The Bush administration said today that it had received word that Iran had recently arrested some Al Qaeda members operating in its territory, but that the actions had failed to ease American concerns about Iranian support for terrorist activities.

"The steps that the Iranians claim to have taken in terms of capturing Al Qaeda are insufficient," Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said, after news reports of the arrests from Tehran. "It is important that Iran live up to its commitments and obligations not to harbor terrorists."

Administration officials said it was unclear how many Al Qaeda members had been arrested in Iran, what their identities were and whether they included any of the top officials, who some believe have been functioning with Iranian acquiescence.

Still, they said the arrests had failed to meet the demands that Al Qaeda members not simply be arrested but also handed over to Saudi Arabia or other authorities investigating the bombing of three foreign compounds in Riyadh earlier this month.

Despite the generally tough tone on Iran, however, administration officials said a high-level interagency meeting that had been scheduled for today to decide possible new punitive steps against the Tehran government had been postponed, in part to study the arrests and other developments.

The officials said the information about the arrests needed to be squared with other intelligence on Iran, and also with information from other countries that have an intense interest in Iranian behavior, including Britain and Pakistan.

Mr. Fleischer, dismissing Iran's actions on terrorism, also took a tough position on Iran's nuclear program, which the government in Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

"The United States rejects that argument as a cover story," Mr. Fleischer said. "Our strong position is that Iran is preparing, instead, to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons. That is what we see."

American officials said they were also studying official comments in Moscow that Russia was also trying to persuade Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful, especially the Russian-financed reactor at Bushehr, which the United States says could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.

Mr. Fleischer, referring to American pressure on President Vladimir Putin to act against Iran, said the United States remained "hopeful that we can effect a change in policy by Russia, but it does remain a matter of some dispute."

Administration officials say there is a split in the administration over how to proceed with Iran, with some advocating tough measures like cutting off diplomatic contacts and possibly supporting antigovernment opposition groups based in American-occupied Iraq.

Earlier this month, a scheduled meeting between Iranian and American officials was canceled. Instead, the United States sent a tough demand on Al Qaeda. Some officials were said to favor that those meetings, which have been going on for more than a year, be cut off.

Today, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought to play down the divisions. "Our policies with respect to Iran have not changed," Mr. Powell said following a meeting with the president of Madagascar. "We do not approve of their support of terrorist activities. We have made it clear over the years that we disapprove of their efforts to develop a nuclear capability."

Going further, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, dismissed the idea that the United States was close to breaking off diplomatic contact — there have been no formal relations since the Iranian revolution more than two decades ago.

"We have ways of communicating, we have ways of contacting them, and we would expect to do so again," Mr. Boucher said.

The day's developments were a reminder of the fluid nature of American policy in the Middle East in the weeks following the war with Iraq. Some officials said the meeting on Iran due today was put off in part because of a separate preoccupation: planning President Bush's trip to the region next month.

American officials say their priorities toward Iran have been to stop its nuclear weapons program by using a combination of diplomacy and implied threat of force and to try to end Iran's support of terrorist groups.

On terrorism, the main concern has been Iran's support of Hezbollah, which has carried out attacks on Israel and other Western targets, often from bases in Syrian-controlled Lebanon.

Al Qaeda is believed to have operated in different parts of Iran, notably in the north and also in the barren southern mountains of Baluchistan, on the Pakistan border. Some American officials say that Iran has played host to Al Qaeda units that fled Afghanistan after the war there in 2002 and, more recently, from northern Iraq.

American officials say Iran has handed over Al Qaeda members in the past to Saudi Arabia and perhaps Pakistan, but there is disagreement on whether such steps were significant or sincere.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today cited another more recent problem that American officials have been worried about, Iran's support of Shiite groups in Iraq, which may be part of an effort to establish a Shiite theocracy in that country.

"Iran should be on notice: efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran's image will be aggressively put down," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Deeds, as ever, speak more eloquently than words. Al-Qaeda isn't finished. Its structure - devolved, barely organised by conventional standards - can survive any number of strikes at individual bases. There's no command and control system to disrupt: just loose groupings of the desperate and the deluded with trucks full of explosive or grenades strapped to their waists, ready to die from Casablanca to Riyadh. Blood brothers of the Israeli bus bombers.

You can't cut off the head, because the manic heart still beats on regardless.

Afghanistan, we may guess, gave the guys some pause. There was, at least, a brief pause once it was over. By contrast, Iraq seems to have had no impact whatsoever. Our boys are barely back from the Gulf before terror carries on its dismal way. It is killing business as usual - the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam business of yesteryear replicated from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.

