Category Archives: nuclear issues

Chinese evade U.S. sanctions on Iran

Chinese evade U.S. sanctions on Iran
By Peter Fritsch, Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2010

Chinese companies banned from doing business in the U.S. for allegedly selling missile technology to Iran continue to do a brisk trade with American companies, according to an analysis of shipping records.

A unit of state-owned China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., for example, has made nearly 300 illegal shipments to U.S. firms since a ban was imposed on CPMIEC and its affiliates in mid-2006, according to an analysis of shipping records by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a nonprofit proliferation watchdog.

A Wall Street Journal review of the records and interviews with officials at some of the American companies indicate that the U.S. firms likely were unaware they were doing business with banned entities, and in many cases were tripped up by altered company names. [continued…]

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Standoff in Iran deepens with new show of force

Standoff in Iran deepens with new show of force
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, January 2, 2010

Iranian authorities sent police officers into the streets to deter protests on Friday as Mir Hussein Moussavi, the principal opposition leader, said in a statement that he did not fear giving his life as “a martyr.”

The continuing show of force in the capital and Mr. Moussavi’s declaration, in which he said that even killing him would not end the unrest, were part of a day of charges, countercharges and warnings from both sides, illustrating the deep divisions that have emerged since Iran’s political crisis began six months ago.

The government and its hard-line supporters continued to rely on force, and the threat of force, to quell protests and demand loyalty, while the opposition refused to back down. There was no indication that compromise was on the agenda. [continued…]

Chinese-made armored anti-riot trucks, equipped with plows, may arrive in Tehran
Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2010

An opposition news website is reporting that Iran has imported high-tech armored anti-riot vehicles equipped with water cannons that can douse people with boiling water or teargas.

The U.S.-based Persian-language news website Rahesabz, or Green Path, posted a photograph of what it described as a photograph of two of the trucks arriving at the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas in the south.

Iran-trucks3 The website said the vehicles were a rush order from their manufacturers in China, Dalian Eagle-Sky, according to the blogger Sohrebestan. [continued…]

Neocons worried that sanctions might not kill enough innocent Iranians
By Daniel Luban, Antiwar.com, December 30, 2009

Wednesday’s Washington Post contains a rundown of the Obama administration’s current thinking on Iran sanctions. The bottom line: administration officials are increasingly open to sanctions, but want to find ways to target the Revolutionary Guard and other hardline elements within the regime without inflicting needless suffering on the civilian population. For that reason, the administration shows “little apparent interest in legislation racing through Congress that would punish companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran,” whose brunt would be borne by the most vulnerable segments of the populace. (”Look, we need to be honest about this,” neoconservative foreign policy guru Fred Kagan admitted this spring. “Iranians are going to die if we impose additional sanctions.”)

Even these more finely targeted sanctions appear to be more than the Iranian opposition desires. Spencer Ackerman, in his useful discussion of the Green Movement’s position on sanctions, notes that some elements of the opposition have come to view sanctions that specifically target the Revolutionary Guards in a more favorable light, but it appears that most continue to oppose sanctions in any form. (And of course, it appears that virtually no one in the Green Movement supports refined petroleum sanctions, which opposition leaders have repeatedly denounced.) [continued…]

Iran warns West it will make its own nuclear fuel
AP, January 2, 2010

Iran set a one-month deadline Saturday for the West to accept its counterproposal to a U.N.-drafted nuclear plan and warned that otherwise it will produce reactor fuel at a higher level of enrichment on its own.

The warning was a show of defiance and a hardening of Iran’s stance over its nuclear program, which the West fears masks an effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, such as electricity production, and says it has no intention of making a bomb.

”We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, speaking on state television. [continued…]

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Mousavi defiant after new threats

Iran’s opposition leader defiant after new threats
By Ali Akbar Dareini, AP, January 1, 2010

Iran’s opposition leader on Friday pledged to remain defiant in the face of new threats — including calls by hard-liners for his execution — and said he was ready to sacrifice his life in defense of the people’s right to protest peacefully against the government.

Mir Hossein Mousavi’s remarks come after the worst unrest since the immediate aftermath of the disputed June presidential election. At least eight people died during anti-government protests on Sunday, including Mousavi’s nephew.

In one of his strongest statements to date, Mousavi said he was “ready for martyrdom” — the sacrifice of one’s life for a higher cause — and lashed out at the bloody crackdown the authorities are waging against the opposition. [continued…]

Israel seeks ‘crippling’ Iran sanctions
By Hilary Leila Krieger and Haviv Rettig Gur, Jerusalem Post, December, 2009

As the deadline for Iran to respond to the international community’s offer regarding its nuclear program passed Thursday, the US has toughened its rhetoric and is looking increasingly to sanctions rather than diplomacy.

That has pleased Israel, which wants strong action against the Islamic Republic as it continues to enrich uranium in defiance of international demands and has rejected US President Barack Obama’s outstretched hand.

