Eye on Iran: Gates: New Sanctions Are Causing Divisions Within the Iranian Leadership

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group. Top Stories WashPost: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, reiterating his long-standing opposition to a military attack on Iran, said Tuesday that new sanctions led by the Obama administration are causing divisions within the Iranian leadership. Sanctions 'have really bitten much harder than [Iranian leaders] anticipated,' Gates told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, citing indications that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in trouble with the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'We even have some evidence that Khamenei now is beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy and whether he's getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in,' Gates said. Gates, who has repeatedly warned against military strikes on Tehran's nuclear facilities, said, 'I personally believe they are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, but also the information that we have is that they've been surprised by the impact of the sanctions.'" http://wapo.st/dCD9LW Reuters: "BP has suspended production at Britain's North Sea Rhum gas field due to European Union (EU) sanction against Iran, the operator said on Tuesday. 'BP confirmed today that, pending clarification from the UK Government on certain aspects of the new EU regulations concerning restrictive measures against Iran, production from the Rhum gas field in the central North Sea has been suspended,' the company said. 'Once we obtain such clarification from the government, we will review the situation and will take whatever action is appropriate in light of that clarification,' Trevor Garlick, Regional President of BP North Sea, added. Rhum -- owned by BP and the Iranian Oil Company since the early 1970s -- produced around 6 million cubic metres of gas a day in the first six months of 2010, according to government figures, which is under two percent of peak winter gas demand." http://bit.ly/9GIrry AP: "Iran said Wednesday that unidentified foreign planes violated its air space six times as the country kicked off its biggest ever air defense drill but that the intruders were intercepted and forced back by Iranian jets. The remarks by Gen. Hamid Arjangi, a spokesman for the exercise, were the first Iranian claim of an intrusion. Initially, he had only said that foreign reconnaissance planes had approached Iran's air space. Arjangi said Iran's radar stations and observation posts picked up on the planes entering Iranian air space during the five-day drill, which started Tuesday. 'There were six cases of intrusion by unidentified planes into the country,' Arjangi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. 'In all six cases, Air Force jet fighters took off and carried out interception operations ... artillery systems were alerted, targets were identified and necessary warnings were given.' The Iranian exercise is meant to showcase the country's capabilities in defending its nuclear facilities from possible attack." http://wapo.st/dogdiV Nuclear Program & Sanctions JPost: "Iran has a nuclear military plan and intends to acquire atomic weapons, a former Iranian air force lieutenant said in an interview broadcast on Channel 10 news Tuesday night. Bahazad Masawi, a former fighter pilot who defected from Iran and is in hiding in Paris, said: 'Ahmadinejad creates terror and incites war in the area. This is not good for the Iranian people. Ahmadinejad makes the situation in Iran and in the entire region worse.' The former pilot, who flew Iran's F-14 fighter jets, stressed that Israel is not an enemy of Iran. 'The Iranian nation is not an enemy of the Israeli people and in the past they were not enemies either; they had always been friends,' he said. 'It is not possible to separate the Iranian people from the people of Israel. King Cyrus is the one who saved the Jews.' Masawi expressed regret in the interview for Iran's support for Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations. 'All of the state's money finances terrorism; the Islamic regime in Iran is the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world. Everyone knows this,' he added." http://bit.ly/9uTGJV Reuters: "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will urge Tehran to resume talks with global powers over its nuclear program when he meets with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday, a senior Russian official said. Medvedev is also willing to listen to Iran's concerns on the issue when he meets with Ahmadinejad at a summit of Caspian Sea states in Azerbaijan, an official in the Russian delegation said in remarks authorized for release on Wednesday. 'We believe that we should negotiate with him,' the official told journalists, adding, 'we need to convince him (to return to dialogue) and, possibly, try to hear him.'" http://reut.rs/ar6q96 Human Rights AFP: "The United States said Tuesday it was 'gravely concerned' about Iran's alleged crackdown on human rights lawyers and called for the release of all those who have been detained. 'Iran's leaders should know that their efforts to silence those Iranians who stand up for the rights of their fellow citizens does not go unnoticed,' State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. 'The United States remains gravely concerned about Iran's continued harassment, detention and imprisonment of human rights defenders.' Crowley called for the 'immediate release' of all political prisoners in Iran -- including those jailed for defending prisoners or denouncing human rights abuses." http://yhoo.it/9s6W9y AP: "An international media watchdog on Tuesday strongly rejected spying accusations against two German reporters detained in Iran in connection with a highly publicized stoning case and called for their immediate release. Reporters Without Borders criticized Iran for showing the two men in a broadcast on state television Monday in which they appeared to admit mistakes, calling it 'a particularly perfidious form of propaganda.' The watchdog's secretary-general, Jean-Francois Julliard, said in a statement the journalists were not spies, but only people who made use of the human right to media freedom. The German Journalists' Association also called for the reporters' immediate release. 