Top Stories
AP: "The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Monday he cannot guarantee that Iran is not trying to develop atomic arms, comments that reflect the lack of progress in his attempts to probe Tehran's nuclear secrecy. Yukiya Amano, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the 35-nation IAEA board that Tehran is refusing to cooperate with an IAEA probe of its programs. 'Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable the agency to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,' Amano told the board's opening session. That, he said meant that the IAEA cannot 'conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.'" http://t.uani.com/g8fPmF
AFP: "Two Iranian warships, which entered the Mediterranean last month sparking an outcry from Israel, have passed through the Suez Canal back into the Red Sea, naval commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari said on Saturday. 'The flotilla ... has completed its mission successfully in the Mediterranean Sea and has returned to the Red Sea transiting through the Suez Canal,' the official news agency IRNA quoted Sayari as saying. It was the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that Iranian warships had entered the Mediterranean and Iran's archfoe Israel described the move as a 'political provocation.' The frigate Alvand and supply ship Kharg passed through the Suez Canal on February 22 and docked two days later at the Syrian port of Latakia." http://t.uani.com/eEWqf0
Guardian: "Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was directly involved in the disappearance of the two main leaders of the Green movement, an opposition website has claimed. Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have not been seen in public since being put under house arrest following renewed street protests in mid-February when thousands of Iranians, inspired by the uprisings in the Arab region, took to the streets in defiance of warnings from the regime. They are believed to have been arrested on 26 February. Karroubi's official website, Sahamnews.net, said Khamenei had ordered what it described as 'the abduction of Karroubi and his wife, Fatemeh.'" http://t.uani.com/ghfwNG
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Energy-hungry India says it is still working out a long-term method to pay for oil imports from Iran after the Reserve Bank of India rejected an earlier settlement method. India's central bank said in December that oil and other import payments could not be made through a Tehran-based clearing house which the United States alleges is being used to bypass international sanctions against Iran. 'Efforts are on to find suitable mechanism for payment of current or future oil imports,' Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to parliament late Friday. Meena's statement appeared to contradict earlier reports that a long-term solution had already been found. Iran, which is under sanctions over its nuclear programme, is the second-largest crude supplier to India after Saudi Arabia and supplies up to 14 percent of the country's oil import needs. India imports around 80 percent of its crude oil." http://t.uani.com/gJmP5c
AP: "A federal judge in Nigeria on Monday ordered two men accused of orchestrating an illegal Iranian arms shipment to be released from secret police custody and put in prison as their trial continues. The decision by Justice Okechukwu Okeke pulls Iranian citizen Azim Aghajani and Nigerian Ali Usman Abbas Jega away from the State Security Service, the agency that investigated the case and continued to interrogate them even as their trial began. Lead defense lawyer Chris Uche said the decision also would allow the men to have proper access to their counsels, as the secretive agency had blocked previous meetings. Aghajani and Jega also pleaded not guilty Monday to a new four-count indictment over the seized weapons, which includes a new charge accusing them of falsifying documents used by the customs officials." http://t.uani.com/gzGibH
Bloomberg: "Iran expects its oil revenue in the current Iranian calendar year ending on March 20 to reach $80 billion, the state-run Mehr news agency reported, without citing anyone. Iran is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia." http://t.uani.com/gum427
Human Rights
Reuters: "The United States will strongly support a Swedish effort to have the U.N. Human Rights Council appoint a special investigator into rights violations in Iran, U.S. ambassador Eileen Donahoe said on Friday. She told a news briefing the idea had backing from a wide range of countries in the 47-nation council -- including members of the self-styled non-aligned group (NAM), who normally unite to shield each other from criticism. Earlier this week, Swedish state secretary for foreign affairs Frank Belfrage told the five-year-old rights body his country was deeply concerned by 'the worsening human rights situation in Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/fstpOV
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad narrowly avoided losing his second minister in as many months on Sunday when parliament voted not to impeach him by just one vote. In parliament, which ousted Ahmadinejad's transport minister in February, 101 lawmakers voted to impeach Energy Minister Majid Namjou but 102 voted against, with 209 voting in total. Namjou's survival spares Ahmadinejad the defeat he suffered last month in an impeachment that he branded 'illegal' and which illustrated on-going divisions between parliament and the executive... Speaking in favour of the impeachment, lawmaker Yussef Najafi said the minister had to go due to 'his mismanagement and lack of tangible programme.'" http://t.uani.com/fnQARI
Reuters: "The head of Tehran's Metro, the urban railway at the centre of a power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and rival conservatives, has resigned, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Mohsen Hashemi had been urging Ahmadinejad for months to release $1 billion of parliament-approved cash to expand the network, while the president himself has made no secret of his desire to bring the Metro, along with its public prestige and valuable construction contracts, under his direct control. The resignation brings that possibility a step closer which would be a blow against two of Ahmadinejad's political rivals: Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohsen Hashemi's father." http://t.uani.com/eXpLVV
LAT: "What do Iranians think about the confrontation between pro- and anti-government forces that continues to dominate the country's political discourse? Babylon & Beyond spoke to people on the streets and in the mosques of Tehran to canvas opinion about recent protests in the Iranian capital, the opposition movement and its leaders. Those interviewed also were asked whether they thought protests might escalate or were losing momentum." http://t.uani.com/gXaNWe
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq agreed to facilitate tourism by issuing visas valid for all four countries, Hamshahri reported, citing a senior Iranian official. The plan for the joint visa, which will be known as Shamgen, was suggested by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the newspaper cited Ali Agha-Mohammadi, Iran's deputy vice president, as saying." http://t.uani.com/esABx2