The next step, according to Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, should be “imposing crippling sanctions” on the Teheran regime, which is in keeping with the pledge Oren said Obama made to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May that the US would end the engagement phase toward Iran if it were unsuccessful by year’s end.

Oren told The Jerusalem Post that “there isn’t an Israeli view and an American view” on the Iranian question, but rather “one view.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Israel is desperate to sustain the myth that Israeli and American interests are indistinguishable from one another, yet Israel’s insistence on pushing for crippling sanctions at this moment exposes the ugly truth: Israel regards the Iranian opposition movement as a threat.

If the Islamic Republic’s regime collapses, Israel will lose its indispensable enemy. An Israel that can no longer drum up support on the basis that it faces a so-called existential threat will find it much harder to cloak its own brutality.

The advance of democracy in Iran means the advance of Israel’s international status as a pariah state. If they could now secretly send advisers to coach Ayatollah Khamenei on how to most effectively suppress the uprising, I have little doubt the Israelis would gladly do so.

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US Jewish community leaders favor bonehead approach with Iran

US Jewish community leaders don’t want to “try to become too smart” dealing with Iran
By Nathan Guttman, The Forward, December 30, 2009

As anti-government protests — and government repression — flare in Iran, Jewish groups remain focused on the issue of nuclear proliferation there, prioritizing this problem over concern for the country’s opposition movement.

In interviews, Jewish leaders voiced sympathy for the cause of democracy backed by the protesters. But even as the administration is reportedly considering a shift to a strategy of narrow, targeted sanctions toward Iran — in part to take account of the surging protest movement — the Jewish community remains committed to more sweeping sanctions that Iran’s democracy activists decry as harmful to their cause.

The proliferation issue, Jewish activists say, should come first.

“For us, this was always the primary concern, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” said Meagan Buren, director of research and training at The Israel Project, a pro-Israel group active on the Iranian issue. [continued…]

In the face of protests, Iran’s leaders are at an impasse
By Ray Takeyh, Washington Post, December 31, 2009

The mayhem that has swept over Iran in the past few days is once more calling into question the Islamic Republic’s longevity. Recent events are eerily reminiscent of the revolution that displaced the monarchy in 1979: A fragmented, illegitimate state led by cruel yet indecisive men is suddenly confronting an opposition movement that it cannot fully apprehend. It is premature to proclaim the immediate demise of the theocratic regime. Iran may well be entering a prolonged period of chaos and violence. In the aftermath of recent disturbances, however, it is obvious that the lifespan of the Islamic Republic has been considerably shortened.

In retrospect, the regime’s most momentous, and disastrous, decision was its refusal to offer any compromises to an angered nation after the fraudulent presidential election in June. The modest demands of establishment figures such as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, including for the release of political prisoners and restoring popular trust (via measures such as respecting the rule of law and opening up the media), was dismissed by an arrogant regime confident of its power.

Disillusioned elites and protesters who had taken to the streets could have been unified, or their resentment assuaged, by a pledge by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the next election to be free and fair, for government to become more inclusive or for limits to be imposed on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s prerogatives. Today, such concessions would be seen as a sign of weakness and would embolden the opposition. The regime no longer has a political path out of its predicament. Ironically, this was the shah’s dilemma, as he made concessions too late to fortify his power and broaden the social base of his government. [continued…]

Iran regime drums up its own crowds to oppose Green Movement
By Iason Athanasiadis, Christian Science Monitor, December 30, 2009

On Wednesday, the Islamic Republic of Iran reacted to last Sunday’s violent demonstrations by marshaling supporters in countrywide demonstrations and launching a media offensive against the opposition Green Movement.

At least 37 people were killed Sunday on the deadliest day of rioting since June’s disputed presidential election, which saw hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned to office amid widespread elections of fraud. For the first time, demonstrators switched from nonviolent tactics to engage the police with stones and batons. In response, the police fired tear-gas and bullets.

Government-funded newspapers lashed out Wednesday at the thousands of demonstrators who fought running battles with security forces during Shiite Islam’s major festival, labeling them “apostates” and calling for their “arrest and execution.” [continued…]

Regime wages a quiet war on ‘star students’ of Iran
By Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2009

Behind the drama unfolding in the streets of Iran, the regime is quietly clamping down on some of the nation’s best students by derailing their academic and professional careers.

On Wednesday, progovernment militia attacked and beat students at a school in northeastern Iran. Since last Sunday’s massive protests nationwide, dozens of university students have been arrested as part of an aggressive policy against what are known as Iran’s “star students.”

In most places, being a star means ranking top of the class, but in Iran it means your name appears on a list of students considered a threat by the intelligence ministry. It also means a partial or complete ban from education.

The term comes from the fact that some students have learned of their status by seeing stars printed next to their names on test results.

