Top Stories
AFP: "A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite religious procession in the Iranian city of Chabahar on Wednesday killing at least 39 people in an attack claimed by Sunni rebel group Jundallah. A pathologist cited by the official IRNA news agency said 38 bodies had been brought to the town's mortuary, among them women and children. A 39th casualty later succumbed to his wounds, the pathologist said... The attack came on the eve of the final day of Ashura, one of the high points of the Shiite calendar when large crowds of worshippers gather in mosques across predominantly Shiite Iran. But unlike most of the rest of the country, Sistan-Baluchestan where Chabahar is situated has a significant Sunni community and has seen persistent unrest in recent years by the Sunni militants of Jundallah (Soldiers of God). The group claimed Wednesday's attack, saying it was to avenge the hanging of their leader Abdolmalek Rigi. It identified the two militants as Saiful Rahman Chabahari and Hessan Khashi." http://bit.ly/fKpk0t
JPost: "The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran's nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic's nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program's code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. 'It will take two years for Iran to get back on track,' Langer said in a telephone interview from his office in Hamburg, Germany. 'This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success' ... According to Langer, Iran's best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most "advanced and aggressive malware in history." But, he said, even once all of the computers were thrown out, Iran would have to ensure that computers used by outside contractors were also clean of Stuxnet." http://bit.ly/eZc0eP
CNBC: "Chemical giant Transammonia is ending all ties with Iran. In a press release sent to Congressional leaders including Howard Berman, the Chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Joseph Lieberman, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, and Christopher Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Transammonia's Swiss subsidiary said it will not enter into new contracts with Iranian companies and wind down its business with Iran 'as soon as possible.' The news came following a recent CNBC investigation revealing Transammonia's connection to the country. Although U.S. companies are prohibited by the Treasury Department from engaging in business transactions with Iran, CNBC reported last week that the Transammonia subsidiary-100% owned by Transammonia in the United States-purchases ammonia from Iran. Separately, CNBC obtained a letter from Transammonia to United Against Nuclear Iran founder Ambassador Mark Wallace in which Transammonia denied allegations about doing business with banned entities. UANI is a non-partisan organization dedicated to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons." http://bit.ly/gCLSGp
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
BBC: "Senegal has recalled its ambassador to Iran, saying that Tehran had failed to provide a 'satisfactory' explanation for an arms shipment seized in Nigeria. The weapons were found hidden among building materials on a ship docked in Lagos in October. An Iranian man and three Nigerians have been accused of attempting to import the arms and send them to The Gambia, which cut ties with Iran last month. But there has been speculation that they were destined for south Senegal. Despite a peace deal, a low-level separatist rebellion simmers in Casamance, a region cut off from the rest of Senegal by The Gambia. The Iranian government has said only that the shipment belonged to a private company and was being sent to a 'West African country.'" http://bbc.in/edqCnA
LAT: "Four international oil-related companies have stopped doing business in Iran, providing evidence that a California effort to economically pressure the Islamic republic is having an effect, outgoing state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said Tuesday. Earlier this year, Poizner published a list of foreign companies operating in the defense, nuclear, energy and finance areas of Iran. At the same time, he told California-licensed insurance companies that they could not receive credit on financial statements for holdings in any of the 50 companies on the list. The four new companies to come off Poizner's list were Royal Dutch Shell of the Netherlands, Shell International Finance of the Netherlands, Total of France and Repsol YPF of Spain... Poizner noted that insurance companies have cut back sharply their investments in companies operating in sensitive sectors of the Iranian economy. In 2009, such new investments totalled nearly $1 billion. The equivalent figure for the first half of this year was only $164 million, he said." http://lat.ms/h9qC4N
JPost: 'Mohammad Ahmadian was appointed as the acting deputy of the country's Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), PressTV reported citing the Fars news agency. Ahmadian is a university professor who has previously served as Iran's deputy energy minister and head of Iran's Nuclear Power Plants Production and Development Company - the Iranian contractor for the Busheher Atomic Power Plant Construction agreement, PressTV said. Ahmadian's appointment followed a presidential decree appointing the AEOI's head, Ali Akbar Salehi, to the post of acting foreign minister. Salehi will temporarily replace Manouchehr Mottaki, who served as Iran's foreign minister since 2005, while keeping his position as the AEOI chief." http://bit.ly/fydGZI
Human Rights
Radio Farda: "New criminal charges have been brought against detained Iranian human rights lawyer and women's rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh, her husband has told RFE/RL's Radio Farda. Reza Khandan told Radio Farda on December 14 that his wife must appear in court on December 27 to defend herself against charges of 'not wearing the hijab' and 'not observing Islamic standards of conduct.' Khandan said that when his wife was barred from leaving Iran to receive an international human rights award in 2008, she sent a message via video clip to the International Human Rights Committee in Italy, which had selected her as the awardee. 'Her new charge is that she did not wear a head scarf in that video clip,' Khandan said." http://bit.ly/dRcC4n
Domestic Politics
