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High levels of pollution and an oil spill in July are being blamed for the recent deaths of dolphins and whales off Iran’s Hormozegan Province, on the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea.

The most recent ecological mishap to beset Iran’s busy port of Bandar Abbas came on July 15, when oil sludge containing oil byproducts seeped out of damaged containers belonging to a contractor for the state electricity provider Tavanir. More than two months later, Iranian news agencies and the “Kayhan” and “Etemad” dailies reported that 79 dolphins washed ashore on September 25 near the smaller port of Jask. The incidents have spawned a broader debate over pollution levels in the seas around Iran. Oil? Sewage? Submarines? Iranian environmentalist Ebrahim Kahrom told the daily “Etemad” that the Persian Gulf is 47 times more polluted than what he described as the “standard level.” He suggested that “severe oil pollution” and the presence of oil slicks in Gulf waters might have killed the dolphins as well as six whales that reportedly also washed ashore near Bandar Abbas in the past month. Kahrom called the confluence of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea as “the most polluted area of the southern seas.” Kahrom said the Bandar Abbas oil spill contaminated an 800-square-kilometer stretch of water. He also said the number of dead dolphins would have been lower if it were the result of general pollution and accumulated toxins. Kahrom speculated that the pod of dolphins might have surfaced in the middle of an oil slick.

A deputy head of the Environmental Protection Organization, Mohammad Baqer Nabavi, suggested that the dolphins died from gradual poisoning due to “chemical pollution” or oil. “Etemad” quoted him as speculating that they might simply have lost their way, moved too close to land, and become disoriented — even suggesting that sonar emitted by U.S. submarines in the Persian Gulf might have been a factor. Nabavi admitted that pollution levels are high, and said environmental authorities are studying the impact of the July spill in Bandar Abbas. But he was skeptical that the spill killed the dolphins, and pointed out that dolphins could have swum away from the contamination. The head of the Hormozegan environmental authority, Mehrdad Katal-Mohseni, reasoned that any of a number of problems might have caused the deaths — including oil pollution, waste from the industrial activities at ports and jetties, sewage, or floating rubbish. He even added that the dolphins might have gotten caught in tuna nets. Environmentalist Nargues Rohani blamed marine pollution, and said that factories and petrochemical plants have been spilling unprocessed waste and sewage into the Persian Gulf for years. She said residents don’t eat locally caught fish, believing it to be contaminated. Rohani noted that “the locals are intimately familiar with the disasters that have come about from contaminations, but officials continue to say nothing about all these events.”

She also noted the destruction of local populations of corals and fishes, and warned that Iranians could expect more environmental disasters “if officials remain silent.” Increased Awareness Whatever the causes of the recent marine-mammal deaths, comments suggest an awareness that the Persian Gulf is polluted — whether the result of navigation, oil-related activities, or the presence of military fleets and submarines — and that pollution is killing or poisoning wildlife, including fish presumably destined for human consumption. The reaction of Iranian officials is notable, and arguably fits into a pattern among states with poor records of accountability. Reports on Persian Gulf pollution and threats to other natural areas suggest that local efforts provide the most effective response and that the environment is not a priority for the state generally. Environmental issues very rarely feature in the speeches of senior officials. Reports frequently suggest that low-level officials block potentially destructive projects or react to degradation at an initial and local stage, but do not always receive systematic backing from officials in Tehran. In Iran, when economic interests clash with the environment, money is given priority. Bandar Abbas is in the middle of the Straits of Hormuz, a key waterway for the region’s oil exports (courtesy photo) Fars News Agency last month noted what it described as a “seal of silence” by officials of Hormozegan Province after the July oil spill.

The agency cited “an informed source” as saying that the Hormozegan governor had ordered all provincial officials — including its environmental chief and the investigating court — to “remain silent” on the subject. The source suggested that probes into the spill that were initiated after legal action by local environmental authorities would be dragged out, and that their lack of progress was related to the governor’s instruction not to “exaggerate” the incident. The source claimed the governor thought too much negative publicity would make the Energy Ministry look bad. Iranian officials and Iranians in general are very sensitive about the term “Persian Gulf” as the official and recognized name for the waterway separating Iran and the Arabian peninsula. They are upset when Arab states or journals do not cite it as such — particularly when the term “Arab Gulf” is used. And yet a far smaller number of Iranians appear concerned that human activities could turn that object of national pride and diplomatic contention into a filthy pool of toxins.

