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GWYNNE DYER // GWYNNE@VUEWEEKLY.COM
Iran nuclear deal: the aftermath Many nations fear the consequences if Iran's nuclear reactor is approved What will the Middle East look like after Iran and the great powers negotiating over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1)—sign a deal that ends the confrontation? It's time to ask the question, because there is going to be a deal. It didn't get signed in Geneva last weekend, but it came close. The only foreign minister at the Geneva talks on Friday was Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, but progress was so rapid that by Saturday almost all the foreign ministers of the "P5+1"—American, British, French, German and Russian—dropped whatever they were doing and flew in for the grand finale. Only the Chinese foreign minister was absent. The grand finale has been postponed. There were just too many details to clear up in a single weekend, and a couple of sticking points that have yet to be resolved. But the date for the next meeting has already been set (November 20) and nobody went away angry. "We are all on the same wavelength," Zarif said. "There is a deal on the table and it can be done," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. There are "still some gaps" between Iran and some of the other countries
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present, Hague said, but "they are narrow gaps. You asked what went wrong. I would say that a great deal went right." Even French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the one who apparently dropped a last-minute spanner in the works, said that "we are not far from an agreement with the Iranians, although we are not there yet." Fabius' demands were that the reactor in Arak, now nearing completion, should never be activated, as it would produce plutonium as a byproduct, and that Iran's store of uranium enriched to medium level (20-percent pure) should be brought back down to five percent to move it farther away from weapons-grade (90 percent). His demands, introduced into the talks at a late stage, brought the proceedings to a temporary halt. All the other Western powers closed ranks and insisted these were joint demands, but they were not part of the original draft agreement. Speculation was rife that France was acting on behalf of its customers (for French weapons) on the Arab side of the Gulf, notably in the United Arab Emirates, who view the deal under discussion with just as much horror as Israel does. But France can only delay things: the deal is going to happen.
One immediate consequence of the deal will be that Israel has to stop threatening to attack Iran. The threat was always 90-percent bluff—Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's own military chiefs would probably refuse to obey him if he ordered such an attack without American support—but now it will be simply ridiculous, which will swing the spotlight back to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Iran's economic isolation will also end, although it may take several years to unwind all the economic sanctions. The gradual return of prosperity in Iran will make the current Islamic regime more secure (which may be the main reason that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, authorized newly elected President Hassan Rouhani to negotiate the nuclear deal and end the confrontation.) But the big question is whether a nuclear deal with Iran will cool the rapidly intensifying Sunni-Shia conflict that threatens to suck in the whole of the Fertile Crescent and the Arabian Peninsula. The answer, alas, is probably not. The split is as incomprehensible to non-Muslims as the religious wars of Europe four centuries ago were to nonChristians, and mercifully Sunni-Shia hostility has never reached quite that intensity of violence and hatred. But right across the Islamic world it has been get-
ting worse for several decades now and the eye of the storm is in the Middle East. Iran is the sole Shia great power, so it is inevitably the focus of the fears of Sunni Arabs and the hopes of Shia Arabs. Moreover, given Turkey's semi-detached relationship with the region, Iran is in practical terms the greatest power in the entire Middle East. For the past decade, Iran has been greatly weakened by the arms and trade embargoes the West imposed because of the nuclear issue. Once those embargoes are removed Iran will regain much of its former strength. This is already causing great anxiety in the Sunni Arab countries, especially those that face it across the Gulf. Even quite experienced people in Washington and other Western capitals don't realize the extent to which the Sunni Arab countries of the Middle East thought that their close ties with the Western great powers gave them a kind of guarantee against Shia power—and how betrayed they feel now that they think that guarantee is
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being withdrawn. Sunnis outnumber Shias almost 10 to one in the Islamic world as a whole, but in the smaller world that stretches from Iran and Turkey to Palestine and Yemen, the "Middle East," Shias make up more than a third of the population. The war is already hot and quite openly sectarian in Syria and in Iraq. In many other places (Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen) it is bubbling just underneath the surface. It will get worse before it gets better. V Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