AP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced outrage at home Tuesday over the ambush-style dismissal of his longtime foreign minister, more evidence of a growing rift in Iran's conservative leadership just as Tehran reopens talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program. Iran's leaders tried to quiet the rumblings by insisting there was no fundamental policy shifts behind the surprise decision Monday to dump Manouchehr Mottaki while he was in the middle of a diplomatic mission to Senegal and appoint nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi interim foreign minister. But the fallout from some top lawmakers and the media - even one of Tehran's most hard-line newspapers - pointed to bigger questions about growing splits between Ahmadinejad and rivals from within the country's conservative leadership who see the move as a presidential power grab and cronyism." http://wapo.st/gTY2oZ
Opinion & Analysis
Michael Rubin in The Diplomat: "Certainly the sanctions are having two impacts-one is economic, the second is on reputation. Economically, the greatest damage to Iran's economy is actually done by Iranian mismanagement. The economic sanctions, however, amplify that, and create some degree of pressure-not enough to change Iranian behaviour, but enough to raise the cost of their behaviour. Reputation wise, Iran and Iranians look back on their legacy as being one of a great empire. They are one of the few countries in the world that have a near contiguous history going back more than 2000 years, the others being in Asia. Now the fact that Iran is being targeted by both multilateral and unilateral sanctions upsets ordinary Iranians. For example, when I lived in Iran, an Iranian who participated in the Islamic revolution talked to me about how when she got married she and her husband got on a motorcycle and drove all the way to Paris without needing to get visas in advance. They look at themselves as a country that was once on par with European countries like Spain and Portugal, and they see themselves now following headlong into the third world. That creates a great deal of friction between ordinary Iranians and their government because ordinary Iranians tend to blame their government for the isolation, rather than other countries." http://bit.ly/hkj8yB
Brian Whitaker in The Guardian: "It is now more than three years since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his famous claim during a visit to New York: 'In Iran we don't have homosexuals like you do in your country. This does not exist in our country.' His words caused laughter among the audience at Colombia University but - unintentionally on Ahmadinejad's part - they have probably done more than anything else to raise awareness in the west of the problems faced by sexual minorities in Iran. Unfortunately, the LGBT issue - epitomised by the notorious photograph of two male teenagers being hanged - has also been embraced unscrupulously by some, in the hope of bolstering support for a military attack, which has entirely different goals and motives. This, in turn, leads to accusations from the other side that anyone who complains about the treatment of LGBT people is simply picking on Iran and trying to start a war. Regardless of motives, though, it's a fact that Iran's treatment of sexual minorities is bad and, by international standards, somewhere near the bottom of the league. It is one of only seven countries worldwide that retains the death penalty for consensual same-sex acts (the others are Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and some parts of Somalia and Nigeria)." http://bit.ly/ib18MD
Jennifer Rubin in WashPost: "We have heard for years now from pundits on the left that we should essentially ignore the rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yes, he talks about genocide. Yes, he stole the June 2009 elections. But, liberal pundits caution, he is not really in charge. That, of course, bolsters their view that there are more rational leaders who are 'actually' in charge with whom we can do business. On the other side, scholars and pundits critical of the administration's Iran engagement policy have argued that Ahmadinejad is very much in charge, and his public rantings suggest that talking him out of pursuing nuclear weapons is a dangerous fantasy. This week we got one more bit of data for the two sides to consider. Shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went chasing after Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Ahmadinejad canned him... Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me this morning that this should be seen as another sign of the 'gradual incorporation of Islamic Republic's institutions into the Ahmadinejad republic. Salehi is not the foreign minister of that country; Ahmadinejad and his cronies are.'" http://wapo.st/dM3Y2F
Robin Pomeroy in Reuters: "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's sacking of his foreign minister was no mere cabinet reshuffle but a victory that tightened his grip on foreign policy and showed he still enjoys strong support from Iran's supreme leader. Iranians were shocked by the sudden dismissal of Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday. The face of Iran abroad since Ahmadinejad first became president in 2005 was unceremoniously dumped while he was still on an official trip to Africa. Having started the day in Senegal as a minister, he ended it a tourist, having learned of his fate from a news report, according to one lawmaker. 'In usual political practice, dismissing a minister while he is on mission ... is not only seen as a sudden sign of disruption in foreign policy but it is also a clear insult to the minister himself,' Hossein Shariatmadari, the influential editor of right-wing Kayhan daily, wrote in a leader. While the brazen manner of the sacking was seen by many as unseemly, cracks between Mottaki and Ahmadinejad -- never the closest political allies -- have widened in recent months, fuelling speculation his days could be numbered. The coup de grace came four months after Ahmadinejad appointed six presidential envoys to various parts of the world, bypassing the traditionally more liberal Foreign Ministry to get more direct control on diplomatic relations. That move worried many lawmakers who were already concerned Ahmadinejad was centralizing too much power and trampling parliament's role, and the president was forced to downgrade his envoys to the status of 'advisors.' Analysts said the fact that Ahmadinejad was able to sack Mottaki now, rather than four months ago, shows he enjoys even stronger support from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who called in August on the wings of government to put aside their differences after a range of disputes, including over the envoys." http://reut.rs/ha3OBs
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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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