Eye on Iran: Shiite Cleric Sadr Returns to Iraq from Iran

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group. Top Stories WSJ: "Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, one of Iraq's most controversial and powerful figures, returned to Iraq on Wednesday after operating from Iran for more than three years, a homecoming that promises an unwelcome new headache for both the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Mr. Sadr, now 37, arrived in his hometown of Najaf, south of Baghdad, on a flight from Tehran, his spokesman and another aide said. State-owned Iraqiya television broadcast his arrival at Najaf's airport, in brief footage that showed aides in clerical robes scrambling to make way for the cleric as frenzied photographers surrounded him. Mr. Sadr visited the Najaf mausoleum of his father, influential Shiite Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, before going to his family's home. His aides and partisans gave no indication of Mr. Sadr's intentions, the permanence of his move or whether the notoriously mercurial cleric would appear in public soon... U.S. officials say Mr. Sadr receives financial and technical support from the Iranians." http://on.wsj.com/gGfGxK AP: "Iranian authorities have detained a 55-year-old American woman on spying charges, local media reported Thursday. The state-owned newspaper IRAN said the woman had spying equipment hidden on her body when customs authorities detained her in the border town of Nordouz, 370 miles (600 kilometers) northwest of the capital Tehran. The report said she arrived in Iran from neighboring Armenia without a visa. The paper identified the woman in Farsi as Hal Talaian and said she was found to have 'a microphone' between her teeth... If the woman's arrest is confirmed, she would be the fourth American Iran has detained and accused of spying in less than two years." http://wapo.st/fSmVGx AFP: "India's biggest oil refiner said Thursday it did not expect any supply shortages because of a payments problem between India and Iran, but other refiners are making contingencies in case of disruption... A temporary arrangement has been found using the State Bank of India and the European-Iranian Trade Bank, or EIH Bank, but both countries are seeking a long-term solution. Asked about possible problems, S.V. Narasimhan, the finance director of IndianOil, the largest refiner in India, said Thursday: 'We don't anticipate any disturbances.' Another refiner, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), has begun making contingencies, however, and has floated four tenders for supplies in the short-term from other sources. MRPL is India's biggest buyer of Iranian crude, with more than half its supply coming from the Islamic republic." http://bit.ly/eQ4dyf Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "The European Union, Russia and China should reject Iran's invitation to visit its atomic sites this month just ahead of key talks, since that is a job for the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Western diplomats said on Wednesday. Several Western diplomats in New York, among them European officials, said on condition of anonymity that Moscow and Beijing were being actively discouraged from attending since it could undermine the united front of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany on Iran's nuclear issue. 'We would be disappointed if Russia, or China or the European Union were to go,' said a senior Western diplomat in New York." http://bit.ly/g5HwLL Reuters: "Three Iranian cargo ships seized in Singapore several months ago due to a financial dispute linked to sanctions on the Islamic Republic have been released, news agencies in Iran reported on Wednesday. 'After solving the problems created by Westerners, the Iranian ships which were seized in Singapore were freed a few minutes ago,' Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari told the country's semi-official Fars news agency... The website of state run Press TV reported that the dispute started when France's Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank called in a loan early due to sanctions which have hit Iran's ability to access financial services in many foreign countries." http://reut.rs/hgByo9 WSJ: "State Bank of India will take suitable precautions to avoid possible U.S. sanctions due to any dealings with the blacklisted Hamburg-based European-Iranian Trade Bank AG, a senior Indian finance ministry official said Wednesday. The official didn't say what precautions SBI would take to avoid any potential U.S. action. 'We can look at making the temporary arrangement more permanent if it works out. An Indian delegation will be visiting Tehran soon to discuss the issue,' he said. The official was responding to concerns about a temporary channel just opened by New Delhi and Tehran for oil-related transactions for January crude. Under the arrangement, described Tuesday by another senior Indian official, Indian oil companies will open accounts with state-run SBI, which will in turn deposit the payments for Iranian crude with European-Iranian Trade Bank, or EIH Bank. The new mechanism may ruffle U.S. feathers, too, as the Treasury Department blacklisted EIH Bank in September, saying it provided a financial lifeline to Iranian companies that it alleges support weapons proliferation." http://on.wsj.com/fLC4vx Commerce Bloomberg: "National Iranian Oil Co. is poised to reduce its official prices for heavy crude to be supplied to Asian refiners next month after cuts by Saudi Arabia yesterday. The Tehran-based state oil company will set Iranian Heavy for February shipment at 90 cents a barrel below the average of Persian Gulf benchmark Oman and Dubai grades, based on a quarterly formula tied to Saudi Arabian Oil Co. prices. That's 40 cents lower than for January, when the discount was the smallest in a year. Losses from fuel oil, the most common product from refining high-sulfur Middle East