Top Stories
WSJ: "As the U.S. and Iran prepare for Monday's first diplomatic meeting between the two sides in more than a year, Tehran announced delivery of its first shipment of homemade 'yellowcake' uranium-a troubling sign for Western governments seeking to contain the nation's nuclear ambitions. Iran on Sunday announced it had delivered yellowcake, made from uranium ore from its Gachin mine near the Persian Gulf, to a fuel-conversion facility in the city of Isfahan. Yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium, is the key feedstock needed to produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor, or the highly enriched uranium for atomic weapons. Iran's successful development of the capacity to make its own yellowcake would make Tehran's nuclear program less susceptible to outside pressure. The quality of the yellowcake in the delivery isn't known. Nuclear experts believe that Iran's uranium deposits are too small and low-grade to sustain a nuclear power program, though it is already believed to have enough low-enriched uranium to produce atomic weapons." http://on.wsj.com/hL6GOe
NYT: "Six world powers began two days of talks with Iran on Monday to seek reassurances that Tehran's nuclear ambitions are peaceful. Ahead of the talks in Geneva, Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council said the United States and its allies are looking to see if Iran will enter into discussions 'with the seriousness of purpose required to begin to address international concerns.' British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said on Saturday that the talks - the first in more than a year - needed to make a serious start toward resolving the issue, The Associated Press reported. 'We want a negotiated solution, not a military one - but Iran needs to work with us to achieve that outcome,' he said. 'We will not look away or back down.' The Obama administration has become increasingly skeptical that Iran will seriously take up an offer for wide-ranging talks about all issues but based on an agreement to stop or at least suspend nuclear enrichment." http://nyti.ms/f6RVQU
AFP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday Iran was ready for nuclear negotiations with the world powers but the country's 'inalienable rights' were off limits, state television reported. 'We have said many times that we will not negotiate the inalienable rights of the Iranian nation with anyone, but if they want to talk about cooperation, then we are ready,' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the channel's website. 'We are ready to negotiate but... (world powers) should acknowledge that the rights of the Iranian nation are non-negotiable. They should also stop being hostile,' he said. Iran insists that it is entitled to enrich uranium and has vowed to continue the controversial work, despite repeated ultimatums from the UN Security Council to halt its activity." http://bit.ly/gP5TzZ
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran accused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday of sending spies from foreign intelligence services to the Islamic state, underlining worsening relations between Tehran and the U.N. atomic watchdog. Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi made the allegation two days before Iran is due to resume talks with world powers seeking to resolve a long-running row over Tehran's atomic work. 'The IAEA has been sending spies working for foreign intelligence organizations among its inspectors, and it should be held responsible,' Moslehi was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. He was referring to IAEA inspectors who visit Iran regularly to monitor its atomic activities. The IAEA had no immediate comment on the allegation." http://reut.rs/g91b6a
Reuters: "In the run-up to its talks with world powers on Monday, Iran extended an olive branch to Gulf Arab states who share Western concerns about its nuclear aspirations. The initiative fizzled: Iran's neighbours -- global energy suppliers whose shipments would be disrupted in the event of any conflict -- reacted with a mixture of suspicion and resignation. Traditional rivals of Tehran, Gulf Arab states have yet to develop a coherent strategy of their own to counter Iran's rising influence across the Middle East, and must rely on a U.S. ally they say is not fully attuned to their concerns. It's a dilemma Iran did its best to highlight at a Gulf security conference in Bahrain at the weekend." http://reut.rs/gxJufR
WSJ: "The production of yellowcake, a coarse powder, is the first step in a complex process that converts uranium ore into either the fuel for a nuclear-power reactor or the uranium metal used in an atomic weapon. Mining companies seek to extract high grades of ore, with levels of 20% uranium, for processing into yellowcake. The material is then converted into a gas that is fed into centrifuges and spun at supersonic speeds into various levels of fissile material. Uranium enriched to 3%-5% can fuel a nuclear-power reactor, while enrichment to 90% can create the fissile reaction of an atomic weapon. Iran has two uranium mines, one in Saghand, central Iran, and one in the town of Gachin, near the Persian Gulf. Iranian officials Sunday said the ore was processed into yellowcake near the port city of Bandar Abbas and then transported to Isfahan, where the material will be converted into uranium hexafluoride, a compound easily converted into a gas." http://on.wsj.com/gwz94e
AFP: "Nuclear weapons only bring disaster and the world would do well to denuclearise, Iran's foreign minister said Monday as Tehran opened talks with the West in Geneva over its contested atomic project. 'I think we need to promote very seriously the issue of denuclearisation. Nuclear weapons do not solve any problem. They only bring disaster,' Manouchehr Mottaki said at the start of a two-day visit to Athens. 'I think all countries in the world should proceed with denuclearisation. It is the best guarantee of security,' he said." http://bit.ly/elie0y