RICARDO ACUÑA // RICARDO@VUEWEEKLY.COM
Evidence versus ideology in health care Privatization in health care has not shown itself to be beneficial to recipients 3” wide version
How does the Alberta government the traditional, old-fashioned pubfeel about the idea of a publicly- lic health-care system." She didn't funded, publicly-delivered health- make clear, of course, whether her care system in the province? If their issue was with the fully funded part or the delivery nonpart. Either answers in question period overfaster the than 36 times salt...public but harmless, past couple of weekstoxic. are anything way,shrubs, her response demonstrates a Protect cement, grass, metal, tile, to go by, they see itcarpet, as 12345 old-fashclear disdain theinstantly, type of healthetc. Exothermic action for starts ioned, stuck in the '80s care system thatrefreezing. Albertans have worksand up ideoto 36 hours to prevent logical—and not in a good stoodCommercial up loudly Industries, to fight for over Used inbya way. Businesses, overSchools, again foretc. the past On October 30, in Institutions, response toCities, a and Towns, NOT30 years. question from NDP SOLD leader Brian Exactly a week later, Health MinIN STORES. Mason about the imminent priva- ister Fred Horne responded to ECONOMICAL PRODUCTS tization of medical-lab services in questions from Liberal MLA David the province, RedfordP49@telus.net re- Swann and New 560-8177 Democrat MLA Garth:Premier (403) 888-5593 Bob: (403) sponded that "the only thing that David Eggen about the impact of their party believes in is nothing privatization on Alberta's elder-care but fully funded public health care system by suggesting the questions that is only delivered in some of the were based on ideology rather than ways that are most connected to facts, and that they were stuck in
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Garth: (403) 888-5593 P49@telus.net Bob: (403) 560-8177 8 FRONT
the '80s and '90s. The minister's response, once again, revealed more about his government's ideology and what they want to do with our health-care system than it did about Eggen's and Swann's.
The questions that Horne was trying to respond to were based on information contained in a report released earlier that same day by the Parkland Institute. Parkland's report, which used data from Statistics Canada and the reports of Alberta's own Health Facilities Review Committee, tracked the impact of growing privatization of residential elder care in Alberta and the province's moving of seniors from longterm care to what they call assisted living, especially since 1999. So, not only was the Institute's report based on hard data rather than ideology, it focused explicitly on what both the minister and the Premier would seem to consider the modern era of health-care provision in Alberta. And the results were unequivocal. Between 1999 and 2009 the number of long-term care spaces in the province decreased by 20 percent and the overall number of spaces fell by four percent. By 2008, Alberta had the second-
lowest availability of long-term care spaces in the country. In addition to the reduced number of spaces (despite a growing population), the report found that facilities across the board were failing to meet the minimum staffing requirements to achieve the safety and comfort of residents. For-profit facilities fell short of the indicators of reasonable quality elder care by more than 90 minutes of care per resident, per day. While public facilities also fell short, they did significantly better than for-profit facilities. At the same time, the report highlights that while this shift in the quality of care was happening, for-profit assisted living facilities were generating average returns for their investors of more than nine percent—significantly higher than almost anything on the US stock markets over the same period. Minister Horne claimed to be interested in facts over ideology, and the facts are clear. Privatization in the elder-care system has resulted in fewer spaces, higher costs and lower quality of service—results that are impacting the safety, dignity and well-being of our seniors and having a significant impact on
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the public interest. When presented with these facts, however, Horne made clear that the government will continue to move forward with reclassification and privatization of the residential elder-care system. Likewise, when presented with clear data showing privatizing medical-lab services would endanger lives and cost more, the premier remained steadfast in her commitment to move the privatization forward. This compulsion to move forward with privatization at all levels despite the facts and evidence should make clear to Albertans exactly who it is who is operating exclusively from a place of ideology and a desire to go back to an old-fashioned health-care system based on maximization of profits rather than the well-being of Albertans. It didn't work in the early 1900s, it's not working today, and no amount of re-framing and rhetoric by the government is going to change that reality. V Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan, public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.