IRAN'S INCREASING DRUGS PROBLEM

Khamenei Smoking opium



Afghan opium trade booming: US

The US State Department has issued a new report which says that last year, Afghanistan grew more opium poppies than ever before and was responsible for 93 per cent of the world supply.The report urged the Afghan Government to take action, saying that the drugs trade deters progress towards a stable, economically independent democracy.It said that hardline Taliban insurgents benefit with growers and traffickers exchanging money and guns for Taliban-sponsored protection.State Department official David Johnson says the Taliban is reaping the gains of the trade."There's incontrovertible evidence that the Taliban used drug trafficking proceeds to fund insurgent activities," he said."Poppy production soared in the southern provinces where the insurgency is strong."At the same time, poppy cultivation has declined in the poor but more secure northern and central provinces."The report also revealed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had considered limited aerial spraying of opium crops last year but opted not to do it.It was acknowledged that this action would have been extremely dangerous and unpopular.

IRAN'S INCREASING DRUGS PROBLEM
[Tehran] Ten years ago, calculating the number of drug users in Iran was pure guesswork. These days it is rather more scientific, and the veil is being drawn aside from a social ill hidden for decades by conservative governments. Today, new statistics are endorsed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
In 1999, the UNODC was launched in Iran and together with the Iranian administration started releasing more realistic figures. It is now accepted by both parties that Iran has roughly 1.2 million regular users and around 800,000 periodic users throughout its cities and provinces. Depending on who you are talking to, the numbers still vary. The initial survey started alarm bells ringing in government circles as results suggested an epidemiology within Iran's borders, with new trends developing across all spectrums of society, and a shift from opiate-based drugs to synthetic ones. A local NGO, the Center for Human Regeneration, helps people suffering from opium addiction. One of its rehabilitation facilities it has helped 7,000 people so far, and it has six more facilities in Iran. Its founder is a former addict who, during one Ramadan month, eventually kicked his habit after realizing that he could cure himself by lowering his opium intake gradually. This is a view that former addicts turned counselors share. One of them is Mehrdad, who entered the Center looking for help, and now helps others to clean up. “Treatment at the Center takes Iran’s specific drug problem into account. Cold turkey doesn't work here. We use opium in our rehab process rather than methadone. People addicted to opium are addicted to 12 alkaloids rather than the one in methadone.” Pressed for further information, Mehrdad explains, “Methadone users still experience pain and even sexual dysfunction, which causes them to relapse. Opium is natural and can be used to battle addiction and pain, all counselors here are former addicts and must pass a test to be able to sit where I am now.”One of the more controversial aspects of this treatment plan is that it allows addicts to buy their own opium. “We give them scales and tell them how much they can use in a day, the patients keep the drug themselves and we have an agreement with the police whereby they won’t get arrested if they are caught while receiving treatment with us. Each month we tell them to reduce their consumption by 20 percent. The onus is on the addict to take responsibility as we can only help those who want to help themselves.” The center also offers addicts different ways to express themselves while in therapy. One is through sport and 12 different sports are provided. Soccer, rugby, volleyball, and darts are all on the menu, but the most successful venture is archery. Two former male addicts and one female now represent Iran at international level and may be sent to the Beijing Olympics. The center also operates a needle exchange. The experience that counselors pass on is invaluable for those in rehab and with a relapse rate around 12%, something is clearly working. It can be compared to a 2004 report by Shiraz University which then showed a relapse rate of anywhere between 60 and 80%, depending on where the addict was treated. One American rehab center suggests a similar figure of 16%.Mehrdad explains, “Rehab is revolutionary in Iran, ten years ago admitting the problem existed would have got you imprisoned or shot. [The government] listened to outside advice because they were afraid of a spectacular health crisis, we have had army generals and government officials come through our doors.” Consumption in Iran is not just limited to the poor. Center staff deal with a large cross-section of the community. But what has caused the increase in numbers? Mehrdad pauses before he answers, “At the lower end of society, the problem is poverty driven; at the high end, it's boredom. Or pleasure seeking.” The Iranian authorities seize an estimated three to four hundred tons of narcotics every year. This is hardly surprising since Afghanistan shares a 750-mile eastern border with the Islamic Republic and some 93% of the world’s opium is grown in Afghanistan. Iran is caught in the unenviable position of being a key trafficking route to Europe and the Western markets for narcotics consumption. Rumor has it that drug seizures by government drug agencies follow tip offs by organized gangs, who then are allowed to run larger quantities of narcotics through