Mehrnoush Karimi, a 24-year-old law-school hopeful, found out in August that she was starred. She ranked 55 on this year’s national entrance exam for law schools, out of more than 70,000 test-takers. That score should have guaranteed her a seat at the school of her choice. Instead, the government told her she wouldn’t be attending law school due to her “star” status. [continued…]

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Cleric’s funeral becomes protest of Iran leaders

Cleric’s funeral becomes protest of Iran leaders
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 22, 2009

The funeral of a prominent dissident cleric in the holy Iranian city of Qum turned into a huge and furious antigovernment rally on Monday, raising the possibility that the cleric’s death could serve as a catalyst for an opposition movement that has been locked in a stalemate with the authorities.

As mourners carried the body of the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, tens of thousands of his supporters surged through the streets of Qum, chanting denunciations of the leadership in Tehran that would have been unthinkable only months ago: “Our shame, our shame, our idiot leader!” and “Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!” [continued…]

Karroubi: Iran’s problems should be solved by its own people
By Martin Fletcher, The Times, December 22, 2009

President Ahmadinejad has betrayed the Iranian Revolution, violated the country’s Constitution and may be unable to serve his full term, his most vocal opposition rival has told The Times.

In a surprising twist, however, Mehdi Karroubi warned the West against exploiting the regime’s weakness to strike a deal to halt a nuclear programme that was, he insisted, for peaceful purposes.

“Nuclear science and achieving peaceful nuclear technology is a right reserved for all NPT [Nuclear Proliferation Treaty] members,” he said. “We ask Western governments not to use this internal situation as a bargaining chip with the present Iranian Government to reach agreements which would undermine the rights of the Iranian people.”

He also urged the West against trying to help the opposition in its battle against the regime, saying that such efforts would “pave the way for suppression and accusations of dependency on foreigners”. He added: “The challenges in this country should be solved by its own people.” [continued…]

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Evidence of Iran’s nuclear arms expertise mounts

Evidence of Iran’s nuclear arms expertise mounts
By Joby Warrick, Washington Post, December 15, 2009

Long denied access to foreign technology because of sanctions, Iran has nevertheless learned how to make virtually every bolt and switch in a nuclear weapon, according to assessments by U.N. nuclear officials in internal documents, as well as Western and Middle Eastern intelligence analysts and weapons experts.

Iran’s growing technical prowess has been highlighted by a secret memo, leaked to a British newspaper over the weekend, that purportedly shows Iranian scientists conducting tests on a neutron initiator, one of the final technical hurdles in making a nuclear warhead, weapons analysts said Monday.

There was no way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document, which is being assessed by officials at Western intelligence agencies and the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Even so, former intelligence officials and arms-control experts said that if it is a genuine Iranian government document, it is a worrisome indication of an ongoing, clandestine effort to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Iran has steadfastly denied seeking nuclear arms. [continued…]

Israeli MI chief: Iran has enough nuclear material for bomb
Haaretz, December 15, 2009

Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin said Tuesday that Iran has over the last year accumulated enough materials to create a nuclear bomb and warned: “The technological clock has almost finished winding.”

Speaking at The Institute for National Security Studies, Yadlin said that Iran had embarked on a “measured and sophisticated strategy for a solid nuclear infrastructure, by spreading out in facilities both overt and covert, while simultaneously developing a military capability that would allow a breakthrough when it so decides.”

According to Yadlin, there are three clocks now ticking with regard to Iran’s contentious nuclear program — those of technology, diplomacy, and of the stability of the Islamic regime. [continued…]

Iran intends to go forward with espionage trial of 3 Americans
By Kay Armin Serjoie, Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, December 15, 2009

Three Americans who were accused of espionage after entering Iran illegally during a hiking trip will be put on trial, Iran’s foreign minister said Monday, raising the stakes in a case likely to exacerbate tensions with the United States.

The announcement comes after Iran last week demanded the release of 11 Iranians who it says are being held by the United States — a possible signal that Tehran wants to use the Americans as bargaining chips. The development also coincides with an international stalemate over Tehran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration has warned Iran that it faces tougher sanctions over its uranium-enrichment activities unless it accepts a proposed deal by Dec. 31.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not say when the trial would begin or specify the charges, saying only that the Americans had “entered Iran illegally, with suspicious objectives.” [continued…]

Ayatollah Rafsanjani? Not anymore, it appears
RFE/RL, December 14, 2009

“Fararu,” an Iranian news website, has posted a directive that is said to be from the deputy news director of Iran’s official news agency IRNA.

The directive reportedly calls on the agency’s news sections to refer to Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an ayatollah and a rival of Iran’s current president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, as hojatoleslam, which is a lower religious title.

The directive also notes that Rafsanjani’s job title is the head of Iran’s Expediency Council and says the move is aimed at unifying the reporting of Rafsanjani’s titles by the new agency. (Rafsanjani also heads the Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of selecting and dismissing Iran’s supreme leader.)