WSJ: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressing a regional security conference in Bahrain Friday, said she hoped Iranian negotiators would come to planned nuclear talks next week with the West committed to 'constructive engagement.' Clinton said Washington was still committed to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, but that outreach to Tehran by President Barack Obama came in tandem with an 'iron clad commitment to defending global security.' The conference was attended by a delegation of Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, making it an opportunity to publicly deliver Washington's message to Iranian officials face-to-face." http://bit.ly/dLmsVc
Commerce
Bloomberg: "Iran plans to export liquefied natural gas to Argentina and Cuba as part of a joint venture with Venezuela, state-run Press TV reported, citing a top industry official. Venezuela has long-term contracts to supply natural gas to Argentina and Cuba by 2013, said Ali Kheir-Andish, the managing director of Iran LNG Co., a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Co. Petroleos de Venezuela SA has a 10 percent share in Iran's LNG project and under the agreement part of the gas needed by Venezuela and Cuba will come from the Persian Gulf country, the news channel said in a report on its website late yesterday." http://bit.ly/gkWqTK
Human Rights
AFP: "Two German journalists arrested in Iran in October are not facing charges of spying, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted in a German newspaper Sunday as saying. 'We never said (that they would be charged with spying). There is no evidence to suggest that they worked as spies,' Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) in an interview. But he added: 'They broke the law. They entered the country on tourist visas and worked as journalists.' According to their employer, the mass-circulation weekly Bild am Sonntag, the two men, who have not been named, travelled to Iran to investigate the case of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning." http://bit.ly/egoe3l
Globe & Mail: "An Iranian engineer living in Canada was sentenced to death by an Iranian court on Saturday. Saeed Malekpour, 35, was earlier convicted of being 'corrupt on earth' and a 'warrior against God' after being accused of running a website with adult content. His wife in Richmond Hill, Ont. said Saturday's verdict, made by a single judge, was delivered to Mr. Malekpour in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, where he has been held since soon after his trip to Iran in October, 2008." http://bit.ly/h3RkUc
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Tehran is a 'dominant player' in Iraq using 'all means of diplomacy, intelligence and economy' to get a pro-Iranian regime there, leaked US diplomatic cables published by Le Monde newspaper Sunday said. 'Iran is one of the dominant players in Iraqi electoral politics,' US ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill wrote on November 13, 2009, according to Le Monde's translation of the WikiLeaks cable. Tehran 'uses all the means of diplomacy, security, intelligence and economic tools to influence its allies and its Iraqi detractors to establish a more pro-Iranian regime, in Baghdad as well as in the provinces,' Hill wrote. To achieve this Iran 'has understood that it needs to show great operational, and sometimes ideological, flexibility.' It is 'not rare' for Iran 'to finance and support Shiite or Kurdish rivals -- and sometimes even Sunni -- with the aim of developing financial dependence,' Hill wrote." http://bit.ly/hSD8VU
The Guardian: "Lebanon's western-backed government warned its friends that 'Iran telecom' was taking over the country two years ago when it uncovered a secret communications network across the country used by Hezbollah, according to a US state department cable. The discovery in April 2008 came against a background of mounting tensions between the Beirut government and the Iranian-backed Shia organisation, which escalated into street fighting in the capital just weeks later. The US document, classified secret/noforn (not for foreign eyes) exposes deep regional and international concerns about the volatile situation in Lebanon amid fears of a new clash with Israel following the 2006 war. Information on the Hezbollah fibre optics network, allegedly financed by Iran, was immediately passed to the US, Saudi Arabia and others by Lebanese ministers. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy was 'stunned' by the discovery, the US embassy reported." http://bit.ly/gUzjhe
Reuters: "The Secretary of State had a rare chance to interact with Iran's foreign minister at a Bahrain security conference, where Clinton urged Tehran to engage with the international community over its nuclear program at talks next week in Geneva. But while her speech from the podium directly addressed the Iranian team led by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, her attempt at a more personal touch fell distinctly flat. 'I got up to leave and he was sitting a couple of seats down from me and shaking people's hands and he saw me and he stopped and began to turn away,' Clinton told reporters on her plane back to Washington Saturday. 'I said Hello, minister. He just turned away.'" http://reut.rs/i9QPCO
WashPost: "Good medical treatment is rare in Bolivia, a landlocked South American country where 60 percent of people live below the poverty line. But even more surprising about the year-old, $2.5 million hospital is its donor: the government of Iran, one of Bolivia's newest allies. The relationship is part of Iran's effort to gain a foothold in the region by courting Bolivia, Venezuela and other left-leaning countries in Latin America with aid and business partnerships. The new ties help give both Iran and Bolivia greater international recognition as Iran seeks to challenge U.S. influence, experts say." http://wapo.st/gl8fVg