Tehran and into Europe. Although such claims cannot be verified, the country's present failure to deal with domestic corruption issues allegedly surrounding many government institutions (confirmed by ‘Ali Hashemi, when head of the Drugs Control Headquarters in 2005 — he admitted that a few Iranian officials had been involved in trafficking) may be a sign it is true. Iran supports the international anti-corruption convention, but has yet to ratify the agreement. As more money is diverted towards intercepting shipments of narcotics, it is no surprise that Iran is the leading country in the world for drugs seizures. This point is not lost on UNODC representative, Roberto Arbitrio, who has been in working in Iran for the past four years. Aribtrio is well versed in the region’s drug problems and praises work being done by the government. “Iran is a country that is already working in the area of drug control and is considered in the region as one of the most effective. Iran has built an excellent protection system along the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan over the main trafficking routes. It is a unique example in the region, so they are doing good work. What we as UNODC do is assist them in developing software capacity. In border control, what's needed is cross-border cooperation and that is where the U.N. can facilitate in making sure Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan coordinate action.”With Iran spending more resources on fighting organized crime, why is the drug problem spreading? Arbitrio’s answer involves Afghanistan like much of Iran's narcotics. “Opium use is common to many cultures in this region as a pain killer and sometimes it is used for recreational purposes. Over the past 15 years, opium production in Afghanistan has become an industrialized industry feeding Western markets. As a result of passing trade, the region became a consumer…Afghanistan now has over 1 million users. In turn, they've become a major market producing and consuming narcotics. There is a knock on effect in places like Iran, Pakistan, and other central Asian countries.” So it is all to do with the scale of production? “Yes, and the business needs of traffickers means they create local markets. Where you have trafficking you also have an increasing problem of organized crime and terrorism. There is now a clear link between trafficking of narcotics and specific manifestations of terrorism.” One cause for concern for UNODC and the Iranian authorities is the rise in number of people using heroin-based ‘crack’. “It's different from the crack used in the U.S. and Europe, which is cocaine-based, here it is heroin-based and we are still not entirely sure of its composition. UNODC with some government agencies are conducting a study on the drug. All we know is its impact is completely devastating, we have seen the terrible effects of this substance on people, and it's becoming more widespread, as is injecting heroin, and that's across the whole spectrum of society.”Heroin-based crack is causing much concern among ordinary Iranians. State television recently showed videos of suffering addicts to try to raise awareness. The government is trying to quell the local markets and its efforts are managed by the Drug Control Headquarters (DCH), whose remit is to develop, coordinate, and implement all local and national drug control policies. The DCH represents several ministries, including health, and controls the interior ministry and anti-narcotics police. The organization is led by a secretary general who is appointed directly by the president and answerable to him. The UNODC deals directly with this body, which it uses to circulate information to the NGOs. Arbitrio is enthusiastic about the diverse nature of the NGOs, “We work with 100 to 150 centers specializing in treatment and prevention and issues like curbing HIV. These problems are widespread in Iran and we are helping to improve the capability that's already set up and lend our expertise.” Why are NGOs effective in policy implementation? “They use a lot of different approaches. There is treatment through methadone, which moves users from heroin, and they also give psychological religious counseling.” Arbitrio also praised the religious counseling offered by the Rebirth Foundation. The foundation works in communities developing ways to help addicts cope and recover from drug abuse. It gained official recognition in 2005 when it won the U.N.’s Vienna Civil Society award, an honor bestowed to only one or two NGOs throughout the world each year. NGOs not only work with members of the public. One or two offer medical support to prisons inmates nationwide, trying to prevent the spread of HIV/ AIDS in the country.The UNODC representative believes the Iranian authorities are doing all they can to tackle the drug problem and applauds them for inviting missions from the Far East, Pakistan, and countries neighboring the Islamic Republic to demonstrate what is being done to reduce drug abuse and treat addicts. There is still more to be done, says Arbitrio, “We encourage all parties to come together and boost the status of bi-lateral cooperation. I must say the level of assistance provided bi-laterally is limited because the opportunities of cooperation between Iran and the international community are limited... the UN is the main provider of assistance, our current budget is a most $8-9 million over three years. This is quite a limited amount of money for a country with a problem like this. Drug control should be viewed as a non-political area for cooperation, because it's a destabilizing factor for all of us—for everybody in the international community.”

