Instrumental but excluded (Iran)

[bemildred]

If Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and Ehud Olmert are to be believed, Iran wields significant influence throughout the Middle East, and not least over the current Lebanon crisis. Which, logically, makes it all the more strange that Britain, the US and Israel have so far systematically excluded the Islamic republic from international efforts to end the fighting and achieve a lasting settlement.

Tomorrow's Rome conference will be attended by the main western powers and the so-called moderate Arab states. But Iran and its second-string ally, Syria, have not been invited even though it is widely accepted that any peace deal involving their Lebanese political ally, Hizbullah, is unlikely to stick without their support.

The UN mission that visited the region and presented its proposals to the security council last week did not travel to Tehran or Damascus. Nor, as far as is known, have there been substantive efforts by European powers to engage bilaterally with Iran's leadership on Lebanon. Britain certainly denies doing so.

Western diplomats say the cold-shouldering of Iran is justified by its past behaviour and its present military and financial links to Hizbullah. The stand-off should also be considered in the context of the threat allegedly posed by its nuclear activities. Iran's attitude to the Lebanon crisis has been unhelpful from the start, they say.

Guardian

[Dover]

1. Thanks for the article. It seems clear the U.S./Israel/Britain have no

interest is giving Iran/Syria a voice, lest they speak the TRUTH too loudly, and challenge the long term U.S./Israeli/U.K. goal of elimating their economically strategic competitor and nemesis...Iran.

...But paranoia and rhetoric aside, claims that Iran is solely bent on exacerbating the Lebanon conflict are contradicted by a concurrent strain of calmer, diplomatic exhortation typified by Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister.

Early on in the crisis, he travelled to Damascus and with Syria's vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, jointly proposed a way out. An "acceptable and fair" solution was possible, Mr Mottaki said. "In fact, there can be a ceasefire followed by a prisoner swap." Even though this still remains the most likely route out of the crisis, and even though Hizbullah is most likely to listen to Iran and Syria, Mr Mottaki's suggestions have been ignored.

Hamid Reza Asefi, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, said today that Iran provided "moral aid and moral support" to Hizbullah, not money and missiles, and had no interest in seeing Lebanon destabilised or destroyed. Iran wanted a solution but was not helped by the hostile attitude of western powers.