history and all the states determined to fight them. It seems that now another kind of NGOs which is economic giant challenged the sovereignty of a super-power. Regardless to the result of this confrontation, these new entities-NGOs- are in the chessboard of International Relations and cannot be ignored whether the states like them or not.

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New Resolution Against Iran: Does It Really Work?

Finally after five month of U.S. hard work to make consensus among major powers, the UN Security Council approved fourth round of sanctions against Iran. Barack Obama one hour after the approval of the resolution called that as “most comprehensive sanctions” and declared that the United States will continue its own sanction alongside the UNSC ones. The U.S. president said that the sanction is not directed to Iranian people. But everybody knows that this is matter of rhetoric. This is Iranian people who at the end of the day suffer from the sanctions. The main question here is that do these sanctions really work? Referring to history the answer is obviously clear: NO. Iran as president Ahmadinejad mentioned will not change its behavior. Iran certainly will reject the Resolution. In other word this Resolution is a wrong signal to Iran because Iranian president clearly had said Iran would halt negotiation if the new resolution passed. Knowing that reality, the U.S tried to adopt the new U.N Resolution and simultaneously the Vienna group sent the negative letter to IAEA in response to may 24th Tehran declaration. It means that regardless of Tehran reaction, the US and the West had decided to approve the resolution. Ironically the US president said the approval of the resolution does not mean that the door of diplomacy is closed. This clearly is a double standard policy toward Iran. The US wants to increase the costs of Iran’s opposition to the West. Once again this Resolution proved that the nature of Iranian government is the main problem of the West, not the nuclear issue. Of course the Resolution not only won’t change the Iranian behavior but also it bolsters the Iranian government position in its nuclear issue and certainly close the door for dialogue and negotiation for at least several month.
Adopting this Resolution is a signal to Iran that if the hegemon is reluctant to do something no one can do that. Iranian diplomatic achievement to make a semi-coalition with Turkey and Brazil was not a desirable matter for the U.S. and that’s why they reacted firmly at the UN Security Council.
Another important point is that this Resolution has domestic consumption for the Obama administration. He-during his 16 month of being in office-did nothing notable toward Iran. He must prove his authority in international arena by resorting to Bush-like measures.
The bottom-line is that the Resolution is counterproductive and was a catastrophic respond to Iranian confidence building measures at top level. Clearly Iran won’t give up its nuclear policies for peaceful purposes and such Resolution does not work and may exacerbate the situation for the West and encounter them to a no-win situation.

A Diplomatic Triumph for Iran

Iran's Nuclear Deal with Turkey and Brazil after ten month of deadlock in its nuclear issue has several key implications for the main players of the issue as follow:
1. The Deal was a diplomatic victory for Iran in several ways. First, it was a way out of deadlock and progress to weaken the pressure of west to impose more sanction on Iran. Second, entering the new players like Turkey and Brazil, Iran expanded the number of its nuclear issue players in order to increase the domain of its action and choices. Third, the Deal has shown the diplomatic ability of Iran and its curiosity to interact with the west and the rest of the world.
2. It is also a victory for the Turkey because this country is going to increase its role in the region and especially Middle East. This kind of mediation can contribute to reach to the aim.
3. Russia is the main loser of the Deal. Iran proved than it does not want to put all its eggs in the one basket. It was a signal to Russia that Iran does not want to be the scapegoat of the Russian-west relations. Iran is going to pursue its interest with or without Russia.
4. The west-the U.S and Europe- is another loser of the Iran nuclear deal. The west has been organized the strong and great propaganda to show that Iran is irrational state which does not respect international community and does not accept the rule of the game. So the chance of reaching any agreement with Iran is too low. West is at cross road now. If it accepts the Deal, Iran can get the necessary fuel it needs for Tehran reactor. So it’s a tremendous diplomatic triumph for Iran. If the west rejects the Deal, Iran’s skepticism and mistrust towards the west would be proved. In this way Iran is the winner too. On the other hand the Deal widened the gap between the west and the rest of the world on the Iran nuclear issue. After the Deal some states praised Iran’s desire to solve the nuclear issue. On the other hand the U.S and some European states declared that it was an Iranian deceive and nothing important. And as a result they are pursuing to impose more sanction on Iran. The gap also is getting widened among United Nation Security Council. Some non permanent states and also china supported the Deal. This is clearly what Iran has been following.
Besides the above mentioned points there are some negative issues:
1. The Deal can promote the Turkey’s role in the region and perhaps increase the rivalry between the Iran and Turkey in other aspects of the region.
2. After all West can conclude that through pressure can change Iranian behavior. This is a bad news for Iran.
The last point but not the least is that the Deal is the beginning of a process. If the west wants to solve the Iran’s nuclear issue it's a good point. Iran should get strong guarantee from the west to swap the nuclear fuel. On the other hand reaching to the saddle point requires confidence building and not politicizing the Iran nuclear issue from both parties. Although stream of the history shows that the west anxiety is somewhere else and they use every excuse in the book to get off the track.

NPT Review: Does It Have Any Sense?