Iran's addicts fall victim to geography (and Islam)
von Anna Fifield (Tehran)

Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world's opium, and as much as half of that is smuggled through Iran. The country's proximity to the world's biggest opium producer has led an estimated 5m into narcotics. Three years ago things could hardly have been worse for Ali-Reza Fatehi. His family had disowned him, he had lost his profitable business selling socks in the Tehran bazaar and his television set was his only
friend. When he was not watching television he was rifling through rubbish bins to collect plastic that he could sell on to recycling companies. "It was a very degrading job and completely out of character for me," says Mr Fatehi, looking down at his stained shaking hands through dark-ringed eyes. "But at the time I was doing crack and heroin and I wasn't myself."
Explosion in opium production since US-led invasion
Officially there are 1m drug addicts in Iran but international health workers estimate that the figure is much closer to 5m, in a country of 70m people. While much is known about the problem in neighbouring Afghanistan, and particularly about the explosion in opium production since the US-led invasion seven years ago, Iran's significant drug challenge is below the radar. But Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world's opium, and as much as half of that is smuggled through Iran, partly for export and partly for consumption by people such as Mr Fatehi. Only a handful of stations can treat drug users in IranIran's addicts spend $3bn - the equivalent of 15 per cent of Iran's annual oil income - on drugs each year and their problem has led to a multitude of social ills, including an increase in HIV infections. There are about 70,000 HIV/Aids sufferers in Iran, about 60 per cent of whom were infected by sharing needles. But just as Iran is a victim of its geography, Mr Fatehi, 37, was in some ways a victim of his success. "I dropped out of school and started selling socks and stockings," he says at the Persepolis centre, a non-governmental treatment centre in southern Tehran where he goes every day for methadone, an opiate-replacement therapy. "I was making very good money so I hired someone to run the business for me. I had a lot of free time to go to my friends' houses and have fun, but one of them introduced me to opium." He progressed to heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth and was an addict for more than a decade, until he finally sought help three years ago. "Physically I'm clean now but mentally I'm not. I can't imagine not having any substances in my life," he says. "But this medicine has helped me a lot." The Persepolis centre is one of a handful of pioneering institutions that treats drug users. It focuses on harm reduction - giving fresh syringes and condoms to addicts - and provides methadone to about 250 people a day, a fifth of whom are women.
Spread of HIV and AIDS
"Many addicts catch other diseases such as HIV or hepatitis so we teach them how to inject cleanly and to uphold healthy practices," says Gaila Darvishany, one of the centre's managers. Volunteer workers dole out plastic cups of methadone and change the dressings on the wounds of crack users who have accidentally burnt themselves. Iran is a natural bridge between Afghanistan and Europe - ideal for smugglingThe government is trying to stem the flow of drugs into the country, a struggle that has led to the killing of more than 4,000 police officers in the course of drug control operations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran has built what Roberto Arbitrio, the head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime in Tehran, calls an "Iranian Great Wall" of ditches and fences along the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Heroin trafficking on a huge scale
"Iran is a natural bridge between Afghanistan and the 'Balkan route' to Europe. Plus, to the north there is the Caspian Sea and the Russian market, and to the south is the Gulf, increasingly a route for hashish," Mr Arbitrio says. "But this is not a situation where you've got a guy coming across the border with a suitcase containing 1kg of heroin," Mr Arbitrio says. Traffickers in 4WDs carry Kalashnikov machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, travelling "like an army" and using guerrilla warfare, he says. After waging waging his own struggle, Mr Fatehi - who has now found himself a cleaner line of work, selling cigarettes from a sack on the pavement - has modest ambitions for the future. "My life has already got a lot better," he says. "But now I'd like to get married and have kids. I'd like my mother to come and visit me more. I'd like for my dad to accept me. I'd like to be myself again."

