Top Stories
AP: "Turkey says it has seized the cargo of an Iranian plane bound for Syria because the shipment violated U.N. sanctions. The Foreign Ministry did not disclose the content of the seizure, but the U.N. sanctions against Iran ban the export of arms and prohibit nuclear enrichment. Turkish media said Wednesday the plane was carrying light weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket launchers and mortars. Turkey says the plane, which had landed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday for the search, returned to Iran Tuesday night without the seized cargo. The government says it routinely searches Iranian cargo planes flying over Turkey." http://t.uani.com/fW7Zpl
AFP: "The European Union on Monday agreed to rapidly slap sanctions against Iranians responsible for human rights violations, a declaration adopted by foreign ministers showed. The EU 'will continue to address human rights abuses in Iran, including by swiftly introducing restrictive measures targeted against those responsible for grave human rights violations,' the declaration said. Expressing fears over a 'deteriorating' rights landscape, the 27 EU states said they were 'alarmed by the dramatic increase in executions in recent months and the systematic repression of Iranian citizens.' It cited 'human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, women's activists, bloggers, persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities and members of the opposition,' saying they 'face harassment and arrests for exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.'" http://t.uani.com/i36hOe
Reuters: "China called for dialogue to resolve the international standoff over Iran's nuclear program, reiterating its long-held position that Tehran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday. 'China believes as long as all sides remain patient, flexible and pragmatic and take proactive measures to enhance mutual confidence, dialogue and negotiation will make headway,' Xinhua cited Li Baodong, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, as saying at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Tuesday. The meeting was held to discuss a quarterly report on Iran's compliance with four rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Tehran for refusing to halt a nuclear enrichment program that Western powers fear is aimed at producing bombs. Li's comments come in the wake of reports that Iran is under investigation for new attempts to import items from North Korea and China that are banned under U.N. sanctions against Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, according to U.N. diplomats." http://t.uani.com/g0fUhb
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran is under investigation for new attempts to import items from North Korea and China that are banned under UN sanctions against Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, UN diplomats said on Tuesday. The information emerged on the sidelines of a UN Security Council meeting to discuss a quarterly report on Iran's compliance with four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Tehran for refusing to halt a nuclear enrichment program that Western powers fear is aimed at producing bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is intended solely for generating electricity." http://t.uani.com/gYzhoH
Human Rights
Radio Farda: "Iran has arrested more than 1,250 people over the past 12 months for participating in protests or for their political views, according to a human rights group, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The report by the Human Rights House of Iran (HRHI), which is based outside Iran, says at least 1,256 people including students and journalists were arrested in the period. HRHI's Mojtaba Samienejad told Radio Farda that those arrested include 85 students, 165 members of religious minorities, 129 political activists, 129 Kurdish activists, 43 journalists and bloggers, 40 Turkoman activists, 22 labor activists, 20 human rights activists, eight women's rights activists, and eight Arab activists." http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=hfdiftcab&t=i7yxobfab.0.7f8zobfab.hfdiftcab.30860&ts=S0608&p=http%3A%2F%2Ft.uani.com%2FhBUOwK%2520
Foreign AffairsReuters: "Bahrain complained to the Arabsat broadcaster Sunday over 'abuse and incitement' on Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam television, Hezbollah's Al-Manar and Shi'ite channel Ahlulbayt, which are all carried by Arabsat. Bahrain's political crisis has been the subject of a media war between pro-Iranian channels and Bahraini state television. Both have accused the other of incitement. Bahrain also condemned a protest outside the Saudi consulate in Tehran, after reports Saturday that some 700 demonstrators broke windows and raised a Bahraini flag over the gate." http://t.uani.com/hZhwgU
Opinion & Analysis
James Kirchick in World Affairs Journal: "One of the diplomatic world's biggest open secrets is that Arab leaders desperately want the United States to put an end to Iran's nuclear program-by force, if necessary. The persistence with which they have been making this case to American policymakers, however, has been matched by a studied determination to hide their campaign from public view. Given the virulent anti-Americanism so prevalent in the Arab world, it's understandable that Arab leaders would not want their peoples to know that they're cheerleading for Washington to attack yet another Muslim country. But on very rare occasions the veil has slipped, as was the case last July, for instance, when the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, told an Aspen Ideas Festival audience that the benefits of bombing Iran outweighed the costs of allowing it to acquire a nuclear capability. 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran,' he said. 'I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE.' The full weight of these hidden desires finally came out into the open with the recent WikiLeaks release of thousands of American diplomatic cables. 'Iraq was unnecessary,' the sometime Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told American officials in 2006. 