Top Stories
NYT: "Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, declared that President Obama's new nuclear strategy amounted to 'atomic
threats against Iranian people,' and Iranian state television reported Thursday
that the military had begun a large exercise in the Persian Gulf, where the
United States and Israel have both increased their presence in recent months." http://nyti.ms/9MSjHm
Reuters:"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned
Iranians of a possible nuclear strike by the United States, but it is an even
more deadly threat that has prompted him to ask 5 million of them to evacuate
the capital. Like the people of San
Francisco, Tehranis know their sprawling metropolis is due for a massive
earthquake. In Iran, where building standards have not advanced as quickly as
the population, some estimate millions could be killed or maimed." http://nyti.ms/cJLkTx
Reuters:"Iran's Revolutionary Guards successfully
deployed a new speed boat capable of destroying enemy ships as war games began
on Thursday in a waterway crucial for global oil supplies, Iranian media
reported." http://nyti.ms/c59cZ5
Nuclear Program
WP: "After months of first attempting to engage Iran and
then wooing Russia and China to support new sanctions against the Islamic
republic, the Obama administration appears within reach of winning a modest
tightening of U.N. measures targeting Tehran. But administration officials
acknowledge that even what they call 'crippling' sanctions could prove
ineffective in keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons." http://bit.ly/9L7JQx
Reuters: "U.S. military action against Iran remains an
option even as the United States pursues diplomacy and sanctions to halt the
country's nuclear program, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. 'We are not taking any options off the table
as we pursue the pressure and engagement tracks,' Pentagon Press Secretary
Geoff Morrell said." http://bit.ly/ar2yB5
AP:"The Pentagon is 'very confident' that it could
defend the U.S. against the threat of an Iranian ballistic missile strike, the
Defense Department's chief spokesman said Wednesday. A recent Defense Department report to
Congress concludes that Iran could develop a missile capable of striking the
United States by 2015." http://bit.ly/bZOTdm
Commerce
WSJ:"Forty-one foreign companies had some form of
commercial activity in Iran's energy sector over the past five years, despite
American laws that could prompt U.S. sanctions against such firms, according to
U.S. government auditors. The report, to
be released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, found that some
of the companies are headquartered in some of the U.S.'s closest allies,
including Japan and South Korea. A similar GAO study conducted three years ago
found half as many companies involved in Iran's energy sector." http://bit.ly/dadivJ
Human Rights
Radio Farda:"An Iranian student activist whose case has
become a symbol for opposition protests remains imprisoned in solitary
confinement, his brother told RFE/RL's Radio Farda. Majid Tavakoli was arrested on December 7,
2009, after giving a speech during a protest at Tehran's Amir Kabir University.
He was sentenced in January to 8 1/2 years in prison." http://bit.ly/boupZp
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Three members of Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards were killed in clashes this week with unidentified
'counter-revolutionary forces,' an Iranian news agency said on Wednesday. The semi-official Mehr news agency said the
three guards were killed on Tuesday in the city of Khoy in northwest Iran where
a prosecutor was shot dead in January. Iran said a Kurdish guerrilla group was
behind that incident." http://bit.ly/chBbp7
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of
President Robert Mugabe's dwindling number of international allies, begins a
state visit to Zimbabwe on Thursday to officiate at the signing of bilateral
cooperation agreements and open a trade exposition." http://nyti.ms/cKWmrb
Opinion
NYT Editorial Board:"Nine months. Two-hundred-sixty-four
days. However you total it up, it is too long for three Americans to be
cruelly, and unfairly, held in an Iranian jail. Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd should have been released
long ago. It now seems that Iran's mullah-led government has made them pawns in
the political chess game with the United States over Tehran's nuclear program.
That's unconscionable." http://nyti.ms/ciqfcR
Yousef Munayyer in
LAT:"Palestinians are in Israel today because they managed to survive the
depopulation of 1948, the year the Jewish state was founded (Arabs constitute
about 20% of Israel's population). Ironically, while Benny Morris' scholarship
suggests that the mere existence of these Palestinians in Israel -- and
millions more in the occupied territories -- irks him, Israel's substantial
Arab population also blows a hole in his argument about the need to deal with
the supposed Iranian nuclear threat." http://bit.ly/aULwz9
News Analysis
Barry Schweid for AP:"For the time being, at least,
everyone can take a deep breath. A senior defense official says the U.S. has
ruled out a military strike against Iran anytime soon. A Pentagon spokesman says the U.S. military
is confident it could protect the U.S. from an Iranian missile strike, if and
when Tehran develops long-range weapons. Also, Iran has proposed variations on
a deal in which its capacity to make a nuclear bomb might be curbed." http://bit.ly/clT0T1
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