•US commanders are building a small forward base in Iraq – Combat Outpost Shocker, just miles from Iran’s border – to stanch what they say is the flow of lethal weaponry that is part of an Iranian “proxy war” against the US.

•Iranian commanders are touting better missile capability and electronic surveillance of the “enemy,” and making leadership changes that appear to prepare for a fight.

•And the US Senate last week voted for a resolution to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a “terrorist” group. Iran’s parliament reciprocated on Saturday, designating the CIA and US Armyas “terrorists.”

But in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial US visit, are signs pointing toward war or diplomacy?

Despite hard-line rhetoric on both sides – and a lengthy story by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker posted on Sunday that suggests the Bush administration is ready for “surgical strikes” against Iran – analysts say diplomacy is the far more likely outcome.

“I am convinced they have zero interest in a war with Iran,” says Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, who has spent time with key US decisionmakers in recent months and visited Iraq in July. “They are completely fixated on Iraq.” The military in Iraq is “apoplectic” about Iran’s role, he says, prompting a “steady drumbeat to take stronger and stronger measures against the Iranians.”

President Bush said in August he had “authorized” US commanders to “confront Tehran’s murderous activities.” But few in civilian or Pentagon leadership appear ready for direct military action. The US instead is working for a third round of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, and US and Iranian ambassadors in Baghdad have met three times for talks.

“If ever [US officials] got a smoking gun, where they could directly trace a line between a dead American military person and an Iranian official – my guess is their first inclination would be: ‘How do we use this to get the Russians, Chinese, and Europeans to agree to harsher sanctions? How do we use this as leverage to force the Iranians to get serious in these talks?’ ” says Mr. Pollack, author of “The Persian Puzzle.” “I don’t think their first inclination is: ‘OK, now we can unleash the strike on the Iranians that we have wanted to unleash.’ “

Mr. Ahmadinejad has said repeatedly that Iran is not looking for war, and that he is certain the US will not attack. Despite his acrimonious face-off at Columbia University last week, and comments about gays in Iran and the Holocaust that dominated US media coverage, he stated that Iran would not threaten any nation.

But at the UN, Ahmadinejad berated “arrogant powers” that have “repeatedly accused Iran and even made military threats” on the nuclear issue. And there were other barbs: “With the grace of God, the Columbia University issue revealed their aggressive and mean-spirited image,” he told Iran’s state TV. “It backfired. What happened was exactly the opposite of what their shallow minds had presumed.”

His performance struck a chord in Iran, where the president is under fire from rivals and even fellow conservatives for his combative style and failure to improve the economy. Ahmadinejad even said that if the US “puts aside some of its old behaviors, it can actually be a good friend for the Iranian people, for the Iranian nation.”

“I was surprised by the reaction in the street, from shopkeepers, customers, taxi drivers – they were impressed” with his calm arguments and “logic,” says a veteran analyst in Tehran, who asked not to be named.

The president’s trip and a recent agreement reached with the UN’s nuclear watchdog to resolve remaining questions, mean the “expectation in the street of a [US-Iran] military clash is lower,” says the analyst. “But up there [at the highest levels], how much are they deceiving themselves?”

For it is up there – where Iran’s supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei makes all final decisions – that the real political battles are being fought. The powers of Ahmadinejad’s rival Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a regime stalwart considered a “pragmatic conservative,” expanded a month ago when he was elected speaker of the Assembly of Experts, a body with the power to dismiss Mr. Khamenei.

At the same time, a new commander of the IRGC was named, prompting leadership changes that this week saw the Basiji volunteer militia put under IRGC command. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said the forces would “mold our structure to meet current threats.”