Yet these deeds, in their brutal banality, also tell an interesting story. Nuclear weapons, dirty bombs, weapons of mass destruction? They may be part of the long-term planning, part of the dreaming. Scary sketches and formulas scribbled in pencil. But they are not, for the moment, part of the reality. That is relentlessly low-tech, as basic as a bad day on the West Bank, or an outrage in the Algeria of 30 years ago. Synchronise watches, light the blue touch paper and self-destruct immediately.

The targets, time after time, are relentlessly soft. A nightclub of young Aussies in Bali; sleepy Western compounds in Saudi; a Jewish centre and Spanish social club in Casablanca - where the man with the bomb arrived with a long knife. You can't defend yourself against threats like these. They're no-brainers, picked for no particularly cogent reason. They don't even single out the enemies of bin Laden for particular treatment. Most of those who were maimed or murdered in Casablanca were ordinary Moroccans.

So collect the clues. Will this agglomeration of terror come to central London or, again, to Manhattan? Perhaps. But it's rather likelier to visit downtown Cairo or Kuala Lumpur first. That, strategically, is the PR boon left over from September 11: you don't need to take big risks to garner big headlines any longer. More ordinary mayhem will serve just as well. One unspecified threat to Kenya blanks out East Africa for the duration.

Worse, there's no shortage of recruits, human fodder for annihilation. Western terrorist threats such as ETA or the IRA can mount continuing campaigns using very few active fighters; maybe a hundred or two max. If either had lost 20 men in a couple of attacks, that would have been disaster. But not for al-Qaeda. It, seemingly, has volunteers to spare. It can lose one to kill one. It doesn't need to husband resources. It thinks it has tens of thousands to spare.

Yet there is some frail reason for hope in such conclusions. Who will really suffer most after Casablanca, for instance? Moroccans. One lifeline of progress there - tourism - lies snapped for the moment. It is the same in Kenya, where a new democratic Government has to muster its resources.

Closed, claustrophobic societies such as Saudi Arabia are pressure-cookers when the heat comes on. Open or half-open societies are programmed to respond very differently. They know how much they have to lose. The message of bin Laden has scant relevance to their daily lives. It is a maverick howl, not a call to revolution. And here, for the West, is the essential dislocation.

We fight the threat of terror - real and imagined - by abandoning liberties, tightening the state's grip, cutting the corners of freedom. That's one story since September 11. It is replicated in Riyadh and Rabat. Authority under challenge cracks down automatically. But the ultimate defence in this campaign against terror is precisely the reverse. It is the rejection of suppression that casts the terrorist in the least kindly light. Morocco needs to be more free, not less. The princelings of the house of Saud are the problem, not the solution.

Is democracy, as we were told, on the way for Baghdad? Maybe. But the calls grow weaker as the complexities mount. The lacuna of a free Iraqi government that blithely supports George Bush becomes ever more evident. Nevertheless, for all the surrounding doubts and sorrows, Iraq needs to find a voice - just as Iran, lost for decades to a particular strain of Islam, is struggling to find one.

And these voices, right across the wider Muslim world, can only flourish in a setting of growing normality. The Arab "street" has to have something better than death and destruction to look forward to.

One of the best, but least rehearsed, lessons of the Afghan aftermath can be found in the "pure state of Islam" - Pakistan today. That doesn't mean that a general in braid is the best man to be president. But the press has regained a certain vibrancy - and the supposedly extremist religious parties that won power in Peshawar, amid great apprehension, have concentrated on decent governance rather than agitation.

You do not, in sum, have to walk on the wild side if there's a better way; and those who take a wilder route can gradually be isolated. That's how al-Qaeda and its 18,000 or so foot soldiers disperses in the end. Amid public derision. That - one distant day - is the promise of the Israel "road map" to peace. And that is the lesson we in the West need to learn, too.

Defeat these terrorists by building more walls around the gated society of the West? Humiliate the street by braggart wars? No: freedom, like realism, begins at home.

May 22 2003

A translation of the text of a purported audio tape by Osama bin Laden's top aide, Ayman al-Zawahri, aired by Qatar-based al-Jazeera television:

"Protests, demonstrations and conferences are of no use to you. The only thing that will benefit you is carrying arms and spiting your enemies, the Americans and Jews.