But some analysts believe the IRNA directive is part of a government campaign against Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani has backed the opposition, criticized the crackdown against opposition members, and said publicly that the Islamic republic is facing a crisis. [continued…]

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Iran’s worst enemy

Iran’s worst enemy
By Ronen Bergman, Newsweek, December 12, 2009

Even among Israel’s tough security chiefs, Meir Dagan has always been known for his raw nerve. As a military trainee he would wander around the base during his off hours flinging a knife at trees and telephone poles like a circus entertainer, one fellow soldier recalls. He earned one of his first decorations as a young commando in Gaza, for snatching a live grenade from the hands of an enemy fighter. Long-haired and confident, Dagan would sometimes bring his pet Doberman, Paco, along on raids. His propensity for solving problems by force continued even after he retired from the military. He was leading a task force on terrorist financing in 2001 when his men told him they had discovered a European bank being used to channel money from Iran to Hamas. “We have the address, no?” Dagan asked his intel officers, according to a participant in the meeting, who asked not to be named for fear of angering Dagan. “Burn it down!” The horrified intelligence officers stalked out of the room in protest. (Dagan declined any comment for this story.)

Soon afterward Dagan was brought in to rejuvenate the Mossad, Israel’s storied foreign intelligence serv-ice. Eight years later, after a string of covert successes attributed to the agency, he has become the country’s longest-serving and most influential spy chief. His men revere him (an affection that does not extend to all their bosses, according to a recent internal survey cited by Mossad sources); even Israel’s civilian leaders heed his strategic advice. But critics say his influence has been achieved at a cost: Dagan, 64, has systematically reoriented the Mossad to focus almost exclusively on what he (and most Israelis) see as the dominant threat to the country—Iran. He views almost all of Israel’s national-security challenges through that prism. [continued…]

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Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start talking

Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start talking
By Tony Karon, The National, December 12, 2009

Instead of the breakthrough he had hoped for in nuclear diplomacy with Iran, Barack Obama has allowed himself to be painted into a corner. But so, too, have his Iranian counterparts, with neither side now capable of breaking the deadlock.

Mr Obama, under pressure from sceptics of engagement in Washington, Paris and Jerusalem, created an artificial deadline of December 2009 for his diplomatic efforts. The clock is ticking, warn the hawks, with Iran supposedly racing full-tilt to build nuclear weapons (although evidence of this remains scant). So Mr Obama turned a deal to send much of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad for processing into a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Iran’s leadership has been unable to accept this, insisting on renegotiating the terms even as it faces its own internal paralysis.

Abiding by the deadline, Mr Obama is now pressing for new sanctions against Tehran. But Russia and China remain sceptical, despite being critical of Tehran’s behaviour, and the UN is unlikely to adopt anything close to the “crippling sanctions” which the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has threatened. [continued…]

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Iran accuses U.S. and Saudis of kidnapping a nuclear scientist

Iran accuses U.S. and Saudis of kidnapping a nuclear scientist
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2009

Iran’s top diplomat accused the United States and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of kidnapping one of its nuclear scientists.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters that Shahram Amiri, who worked for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a summer religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He said Tehran had evidence that the U.S. was involved in the disappearance.

“The U.S. should give back our compatriots based on the call of their family and people,” Mottaki told reporters during an appearance with his United Arab Emirates counterpart, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. [continued…]

Iran: no sanctions!
By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, December 9, 2009

Back in the spring, and several times since then, President Obama suggested that if progress hasn’t been made in the talks with Iran, he’d move toward harsher measures, including what Secretary of State Clinton has called “crippling sanctions.” That time is drawing near, and assorted hawks are clamoring now for Obama to put up or shut up. “You said you’d get tough with Iran,” they’re saying. “The time is now.”

Of course, the time isn’t now. After the October 1 session in Geneva, where some limited success was achieved, the talks have stalled, exactly as I (and many others) predicted. Iran’s internal politics is muddled, and neither the Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, nor President Ahmadinejad, are in a position to strike a deal with the Great Satan just now. They’re under attack from conservatives and reformists opposed to the Oct. 1 deal, which would have sent the bulk of Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing, and the anti-Ahmadinejad opposition is showing renewed signs of strength, as evidenced by this week’s round of demonstrations by students and others.

But, in spite of the apparent consensus among the big powers – which produced a tough new resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency last month – there’s zero chance that either Russia or China will support anything like the embargo on refined oil and gasoline that Obama, in the past, has said he supports. And other key countries, such as India, which has good relations with Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, through which much of Iran’s gasoline imports are transshipped, aren’t likely to back sanctions either. The very best Obama could get, if he goes to the UN Security Council for yet another round of sanctions, is another symbolic set of sanctions that have no force at all. [continued…]

Violent protests in Iran carry into second day
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 8, 2009

Iran’s broadest and most violent protest in months spilled over into a second day on Tuesday, as bloody clashes broke out on university campuses between students chanting antigovernment slogans and the police and Basij militia members.

As the scale of Monday’s demonstrations became clearer, Tehran’s police chief announced that 204 people had been arrested in the capital, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. The clashes took place on campuses in cities across the country, as students and opposition members took advantage of National Student Day to vent their rage despite a lengthy and wide-ranging government effort to forestall them.

