Top Stories
AP: "Hardening its position ahead of next week's nuclear talks with the world powers, Iran's president vowed Tuesday his country would not make 'one iota' of concessions over its nuclear rights. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that a breakthrough could only be expected only if the new talks are held under 'equal' conditions and if Iran's rights are respected. 'If you want results from the talks, you must put aside the devil's temper and sit together under equal conditions on the basis of justice and respect ... and talk about various economic and nuclear fields, reach a deal and do joint work,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state TV. The European Union said Iran agreed to talks next week in Geneva and its top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili will meet with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Dec. 6 and 7." http://wapo.st/geChhH
WashPost: "Iran's uranium-enrichment program has been the target of sabotage, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, but he refused to say whether the Stuxnet computer virus had been responsible for the problems. 'They had been successful in making problems for a limited number of our centrifuges, with software they had installed in electronic devices,' Ahmadinejad told a news conference, referring to Iran's enemies. He said the sabotage has been solved. 'Fortunately, our experts have discovered the origins of the problems, and today they [Iran's enemies] are unable to repeat these acts,' Ahmadinejad said. His acknowledgment came after a report Tuesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Nov. 16, Iran had stopped feeding hot uranium gas into its thousands of centrifuges and that the shutdown could have lasted as long as seven days." http://wapo.st/gBFlsf
AFP: "US allies in the Gulf were silent on Monday over embarrassing revelations by WikiLeaks about their extreme concern over Tehran's nuclear programme, to the point of even calling for an American attack on Iran. The US documents released late on Sunday by the whistleblower website and its media partners showed Saudi Arabia was most forthright in calling for Washington to act militarily to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. In one leaked diplomatic cable, King Abdullah was quoted by his ambassador in Washington as reminding the US embassy in Riyadh of 'the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons programme...' Saudi Arabia, while known to be nervous of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, has not publicly called for Western military action against its powerful neighbour." http://bit.ly/eID66f
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Italy's imports of crude oil from Iran surged 89.6 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2010, despite tighening of international sanctions against Tehran, according to Italy's industry group Unione Petrolifera. Imports from Iran jumped to 7.32 million tonnes in the January-August period and accounted for 15.4 percent of Italy's total crude oil imports which came in at 50.64 million tonnes in the first eight months of 2010, according to UP data published on Monday on its web site... Italy's buying from Iran gathered momentum just before the sanctions impact on oil and gas trade took full effect around July, with Iran overtaking Azerbaijan as Italy's third-biggest supplier." http://bit.ly/h9RUCH
WSJ: "Italy's Eni SpA (E) still had about $1.4 billion to recoup from its investments in Iran as of January 2010, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable published by whistleblower WikiLeaks. The document also shows the oil major's chief executive decided to refrain signing a memorandum of understanding with Iran after coming under pressure from the U.S. The cable is part of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic communications given to WikiLeaks, some of them published on its website. A spokesman for Eni declined to comment on the document because it was 'leaked,' but he reiterated Eni has decided not to undertake any new business in Iran and will only complete existing contracts." http://on.wsj.com/e4eRst
Human Rights
AFP: "Two US hikers held for the past 15 months in Iran were allowed to speak by telephone with their relatives over the weekend, the men's family members said Monday. The calls from Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were made to their relatives in the United States on Saturday, during the annual Thanksgiving holiday weekend. 'We were relieved to speak to Shane and Josh, particularly during the Thanksgiving holiday. We hope that their calls home bode well for their release on humanitarian grounds during this holiday season,' the relatives said in a statement. The phone calls, each lasting about five minutes, marked just the second time that the men have been permitted to make contact with their loved ones since being detained on the Iranian border on July 31, 2009 during a hiking excursion in the Iraqi Kurdistan region." http://bit.ly/gy942o
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Iranian authorities have declared a two-day public holiday in the capital and some other cities in an attempt to reduce dangerous levels of air pollution, media reported Tuesday. Tehran will all but shut down Wednesday and Thursday as public offices, banks, schools and universities will all be closed. Cars are already only being allowed on the roads on alternate days, depending on their number plates. Tehran has been experiencing alarming levels of air pollution for more than a week and officials made last Wednesday a public holiday in their first attempt to tackle the problem. But despite reduced traffic, which continued into an annual religious holiday Thursday and the weekly day of rest on Friday, pollution levels have remained high due to a weather inversion which has stopped traffic and industrial emissions dissipating." http://nyti.ms/gKT32x
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Iran on Tuesday cast doubt on the authenticity of documents released by WikiLeaks and told its Arab neighbors not to fall into the whistleblower's 'trap.' US diplomatic memos from Arab countries in the Gulf released by WikiLeaks over the past few days uncover a fixation on the Iranian nuclear threat as well as fear that regional conflict is inevitable. 'This is a very suspicious plot. They have planted some Western and US crimes in them to present them as credible,' foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a press conference when asked about the massive US document leak. But 'the enemies of the Islamic world are pursuing a project of Iranophobia and disunity. This project only protects the interests of the Zionist regime and its supporters,' he said, referring to Israel. 'So the countries in the region must be aware not to fall into this trap and show in practice that these plots will never have any results and convince public opinion in practice by cooperation and unity,' he said." http://bit.ly/fc86BO