Crossfire War - Taliban in Afghanistan Prepares Three Pronged Attack on Kabul

WARDAK PROVINCE - The South Asia Daily News Scan, of retired India Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle, referred today to an investigation by Asia Times Online on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan as NATO continues to counter more Taliban-al-Qaeda forces than Brussels ever projected.

Neither the Taliban or al-Qaeda could exist without Tehran's active support.

For the Brussels based alliance Afghanistan was supposed to be NATO's grand power projection beyond Europe as it trained the new Afghan army to replace the Taliban who were initially defeated in 2001. But Tehran stated late that year it found some of the Taliban useful so Iran waited for NATO to commit more forces there as Iran knew it could use Afghanistan to keep the West busy on a wasteland front whose main raw material and contribution to the international economy is opium. NATO's showcase front has become a smaller version of the trap in Iraq as Brussels and the West want to do anything except attack the center of international terrorism and the biggest threat to the West-Iran. [SASTSCAN] This is one of the best examples in modern history of the power of illusory thinking in governments decision making process and it revolves around the West's fear of confronting a more powerful enemy than they ever believed would emerge as a result of the 1979 Khomeini revolution in Iran which he launched while he was based in a Paris suburb. Industrial services along Boulevard Haussmann and the West assumed Khomeini's influence would not reach beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus which would provide Moscow with another reason to continue its historical expansion (invasion) south and re-occupy Iran as they did with the British in World War II. With Iran's oil resources under a communist economy it would reduce the price of Iran's oil exports to the West but they had no idea Khomeini's beliefs would impact the Arab world even after his death in 1989 nor was the massive military support Beijing provided Iran-Pakistan anticipated either. Beijing did so knowing if Tehran-Islamabad were successful three of China's international rivals would become weaker, the West-India-Russia. So China provided Iran-Pakistan with the foundation of their nuclear-ballistic missile programs which Beijing could also send through North Korea.
In the meantime enter the Taliban emerging in 1996 from radical religious schools on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, refugees inspired by an extreme interpretation of the Quran and hatred of the West as it replaced the Soviet occupation of the country which invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to outflank China. Iran matched its support of the Taliban based on the level of military commitment by NATO just enough to force Brussels, obsessed with making a success it could be proud of, to continue to deploy more forces as the occupation and NATO's training programs were under attack. The alliance became increasingly uncomfortable since it never wanted any heavy combat anywhere. I believe it was NATO's General James Jones who commented about five years ago when the Taliban re-emerged, that asking NATO governments to send more troops to Afghanistan was like passing the hat.The fighting in the country became heavier two years ago as Tehran was completing its final preparations for (f)allout war, 2006 being the year Iran conducted military maneuvers almost all that year. That same year the Taliban were able to take control of the Taghab valley, northeast of the capital Kabul and the Nasayab valley south of the capital but were unable to hold them for more than a few months. According to the latest reports the Taliban are prepared to re-enter both areas more heavily equipped, supplied and with more units than before, by establishing a network of bases from the Pakistan border to the capital. The network runs from the Mohamand and Bajaur agency in Pakistan through Kunar-Nooristan provinces in Afghanistan to the Taghap valley in Kapisa province just 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Kabul. It is a three pronged strategy that has enabled the Taliban to operate freely in Wardak province just 18 miles (30 km) east of Kabul. The Taliban are believed to have 18,000 fighters in Mohamand and between 20-25,000 in Bajaur and if they are kept supplied it would enable them to maintain an offensive from April to September in an area just a few miles from Washington's airbase in Kunar.NATO is frantically trying to piece together an offensive for next month to disrupt the Taliban's preparations but not only is the alliance increasingly reluctant to sustain any losses Brussels is also depending on sincere support from Islamabad. Pakistan only provided token support for Washington's mythological war on terror as it pursued the phantom Bin Laden a video decoy. Islamabad did so in order to receive an enormous amount of aid and a resumption of F-16 fighter's sales which can carry a nuclear bomb. Pakistan's latest excuse for not participating in more than a few sorties is the unstable political situation in the country which President General Pervez Musharraf encourages as a strategic domestic smokescreen.Khan Yunis - Some power in Israel's port city Ashkelon was knocked out by Qassam rocket fire as Palestinians fired 45 rockets and dozens of mortar shells between 3 pm - 7:30 pm Wednesday after Israel killed five Hamas militant trainers near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. This is the largest daily total since Qassam fire began eight years ago and is one of many signs the war in the region is about to expand. Haaretz reports according to Israeli intelligence, Shin Bet, said the severity of the rocket attack response reflected the importance of the militants who were killed. The action started Wednesday morning as five Hamas militants, trained in Iran-Syria, were killed when an air strike hit their minivan. Israel conducted another air strike in northern Gaza and Israeli commandos encountered some armed Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus. [HAARETZ]
Jerusalem has stated it is only their operations in the West Bank that keep Hamas from controlling the territory.

