Top Stories
WashPost: "Why did the centrifuges stop spinning? Only Iran knows - and it's not saying. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, reported Tuesday that on Nov. 16, Iran stopped feeding hot uranium gas into its thousands of centrifuges, and that the shutdown could have lasted as long as seven days. The disclosure came after intense speculation that a computer worm known as Stuxnet had been manufactured specifically to target the centrifuge machines at the Natanz facility, which Iran says is used to produce fuel for electricity and which the United States suspects is part of a weapons program. The IAEA report was tantalizing, experts said, but inconclusive, especially because it also indicated that Iran has in recent months brought more than 1,000 new centrifuges on line. The kind of centrifuge used is prone to shutdowns and malfunctions. Still, a number of researchers have determined that the Stuxnet worm was designed to make the type of centrifuge - a Pakistani copy of an old Dutch design - spin wildly out of control... The Institute for Science and International Security in Washington noted that Iran boosted the centrifuges in use at Natanz from 3,772 to 4,816. It also increased the number of centrifuges in six cascades, and the production has appeared to remain steady. Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium, if enriched to weapons-grade, would produce enough material for at least two nuclear weapons." http://wapo.st/heOgIE
NYT: "Iranian Parliament members recently sent a letter detailing a long list of complaints against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iran's powerful Guardian Council, Iranian news media have reported, marking a new phase in an effort by traditional conservatives to rein in the administration and reassert the powers of Iran's legislative body. The letter, which could theoretically result in the president's impeachment, was rapidly disavowed by its putative supporters. Many denied having signed the document. Nevertheless, the uprising is a sign that internal fissures that developed between the Ahmadinejad government and conservatives in Parliament during last year's wave of protests have yet to be closed... The latest confrontation came to light on Saturday, when unofficial news outlets reported that an effort had begun in Iran's Parliament to call the president to account for a number of instances in which his government stood accused of bypassing the constitutional powers of the Parliament and exercising unchecked power." http://nyti.ms/gZZjCI
AFP: "The United States Tuesday criticized Iran for its 'continued failure' to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, after a new report by the agency said Iran was still refusing to halt uranium enrichment. 'We're obviously studying the report, but the key point is that it underscores Iran's continued failure to comply with its international nuclear obligations and also a sustained lack of cooperation with the IAEA,' said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. The IAEA's restricted report, a copy of which was obtained in Vienna by AFP, said Iran was still uncooperative after nearly eight years of attempting to determine if its nuclear program is military or, as Tehran insists, peaceful in its objectives. The report demands full access to Iran's nuclear facilities, equipment and related documents, and said its uranium enrichment activities inexplicably came to a halt at least one day earlier this month, amid rumors it encountered technical problems." http://bit.ly/gv2k8r
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
JPost: "A Hamburg hotel's decision on Monday to hold a controversial conference with an alleged violator of human rights to promote German-Iranian trade prompted protest by New York-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and the German chapter of Stop the Bomb. The 'Iran Business Forum,' which was organized by Berlin-based company IPCGmbH, was held at the Marriott Airport Hotel, sparking the two NGOs to call for a boycott of Marriott's global properties. The day-long event addressed 'investment possibilities in the northwestern provinces of Iran' and the program listed Iran's ambassador to Germany, Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, as the keynote speaker. Iranian Kurds and human rights groups say Attar sanctioned a massacre of Iranian Kurds during his tenure as governor of the Kurdistan and West Azarbaijan provinces from 1980 to 1985. In a letter faxed to Marriott's CEO, J.W. Marriott Jr., UANI President Mark D. Wallace wrote, 'Ambassador Attar represents a criminal regime that flouts international law in developing an illegal nuclear weapon, brutally represses its own people, and is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.' UANI called on Marriott to cancel the pro-Iran trade event. 'If the Marriott continues with its plans to serve as a host to the Iran Business Forum and Ambassador Attar, UANI will take action against the Marriott hotel chain worldwide. UANI will call on its activists to peacefully protest your properties, and will call for a general public boycott of all Marriott properties,' wrote Wallace." http://bit.ly/ha56tR