The “main responsibility” of the IRGC, General Jafari said last week, would now be to counter “internal threats” – long the first mission of the Basiji. [Editor's note: In the original version, General Jafari's name was misspelled in this paragraph.]

“The fact that Ahmadinejad has been very successful to portray us as a threat to the world has made lots of people unhappy up there,” says the Iranian analyst of elite circles. “So more and more, people are turning their backs on Ahmadinejad, and coming closer to Rafsanjani – or what Rafsanjani used to symbolize, moderation and working with outsiders.”

That trend became clear during elections last December, in which Ahmadinejad’s arch-conservative allies were trounced, adds the analyst: “It shows in the clerical establishment and with voters, there is a tendency away from radical, hard-line, young romantic crazy guys who want to turn the world upside down.”

Ahmadinejad’s US visit was billed by some as “a way of breaking down barriers between the US and Iran,” says Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University who was the principal White House aide for Iran during the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis. “And if you go back and listen to all the mentions of peace and justice and harmony – all these things that we mostly ignored in his speeches – one interpretation is it was intended to create a new atmosphere.”

“Did he make any inroads into American opposition to him, and/or Iranian policy? No,” says Mr. Sick. At a dinner, he personally pressed Ahmadinejad about how the imprisonment of several Iranian-Americans had chilled direct person-to-person contact.”I came away with a sense that this is a man who is supremely and dangerously self-confident, [who] feels he has the answers and he doesn’t have to listen to expert advice.”

Despite the mutual hostility, however, the US top brass, chief among them Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Adm. William Fallon, chief of the Central Command, have called for diplomacy.

“There are a lot of people in the Pentagon in very high positions – not to mention the CIA and State Department – that actually believe that [war] would be lunacy and a total catastrophe to American national interests,” says Sick.

Still, Iran’s alleged activities in Iraq have caused the White House to shift from plans for a “broad bombing attack” on nuclear and military targets in Iran to “surgical strikes” on IRGC elements deemed a source of attacks in Iraq, Mr. Hersh writes.

Bush told Amb. Ryan Crocker in Baghdad in early summer that he was thinking of such a strike, Hersh reports. He quotes a former intelligence official saying: “There is a desperate effort by [Vice President] Cheney et al to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible.”

But while the Iranians appear to have been “putting their money on every number of the roulette wheel … it is categorically different from the level of support that they provide, say, Hizbullah,” Pollack says.

“No advanced antitank guided missiles. No advanced surface-to-air missiles. You don’t see the kind of complete integration of Iranian personnel in Iraqi militia hierarchies the way that you did in Lebanon,” he adds. “There do seem to be some limits, so I assume it is because the Iranians don’t want to get into a fight with the US.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

The shops are full of Western pop music and movies — the latest Harry Potter film, even “The Simpsons.” Young women stroll the streets in skinny jeans and short coats, their heads barely covered, arm-in-arm with boys in muscle shirts and spiky hair.

This is affluent north Tehran, where clerics are rare, lifestyles are relatively liberal and Iran’s growing isolation from the world is a source of deep anxiety. Not far to the south, though, in a dilapidated bureaucratic building near the city’s government center, and farther to the south in Tehran’s sprawling poorer neighborhoods, things are different. Near downtown, as a hard-line official talks about his dislike of the West and the continued power of the Islamic revolution, the call to prayer echoes through an open window. On a nearby wall, a map showing Iran’s closest ally Syria and its top enemy Israel hangs prominently. It is the paradox of Tehran today — a city and people surprisingly cosmopolitan and far different from Western stereotypes, paired with an ultraconservative government working to consolidate its power and at sharp odds with the West.