"Protests will not protect threatened sanctities, will not evict the occupying enemy and will not deter the stubborn tyrants. The crusaders and the Jews only understand the language of murder and bloodshed and are only convinced by coffins, destroyed interests, burning towers and a shattered economy.

"Be strong, O Muslims, and attack the missions of the United States, the UK, Australia and Norway and their interests, companies and employees. Turn the ground beneath their feet into an inferno and kick them out of your countries. Do not allow the United States, the UK, Australia, Norway and other crusaders - the murderers of your Iraqi brothers - to live in your countries and enjoy their wealth and spread corruption.

"Consider your 19 brothers who attacked America with their aeroplanes in New York and Washington and who spited them in an unprecedented manner. It (America) is still suffering from its wounds until today.

"O Iraqi people, we have defeated those crusaders several times before and kicked them out of our countries and sanctities. Know that you are not alone in this battle. Your brother mujahideen (holy fighters) are following the enemies as well and are lying in wait for them.

"The mujahideen in Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya and even in the heart of America and the West are making the crusaders taste all forms of death. The next few days will reveal to you news that will gladden your hearts, God willing.

"After the division of Iraq will come the turn of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Pakistan ... so that nothing will be left around Israel except torn fragments of so-called countries which follow and are subjects of America and Israel.

"These are the truths becoming clear before you, O Muslims, and all the masks have fallen ... For here are the Muslim rulers with their airports, bases and facilities who allow ships to use their waters and provide them with fuel, food and supplies. They allow planes to use their airspace, and to actually fly from their airports, and welcome the criminal troops to attack Iraq from their land.

"For here is Saudi Arabia with planes flying from its Rafha airport, and Kuwait where the criminal troops advance from its land, and Qatar where the command for the campaign is, and Bahrain with the US Fifth Fleet, and Egypt with warships using its canal, and Yemen supplying crusader vessels at its ports, and Jordan where crusader troops have deployed and where Patriot batteries protect Israel.

"And after all this, they scream with all hypocrisy and treachery that they oppose the war on Iraq."

Yes, like you I watch Iran with anxiety. You’ve given me detailed descriptions which portray your extensive knowledge of what is going on. Such knowledge rarely reaches the pages of our newspapers. Your words showed an almost corrosive, cynical pessimism and your speculations will possibly become hard reports. The potentiality of certain things are always present. Much, I suspect, is suppressed by the Governments in question. Those you have recently spoken to have frighteningly intense, fanatical aspirations and such fanaticism will continue to stir such forces within the Middle East. There is no doubt that Iran gently stirs a simmering pot; an insidious process which coalesces the discontents and gropes further into the masses who are filled with discontent and impatience. Time is playing on their side.
Regarding Iran, yes I have seen new reports regarding the Saudi bombing. There is little doubt in my mind that Iran was involved but how deep that commitment was remains unknown. Getting the evidence is the problem. Iran has increasingly extended their range of activities across the region and they have become discriminating in their dealings.

You’ve brought a unique perspective to the assessment concerning Saudi. The result of which illustrates the challenge of the increasing impact of such activities not only in Saudi but in the ME generally. What you’ve written mirrors my own views. Nothing in the analysis would indicate a more pessimistic outlook. The convergence of the groups mentioned can be regarded as raising their potential and increased activity can be expected in the areas I’ve highlighted on the regional map. If what you have written evolves as expected, it will become increasingly difficult to gain an unequivocal assessment of Iran’s capabilities. Is such a response as you’ve mentioned appropriate for responding to what is to be an operation of aggression and which also runs the risk of raising the prospect that may sew the seeds for significant instability in the region? Personally, I do not believe that it is an effective response and would contain further risk. There is nothing inherently wrong in advocating reprisal attacks but we should not endorse such action for the sake of it.

Your second point should provide some room for manoeuvre. The analysis indicates that there will be an increase in acts of terrorism. You’ve emphasised the risks but such action as you’ve recommended would entail a higher level of risk? Surely the key is to avoid introducing something that increases the risk of further outbreaks of violence? In order to assess whether such an event will be repeated it would be useful to consider the forces underlying the problem. Regarding your fifth point such factors may be offsetting the fact that there is more equipment available which would theoretically maximise the potential for further incidents. Regarding your tenth point, the development echoes an important trend that has prevailed for sometime and enhanced capability combined with changes previously cited in the assessment are behind their more aggressive moves.