'Iran is necessary.' Elite Sunni Arab sentiment was most clearly expressed by that most elite of Sunni Arabs, the King of Saudi Arabia, who has apparently been imploring the United States to 'cut off the head of the snake,' the serpentine figure in this gory analogy being the regime in Tehran. But while Julian Assange made sure that the world got the message, however embarrassing it might have been in certain Middle Eastern capitals, the realist-progressive alliance in the US wasn't listening. For years it has argued that the Iranian nuclear threat has been exaggerated by the government of Israel and its 'neoconservative' supporters in the United States. While the WikiLeaks revelations demonstrate that increasing Iranian hegemony has clearly alarmed Arab regimes, however, this hasn't fazed self-professed realists a bit. It is hypocritical, they say, for those who supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (and who made the promotion of democracy throughout the Middle East a crucial part of the case for his ouster) to now trumpet the words of Arab dictators. Furthermore, they argue, the 'Arab street' overwhelmingly opposes Western military action, so the news of anti-Iranian gossip among the Sunni elites is irrelevant... It's strange that so many so-called 'realists,' who claim to understand the nitty-gritty of foreign relations better than others, have forgotten a fundamental tenet of statecraft: if a nation has client states, it behooves it to take their concerns seriously. The question is not whether one likes the Saudi monarchy; no decent person does. It's about whether one cares about the future of American power. Those who do care, and want to see it prosper, cannot dismiss Arab fears of rising Iranian hegemony as merely the attention-starved lament of power-hungry and socially regressive monarchs. For if the United States were to allow Iran to go nuclear, thus throwing the region's power balance into flux and jeopardizing the world economy, America's credibility as a great power would collapse. And that, far more than the ill-informed opinion of the 'Arab street,' is what should concern Americans most." http://t.uani.com/hL9MQA
Michael Theodoulou and Maryam Sinaiee in The National: "Iran has called the dispatch of Saudi and Emirati troops to Bahrain 'heinous and unjustifiable' but there is little danger that Tehran will take overt reciprocal action, most analysts say. To do so would risk war with Saudi Arabia and possibly the United States. Even so, the Saudi deployment and Iran's heated rhetorical response threaten to transform an issue of local unrest into a potentially destabilising regional dispute. The events are stoking sectarian Sunni-Shiite tensions in the Muslim world and intensifying the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. By sending forces to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia has projected its regional power while showing Iran's vaunted reach to be wanting in the short term, said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expect at the University of Hawaii. Iran has been unable to 'do anything overt in support of its protesting co-religionists in Bahrain', Ms Farhi added. Another Iranian analyst suggested it would take extreme circumstances in Bahrain for Tehran to take direct action. Iran would 'definitely' intervene to protect the Bahraini people if there were a massacre on the streets of Manama, Ali Mohtadi, a Middle East expert, wrote on Iran Diplomacy, a website for former Iranian diplomats. He did not suggest what form such Iranian intervention could take. For all its rhetorical bluster, Iran knows that under a collective security agreement, Bahrain's rulers can seek help from friendly Gulf Arab neighbours if the kingdom comes under threat. Iran has no treaty right to intervene on behalf of Bahraini protesters. Moreover, Iran has no desire to give credibility to long-standing claims by Bahraini rulers that their domestic opponents are agents of Tehran. Those claims were repeated on Monday by Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. In a veiled reference to Iran, the Bahraini monarch declared that his government had thwarted a long-standing 'foreign plot.'" http://t.uani.com/hSYBdi
Michael Eisenstadt in the Iran Primer: "Political change sweeping the Middle East has heightened concerns about a shifting balance of power in Iran's favor. But Tehran's experience in Iraq provides critical insights into the limits of the Islamic Republic's regional influence, and its propensity to be its own worst enemy in dealing with its Arab neighbors. Iran enjoys many natural advantages in Iraq. It has a long porous border. It has longstanding ties with key Shiite and Kurdish politicians, parties, and paramilitary groups. It has religious and cultural affinities. And it maintains extensive trade and economic relations. But its efforts over the past eight years to influence developments have yielded mixed results. Tehran has developed a sophisticated approach to project influence in Iraq that employs traditional instruments of national power-diplomacy, information, military links, and economic ties-as well as elements unique to Iran, such as connections to transnational Shiite clerical networks. Iran has provided advice, mediation, and financial support to its political allies. It has offered arms, financing, and training to militias and insurgent groups. And it has used its 'soft power' in the economic, religious, and informational domains to expand its influence and become the key external power broker in Iraq. But Tehran's implementation has often been disjointed and clumsy... Tehran's soft power in Iraq has often underperformed, mainly due to maladroit implementation. Baghdad's ability to counter Iran's soft power will depend on its success in rectifying lopsided trade imbalances and dependencies in the electricity sector, and developing its oil and gas sector. And Washington's most potent means of countering Iranian influence in Iraq (and beyond) is the publication of detailed, credible information about how Iran operates--which is likely to find a receptive audience in the region. So assessments of Iran as the big winner in Iraq and the main beneficiary of the Arab Spring are premature." http://t.uani.com/fCpPYQ
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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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