The violence continued Tuesday on the campus of Tehran University, where security forces were using tear gas and arresting students, according to reports and video clips relayed through Twitter and Internet postings. There were protests at large squares near the university as well, witnesses said. Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that the clashes began after groups of pro-government students carrying pictures of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, clashed with protesters on campus. [continued…]

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Iran is no existential threat

Iran is no existential threat
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Foreign Policy, December 4, 2009

After months of halfhearted, fruitless attempts at engagement, the United States and its European partners are effectively re-enacting George W. Bush’s Iran policy. In 2006, after Iran had ended a nearly two-year voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment, then-U.S. president pushed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to send Iran’s nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council, which duly imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic. But the sanctions did not prove “crippling,” as Bush had hoped: Iran continued to expand its nuclear infrastructure, and the risks of a military confrontation between the United States and Iran climbed.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama’s administration has decided to repeat this sorry history. Last Friday, the IAEA passed a resolution urging Iran to send most of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad. It also reported Iran once again to the Security Council. Iran has wasted no time in upping the ante rather than backing down, saying it would restrict cooperation with the IAEA only to those measures “statutorily” required. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also announced that the Islamic Republic would build 10 new enrichment facilities in coming years. He later added, “Iran will produce fuel enriched to a level of 20 percent,” the level required for Iran’s research reactor in Tehran. This would be well above the 3 to 4 percent level that Iran has already achieved in producing low-enriched uranium and would take Iran closer to the 90 percent-plus level required for weapons-grade fissile material. [continued…]

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Iran will not quit treaty, its nuclear chief asserts

Iran will not quit treaty, its nuclear chief asserts
By Nazila Fathi, New York Times, December 6, 2009

Urging moderation after a week of harsh rhetoric over Iran’s nuclear program, the head of the country’s nuclear agency emphasized Saturday that Iran would not seek to pull out of the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.

The comments by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, came just a day after the government ratcheted up tensions with the West by saying that it would keep the details of 10 planned uranium enrichment sites secret until six months before they would become operational.

The announcement on Nov. 29 that Iran would seek to build the new sites was taken as defiance of a resolution by the United Nations’ nuclear agency pushing Iran to halt all uranium enrichment activity immediately. Several hard-line members of the Iranian Parliament went even further, demanding that Iran pull out of the nonproliferation treaty and stop complying with international inspections under the agreement.

On Saturday, Mr. Salehi sought to assure that Iran had no interest in pulling out of the treaty, and he implied that any other suggestion was an attempt by Western countries to force Iran into a corner. “I think the West is trying to force us out of the N.P.T.,” he was quoted as saying on the Press TV Web site. [continued…]

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Imposing idiot sanctions on Iran is a direct route to war

Imposing idiot sanctions on Iran is a direct route to war
By Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, December 1, 2009

What is the difference between Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran? The answer, future historians may relate, is none. At the dawn of the 21st century, all three states were ruled by nasty undemocratic regimes to which America and its allies took exception. Antagonism began with hectoring ostracism. This led to economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and bloodcurdling threats of “other measures”. Finally a pretext was drummed up for military intervention, for bombing, invasion, occupation and appalling destruction.

Will Iran really be on this list? At present the west, covered in blood and expense, is trying to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, yet at the same time it stumbles into an identical trap in Iran.

The casus belli is the same. There is a declared ongoing threat and this is inextricably linked to a “humanitarian” need for regime change. In Afghanistan the trigger was the harbouring of Osama bin Laden. In Iraq it was a tenuous claim that Saddam possessed a nuclear capability and was preparing to use missiles against western targets. [continued…]

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Washington can give an Israeli attack on Iran the red light

Washington can give an Israeli attack on Iran the red light
By Trita Parsi, Huffington Post, November 29, 2009

On August 2, 1990, almost a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Iron Curtain divide, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Within months, the George H. W. Bush administration carefully assembled a coalition of states under the UN flag and defeated the Iraqi army and restored Kuwait’s ruling family, the House of Sabah. The Bush senior administration saw particular value in ensuring that the international coalition contained numerous Arab states. But to get the Arab’s to join a war alongside the US and against another Arab power, Israel needed to be kept out of the coalition.

This turned out to be a tricky issue, particularly when Saddam Hussein hurled thirty-four Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, in an obvious attempt to lure Israel into the war. Then-National Security Advisor, General Brent Scowcroft, told me in an interview that the United States told Israel “in the strongest possible words” that it needed to keep itself out of the Iraq operation because Israeli retaliation would cause the collapse of Washington’s alliance against Iraq.

For the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, this was a very tough decision. Saddam’s missile attacks damaged Israel’s public morale; the country’s otherwise lively and noisy capital quickly turned into a ghost town. Bush sent Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger to Israel to assure Israeli leaders that the United States was doing all it could to destroy the Iraqi missile launchers.

