Top Stories
Evening Standard:
"Barclays today took a near £200 million hit for busting sanctions against Iran
imposed by the United States between 2002 and 2007. In a brief statement on
'Head Office Functions and Other Operations,' the bank stated that it had made
'a provision of £194 million in relation to the possible resolution of Barclays
compliance with US economic sanctions.'" http://bit.ly/dlc8aO
AFP: "In its report for 2009, the State
Department kept the same countries on the list as it did in 2008 -- Iran,
Sudan, Cuba and Syria -- with Iran again listed as the 'most active state
sponsor of terrorism.'" http://bit.ly/ccIbBO
AP: "A new Iranian website that denies and mocks the Holocaust with
cartoons showing Jews as hook-nosed worms burrowing holes through a history
book provoked outrage in Israel on Thursday. The site, holocartoons.com,
features caricatures including a Jew with a hook nose and a black hat emblazoned
with a Star of David tracing fake bodies on the ground at a concentration camp.
The website design uses Nazi imagery, with the icon for flipping pages marked
with a swastika." http://bit.ly/c6VdP4
Nuclear Program
WT: "A
new poll shows that the percentage of the Arab world that thinks a
nuclear-armed Iran would be good for the Middle East has doubled since last
year and now makes up the majority. The 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll found that 57
percent of respondents not only believe that Iran's nuclear program aims to
build a bomb but also view that goal positively - nearly double the 29 percent
who thought so in 2009. The percentage of those who view an Iranian nuclear
bomb negatively fell by more than half, from 46 percent to 21 percent." http://bit.ly/9gA6GT
Reuters: "Sanctions on Iran's fuel imports are forcing the Islamic
Republic to pay well above the market rate for its gasoline, figures from the
Turkish government seen by Reuters showed on Thursday. The data from TUIK, the
Turkish statistical institute, showed Iran was forced to pay a premium of
around 25 percent for its imports even before U.S.-led sanctions took full
effect, as the Islamic Republic turned to a dwindling number of suppliers." http://bit.ly/9W4tOV
Reuters: "South Korea is weighing the impact of a move against Iranian
entities as part of U.S.-led pressure to force Tehran to drop its nuclear
ambitions, and whether shutting the door on them will endanger a major source
of oil. Iran is the fourth-largest source of crude for South Korea, and
disruption of shipments would have a big impact on Asia's fourth-largest
economy that relies on imports for all its energy resources." http://bit.ly/9lH8Fj
Human
Rights
AFP:
"Iran told a UN rights body on Thursday that a final decision has yet to be
taken in the case of a woman sentenced to death by stoning, which has sparked
an international outcry. However, Mossadegh Kahnemoui, a senior Iranian
judicial official, insisted that the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, had
been found guilty of adultery and conspiracy to murder her husband." http://bit.ly/90LkO1
Sydney Morning Herald: "Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers who
has been in an Iranian prison for the past year, has discovered a lump in her
breast and her mother has asked the United Nations to urgently intervene so the
woman can receive proper medical treatment. Nora Shourd said Thursday that she
had asked the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to intervene with Iranian
authorities to end her daughter's 23 hours a day of solitary confinement." http://bit.ly/9TgI4I
WSJ: "A prominent Iranian human-rights lawyer, Mohamad Mostafaei, has
fled to Turkey and applied for asylum after Iranian authorities issued a
warrant last week for his arrest and detained his wife and brother-in-law. Mr.
