Top Stories
WashPost: "For all the diplomatic fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosure of State Department cables, there might be a silver lining for the United States. Arab angst about Iran's nuclear ambitions has been exposed, perhaps giving the United States greater leverage in international talks scheduled for next week. Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, said Friday that there was 'no contradiction' between the country's public position on Iran and the private concerns expressed in the cables by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. According to the State Department documents, the king in 2009 told U.S. Gen. David Petraeus to stop Iran's nuclear program 'by whatever means necessary,' saying that 'the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.'" http://wapo.st/dGD43O
NYT: "Iranian security has made a number of arrests in the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist, the country's intelligence chief said Thursday. Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said the arrests have given Iran's secret services 'new clues' about the people involved in the deadly attacks, which it blames on Western intelligence agencies. According to Iranian authorities, assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they were driving to work in Tehran Monday, killing one and wounding the other. Iran says the attacks are part of a covert campaign by Israel and the West to sabotage its nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is aimed at producing nuclear weapons - something Iran denies. Officials say that campaign includes the abduction of Iranian scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of a destructive computer worm known as Stuxnet, which briefly brought Iran's uranium enrichment activity to a halt last month." http://nyti.ms/ejWJYW
Guardian: "Iran is financing a range of Afghan religious and political leaders, grooming Afghan religious scholars, training Taliban militants and even seeking to influence MPs, according to cables from the US embassy in Kabul. The dispatches, relating conversations between American and Afghan officials, build up a picture of mounting Iranian involvement in its eastern neighbours. In perhaps the most revealing, a top Hamid Karzai aide recently revealed to have received sacks of cash from the Iranian government told a senior US diplomat that all sorts of Afghan officials were on Tehran's payroll, including some people nominated for cabinet positions." http://bit.ly/f3OghH
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AP: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held out hope Friday that Iran will show in talks next week a willingness to prove the peaceful intentions of its nuclear program, and Bahrain's top diplomat declared that the Middle East 'can never live with' a nuclear-armed Iran. In a joint news conference with Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Clinton said, 'We hope that Iran will respond' to concerns expressed by Bahrain and others that its nuclear program not be used to a make weapons. She noted that Iran has agreed to resume talks with the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany over its nuclear program after a one-year impasse that brought tighter U.N. and American sanctions on Tehran and some stinging blows - including international oil companies leaving Iran and Russia's refusal to deliver a long-awaited anti-aircraft system to Iran's military. 'Perhaps the Iranians, with their return to the talks in Geneva starting Monday, will engage seriously with the international community on what is a concern shared by nations on every continent but most particularly here in the region,' she said." http://wapo.st/g5LUGu
Reuters: "Three European Union heavyweights accused Iran on Thursday of continuing 'down the path of non-compliance and confrontation' with its nuclear work, four days before world powers are to resume talks with Tehran. In a statement read out at a closed-door meeting of the 35-nation governing board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Germany, France and Britain urged Iran to address their concerns about the nature of its nuclear programme. 'There is no alternative: Iran must actively address the lack of confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme,' it said, according to a copy made available to Reuters." http://reut.rs/hIb43y
AP: "Egypt's president would consider turning his country into a nuclear power if Iran acquired atomic weapons, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealed. A cable from May 2008, one of hundreds of secret diplomatic documents released by the WikiLeaks website over the past week, described how President Hosni Mubarak told a U.S. Congressional delegation that everyone in the region was 'terrified' of a nuclear Iran. 'Egypt might be forced to begin its own nuclear weapons program if Iran succeeds in those efforts,' the cable said in reporting about a meeting between Mubarak and the delegation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh." http://wapo.st/dMrEgR
AP: "The head of the U.N. atomic agency on Thursday shook off suggestions of pro-U.S. bias, asserting that his investigation of Iran's nuclear program was factual and objective. Yukiya Amano was responding to his description as being 'solidly in the U.S. court' in an American diplomatic cable, part of the latest batch of confidential information released Sunday by Wikileaks website... Iran and its allies in the camp of developing nations regularly criticize Amano, claiming the language in his reports on the IAEA's attempts to oversee Tehran's nuclear program is skewed and departs from what they say was the more objective style of his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei." http://wapo.st/gm3Lz7
AP: "Confidential U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show American diplomats have been worried about Iran's growing influence in Latin America but believe fears of Venezuela sending uranium to aid Tehran's nuclear program are likely baseless. The documents posted online this week reveal that as U.S. diplomats have investigated President Hugo Chavez's ties to nations including Iran and Russia, they have sometimes found more bluster than substance in both Chavez's ambitions and his critics' claims of a looming international threat. In one cable on June 11, 2009, the U.S. Embassy said Venezuela is 'incapable of substantive nuclear cooperation with Iran/Russia.' The document cited an unidentified nuclear scientist who said Venezuela's agreement with Russia to start a nuclear program 'is pure political theater' and that 'there is no exploration or exploitation of uranium, ongoing or planned, in Venezuela.'" http://wapo.st/evWW4i
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Mohammad Reza Sadeghnia, a purported Iranian government agent who pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hitman to kill a broadcaster critical of the Iranian regime, is a fugitive from justice after missing a Los Angeles court date. Sadeghnia, 43, was granted permission to travel to his native Iran earlier this fall to visit his ailing father and apparently never returned. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to appear at Tuesday's hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, deputy district attorney Ron Goudy said. Sadeghnia's name appears among the trove of U.S. government documents recently posted by the WikiLeaks website. A confidential Jan. 21 diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in London says Sadeghnia admitted being an Iranian agent and conducting surveillance on two anti-Iranian government broadcasters - London-based Voice of America commentator Reza Nourizadeh and Jamshid Sharmahd, who runs Los Angeles-based radio programming for opposition group Tondar." http://wapo.st/fudgYY