In the time available it’s not possible to provide an full overview of all the issues, but I have mentioned a few above and I attach more details separately. In assessing the separate reports , I found that there were a number of fundamental questions. For example, to what extent do the reports contain a balanced assessment? How comprehensive is the analysis? Are the Saudis seeking to reinforce their own interests? (It is not too difficult to understand the Saudi reaction or why they may be anxious to protect and perhaps enhance US involvement). There is a lot to encourage the idea that there must have been a master plan behind the bombing but there is no real supporting evidence that Iran gave the order. I believe the bombing involves a much wider conspiracy than the single group which actually executed it. It is more than possible that the group moved from the realm of ideas to the realm of action though such an order would have to have come from a higher position of authority.

I found the Estimate to be overly complicated and perhaps a little too dynamic and in general I have been a little disappointed in what I have read. (It is a little disappointing that it focussed on action rather than attempting to address the likely future course of events.) I also found though in many ways plausible the theory does not stand up and there are many weaknesses in the report. It would seem that some aspects of the official Saudi version require a good deal of explanation.

There’s no doubt that the Saudis need to improve their transparency and ensure that the US have greater access to all the necessary information and those involved. It would seem that the Saudis are putting a case for reprisal action to be taken without attempting to adopt a more forward looking perspective which I believe is necessary if the various issues are to be assessed properly. In my view the Saudis need to accept more responsibility for the conditions that currently prevail. I attach further notes for your review.

Do you recall the above? The past becomes today even though the past was as before - nothing has changed

Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in the Middle East, met the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and left without any diplomatic achievement. True, Israel made a few small gestures, but it did not commit itself to the "road map", the American plan for restarting the peace process.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuffed the American request that he freeze construction in Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, explaining that this construction was essential to provide for the "natural increase" of the settlements' population. Appealing to his guest's Republican heart, Sharon asked: "Do you want the settlers to have abortions?"

So in the aftermath of Powell's visit, large numbers of questions continue to waft through the Middle East. But they are all, when it comes down to it, progeny of one central question: what does Ariel Sharon really intend to do?

Sharon has, for more than a year, been declaring that he is prepared to take "painful steps" to achieve a lasting peace with the Palestinians. He even speaks of a process that will lead to an end of Israel's occupation of the territories, with the Palestinians receiving their own state. These are encouraging promises, especially from a man who has in the past branded as traitors people who dared suggest this very kind of compromise. Is he speaking truthfully? Or is he pulling the wool over our eyes, as he has done so often before? Maybe he is handing out generous promises, assuming that he can always count on Palestinian terror to abort any dialogue or at least provide a good excuse for suspending it.

Sharon's promises offer hope, but only until one examines the conditions he places on them. The Palestinians, he says, must completely cease all terror actions and disarm all Palestinian militias. They must also give up their demand for a "right of return" - that is, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in Israel. This concession must come before negotiations begin.

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In principle, Sharon's demand is logical and just. In fact, Israel must insist on a Palestinian abjuration of the right of return in the final agreement. Yet to insist that the Palestinians make this concession before negotiations even begin is to ensure that there will be no negotiations at all and that terror will continue. It will ensure that desperate Palestinians will take ever more extreme positions, including on the right of return.

It is clear to everyone that giving up the right of return will be an extremely difficult and painful psychological step for the Palestinians. Senior Palestinians I have spoken to recently say they realise that they will, in the end, have to give up their aspiration for the refugees' return to homes that are now inside Israel's borders. Yet they add that they will be able to insist that their countrymen make this concession only if they can show that they have achieved, in negotiations, significant Israeli concessions. "A Palestinian leader foolish enough to propose conceding the right of return in order to begin negotiations with Israel would be assassinated immediately," I was recently told by one the ministers in the Palestinian cabinet headed by the Palestinian Authority's new Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, known also by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen.

Sharon's other demand, that the Palestinian Authority fight terror, is also justified and morally correct. Nevertheless, no Israeli or Palestinian believes that Abu Mazen can, in his current stage of weakness, eradicate terrorism, or even fight it effectively. For the past three years, Israel has made a huge and effective effort to fight Palestinian terror itself. In doing so, however, it also shattered the same Palestinian government and security apparatuses that it now expects to halt terrorist acts. Furthermore, Abu Mazen knows well that he must act with determination of a type not yet seen in the Palestinian Authority against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet he is trapped and nearly paralysed between the contradictory pressures, expectations, and threats pressing on him at home and from the outside. If he fights a war to the death with Hamas, he will lose the support of his own people. If he does not fight Hamas, he will lose the support of the Americans and Europeans. If he does fight, a Palestinian civil war could well break out. That will lead to increased Palestinian support for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who is lying in wait for his Prime Minister to fail. If Abu Mazen does not fight, and terrorists succeed in carrying out attacks against Israel, Israel will have an excellent excuse for pulling out of negotiations.