'Coverage of human rights violations is not spying, but important information,' the association's deputy chairman, Ulrike Kaiser, said in a statement." http://wapo.st/dCeLfG Reuters: "Acclaimed movie maker Jafar Panahi has gone on trial in Iran, accused of making a film without permission and inciting opposition protests, according to a statement released in Italy. Panahi was prevented from attending the Venice film festival in September following his arrest in March and 88 days in detention, during which he went on hunger strike. U.S. director Steven Spielberg and French actress Juliette Binoche were among the movie luminaries who spoke up for him... In his statement to the court, released to Reuters by the organizers of 'Giornate degli Autori -- Venice Days,' a side event of the main Venice festival, Panahi said he was a victim of injustice and called one of the charges against him 'a joke.'" http://reut.rs/d9ggjc Bloomberg: "Iran said it has granted consular access to two Germans detained this month and accused of posing as reporters to gather information on a woman sentenced to death by stoning. 'Talks have been conducted with German officials and it is now possible for them to have consular access,' Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said today when asked about the status of the two detainees during a news conference aired live by state television. Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 12 that Germany's Foreign Ministry was working to free the detainees. Iran's prosecutor general, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has said they admitted falsely claiming to be journalists and that they had ties to 'hostile elements' outside Iran." http://bit.ly/bdu1EQ Foreign Affairs AFP: "Iranian security agents struck French diplomats in scuffles at a Tehran embassy residence, prompting France to summon Iran's ambassador and complain of 'unacceptable violence', officials said Tuesday. 'On November 14, particularly serious incidents took place at the entry to the ambassadorial residence in Tehran,' the French foreign ministry said in a statement. 'Its entry was blocked by unidentified security services who proceeded to arrest guests of the French ambassador and carried out unacceptable acts of violence including against French diplomatic personnel,' it added. 'French authorities this morning summoned the ambassador of Iran in Paris to express their strongest condemnation of this extremely serious violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations,' it said. French officials said plain-clothes security officers struck at least two French diplomats and arrested guests arriving at the residence of ambassador Bernard Poletti for a concert of Persian music." http://bit.ly/9gDF9s AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to hold talks in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, on Wednesday ahead of a summit of countries bordering the Caspian Sea, the Foreign Ministry said. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast did not elaborate on the topics Mr. Ahmadinejad would discuss with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. However, he said a 'security agreement, environmental issues and fisheries' in the Caspian Sea would be on the agenda of Thursday's summit of the five bordering nations - Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan as well as Azerbaijan and Iran. 'Also during the summit, the president will hold bilateral talks with other Caspian Sea heads of state,' Mr. Mehmanparast told a briefing on Tuesday." http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=hfdiftcab&et=1103934323866&s=30860&e=001o7qevPPcv32VaREGeWqqr8S3NL26fees97BDulCemdEsiO0vi56TT3AD2DZHQweKgHiybnX2Ul2TOWv18gaqsLyszNtIeTs_CeT_JmxArcae2O8BH-WemQ== Opinion & Analysis Mark Clayton in CSM: "Stuxnet, the world's first known 'cyber missile,' was designed to sabotage special power supplies used almost exclusively in nuclear fuel-refining centrifuge systems, researchers studying its code have revealed. The discovery is another puzzle piece experts say points to Iran's nuclear centrifuge plants as the likely target. While the discovery may seem just another bit of circumstantial evidence, it is a critical one that appears to all but answer a central mystery surrounding Stuxnet: What was its target? Stuxnet was discovered in June by a Belarus antivirus company, and its unique ability to control industrial processes was uncovered by US researchers in July. But its true role as the world's first publicly known cyber super weapon - designed to cross the digital divide and destroy a very specific target in the real world - was only revealed in September. Even then, the target was mostly an informed guess. Was Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant or its nuclear centrifuge fuel-refining plant at Natanz the target, as some suggested? Or was it something quite different, like the big Indian-made satellite that failed dramatically in July? It now appears that a smoking gun within Stuxnet's software code targets power supplies almost certainly used inside any Iranian nuclear fuel refining plant, researchers say. Working separately, researchers at California computer security firm Symantec arrived at the same conclusion as researchers in Germany late last week: Nuclear-fuel centrifuges were the target." http://bit.ly/bEQyxg Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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