Caspian Sea and its resources

Oxford Analytica's The World Next Week wrote a piece The struggle for the Caspian

The struggle for the Caspian
Despite the shows of bonhomie between the Russian and Iranian presidents and their Azeri, Turkmen and Kazakh counterparts at a meeting a fortnight ago, a dispute is smouldering over the legal status of the Caspian Sea. Without a pact on sharing resources or clear demarcation of the sea's boundaries, tensions will continue to grow. Much is at stake. The leaders of the littoral states know that an estimated 50 billion barrels of oil and reservoirs containing 230 trillion cubic feet of gas lie beneath the seabed. The waters are also the world's main source of caviar. Access to the Volga River is also particularly important for the otherwise landlocked states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Demarcation of the Caspian's boundaries is problematic, for it is a geographical sui generis: technically it is not a true sea. That puts it beyond the jurisdiction of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Russia champions the idea of joint use of the Caspian water surface for general use, while accepting the division of the seabed into national sectors. In other words, the seabed and the water surface should be considered as objects with separate sets of regulations. Moscow likes this plan because the Russian sector of the sea does not have much fish. It will also have more room to manoeuvre its Caspian armada of around 100 navy ships. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan agree. Each littoral state would be able to seek oil and gas resources in its sector without consulting one another and fish pretty much anywhere they choose. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have even started extracting hydrocarbons and signed bilateral accords with Russia. But Iran wants to divide the Caspian into five equal portions and does not recognise any existing bilateral seabed demarcation agreements. Russia's method used to divide the Caspian would give Iran between 9% and 14% of the seabed. Yet Tehran and Moscow have not yet come to blows over their differing positions, mainly because they have found common ground elsewhere. Russia has proposed the creation of Casfor, a five-party navy force that will counter terrorism, arms and drugs trafficking threats on the Caspian. Casfor has found support only in Tehran, primarily because it aims to exclude the United States from the region. But the lack of agreement elsewhere has led to various disputes between Azerbaijan and Iran, and Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, regarding the ownership of oil fields. In 2001, the escalation of tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran almost led to a military standoff. The issue looks set to become increasingly politicised and internationalised, as the nuclear non-proliferation dispute with Iran unravels, and energy exports to international markets from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan continue to rise. The fact that Moscow has no allies, apart from Tehran, on the issue of dividing the Caspian Sea surface may partly explain its continuing moderate stance on Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The next Caspian summit will be hosted by Azerbaijan in October 2008, but progress before then looks unlikely.