Reuters: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Oman Sunday for talks with Sultan Qaboos bin Said and was due to visit an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea that conducts operations supporting the war in Afghanistan. The talks were expected to touch on issues including Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Afghanistan, a senior defense official said, adding that the visit was primarily a courtesy call tied to last month's 40th anniversary of the sultan's reign." http://reut.rs/gZZhEt
AFP: "Iran's foreign minister will make a two-day visit to Greece next week as Tehran prepares to resume talks with Western powers over its contested nuclear programme, Greek officials said on Friday. Manouchehr Mottaki will be in Athens on Monday and Tuesday and is scheduled to meet counterpart Dimitris Droutsas and Greek President Carolos Papoulias, the Greek foreign ministry said in a statement. A ministry source told AFP that Mottaki's visit is 'well-timed' given the relaunch of the nuclear talks which had been stalled for over a year." http://bit.ly/hXqPFn
Opinion & Analysis
Chas Freeman in NYT: "The editor of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has much in common with the anarchists of the early 20th century: he aims to disrupt the established order by impairing its alliances and violating its proprieties. With the release of a quarter-million documents written by American diplomats at home and abroad, many of them shockingly candid, he has gone some distance toward accomplishing this. Take the Middle East, for example. Most striking were the leaks regarding Arab concerns about Iran's aspirations for regional hegemony and its nuclear programs. According to the documents, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia exhorted the United States to cripple Iran's nuclear programs with air strikes, urging us to 'cut off the head of the snake.' While some hard-line analysts and pundits are relieved to find the Arabs 'on our side' and feel that this disclosure will help us form a stronger alliance against Tehran, it's more likely that the leaks will simply raise Iran's prestige by adding to the persistent overestimation of its influence and abilities. More troubling, the leaks will reduce the candor of American dialogue in the region and elsewhere. Arab leaders in particular will now think twice before either speaking honestly or telling American visitors or diplomats what Washington wants to hear." http://nyti.ms/ek0KAU
Rowena Mason in The Daily Telegraph: "And sure enough, last week's explosive Wikileaks cables show that US diplomats are deeply concerned about Iran's role in the world energy market. Equally, they confirm the country's paranoia that the West is intent on sapping its huge reserves. 'Even if Iran compromises on the nuclear issue, the United States would always find another reason to criticize because they hate us - all the United States wants is to conquer the entire region and steal the oil.' According to the intelligence documents, this is what Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei told the Kazakh president, who later recounted his meeting to the Americans. General David Petraeus, former commander of the Gulf surge, responded to the slight by interjecting: 'We could have bought all the oil in the region for 100 years for what we've spent in Iraq!' It's hardly a surprise that Iran characterises Western countries as acquisitive, colonising and desperate to replace their depleting resources with oil wealth from other nations. The response from General Petraeus likewise does little to dispel a picture of Americans assuming that they have the power to buy up whatever they please. However, the Wikileaks cables do not prove that America is out to get Iranian oil. In the short term, America is apparently desperate to do the exact opposite, wean the world off its supply." http://bit.ly/gw11F0
Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard: "On December 1, Undersecretary of State William Burns appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to brief members of Congress on Iran. He touted the effectiveness of the latest round of sanctions and then listed some 'wider actions of the Iranian leadership' that cause concern. He cited the regime's 'longstanding support for violent terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; its opposition to Middle East peace; its repugnant rhetoric about Israel, the Holocaust, 9/11, and so much else; and its brutal repression of its own citizens.' These are the offenses that American diplomats list perfunctorily before reiterating their eagerness to engage with that same Iranian leadership. Burns did not disappoint. He concluded by noting that 'there is still time for diplomacy' and 'still room for a renewed effort to break down mistrust, and begin a careful, phased process of building confidence between Iran and the international community.' And, lest anyone miss his obvious message, Burns said again: 'The door is still open to serious negotiation, if Iran is prepared to walk through it.' Yet Burns said nothing about Iran's efforts to fund, train, and equip jihadists in Afghanistan. He said nothing about the extensive Iranian backing of radical Shiite groups in Iraq over the past seven years. He said nothing of Iran's ongoing support for al Qaeda-support that might have been particularly interesting to his audience of American lawmakers. In his remarks on Capitol Hill, Burns simply chose not to mention that the leaders of Iran have been fighting a stealth war against the United States, its soldiers, and its citizens. It is this fact that complicates the Obama administration's efforts to engage Iran. So it is simply set aside." http://bit.ly/elqomP