But neither the Israel Defense Forces nor the Ministry of Defense was convinced. Instead, a feeling prevailed among Israel’s leaders that Washington was untrustworthy and that it could not be relied upon when it came to Israel’s existence. Bad blood was created between Israel and the United States, according to Efraim Halevi, the former head of the Mossad. Washington’s protection of Israel was ineffective, and the image that Israel was relying on the United States for protection was hard to stomach for ordinary Israelis. Shamir’s decision to accommodate the Americans was extremely unpopular, because it was believed that it “would cause irreparable damage to Israel’s deterrent capabilities,” Halevi told me. To make matters worse, people around Shamir felt that the United States did not reward Israel for, in their view, effectively enabling the coalition to remain intact by refusing to retaliate against Iraq.

Just as Israeli retaliation against Iraq in 1991 would have been devastating for the US, an Israeli preventive attack against Iran today would spell disaster for US national security. [continued…]

A defiant Iran vows to build nuclear plants
By David E Sanger and William J Broad, New York Times, November 30, 2009

Iran angrily refused Sunday to comply with a demand by the United Nations nuclear agency to cease work on a once-secret nuclear fuel enrichment plant, and escalated the confrontation by declaring it would construct 10 more such plants.

The response to the demand came as Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said his cabinet would also order a study of what it would take for Iran to further enrich its existing stockpile of nuclear fuel for use in a medical reactor — rather than rely on Russia or another nation, as agreed to in an earlier tentative deal.

On Monday, Russia, a sponsor of the nuclear agency’s resolution, said it was “seriously concerned by the latest statements from the Iranian leadership,” according to news reports. France, which also supported the resolution by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last week, said Iran should be given a “last chance” to discuss the future of its nuclear program, Reuters reported. But, referring to the agency by its initials, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday, “The fact that Iran persists in ignoring the demands of a big independent agency like the I.A.E.A., that’s very dangerous.”

The agency’s move also drew criticism from a former Iranian president and still influential politician, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who said the demand had been made “out of sheer spite,” the state-run broadcaster, Press TV, said Monday. “This resolution targets the entire panoply of Iran’s feats and accomplishments in nuclear research and technology,” he said, urging that Iran respond with “active diplomacy on the international scale.” [continued…]

Iran seizes five British sailors to raise stakes in stand-off with West
By Catherine Philp and Ed Gorman, The Times, December 1, 2009

Diplomatic tension between Britain and Iran deepened yesterday with the news that Tehran is holding five British sailors after their yacht apparently strayed into Iranian waters.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the crew members were taken from their yacht Kingdom of Bahrain on November 25 after she was stopped by Iranian naval vessels while sailing from Bahrain to Dubai.

Sources named the five Britons as Oliver Smith, 31, an experienced sailor from Southampton, as well as Sam Usher, Oliver Young, 21, from Saltash in Cornwall, Luke Porter, 21, from Weston-super-Mare and Dave Bloomer, a presenter on Radio Bahrain. Mr Porter is reported to have spoken to his father Charles yesterday. [continued…]

Senior cleric denounces Iranian militia for crackdown
By Nazila Fathi, New York Times, December 1, 2009

Iran’s most senior cleric denounced the role of the volunteer militia force known as the Basij in the crackdown against protesters, saying the force’s actions were against religion and “in the path of Satan.”

The cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, condemned the force in a statement posted on an opposition Web site, mowjcamp.com, decreeing that “the assailants have acted against religion and must pay blood money” to those who were wounded or to their families.

It was the harshest criticism of the militia to date by the ayatollah, who has sided with the opposition leaders. The Basij militia has played an instrumental role in the crackdown; the opposition has said that at least 73 people have been killed since the post-election protests began in June. [continued…]

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Why we should still talk with Iran

Why we should still talk with Iran
By Marziar Bahari, Washington Post, November 26, 2009

Since I was released from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison last month, the questions have come again and again: Can we still talk to these people? Should the Obama administration engage in dialogue with Iran? What should the West do in nuclear negotiations? After being jailed, interrogated and beaten by the Revolutionary Guards for 118 days for reporting honestly on the disputed June 12 presidential elections, I am often expected to oppose any dialogue. But the West still needs Iran and should continue talking to it — no matter what it has done to people like me.

Inside Evin, I was forced to confess that I was part of an insidious Western media conspiracy to overthrow the regime. I was forced to apologize to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. I was released as suddenly as I was arrested, without explanation. But my interrogator told me to send a message to the world: “We are a superpower. America’s power is waning, and we will soon overtake them. Now that Americans have started this war against us, we will not let them rest in peace.” He paused, perhaps realizing that he sounded defensive. I was a jailed journalist wearing a blindfold, not some sort of spy. (I’m not even American.) He changed the subject to “soft” war, a term Tehran uses to refer to an imaginary war that it says is promoted by the media against the “holy government of the Islamic Republic.” “We will answer their attacks with all our might,” he said.