So the keys are in Sharon's pocket and the one really essential question, the axis around which the entire situation moves is: Does Sharon really, seriously mean to keep his promises? Is he speaking the truth when he speaks of a "window of opportunities" and a commitment to President George Bush's vision of a Middle East peace?

It's amazing how much now depends on a single man. It's no less amazing to realise that if Sharon were to decide to truly turn on to the path of compromise, and to take serious steps to build Palestinian confidence, he would have the support of the great majority of Israelis. So the polls say.

Will he do it?

Look where we are now. Iraq has ceased to be a threat to Israel. Syria is frightened and promising to rein in the terrorist organisations that operate with its support. Arafat has, for all intents and purposes, been relieved of his powers and influence. The Palestinian Prime Minister sharply condemns terror against Israel. The only major military power in Israel's proximity today is the United States. Had an angel come from heaven a year ago and given Israelis a glimpse of their current position, they would have thought that the Messiah was on his way.

Yet this really is our position, and our leaders must read the map properly to prepare for the future. If Sharon refuses to take advantage of this rare opportunity to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all (on terms very good for Israel), if he continues to play tough and arrogant, it will be an act of historical irresponsibility. It will increase hostility to Israel in the region and in the world. It will entrench the conflict and will prevent any chance of normality.

Which way will he choose?

Hatred is the most basic and tyrannical of instincts that can turn men into creatures who will destroy without hesitation or remorse. They’ve acquired contempt for human life and a predilection for taking it. These acts are committed out of vengeance and the violence itself is seen as a necessity. There are no laws or restraining influences, they’ve lost their inner moral values and they’ve become animals. The casualty lists grow daily. There is nothing to show for the blood being spilled other than it may be breaking the confidence of the people.

I’ve asked myself if such action arouses a continued psychopathic violence in those involved? Are all men inherently violent and does it only need an excuse to vent such homicidal instincts? I suspect evil is inherent in every man and that the devil dwells in us all and under certain circumstances we lose morality. I’ve also asked myself if such atrocities are to some extent a reflection of mankind?

Much has been said and written about the peace process with regard to Israel but you know my viewpoint and you know what the pictures portray. Nothing has changed and nothing will change. Blood will continually seep over the land. There is nothing that can be done until the mindset changes on both sides. The road forward is filled with many bumps and potholes. It will not be smooth. Nothing changes.

Oh yes, the pictures have shown and continue to show great upheaval and much sadness. War, death, accidents and famine will be as much a part of this xt century as it was of the last. Many will not survive the encroaching madness and I doubt whether it can be escaped.

I look beyond what I’ve seen and carry in my mind of Man’s achievements and innate greatness, his strengths and adaptability. I brood over the pictures hearsay and hints and shadowy portrayals and I look at people like Bill Gates and I wonder if he has any notion of the future and what he and his various companies will set in motion. I often think about the technological changes I have seen and the affect such changes will continue to have on mankind. I also think of the destruction such technology will bring about through mismanagement and deliberate oversights and I wonder why mankind has to push everything to its limit without first understanding the power he has created?

I also look at Glenn and wish I could have joined him to look upon the beauty of this earth from space and I wonder what he would make of some of our future achievements? I doubt whether anyone realises what exactly lies ahead of us in space. Nor would they have any conception of the life that abounds some of which will be as deadly to us as we will be to it. The pictures have shown startling truths, revealing hidden secrets of knowledge, igniting ever new secrets in the crucibles and athanors of time. The Universe is forever expanding and contracting, creating and is spiralling into a never-ending vast array of universes. This earth is just a grain of sand among millions/billions/zillions of grains. It surpasses human understanding.

Yes, we are Gods, we have the minds of Gods yet we abuse and will continue to abuse the powers we have been given. If anything, the pictures have shown that man will remain vulnerable because of what he is. There are no guarantees I can give you regarding his future. It will be in his own hands. May be he’ll learn that his Humanity will be his greatest asset.

Because I’m stuck in this time and this place I try to believe what my mind is showing me but I find it difficult. Yet sometimes I allow myself to dream of what is to come. Some nights I look up at the stars and I really wish I could have been born a hundred, may be two hundred years hence. I really wish I could be on the ships that will leave these shores and join those who will travel to the New Worlds. I truly believe, given the choice, I would follow that pathway to the stars …