Prince Reza Pahlavi's statement regarding the Caspian Sea

بيانيۀ رضا پهلوی
در مورد
اجلاس سران کشورهای حوزۀ دريای مازندران
دوشنبه ٢٣ مهرماه ١٣٨۶
هم ميهنان عزيزم،
همچنان که می دانيد، رئيس جمهوری روسيه، ولاديمير پوتين، روز سه شنبه ٢۴ مهر ماه جاری،
برای شرکت در اجلاس سران کشورهای حوزۀ دريای مازندران، در سفری رسمی راهی
تهران خواهد شد. بر اساس آنچه رسانه ها و مقامات جمهوری اسلامی اعلام داشته اند، هدف از
برگذاری چنين گردهمايی در پايتخت ميهن مان، رسيدگی، و در صورت توافق طرف های
مذاکره، حل و فصل "مسئله ی مرزها" و تقسيم آبها و منابع زيست محيطی و معدنی دريای
مازندران است. در اين زمينه لازم ديدم نکاتی چند را با شما هم ميهنان عزيزم و خطاب به
حاکمان کنونی ايران و همچنين جامعه جهانی و دولت روسيه، بيان دارم.
حکومتگران اسلامی برای بقای نظام سياسی خود از هيچ ابزاری رويگردان نبوده، و تا روز
سرنگونی شان، نخواهند بود. اينان، که با شعار توخالی "نه شرقی نه غربی" به قدرت رسيدند،
برای خروج از انزوای خود ساخته، نه از حراج منابع انرژتيک ايران، به غربی و به شرقی،
فروگذار کرده اند و نه در به باد دادن بهترين فرصت های تاريخی برای رشد اقتصادی ايران و
گسترش نفوذ فرهنگی و سياسی ميهن مان، درنگ کرده اند. هم اينان ميروند تا بار ديگر با قربانی
کردن منافع ملی ايران در شمال ميهن عزيزمان، شايد چند صباحی به عمر نظام فرتوت خود
بيفزايند. ديگر کيست که نداند که برخی قدرت ها، چه در غرب و چه در شرق، با "ورق ايران"
پای ميز معامله و چانه زنی با يکديگر نشسته اند؟!
از اينرو، خطاب به جامعۀ جهانی و دولت های ذينفع اعلام ميدارم که دولت ملی آيندۀ ايران،
برخاسته ازارادۀ دمکراتيک ملت ايران، تَن به هيچ قرارداد و يا معاهده ای که منافع ملی ما را،
در هر زمينه ای که باشد، ناديده گرفته و يا زير پا گذاشته باشد، نخواهد داد.
خداوند نگهدار ايران باد
رضا پهلوی
P.O. Box 341907, Bethesda, MD. 2080827
Tel: 301-765-7007 Fax: 301-765-7009
rpsec@rezapahlavi.org www.rezapahlavi.org