WashPost: "More than a year has passed since the last negotiations between Iran and world powers, which were followed by increasingly tough Western sanctions, military threats and alleged technological attacks on the Islamic republic's nuclear program. Now, as Iran prepares for new negotiations tentatively scheduled for Dec. 5, a top adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that measures designed to pressure Iran have been useless and that it is time for the United States and other Western nations 'to stop fooling themselves' over their effectiveness. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, 52, a foreign policy expert and longtime confidant of Ahmadinejad's, said in an interview Monday that actions such as the banning of Iranian ships from European ports, a fuel blockade against Iran Air and increasing financial restrictions have had 'no noticeable effect' and that the failure of the sanctions has propelled the West to restart talks - a direct contradiction of the U.S. view." http://wapo.st/fYRAIY
Reuters: "Italy's energy major Eni will continue to receive Iranian crude for at least another three years as Tehran still owes the company about $1 billion from decade-old deals, ENI's chief executive said on Monday. International sanctions against Iran have complicated financing of any deals involving buying Iranian crude or selling products to the Islamic Republic but Paolo Scaroni said ENI did not need to organise financing because the company receives the Iranian crude directly. 'We still have more than $1 billion that the Iranians still owe us,' Scaroni said while announcing the firm was moving its global trading headquarters to London. 'We signed two contracts in 2000 and 2001 to develop two fields in Iran...The way that they have to pay us is to give us crude...It will take three years to get our money back.'" http://bit.ly/gX05iq
Bloomberg: "McKesson Corp., the biggest U.S. drug distributor, won a court ruling that it is owed almost $44 million in its 28-year dispute over a dairy seized by the Iranian government during the country's 1979 revolution. Iran violated its own and international law when it took control of Pak Dairy Co. and withheld dividends from San Francisco-based McKesson, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington ruled. Leon, in a decision made public today, ordered Iran to pay McKesson damages and interest. The parties have been fighting since at least 1982 over the dairy, which court records say was created in 1960 by McKesson and a group of Iranian investors. The case has been the subject of several appeals over jurisdiction." http://bit.ly/dT1Y4E
Human Rights
ABC: "There is a 'good chance' that the life of an Iranian woman, sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery, may be spared, the head of the country's Human Rights Commission told Iranian state media. The official, Mohammed-Javad Larijani, who last week defended stoning following a United Nations censure vote, told Iran's Press TV that Sakineh Ashtiani, whose death sentence has become an international cause celebre, may not be executed after all. 'Iran's Council of Human Rights has helped a lot to reduce her sentence and we think there is a good chance that her life could be saved,' Larijani said Monday." http://abcn.ws/eojILs
Foreign Affairs
FT: "Painstaking efforts by President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran to build support in Africa were dealt a blow on Tuesday when the tiny west African state of the Gambia severed all ties with the Islamic regime and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave. The Gambia's foreign ministry announced the decision without specifying the reason. But the move appears to be linked to the seizure in Nigeria last month of an Iranian consignment of weapons believed to have been en route to Banjul... 'The Iranians don't have a lot of friends and they have been conducting forays into non-aligned countries in order to increase the wind in their back,' said Cliff Kupchan, Iran specialist at the Eurasia Group. He said the arms shipment through Nigeria may not have been politically motivated but rather an attempt by Revolutionary Guards to make a financial gain. Some domestic media in Iran said other African states had threatened in a confidential letter to the foreign ministry to follow suit should Tehran fail to meet its economic promises." http://bit.ly/dNiOR0
Globe & Mail: "Laureen Harper is stepping out of her comfort zone and into the complicated world of human rights. Like the prime ministerial wives who preceded her, Mrs. Harper has tread carefully, avoiding contentious issues and controversial causes. Instead, she is seen lending her name and considerable energies to arts galas, animal welfare issues - and the farm girl from Turner Valley, Alta., has been known to milk cows for charity and carve a mean pumpkin for the local kids' trick or treating at 24 Sussex Dr. on Halloween. But the plight of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery, was different. Her circumstances compelled Mrs. Harper to move out from behind the curtain of safe causes and into the realm of geopolitics." http://bit.ly/hAxfnc