Mostafaei, reached by phone at a Turkish detention center on Thursday, says he
hasn't been formally charged in Iran, and left because of what he describes as
a 'flawed judiciary that does not abide by any laws.'" http://bit.ly/brVxSw
Domestic Politics
AFP:
"Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was harassed by 'angry' people on
Thursday as he attended a mourning ceremony at a mosque in Tehran, Fars news
agency reported. According to the agency, Karroubi's presence at the
service prompted a number of people there to seek to have him removed from the
mosque by force, but they were prevented from doing so by the cleric's
bodyguards." http://bit.ly/ddcFFW
Foreign Affairs
TIME: "Iran's
president called Thursday for a stronger alliance with other countries in the
region straddling the Middle East and Central Asia, saying NATO-led troops have
failed to restore peace in Afghanistan. Iran sees the presence of American
forces on its doorstep in Afghanistan as a threat, and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has urged neighboring countries to increase cooperation instead." http://bit.ly/bDVfmY
Daily Telegraph: "Downing Street admitted that the Prime Minister had
'misspoken' during a question and answer session with voters when he suggested
that the Islamic Republic, which is seeking to develop a nuclear capacity, was
already in possession of the bomb." http://bit.ly/8ZDf7S
Opinion
Robert Kagan in WashPost: "The
White House called in a small group of journalists this week to listen to
President Obama and his top advisers give a briefing on the state of the
sanctions regime against Iran. Others at the meeting have described it as
'unusual,' but I don't know why. Its purpose couldn't have been clearer: The
president and his team wanted to take some credit for all the difficult months
of diplomacy that led to the passage of the U.N. sanctions resolution in June,
especially the persistent cajoling of Russia and China. They also wanted to
show just how tough the new sanctions are, especially with the European Union
piling on in unprecedented fashion after the resolution passed. Without making
any absurd predictions about the likelihood that the regime would now be persuaded
to give up its quest for a nuclear bomb, they argued that the new sanctions
would at least cause the regime significant pain." http://bit.ly/ck3Xun
Cliff Kupchan in FT: "With the European Union's adoption of tough
sanctions last week, the west has finally succeeded in gaining leverage over
Tehran. Reports this week of an assassination attempt against President Mahmoud
Ahmadi-Nejad, whether accurate or not, will augment that leverage by causing
jitters throughout the Iranian elite. But this will not buy much unless it is
used in concert with diplomacy; a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis
is the prize. Washington and Brussels should move quickly to use their new
influence by crafting and offering Tehran a deal on the final status of its
nuclear programme." http://bit.ly/bEXeeb
Editorial Board of WSJ: "Just a month after President Obama signed the Iran
Sanctions Act into law, the new restrictions appear to have gotten Tehran's
attention. Gasoline imports into the Islamic Republic fell nearly 50% in July
from May, according to Energy Market Consultants. Despite being a major oil
producer, Iran needs to import at least 30% of its refined gasoline for
domestic consumption, and the sanctions are putting further strains on the
regime. To which we say, more please." http://bit.ly/ddSEqP
Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard: "As expected, Iran 'remained the most active state sponsor
of terrorism' in 2009. Most importantly, Tehran continues to sponsor terrorists
who kill American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the State
Department, Iran trains and arms the Taliban, does the same for Iraqi militants
targeting U.S. forces, and provides safe haven for al Qaeda members. Much of
State's reporting on Iran remained unchanged from the year before -- with one
noteworthy difference. Only in its reporting on the relationship between the
Iranian regime and al Qaeda did this year's report differ from last year's
analysis." http://bit.ly/dlhN5t
Peter Feaver in Foreign Policy: "To my eyes, the praiseworthy piece of the latest report
on Obama's thinking on Iran is that he has apparently now moved into the third
school, where I have been hoping he would end up long ago. This third school
thinks that diplomatic engagement is hard and only doable if the United States
and our international allies have sufficient leverage over the Iranian regime.
The necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for diplomatic success is for the
Iranian regime to believe they are on a negative trajectory. The longer they
delay, the worse things get for them; the deal they could get today is better
than the deal they could get tomorrow. To borrow a hackneyed idea from the Cold
War, diplomatic engagement means first setting the conditions so that the
correlation of world forces runs against the Iranian regime -- and that they perceive
this to be the case." http://bit.ly/ce7dSg
Richard Engel in NBC News: "Every conversation I have in Iraq these days reaches back
in history. When I ask policemen, government officials or Iraqi journalists
what they think will happen after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of this
month, our discussions inevitably become two-hour examinations of Islamic and
Middle Eastern history. This is not simply an American pullout. Here August
2010 is seen as a turning point for Iraq. The biggest concern many Iraqis seem
to have is that the U.S. combat withdrawal will leave a power vacuum that will
be filled by Iraq's traditional rival and longtime enemy, Persian Iran." http://bit.ly/9o07ok
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