NPT Review meeting has been held in New York aiming at altering the NPT articles in order to bolster the Treaty to guarantee that the non nuclear states cannot obtain nuclear weapons. Although this purpose is ideal and excellent per se but we should be realistic about the matter. As it clear the nuclear weapons and the related issues have been categorized as high politics which usually cannot be tolerated by the states easily. As the records and the history of nuclear weapons have been shown the international law and regulations have not been successful in their tasks in this regards i.e. high politics. For example there are some states which regardless to NPT and other international norms became nuclear and now posses the nuclear warheads. Israel, India and Pakistan are in this category. The important point is that the international community did nothing important to deter them and they easily joined the nuclear club. It seems the NPT has become the instrument of imposing pressure to the non nuclear states to gain political advantage. This instrumental view to the international law has been changed it into vain treaty. The bottom line is that the international relations in its high politics nature is not a matter of law so we cannot expect that such conferences resulted in extraordinary gains although it will be useful to some extent. We should bear in mind that it's difficult to apply international laws' norms and rules on high politics nevertheless it's an ideal and desirable aim. So unfortunately we cannot be optimistic about the NPT review from the international law's point of view.

When Ash Does Matter

Once upon a time International Relations just was the matter of Real Politiks, power, war and peace. But nowadays it's changed dramatically. These days the ash of volcanic eruption in Iceland has great influence on international arena. For example tens of thousands of flights have been canceled and it coasts billions of dollars for most of the airlines of the world. The funeral ceremony of Poland president held in absence of many leaders of the world. Lots of international organizations meetings including the United Nations have been postponed. Even ironically we can say FC Barcelona football team defeated against Italian team, Inter Milan, because they forced to travel by bus instead of flying by airplane. These developments clearly show that International Relations as an academic discipline is not the matter of hard power anymore and it should be studied from different aspects of human life like social, economic, environment etc. Perhaps it's better to divide international relations into some sub categories in order to not ignore the subjects like climate change or some sub-national matters. This can help the students not to confuse in IR discipline and also contributes the politicians to take into consideration some ex-trivial matters like ash!
At last we can welcome the new term of "Volcanic Ash Clouds" in politics and International Relation jargon referring to a bad situation of some phenomena. For example we can say the "Volcanic Ash Clouds" is on the Greek economy.

NPR's Dire Ramifications

Obama's foreign policy towards Iran has been changed dramatically after the Iranian presidential election. Before coming to power, Obama had declared his policy of negotiation with Iran without any pre condition but this policy changed with the allegation of Iran's outlaw behavior in its nuclear policy. Recently and after the publishing of the U.S Nuclear Posture Review the tone of president Obama towards Iran became more aggressive and he implicitly threatened Iran to nuclear attack. This did not happen in Bush Neoconservative administration. Exploring the root cause of this kind of turning point in U.S foreign policy is of the main important-which is not the task of this writing. I am going to focus here on the NPR's implication on Iran. The United States is threatening Iran while there are some non NPT members who posses nuclear weapons like Israel. Iran according to IAEA's reports has not diverted from NPT and it permanently has been declaring that it going to use the nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This is exactly shows the double standard policy of the United States. The NPR is the breach of NPT per se and it's not only does not have the deterrence characteristics but also it is provocative and can persuade Iran to develop and change its policy toward nuclear weapon because a nuclear state has threaten to use the bomb against the country. It's obviously the threat to peace. In this case I believe that Iran has the right to bolster its defense capabilities even with non conventional weapons in order to deter the U.S possible attack. It is worth mentioning that lots of Iranian people believe that their country must acquire the nuclear weapons because it has many adversaries around the country. The new U.S policy can encourage the non nuclear states to posses the non conventional weapons. It seems that the U.S statesmen have ignored this dire ramification in their calculations.

The Evils of Iraq's Democracy

After the Iraq parliamentary election the main issue is to form the new government and electing new prime minister. The US invasion to Iraq in 2003 was due to create an ideal example for the other states of the region but immediately they recognized that the democracy in Iraq is against their interests because the Shia majority came into power which had strong relations to Iran.
The other problem in Iraq democracy has been appeared in current election where there is no party gained the necessary seats in the parliament to form the government. Iraq has the long history of dictatorship with no experience of democracy especially in this kind of it. (Parliamentary system) on the other hand there is not necessary infrastructure for the political participation for the people; the most important of them is security. It seems that this kind of political system cannot last too much because it cannot support the interest of Iraqi people at first because of it instable nature and even can endanger the stability and security of the region and the neighboring countries. This can spill over and exacerbate the interest of the United States too. The semi federalism and parliamentary system in a multi ethnic state with different religions, can divide the country into several part. (At least the Shia, Sunni and Kurd one). Clearly this is not in favor of the Iraqi people and the regional and states and even the US.
The other important issue is the fragmentation in Iraqi Shia groups. Of course the US welcomes this situation but it is a sign of Iran's miscalculation in Iraq, although the Iranian has been trying to integrate the Shia groups to form the strong government in Iraq. The bottom line is that it takes long time for Iraqi people to cope with the new political system and of course it has many side effects to the region as well.