Iran and Caspian Countries Meet - Disagree and go their own way -ignoring Iran

By : Amir Taheri

It had been tipped as a major diplomatic coup for Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strategy of building a series of regional alliances against the “Great Satan” and its allies.In the event, however, the conference of foreign ministers from the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea ended in Tehran on Wednesday with almost total failure. Worse still, the gathering provided an occasion for some sharp exchanges between Manuchehr Motakki, the Islamic republic’s foreign minister and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilmar Muhammad-Yarov. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1992, the geostrategic importance of the Caspian, the world’s largest body of inland water, has increased dramatically. The sea and its littoral are believed to contain some 12 percent of the world’s oil reserves plus huge reserves of natural gas. Once a quiet backwater shared by Russia and Iran and known mainly for its caviar-bearing sturgeon fish, the Caspian has become a coveted prize in the undeclared, but no less intense, three-cornered race for influence pitting Russia, the Western powers, and China against one another. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, made this clear at the Tehran conference by reminding everyone that his country was the only one of the five littoral states to have the military wherewithal to defend it against “the greed and ambitions of hostile outsiders.” The Islamic republic had hoped that the conference would do three things: Set a date for summit of the littoral states, devote a preliminary debate on an Iranian proposal to fix the legal status of the Caspian, and issue an unequivocal declaration of support for Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. None of that happened. No date was fixed for the summit largely because Russian President Vladimir Putin is reluctant to visit Tehran and meet Ahmadinejad. Having resisted Iranian pressure to visit Tehran for the past eight years, Putin is even less inclined to do so now that Ahmadinejad is in charge. The conference took note of the Iranian proposals but decided to postpone debating them at an unspecified date. There was also no unqualified support for the Islamic republic on the nuclear issue that has led it into a direct clash with the United Nations’ Security Council. The participants expressed support for Iran’s right to develop a nuclear industry for peaceful purposes but insisted that it abide by the two resolutions already passed on the subject by the council. Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Caspian, covering some 143000 square miles, was shared between Iran and Russia under a treaty signed in the 19th century. The treaty prevented Iran from any military presence in the Caspian, and stipulated that its marine resources be exploited by Russia with Iran receiving a share. A subsequent treaty, signed in 1921, gave the Soviet Union the right to land troops in Iran if and when Moscow decided that it faced a threat from Iranian territory. With the end of the Soviet Union, three new littoral states appeared on the map: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Naturally, these newcomers did not recognize the Russo-Iranian treaties, triggering a debate on the future status of the Caspian. Kazakhstan, which has the largest coastline on the Caspian, wants the sea to be divided into five sectors in accordance with the length of the coastline of the littoral states. Under such a scheme Iran would end up with only 10 percent of he inland sea. Russia endorses the Kazakh formula as far as the Caspian’s underwater resources are concerned but suggests that the sea be treated as a single unit in other domains such as navigation, environmental protection and tourism. The Islamic republic’s proposal is to treat the Caspian as a single unit jointly managed, developed and defended by the five littoral states. If accepted, the proposal would give Iran 20 percent of h Caspian, twice that warranted by its coastline. The two remaining littoral states, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have not come out with clear positions. Nevertheless, both have opposed the Iranian proposals and shaped their policies on the assumption that the Caspian will be divided in five segments according to the length of each state’s coastline. The Islamic republic has watched with a mixture of envy and apprehension as the major American and European oil companies have arrived in the region to help develop the Caspian’s oil and gas resources. Western investment since 1993 is estimated at around $10 billion, with not a single cent going to Iran. Of the dozen or so oil and gas pipelines planned to link the Caspian resources to world markets, not one will pass through Iranian territory despite the fact that it represents the shortest route to open seas. According to Tehran sources, the clash between Yar-Muhammadov, the Azerbaijani minister and Mottaki concerned two issues. The first was the Russo-American suggestion, first raised during the G-8 summit in Germany last month, to build an anti-missile shield in Azerbaijan, directly designating the Islamic republic as the key threat to both Europe and Russia. The second cause of the clash was Baku’s claim that Tehran is creating a network of “terrorist sleeper cells” in Talesh, a region of Azerbaijan bordering Iran and the Caspian. For its part, Russia would do all it can to prevent a rapprochement between Iran and the United States. At the same time, however, Moscow does not want Tehran to develop regional ambitions or play the religious card to foment trouble among Muslims who account for some 18 percent of Russia’s population or to gain influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The root cause of the Islamic republic’s failure to break out of its diplomatic and political isolation is its insistence on pursuing a global strategy based almost entirely on their ideological illusions rather than national interests. The Tehran conference highlighted the problem that the Islamic republic has faced since 1979: Its inability to make its neighbors like itself by “exporting” the Khomeinist revolution, and its unwillingness to become like its neighbors by accepting the global system shaped since the end of the Cold War.