Opinion & Analysis
Karim Sajadpour in NYT: "At first glance, the fall of Western-oriented Arab governments may appear to be a blow to Washington and a boon for Tehran. The seeming consensus among Western analysts and pundits - that Iran will fill the Middle East power vacuum - is short-sighted. While the relationship between Egypt and Iran - the region's two oldest and most populous nations - will likely improve, the competition between them will likely intensify. Tehran's ascent in the Arab world over the last decade has been partly attributable to Cairo's decline. The potential re-emergence of a proud, assertive Egypt will undermine Shiite Persian Iran's ambitions to be the vanguard of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East. Indeed, if Egypt can create a democratic model that combines political tolerance, economic prosperity and adept diplomacy, Iran's model of intolerance, economic malaise and confrontation will hold little appeal in the Arab world. Renewed Iranian influence in places like Bahrain and Yemen may also prove self-limiting. As we have seen in Iraq, familiarity with Iranian officialdom often breeds contempt. Polls have shown that even a sizable majority of Iraq's Shiites resent the meddling in their affairs by their co-religionists from Iran. 'The harder they push,' said Ryan Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq, 'the more resistance they get.' Elsewhere in the Arab world, Iranian proxies like Hezbollah will increasingly find themselves in the awkward position of being a resistance group purportedly fighting injustice while simultaneously cashing checks from a patron that is brutally suppressing justice at home. The Arab uprisings of 2011 will also, of course, have their effect on Iran internally. Iranian democracy advocates have long taken solace in the belief that they were ahead of their Arab neighbors, who would one day too have to undergo the intolerance and heartaches of Islamist rule. The largely secular nature of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have bruised the Iranian ego: were they the only ones naïve enough to succumb to the false promise of an Islamic utopia? It has been said about authoritarian regimes that while they rule their collapse appears inconceivable, but after they've fallen their demise appears to have been inevitable. In the short term Tehran's oil largesse and religious pretensions have seemingly created for it deeper, if not wider, popular support than many Arab regimes. But the regime's curiously heavy-handed response to resilient pro-democracy protests - including the recent disappearance of opposition leaders Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi - betrays its anxiety about the 21st-century viability of an economically floundering, gender-apartheid state led by a 'supreme leader' who purports to be the prophet's representative on Earth. Tehran publicly cheered the fall of Egyptian and Tunisian regimes undone by corruption, economic stagnation and repression. Do its rulers not know that Iran - according to Transparency International, Freedom House and the World Bank - ranks worse than Tunisia and Egypt in all three categories?" http://t.uani.com/huIwhB
Mary Anastasia O'Grady in WSJ: "The age-old debate about whether unilateral sanctions can be effective in undermining a tyrannical regime is likely to run into eternity. But no one questions the futility of a sanctions policy that when violated is not backed up with action. The Obama administration now faces this truism in Venezuela. Evidence surfaced recently showing that the Venezuelan state-owned oil monopoly, known as PdVSA, has been selling 'reformate'-used to upgrade the quality of gasoline-to Iran in violation of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act (Cisada) of 2010. If the documents turn out to be authentic, Hugo Chávez is baiting President Obama. Failure to respond will undermine not only Cisada but U.S. credibility more broadly. It is far from clear-despite assurances from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week-that the U.S. will 'act' if violations are proved. Mr. Chávez has been warning, off and on for more than a decade, that he is quite ready to disrupt supplies of Venezuelan oil to the U.S. market. Some oil-market observers believe the Obama administration is spooked by that threat. But if so, it is not for the reasons you might think. Bob Tippee, editor of the Houston-based magazine Oil & Gas Journal, told me last week in a telephone interview, 'We can do without [Chávez's] crude more easily than he can do without his oil revenue.' Many other oil analysts echo that claim, and surely the administration knows it's true. But to 'do without' Venezuelan crude implies changing the current administration energy policy. That, ahead of the 2012 presidential election, risks the wrath of some of Mr. Obama's strongest supporters." http://t.uani.com/ee7JyL
Mazeh Zarif in The Weekly Standard: "U.S. and allied efforts to curb Iran's developing nuclear capabilities are failing. Today, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convenes its quarterly meeting, where Iran's nuclear activities will once again be a key agenda item. The IAEA reported in its latest assessment that Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride stands at 3,606 kilograms-enough to fuel three bombs once converted to highly-enriched uranium. The language in the IAEA's latest report signals the growing concern over Iran's nuclear weapons activities and the agency's frustration with Iran's obfuscation. The agency's findings, based on inspectors' work and analysis of intelligence provided by IAEA-member nations, are the basis for its declaration that Iran is failing to cooperate with the watchdog. The IAEA reported that it has received new information about Iran's nuclear weapons activities and that 'Iran is not providing access to relevant locations, equipment, persons, or documentation' to facilitate the agency's oversight work. For the first time, the report includes an annex itemizing each area in which Iran is failing to respond to IAEA inquiries. This annex contains references to experimentation with nuclear payload and high explosives development - activities directly related to a nuclear weapons program. AEA head Yukiya Amano has also rejected the assessment that recent technical problems significantly disrupted Iran's uranium enrichment. In response to a question about the extent of damage that a malware virus inflicted on Iran's centrifuges, Amano said, 'Iran is somehow producing uranium enriched to 3.5 percent and 20 percent. They are producing it steadily, constantly.' The IAEA report and Amano's comments indicate that Iran continues to develop and refine its capabilities, including in uranium enrichment, which is the most technically complex element of a nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/hmujck
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