Opinion & Analysis
Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard: "A State Department cable released by WikiLeaks earlier this week contains a stunning new detail about the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda. The Saudis have privately complained to the Obama administration that Iran harbors a dangerous network of al Qaeda operatives who are targeting the kingdom. And at the heart of the relationship is one of Osama bin Laden's little-known sons. One cable recounts a meeting that took place on September 5, 2009 between President Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, and Saudi Prince Nayif bin Abdulaziz, the kingdom's second deputy prime minister and longtime interior minister. Just eight days prior to the meeting, Prince Nayif's son, Muhammad, survived an assassination attempt by al Qaeda. Muhammad is the head of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism and jihadist rehabilitation programs. Prince Nayif stressed to Brennan that the kingdom's efforts to combat terrorism and extremism would not waver even though the attack highlighted the risk to members of the royal family. After exchanging diplomatic niceties, Prince Nayif turned the conversation to Iran." http://bit.ly/fZxvCu
Shilbey Telhami in The National Interest: "One of the highlights of the most recent Wikileaks release has been the focus on Arab attitudes toward Iran. The headlines suggest Arab unanimity in support of a U.S. or Israeli military attack on the Islamic Republic, as long as Arab governments are allowed to keep their heads low to the ground. There was much evidence, and many colorful quotations, to make the case, especially from Saudi, Bahraini, and United Arab Emirates' leaders. And although some of the quotations were jaw-dropping, in truth it was all a bunch of stuff we've heard before. But analysis by the media that followed, and the sweeping conclusion that 'Arabs support attacking Iran,' is misplaced and ignores significant differences among Arab governments about how to deal with Iran-and especially missed the boat on true attitudes of the Arab public. As I pointed out in an analysis on this site in September most Arab governments are 'suspicious of Iran and worry about rising Iranian power and influence, the degree of concern varies, and the sources of concern vary even more. . . . Most Arab governments would like Iranian power trimmed, with some supporting a potential attack on its nuclear facilities by either Israel or the United States. But Arab governments' calculations cover a broad spectrum.' In fact, while Wikileaks showed the extent to which Arab leaders almost universally worry about rising Iranian influence, their attitudes toward military action were far from unanimous¬-even in the Gulf region." http://bit.ly/h0ibkx
Michael Adler in FP: "In Tehran's version of confidence-building, Iran would gradually curtail its enrichment activities, replacing its production by purchasing enriched uranium abroad. U.S. negotiators aren't too impressed. They see 'gradually' as a way for Iran to stall while developing increased knowledge and capability in enriching uranium to the level required to make a bomb. In their eyes, Iran must not only abandon its plans to stockpile enriched uranium, but also, if it does enrich, operate under strict, intrusive monitoring. And there would need to be immediate consequences of one form or another if the Islamic Republic were caught trying to make the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons. You can't start with the solution, Iranian officials counter. You've got to think of yourself in a sort of diplomatic bazaar. As the senior official told me: 'They [the Americans] should come talk. If you go to a shop and you want to buy something, you ask the price and the seller looks at you. He wants first to find out if you are a real purchaser, and then he says, OK, let's talk.' But if the Americans only say, 'Come and sign an agreement,' the official said, this is a sign that 'they are playing games' and are not serious about negotiating. So maybe it is time for some serious haggling, for both sides to see whether they are ready to deal. As Larijani said: 'Yes, start bargaining sooner, rather than going through preambles which take a lot of time.' Of course, the Iranians could help their case if they would just sit down next week and do exactly that themselves." http://bit.ly/fVCo9e
David Lewis in Reuters: "The seizure of weapons from Iran in a Nigerian port, a stand-off with suspects holed up in an embassy and a paper trail leading to the farm of a West African leader bear the hallmarks of a great thriller. But the still-unfolding incident also raising troubling questions about the way Iran does business in Africa and could scare nations away from its quest for closer trade ties and for allies in the international dispute over its nuclear programme. 'I think this will make some countries quite wary ... of strong relations with Iran,' said Sanam Vakil, an Iran expert and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. 'It is only just going to increase pressure on them,' she said of efforts within the U.N. Security Council to curtail Iranian nuclear work seen in the West as a bid to acquire the atom bomb, and broader concern over Iran's international role... The October seizure in Lagos port of 13 containers full of weapons prompted two Iranians to seek refuge in Iran's embassy in the capital Abuja. Diplomats and security sources identified the two as members of Iran's al Quds force, the part of its Revolutionary Guard charged with foreign operations." http://bit.ly/gtcNRD
Leila Fadel in WashPost: "Private conversations between Sunni Arab leaders in the Middle East and U.S. diplomats, leaked in confidential State Department documents this week, may push Iraq's future Shiite-led government closer to Iran, analysts said. The nation is already divided along sectarian lines and since the U.S. invasion in 2003 Iraq has become the center of a regional power struggle between Shiite Iran to the east and Arab Sunni neighbors to the west - a struggle that played out during Iraq's parliamentary elections in March. The first few hundred cables leaked by the WikiLeaks Web site could further damage Shiite incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's weak relationship with Arab neighbors, countries the United States had hoped would counter Iran's influence in Iraq as U.S. influence here wanes and the U.S. military prepares for a scheduled exit at the end of 2011. The cables show candid moments over the past two years in which, among other things, the king of Saudi Arabia called Maliki an 'Iranian agent' and a 'liar.' Meanwhile, Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, advocated a military coup in Iraq and said that the United States should 'forget democracy' there and that the country should have 'a dictator.'" http://wapo.st/hV432S |
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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