crude, widened last month to $10.98 a barrel, the biggest gap since November 2008, according to PVM Oil Associates, a broker. Saudi Aramco, as Dhahran-based Saudi Arabian Oil is known, yesterday cut its prices for heavy oil and raised prices for some light grades." http://bit.ly/gtJVqN Human Rights AP: "Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal called on Iran Wednesday to provide details of the case of a Dutch-Iranian woman whose daughter says she has been sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Rosenthal said in a statement he was 'very concerned' about the fate of Sahra Bahrami after her daughter told a Dutch radio station Wednesday her mother was handed the death sentence. Bahrami has been jailed in Iran since December 2009. Dutch diplomats have been denied access to her because Iran does not recognize her Dutch nationality. Rosenthal said the Netherlands is calling for 'information, the opportunity to provide consular assistance and a fair trial.' Bahrami reportedly was arrested after taking part in anti-government demonstrations." http://wapo.st/dO4EmR Opinion & Analysis Pierre Goldschmidt in Carnegie Endowment: "If Iran's intention is to become a nuclear-weapon threshold state without allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to uncover its progress toward that goal, then its current stalling tactics would seem appropriate. However, if Iran's nuclear intentions are exclusively peaceful, then it is necessary to convince the Iranian leadership that its noncooperative policies are counterproductive. This will not be an easy task considering the huge and persistent mistrust between Iran and most of the main nuclear supplier states. There is no quick fix to solve the Iran nuclear crisis. Negotiating a multilateral agreement with Iran is a long and frustrating process that can only progress step by step. Experience with North Korea is certainly not encouraging and will not reassure those who rightfully consider that time is playing to the advantage of Iran, at least for the time being. To prevent the Iranian nuclear crisis from escalating, two outcomes should be achieved simultaneously: (1) convincing Iran that further sanctions will inevitably be adopted if Iran continues to ignore IAEA and UN Security Council demands, and (2) persuading Iran that considerable economic, political, and security benefits would result if it meets international requirements. At this stage it is important to learn from experience and to acknowledge that the international community has always been one step behind in its diplomacy with Iran." http://bit.ly/hS0NeF Stephen Schwartz in The Weekly Standard: "Like other tyrannies before it, the Iranian clerical dictatorship, headed by 'supreme leader' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the venomous demagogue Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seeks to frighten and intimidate its subjects by identifying a wide range of alleged internal and external enemies. But the Iranian authorities cannot definitively defeat their main domestic adversaries, because there are, by now, just too many of them. Thus, the Iranian oppressors find it easier to marginalize and persecute dissenting elements that already appear meager and disadvantaged, than to take on the whole mass of angry citizens, or the array of its authentic external critics. While trumpeting a militant menace against a variety of internal foes and the world's democracies, Tehran's despot have increased their specific, real measures of repression against Iran's Sufis. Late last summer, Iranian judicial chief Sadegh Larijani marked the first anniversary of his appointment by Khamenei to purge the country of post-election resistance. The prosecutor is a brother of Ali Larijani (public head of the Iranian nuclear program) and a well-known hardliner. On August 10, Sadegh Larijani departed from standard Tehran propaganda, which blames the disaffection of the people, especially among the young, on foreign intrigues, and declared that the motivation of those standing up against the autocracy included something else: Islam without clerical guidance, epitomized by the Sufis. In Larijani's view-which is backed by the power of extra-judicial thugs, as well as police, prisons, gallows, and stonings-'false mysticism and Sufism' are corrupting young Iranians with 'tricks.'" http://bit.ly/fmLNWQ Benjamin Weinthal in NRO: "Europe in general and Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in particular have traditionally pursued a dual strategy of 'critical dialogue' and 'change through trade' in their efforts to influence the Iranian regime. The ongoing German hostage crisis is yet another example of what a flop this cognitive-behavioral therapy for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company has been... The German hostage crisis is a window into seven flawed years of EU nuclear diplomacy talks in which a bottomless pit's worth of carrots were offered with a view toward changing Iranian jingoism. Germany's flourishing trade relationship with Iran (German exports to Iran reached €3.4 billion this year) and a steady stream of German members of parliament travelling to Iran to meet Holocaust deniers, human-rights violators, and haters of women, reveal the bankruptcy of critical dialogue and change through trade. The end result has been the suppression of press freedoms and pro-democratic activity, nuclear weaponization, and, as we can see, hostage taking. Chancellor Angela Merkel declared last year the end of multiculturalism (whatever that might mean) in Germany. 'Critical dialogue' and 'change through trade' are the natural outgrowth of a multiculturalism that tolerates violent Iranian intolerance. Germany now has an amazing opportunity to reorder its obsolete Iran strategy and declare an end to these failed ideas." http://bit.ly/gSFPnb 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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