Comments on issues raised by BBC WHYS

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously voted to impose sanctions against Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment. But will these sanctions work?

Iran will continue its defiance of international call for its failure to halt uranium enrichment. For the Iranian regime, its nuclear program is a matter of survival against what it sees threats from the USA and its allies. Iran still has oil weapon in case the situation worsens in the Middle East.

As long as it has trading partners like China and Russia and as long as it has started using the Euro for its international trade in replacement of the dollar, it will have ways to circumvent the sanctions.

The other advantage it has is that this is not a total economic embargo as it was with Iraq under Saddam. The revenues from recent oil boom will help it cope at least for a certain period.

Sanctions against Iran can succeed if they were tougher. The US still has Iran’s allies, mainly China and Russia, to persuade for global and not selective sanctions. Iran can still do with Chinese and Russian technology as the US has barred it from its key one since the start of the Islamic Revolution.

The Iranians have monetary reserves from their oil revenues to coax new trading partners in countries hostile to the USA like Venezuela.

The loss that the US can have in case these sanctions fail to make Iran halt its nuclear program is that Russia and China will become it rivals in the Middle East, creating a new balance of influence that can make US political calculations need total review.

The authoritarian president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, who has died aged 66, created a cult of personality during his two decades in power.

Despite his imposed personality cult, which seems laughable to many people, President Saparmurat Niyazov was benign to the rest of the world. He didn’t seek to export his vision to the world by force contrary to the other existing presidents making themselves personality cults like Kim Yong of North Korea who sees nuclear arms as a shield from foreign influence.

Some leaders try to go down history thanks to their deeds and place in the world community. Others are happy to be self-centred and to see their place according to their image. President Saparmurat Niyazov was almost a living God in Turkmenistan. His book was the bible for his people. To make himself omnipresent he imposed his statues, pictures and name everywhere. But as a fake God, his “Holy Script” is likely to become a past if his people convert to real democracy to enjoy full freedom.

It’s unfortunate that he died before seeing how many people became intelligent thanks to his book. In heaven, he can know how many are in paradise thanks to it.

A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what’s become known as “Paris syndrome “.

Visiting a foreign place should be done with readiness to meet all possible strange facts and attitudes. It can be an experience of culture shock. In some societies too much formality is a sign of respect while in others it is a means to keep a personal distance.

Paris is a snobbish city even for the French who don’t live in it. If one wants to have informal and friendly welcome, they’d better go the Mediterranean part of France. People there are as warm as the weather or they go to Nigeria listed as the happiest country in the world.

Finally one chooses to go to a place for sightseeing or for mixing with people. If people aren’t polite, they’d better be ignored. One shouldn’t be – to the point of breakdown -the victim of badly behaved waiter or taxi driver. People of such kinds should be treated as machine from whom a type of work is expected and not as people who should show human warmth. After all one doesn’t faint because of a vendor machine doesn’t smile when putting a coin in it and doesn’t say thank you when one gets the goods out of it.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again defended the war in Iraq, saying the investment in US lives and dollars will be “worth it”.

Investment in US lives? When has human life become an investment for political end? The US government had better legalised human cloning. So soldiers will be cloned and their death will be considered as the loss of military equipment.

The US has a history of sacrificing its soldiers abroad. There were successes as in the Second World War. But there were setbacks in the Vietnam War where more than 50,000 soldiers died, not to count the surviving with physical and mental illnesses.

Politicians think putting their feelings aside. But considering human death as investment is similar to Senator Kerry’s statement that the future of worthless American students was in Iraq. US Soldiers are trained to fight and be prepared to die for their country to survive but not an investment to win political wars.

The war in Iraq was a political investment for the Bush administration in its first term. Many international and domestic policies were taken on the basis of fighting terrorist groups, especially those operating in Iraq.

US can be financially rewarded if peace returned to Iraq. . Every cent spent on the war in Iraq will, in case of success, be returned with a dollar.

It will open the gate for American giant companies to have huge lucrative investment to make up for the billions of the dollars spend on the war in Iraq.

For the US containing the war in Iraq is less costly than if the whole Middle East becomes engaged in a war, especially between Israel and other countries in the region, mainly Syria and Iran. Otherwise, the flow of oil will stop from this region making a barrel cost $US +100.

The war can also protect US friendly regimes in the region. But the US still has Iran to deal with. If the issue of its nuclear program isn’t settled peacefully, the US will have to start a new war with more lost lives and billions of dollars.

Investment of diplomatic efforts should be stepped up to find an end to the war in Iraq.The reasonably diplomatic investment will be this: The US should try to reach out to its countries like Iran and Syria for a way out as the insurgents find support in these two countries. Spilling more blood is a shameful investment.