WT: "U.S. diplomats concluded in late 2008 that the government of Armenia had supplied Iran with rockets and machine guns later used to kill American troops in Iraq, according to State Department cables disclosed by WikiLeaks. John D. Negroponte, deputy secretary of state at the time, wrote a December 2008 letter to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan expressing 'deep concerns about Armenia's transfer of arms to Iran which resulted in the death and injury of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.' The cable, based on U.S. intelligence, includes the text of a classified letter labeled 'secret' from Mr. Negroponte. It says 'in 2007 some of these weapons were recovered from two Shia militant attacks in which a U.S. soldier was killed and six others were injured in Iraq.'" http://bit.ly/e97tLl
Daily Star: "Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Monday with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran at the end of a landmark three-day visit to Iran that fostered relations between the institutions of both states. The website of Khamenei's office said Khamenei expressed his satisfaction with the good relationship between Hariri and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah along with other officials from the party. 'These relationships should become stronger than before,' Khamenei was quoted as telling Hariri. 'As long as the Zionist regime exists, Lebanon will need resistance.'" http://bit.ly/h6ZRzi
Opinion & Analysis
NY Daily News Editorial Board: "The WikiLeaks release of some 250,000 diplomatic cables - including about 15,000 classified as 'secret' - could imperil America's vital alliances, deepen rifts with competitors and endanger lives. But there's already been one salutary consequence: The cables make clear that Iran's Arab neighbors are just as afraid of Iran's drive to acquire nuclear weapons as the U.S. and Israel are. Why, they have practically begged the U.S. to stop Tehran through military action. Iran aspires to dominate the region with the muscle of nuclear weapons and alliances with terrorist bands like Hezbollah and Hamas. Ahmadinejad is arming both while, to cite just one facet of his ambition, overtly maneuvering to become the ultimate power in Lebanon. The U.S. has led a long, hard push to isolate Iran politically and economically. American, European and UN sanctions are finally in place and appear to be having some impact. Of late, there have also been reports out of Iran that a computer virus, perhaps devised by Israel, had damaged Tehran's nuclear processing centrifuges. And, just yesterday, someone fatally bombed one top Iranian nuclear scientist and wounded a second. More must be done." http://bit.ly/hPTXo4
Amir Taheri in WSJ: "Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a closet Persian nationalist trying to de-Islamize Iran? Is he part of a plot to send the mullahs back to the mosques to make way for an Islamist military regime? These are some of the questions raised in the Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament, by members who are trying to impeach the president. As astonishing as this might be for Western observers, Ahmadinejad is challenged by people who claim that he is not Muslim enough and that he harbors a hidden anti-clerical agenda to promote a mixture of messianism and chauvinism. His closest friend and aide, Esfandiar Rahim Masha'i, has even suggested that 'within one year Ahmadinejad's enemies would declare him to be an infidel.' The anti-Ahmadinejad coalition within the Khomeinist establishment is a curious coterie that includes hard-line Islamists, mullahs clinging to their wealth and power, rival politicians, and crypto-Communists posing as Muslims. Because they have to claim to be more militant than Ahmadinejad, the victory of these groups could produce an even more unpredictable and dangerous Iran. The campaign to impeach Ahmadinejad started last June when Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani claimed that the parliament had the right to pass laws without the president's consent. He then tested his claim by pushing through a $2 billion (€1.51 billion) appropriation to Tehran's subway company, despite a presidential veto." http://on.wsj.com/hrGwnw
Reuel Marc Gerecht in The Weekly Standard: "The latest dump of classified WikiLeaks documents shows a few important facts: (1) The United States military unavoidably classifies a mountain of documents because of the easy loquacity of modern computerized warfare; (2) the release of these documents provides no startling revelations-anyone who'd read the liberal Iraqi émigré Kanan Makiya's writings in the 1980s and 1990s knew the savage potential for internecine conflict in Iraq; former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his 'light-footprint' generals Tommy Franks and John Abizaid were derelict in their duty to preserve order after Saddam Hussein's fall; and (3) the Iranians have been wicked in Mesopotamia. This last point deserves further comment since it is of some importance in understanding how to approach the Islamic Republic today. The Democratic foreign policy establishment during George W. Bush's presidency became enamored of the idea that a U.S.-Iranian dialogue was possible if only opposition from the White House could be overcome. That former Clinton administration officials-who had watched President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright apologize repeatedly for American and Western perfidy against Iran, and subsequently had witnessed the collapse of Mohammad Khatami's reformist presidency-would think Barack Obama might succeed is testimony to both Obama's charisma and the Democrats' distaste for Bush." http://bit.ly/eaHqMI
Meir Javedanfar in The Guardian: "'Your neighbour could be a spy' was the title of Mohammad Nourouzpour's article published last February in the Tehran-based Khabar Online. His article discussed how foreign intelligence agencies, especially Israel's, have been infiltrating Hamas, and how some of its members were suspected to have sold information to Israel. He warned that the same could happen to Iran. The attacks on two Iranian nuclear scientists - which killed one of them on Monday - are bound to increase the level of paranoia in Iran's intelligence agencies. One has to wonder what new horizons such paranoia could reach, because the Iranian government is already paranoid. Not only humans, but these days birds are suspects too. A prime example were the suspicious 'big birds, the size of Eagles', which were spotted flying over the village of Kamo, close to Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Quoting 'informed sources', publications such as Asr Iran wrote that these big birds were seen to be carrying 'listening devices like mobile phones, which were attached to the chest'. They were also reported to have had aerials attached to the heads, as well as 'devices to receive and send intelligence.' To some of us, such a report may conjure up images of Sesame Street, with its famous big bird on a spoof spy mission, struggling under the punishing weight of kilos of intelligence equipment, with antennae sticking out of every orifice. But to the Iranian government, these are all serious threats." http://bit.ly/e2l7nT
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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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