Opinion & Analysis
Michael Adler in Politico: "What is certain is that Iran has fewer centrifuges turning now than it did a little more than a year ago. This slowdown has U.S. officials convinced that Iran's technical problems grant some two years' delay before Iran can move decisively forward toward making a nuclear weapon. This leaves time for diplomacy, the officials say. Yet that diplomacy is stalled - even if talks are expected sometime in December. Iran is stubbornly continuing to enrich, the IAEA says, and it has now amassed 3,183 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, or LEU. Another wrinkle is that the atomic agency revealed Tuesday that Iran has now produced 33 kilograms of uranium enriched to almost 20 percent, which Tehran says it is doing to make fuel for its research reactor. The six world powers would want Iran to cease this higher level of enrichment - a major step toward weapons-grade uranium - if talks proceed. The IAEA report lays out the facts. But it is not much of a crystal ball for those trying to see where this crisis is headed. The answer, of course, is political rather than technical. The key stress point is not how many centrifuges are breaking down but the cost to leaders of pursuing their policies... The good news is that Iran's technical woes push the military option of a U.S. or Israeli attack off the table - at least for now." http://bit.ly/dNLSSS
Reza Aslan in The Daily Beast: "There is a joke one hears a lot in Iran these days. A foreign journalist hops into a cab. As the car careens through Tehran's streets, they come to a clogged intersection where a brand new highway is being built. The journalist asks the driver, 'What is the name of this new highway?' The cab driver proudly responds, 'This is Shaheed Ahmadinejad highway,' meaning literally, 'Ahmadinejad the Martyr' highway. Of course, the bombastic president of Iran is still very much alive. But from the moment in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn into office last year, Iranians have been placing bets on just how long into his second term he will last. It is not just a matter of the stolen election that returned Ahmadinejad to power, or the massive, months-long demonstration that followed. It is a sense among most Iranians-even among Ahmadinejad's allies-that with the protests having died down and the 'Green Movement' having been (for the moment) contained, the alliance of convenience that had formed among Iran's feuding conservative factions would fracture, taking Ahmadinejad down with it." http://bit.ly/eOSszW
Ben Smith in Politico: "Some Israeli officials say the country's fingers are off the hair-trigger that would launch a strike on the Iranian nuclear program, but that convincing the United States to take a harder line on Iran remains a top national priority. The apparent willingness of the Israelis to postpone a demand for confrontation by months - at least - represents a success for the Obama administration, which has sought to convince Israel that it should give sanctions a chance to work. It also, Israelis said, represents the belief on both sides that Iranian technical difficulties - some of them reportedly the result of a computer virus attributed to Israeli intelligence - have slowed the program. 'The Iranians are moving more slowly than they want to - but they are still moving,' said Yossi Kuperwasser, the deputy director general of Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry. 'Everybody understands that you have to give some time for the sanctions to bear their full fruit.'" http://politi.co/g0TLFW
James Reynolds in BBC: "Mr Ahmadinejad has two well-known sets of opponents - Western governments trying to prevent him from obtaining nuclear weapons; and the Iranian reformist movement which tried to defeat him in the 2009 presidential election. But now, a third set of opponents has begun to emerge - from within the ruling conservative movement. This collection of opponents may prove to be more dangerous to Mr Ahmadinejad than the first two. On Sunday, an article in the Wall Street Journal said four lawmakers had released a report accusing the president and his government of breaking the law. The alleged offences include a $590m withdrawal from the Central Bank's foreign reserve fund without parliamentary approval; the illegal import of oil and natural gas; and lack of transparency in budget spending. Ray Takeyh, an Iran watcher at the New-York based Council on Foreign Relations, says conservatives are concerned that the president is trying to transform the country 'from the Islamic Republic to the Ahmadinejad Republic.' Conservative newspapers in Iran also report that lawmakers have started a petition to collect 74 signatures to debate impeachment in parliament... According to Mansour Farhang of Bennington College in the US, impeachment 'only has a chance if Ayatollah Khamenei is 100% behind it.' But, he adds, Mr Khamenei has too much of his credibility invested in Mr Ahmadinejad for this to happen." http://bbc.in/eeWlM2
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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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