Yet, whether modern or strictly traditional, many Iranians share one thing: A strong national pride and desire for respect from the outside world, sharpened by their sense of being under siege. “The world does not understand us,” said Shahryar Eivazzadeh, in his early 30s, who works at a software company in north Tehran. Many young people may dislike the current government but they shudder at the thought of attack by the West, he said. “Not everything is so bad here,” he said of the criticism Iran faces. “It’s not that simple.” In part, the strong nationalism stems from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the vivid, frequent references to it across state media. TV images of weeping mothers, exhausted and heroic soldiers and martyred civilians are a stark reminder of how Iran suffered the last time it was invaded. During key times, such as the recent anniversary of the war’s start, hard-liners may deliberately use such images to shore up their influence. But even educated middle-class Iranians say their country sits in a rough neighborhood, surrounded by Arab countries that are not friendly, and that Iran needs ways to defend itself. Such shared national sentiment aside, much of Tehran feels split. Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won many votes in the conservative, poorer southern neighborhoods of Tehran, where people responded to his populist call for sharing the country’s oil wealth.

Little of that sharing has happened, however, and even former Ahmadinejad supporters in parliament and the media have raised complaints about his economic performance. In the city’s more upscale and modern north, the criticism is much sharper: Some shake their heads in disgust when the president’s name comes up. In one office building the morning after Ahmadinejad’s recent speech at Columbia University, a middle-aged employee laughed ruefully and told a friend, “It’s better not to know” what Ahmadinejad had said. “We don’t deserve such a guy,” he said, asking that his name not be used. The hardest-line newspapers, however, were full of praise. The same divisions play out on the streets. Even before the 1979 Islamic revolution and during the period immediately after, Tehran’s northern neighborhoods, especially the affluent suburbs stretching up into the foothills that ring the city, were a more Westernized bastion, where women often dressed in Western clothes, supporters of the shah’s regime lived in villas and even some fast-food restaurants flourished. The south was home to the poorer and more conservative, many of them economic migrants from Iran’s provinces who came to find work and crowded into small apartments, sometimes in neighborhoods with no working sewage systems.

The bulk of protests and street fighting surrounding the revolution occurred in the city’s center, especially around Tehran University and the long boulevard now called Vali Asr, but supporters of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini recruited many of their “foot soldiers” from Tehran’s southern neighborhoods. And Khomeini, on his return to the country from exile, based his headquarters there. Over the years, and particularly after reformist President Mohammad Khatami came to power in the late 1990s, personal freedoms again exploded in the city’s north as women began dressing more liberally and modern shops sprang up. Even after the reform movement stalled and Ahmadinejad was elected in late 2005, the northern neighborhoods have remained something of a haven for the more liberal and well-off — with modern freeways, new and often graceful high-rise apartment buildings and green parks. Nevertheless, the Ahmadinejad era has brought changes: Officials have cracked down on private freedoms in recent months, including stopping women on the streets for not properly covering their heads. Yet in northern neighborhoods, young men still throng to hip hair salons at indoor shopping centers, the stylists and their customers on full display to passing young women, through plate-glass windows.

Underground rock bands draw fans, and pre-Revolutionary music plays from car stereos. In Tehran’s sprawling metropolitan area of 9 million, an estimated 60 percent of the population is younger than 25, and thus born sometime after the 1979 Islamic revolution. At outdoor cafes in the northern foothills, families talk about the hassles of heavy traffic and gasoline rationing and their fears of being priced out of the city’s inflationary housing market. They swap sarcastic quips about the president, apparently unconcerned if someone overhears. They also express some gloom about the future: Tips for obtaining a bank account in nearby Dubai are traded intently, at a time when U.S. government pressure on European and Asian banks to stop transactions with Iran has dried up access to the outside world economy. Only miles to the south, however, many women still wear the long, enveloping black chador as they go out to shop or take children to school. Pictures of Khomeini and the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, stare down from murals on many streets. And hard-line figures like Hossein Shariatmadari, close to Khamenei, cast Iran’s differences with the United States as an unending ideological struggle between their Islamic theocracy and a plundering, arrogant America.

Speaking in his office near the city’s government center, the map of Syria and Israel on a wall nearby, Shariatmadari said Iran is strong enough to resist whatever the United States might throw its way. Even if Iran curbed its nuclear program, the United States would merely come after Iran for something else, he said. The point is moot anyway, he said, because Iran will never give up the nuclear program. “We simply want to control our own resources, run our own affairs,” he said. “The mistake that the U.S. administration makes is to threaten Iran … They don’t understand the Iranian nation.”

Source: the Associated Press