The Revolutionary Guards are a schizophrenic bunch, plagued by both deep insecurities and a superiority complex. They have ambitions to take over the government and expand their business empire in Iran. At the same time, they are terrified of individuals and groups that question their grip on power. The Guards are the real power base of Khamenei. They are the main supporters of his claim to be Allah’s representative on Earth. One of the most serious charges against me was insulting Khamenei. In a private e-mail I had wondered whether Khamenei has been blinded by power and had lost touch with his people, and if that was why he was answering people’s peaceful demands with brute force. That was enough for my interrogator to kick and punch me for days and to threaten me with execution. [continued…]

Iranian-American faces new spying charge
By Nazila Fathi, New York Times, November 26, 2009

An Iranian-American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh, already serving a 15-year prison sentence for spying, is facing a new charge of spying, a family member said Wednesday.

Mr. Tajbakhsh told his wife during a visit at Evin prison in Tehran that he was taken before the Revolutionary Court on Monday, where a judge read new charges against him of “spying for the George Soros foundation,” a reference to the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy group founded by Mr. Soros, a prominent financier and philanthropist. The accusation was brought by the intelligence section of the Revolutionary Guards, said the family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of complicating the case.

Mr. Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with a doctorate from Columbia University, was arrested in June after protests broke out over that month’s disputed presidential election, which the opposition says was fraudulent. [continued…]

Hezbollah’s Man in Iran
By Meir Javedanfar, RealClearWorld, November 20, 2009

Ever since his right arm was blown off in Iran’s Damascus embassy in the early 1980’s, he has become more careful about where he goes, and whom with. Some Iranians believe that the beautiful book on Shiite Islam which contained the bomb was sent by the Israelis to Iran’s embassy in Damascus, where he had been working. According to Mohtashamipour, he is lucky that he placed the book on the table first, and opened it sideways. Had he opened it in front of his face, his head would have been ripped off from the explosion.

Although it cannot be confirmed, there is reason to believe the accusations suggesting Israel’s involvement. Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour is, after all, the Iranian who established Hezbollah in Lebanon. The first man who tried and failed was Mostafa Chamran. The U.S.-educated Chamran had a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He was then hired as a senior research staff scientist at Bell Laboratories and NASA. However, once the Islamic opposition against the Shah grew, the religious Chamran found his calling back in Iran amongst his fellow revolutionaries. A fervent Islamist who later became Iran’s Defense Minister, he tried at the beginning of 1980 to establish a pro-Iranian group amongst Lebanon’s Shiites. His main target was the Amal movement, which back then was the main representative of the Shiites in Lebanon’s political arena. However, he found that he was unable to convince them to accept Iran’s Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurists) system, whereby Iran’s Supreme Leader would be accepted by them as God’s representative on earth to all the Shiites. Chamran was killed on the battlefront during the war against Iraq in 1981.

In 1982, Mohtashamipour succeeded where Chamran had failed by convincing the new Hezbollah movement to accept Ayatollah Khomeini’s religious authority. The rest, as they say, is history.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Mohtashamipour is treated like a hero in Iran, but the reality is quite different. Many conservatives hate him; despite the fact that he created what many believe is Islamic Iran’s most successful political and military ally in the Middle East. The reason is simple: he is a reformist. [continued…]

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Three key lessons from Obama’s China tour

Three key lessons from Obama’s China tour
By Tony Karon, Time, November 21, 2009

Russia may be engaged in a geopolitical chess game with the U.S. aimed at recovering from the demise of its great power status, but China is different. It pushes back against U.S. initiatives only when those are deemed inimical to its national interests. Iran is a good example. Beijing’s heavy investment in and reliance on Iran’s energy sector make it extremely averse to serious sanctions or strategies that create political turmoil in Tehran. While insisting on compliance with the non-proliferation regime, Beijing does not believe Iran represents an imminent nuclear weapons threat. And its response to North Korea going nuclear suggests that a nuclear armed Iran is something it could live with.

Obama went to China arguing that its emergence as a major power gives it greater responsibility, as a partner to the U.S., in helping run the world and tackle such global challenges as climate change and Iran. Indeed, there was a collective shudder in Europe’s corridors of power at the idea of global leadership being concentrated in a “G2” partnership between Washington and Beijing. They needn’t have worried. China’s response to Obama could be read as: “Running the world is your gig, we’re focused on running our own country, and ensuring security in our immediate neighborhood. We want harmonious relations with you, but don’t expect us to do anything that we deem harmful to our national interests.” That means no serious sanctions against Iran, regardless of what deals are struck between Washington and Moscow, because China’s national interests require growing Iran’s energy exports. [continued…]

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U.S. talks tougher on dealing with Iran

U.S. talks tougher on dealing with Iran
By Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2009

The international spokesman for Iran’s main opposition movement called for President Barack Obama to increase his public support for Iranian democrats and significantly intensify financial pressure on Tehran’s elite military unit, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, during an unofficial visit to Washington, also said Thursday that Iranian opposition leaders supported U.S. efforts to use diplomacy to contain the nuclear ambitions of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.

Mr. Makhmalbaf’s remarks came just hours after President Obama expressed growing doubt Thursday during the final day of his Asian tour about his administration’s ability to engage Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government on the nuclear issue.

Mr. Obama emphasized in Seoul that the window for diplomacy was closing and that the U.S. and its allies would begin developing a new set of sanctions against Iran.

“Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say yes to this proposal…and so as a consequence we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences,” Mr. Obama said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Mr. Makhmalbaf, who was the campaign spokesman for Iranian presidential challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, said he believes the current Iranian leadership is incapable of cutting a deal with the West, because the nuclear program is now fundamental to its political survival.

“If they agree not to pursue a nuclear bomb and start negotiations, they will lose their supporters,” Mr. Makhmalbaf said at a lunch hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Definitely dialogue is better than war. … But can you continue your dialogue without any results?” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Well, if you want to use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a measure, Washington’s interest in promoting dialogue without results apparently knows no limit.

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Nuclear agency warns of more Iran plants

Nuclear agency warns of more Iran plants
By Jay Solomon and David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2009

The United Nations atomic watchdog said Iran could be constructing a number of covert nuclear installations in addition to a secret uranium-enrichment facility the Obama administration disclosed in late September.

The International Atomic Energy Agency also said in a quarterly report released Monday that Iranian officials have told the U.N. that Tehran plans to begin operating the previously unknown nuclear-fuel facility outside the holy city of Qom by 2011.

The IAEA report is the last to be released under departing Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. U.S. officials have long criticized the Egyptian for deflecting Washington’s criticism of Iran in official reports. Diplomats said Monday that the latest report was notable for its sharp tone. [continued…]

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Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel

Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel
By Amir Oren, Haaretz, November 8, 2009

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said last week in Washington that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Mullen said he would prefer that the U.S. work diplomatically to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons, but hinted that should such efforts fail, the U.S. air force and navy could be put into action as well.

Ahead of Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to the Pentagon this week, Israeli military sources said they were satisfied with the progress in talks with their American counterparts over acquiring F-35 fighter jets. Israel will pay $135 million per jet if it buys 25, and $100 million if it buys 75.

Meanwhile, Washington has retracted its opposition to installing Israeli-made systems on the jets. However, a disagreement over Israel’s request for complete access to the planes’ computer systems is yet to be resolved.

At a conference at the National Press Club, Mullen said he has spent a significant amount of time with his Israeli counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and that “it’s very clear to me that a nuclear weapon in Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” according to a transcript released by his office. [continued…]

Iran said to ignore effort to salvage nuclear deal
By David E Sanger, New York Times, November 9, 2009

…members of the Obama administration, in interviews over the weekend, said that they had now all but lost hope that Iran would follow through with an agreement reached in Geneva on Oct. 1 to send its fuel out of the country temporarily — buying some time for negotiations over its nuclear program.

“If you listen to what the Iranians have said publicly and privately over the past week,” one senior administration official said Sunday, “it’s evident that they simply cannot bring themselves to do the deal.” The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were speaking about delicate diplomatic exchanges.

Iranian officials told the energy agency on Oct. 29 that they could not agree to the deal that their own negotiators had reached, but they never explained why. Iran has never publicly rejected the deal, but its official reaction has been ambiguous at best.

Dr. ElBaradei insisted he still had hope, but he conceded that the chances were receding.

“I have been saying to the Iranian leadership, privately and publicly, ‘Make use of that opportunity. Reciprocate,’ ” Dr. ElBaradei said last week. But he said that it now appeared that “the foreign policy apparatus in Iran has frozen,” partly because of the country’s own domestic turmoil.

So far, President Obama has said nothing about the stalemate threatening his first, and potentially most important, effort at diplomatic engagement with a hostile foreign government. When the first meeting in Geneva ended Oct. 1, Iranian and American officials said they would meet again later in the month to discuss the nuclear program and the potential for a broader relationship. That meeting never occurred, and none is scheduled. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — It’s hard to push the narrative that Israel faces an existential threat and that it provides a safe haven for Jews. The “existential threat” argument would simply seem to reinforce what has for decades seemed to be objectively true: America and Europe and much of the rest of the world provide a much safer haven for Jews than does Israel.

In light of this we are likely to hear another argument presented with increasing force: that Israel’s necessity rests in its providing the only base in the world for a Jewish army.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in an address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America on Sunday noted that the creation of Israel provided the opportunity for the creation of “the first Jewish defense force in 2,000 years” as, in the wake of the Goldstone report, the issue of Israel’s right to exist in now being made subordinate to its right to defend itself.

Haaretz reported:

[Oren] said Israel was now facing questions about its legitimacy, not only from its traditional enemies but also from young people in the U.S., both Jews and non-Jews.

He told the conference that Israel’s ability to withstand the “onslaught of delegitimization” depends on the unity of the Jewish people, not just in Israel, but in communities all over the world.

“Our strength derives from the belief that we have a right to independence in our tribal land, the land of Israel, and that Jews have a right to defend themselves, there and everywhere. That Jews have a right to survive as Jews and as a legitimate nation.”

He seems to be claiming that the ability of Jews to survive anywhere hinges on the ability of Israel to defend itself.

If a Qassam rocket gets fired at Sderot, subtly — perhaps almost imperceptibly — it gets a little more dangerous to be living in Brooklyn.

Really?

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