Reuel Marc Gerecht in The Weekly Standard: "Although it's way too soon to know how the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. documents will play out historically, it is interesting to compare two cables brought to light by the document dump-one written by Bruce Laingen, the chargé d'affaires in Tehran at the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the other written by a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad in 2007 recounting conversations between the British ambassador to Iran, Geoffrey Adams, and American civilian officials and military officers. Both cables are meant to tutor their readers on how to negotiate with the Iranian regime. The two are similar to guides to negotiating with Iranians written for American officials in the Obama administration by the retired-then-rehired Foreign Service officer John Limbert. Like Laingen, Limbert was taken hostage in 1979 after the imam's 'students' seized the U.S. embassy. Limbert is a master of the Persian language; the British ambassador has an academic and professional background in the Arab world; Laingen, who served in the Navy in World War II, was a career diplomat who spent much of his career in the Greater Middle East (Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). Looking at the counsel offered by Laingen, Adams, and Limbert across three decades allows us to appreciate how hard it is for Westerners to deal with faithful Muslims who see a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West." http://bit.ly/eA2noF
Hossein Askari in The National Interest: "The Obama administration has little or no comprehension of the mindset of those who are in control behind the scenes in Iran. U.S. officials and their advisers have hardly had any meaningful engagement with them. These street-smart Iranians are nowhere to be seen in public. In their mindset, the United States is weak and wants an agreement with Iran at any cost whereas they, the Iranians, hold all the cards. To them, Europeans, for example the French, are even weaker; Iranian intelligence operatives were laughing when they got the French authorities to release an Iranian who was being held for the murder of a former Iranian prime minister in France! These shadowy Iranians have contempt for weakness. The willy-nilly ratcheting up of sanctions further supports their beliefs of U.S. indecisiveness and weakness. Although Washington has numerous ways to make the sanctions truly 'crippling,' it has declined to do so on the premise that the average Iranian may suffer too much. When have realists lost sleep over the sufferings of average Iranians? The Iranian authorities know that they will not be attacked because: a United States that is unwilling to adopt effective sanctions will not take military action against them; U.S. hands are tied in Afghanistan and in Iraq; although Israel is the only real military threat, America is unwilling to give Israel carte blanche because things could go horribly wrong; and Washington has learned the painful lesson of the Iran-Iraq War if nothing else, that is, if Iran is attacked, then Iranians will rally behind the mullahs. In today's Iran the plain truth is that the regime is unpopular as never before." http://bit.ly/g2ESgB
Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan in The Guardian: "If there were any doubts after Alimohammadi's killing back in January, there could be none after last week's double attack. Someone is trying to kill nuclear scientists linked to Iran's defence establishment - the people most likely to be involved in the covert side of Iran's nuclear programme, the making of nuclear weapons. In the febrile atmosphere of Iranian underground politics, speculation quickly spread that the dark forces of the state were at work against would-be dissidents, leakers or defectors, but those rumours quickly evaporated. The Islamic Republic has many other ways of taking people it suspects out of circulation. It has little to gain by sacrificing the nation's must strategic asset - its nuclear know-how, the teachers of a new generation of atomic scientists. After last week, that new generation must be wondering whether to change career. The Tehran regime itself had little doubt over who was to blame. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quickly pointed the finger at 'western governments and the Zionist regime.' Ahmadinejad blames almost every national setback on the same culprits, but in this case there were no snorts of derision from the security analysts and intelligence experts in the west, but rather murmurs of assent." http://bit.ly/eUb1Eo
Meir Javedanfar in The Diplomat: "But the fact is that both the P5+1 and Iran are attending these talks because they are an essential part of their dual track policies toward each other. Without such an approach, their respective strategies would collapse. Iran's dual track approach involves a diplomatic channel that allows it access to direct negotiations with the P5+1, while also supporting foes of the West-especially those of the United States-in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Iran hopes this twin approach will gradually coerce the West into accepting its terms. But the West also pursues a dual strategy. Despite the talks being widely seen as dead before they've even started, it still needs to keep the talks going as it provides Iran a channel through which come to the negotiating table. The second track consists of the sanctions that it hopes will coerce Iran into complying with demands over its nuclear programme. With both sides pursuing dual but competing approaches, it's going to be all about who has the most stamina. Iran's goal in the short term is to get its hands on the bomb. If it can just maintain the status quo, therefore, it looks like it has a good chance of doing so. Yet this short term goal may not be compatible with its long term one, namely ensuring the survival of the regime in the decades to come." http://bit.ly/f4fCuv
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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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