Top Stories
Guardian: "A close ally of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who favours cultural openness and opposes greater clerical involvement in politics, is being groomed as a possible successor to the Iranian president when he steps down in two years time. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's chief-of-staff, is positioning himself as a candidate who will champion a nationalist rather than a theological narrative of Iran. Mashaei, whose daughter married Ahmadinejad's son, has become the most controversial political figure in Iran, provoking harsh criticism from the conservative establishment, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hardliners close to Khamenei have accused Mashaei of compromising the Islamic Revolution and the principles of Islam by focusing on Persian history. Mashaei infuriated conservatives in 2008 when he said that Iranians are 'friends of all people in the world - even Israelis'. He was also criticised for applauding at a ceremony in Turkey in which women performed a traditional dance. Women are not allowed to dance in Iran." http://t.uani.com/eIR1CS
Reuters: "Three U.S. citizens and their two companies were indicted on Thursday for illegally exporting millions of dollars worth of computers to Iran via the United Arab Emirates, the Justice Department said. It said Jeng Shih, 53, and his New York company, Sunrise Technologies and Trading Company, were charged with 27 counts over exports of the equipment without obtaining the required Treasury Department licenses. Massoud Habibion, 48, and Mohsen Motamedian, 43, and their firm in Costa Mesa, California, Online Micro LLC, also were indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C., on 32 counts for illegal exports, conspiracy, false statements and obstructing justice." http://t.uani.com/eSJE4h
Reuters: "Kuwait's foreign minister said an Iranian spy cell uncovered by the Gulf Arab state last year monitored the U.S. military presence and possessed explosives to bomb 'strategic' facilities. 'We are talking about a cell whose task was not only to monitor and record the (U.S.) military presence that is in their view hostile -- the American forces presence on Kuwait lands -- but it exceeded that,' Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television. 'They had explosives and the intention to explode vital Kuwaiti facilities. They had names of officers and they had extremely sensitive information. This indicates bad intentions to harm Kuwaiti security.'" http://t.uani.com/ehWCgW
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
HuffPo: "Iran's leading human rights activist and its only Nobel Peace Prize winner softened her stance against economic sanctions aimed at the Islamist state -- even as she abandoned her defense of its nuclear program. Shirin Ebadi, a prominent Iranian lawyer now exiled in Atlanta, had been an outspoken critic of the international sanctions. She said they had hurt the Iranian people and were a poor substitute for pressure on the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to restore democracy and freedom. But at an event Thursday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the first Muslim woman Nobel Laureate appeared to give the green light to economic sanctions. She described them as something more benign: international trade law." http://t.uani.com/e6U3YY
Dow Jones: "A senior U.S. Treasury official in charge of sanctions policy will travel to France and Turkey next week to discuss ongoing measures against the regimes in Iran and Libya. David Cohen, acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, will meet with senior government officials to 'emphasize the importance of robust implementation of the multilateral sanctions regime' against Iran, Treasury said in a statement. During the five-day trip that begins Sunday, he will also will discuss 'international efforts to apply maximum pressure' on the government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi's troops in Libya. During visits to Ankara and Istanbul, Cohen will meet with private sector leaders to raise awareness about the sanctions against Iran." http://t.uani.com/hUPjl6
Global Security: "U.S. Representative Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) last week submitted to Congress a bill that would strengthen financial and political penalties aimed at persuading Iran to halt atomic activities that could support weapons development, the lawmaker announced on Wednesday. The Stop Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Act is intended to fully bar international branches of U.S. business entities from carrying out transactions with Iran, penalize institutions that lend money to Tehran, punish companies that give Iran advance payments for petroleum shipments, and ramp up punitive measures against the nation's Revolutionary Guard and its financial allies, Sherman said in a statement. Tehran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful. Representative Ed Royce (Calif.) is the top Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, which Sherman also submitted in September during the prior congressional session. Senators Robert Casey (D-Pa.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) submitted a comparable bill in the previous Congress in December." http://t.uani.com/e12NMM
Human Rights
AFP: "Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere on Thursday blasted a sharp hike in public executions in Iran and the high use of the death penalty in the country. 'The increased number of public executions using brutal methods such as suffocation by being hoisted up by a crane are particularly grotesque and not worthy of a modern society,' Stoere said in a statement. He added Norwegian research showed Iran had executed 15 people in public so far this year, compared to 19 for all of last year. A foreign ministry spokesman told AFP the data was obtained through human rights activists in Iran as well as international organisations. Stoere added Norwegian figures showed Iran had executed a total of 187 so far this year, while the total number in 2010 had been as high as 682 executions." http://t.uani.com/eI3grG
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Arab states in the Gulf are opposed to a break in relations with neighbouring Iran, Kuwait's foreign minister said on Thursday, even as he renewed charges of Iranian meddling in Arab affairs. 'Cutting off ties (with Iran) is something totally rejected by us,' Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem Al-Sabah said in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel. However, Kuwait's chief diplomat accused the Islamic republic of interfering in the internal affairs of its Arab neighbours, including efforts to topple the regime in Bahrain and plots to carry out attacks in Kuwait. 'Gulf (Arab) states have issued many goodwill signals toward Iran ... We have been met by increased Iranian interference in our internal affairs,' Sheikh Mohammed said." http://t.uani.com/evETKb
Opinion & Analysis
Mehdi Khalaji in WINEP: "The power struggle between Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad continues. Signs of deep fissures in the conservative camp are emerging just as the Islamic Republic prepares for parliamentary elections next year, the first countrywide polls since the disputed June 2009 presidential election. These divisions, rather than the struggling economy or the nuclear issue, are the top concern for Iranian leaders. On April 16, Ahmadinezhad announced he was accepting the resignation of Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, who reportedly tendered it under pressure. The move followed Moslehi's decision to replace his deputy on legal and parliamentary affairs. The deputy, Hossein Abdullahian, is considered part of Ahmadinezhad's inner circle and a close friend of Muhammad Reza Rahimi, the first deputy of the president. Alef, a website run by conservative critics of the president in the Majlis, also reported that Abdullahian was close to another controversial Ahmadinezhad confidant, Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashai. Following the announcement, Khamenei quickly ordered that Moslehi -- his former representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij paramilitaries -- remain the intelligence minister. In so doing, he invoked his absolute authority as ruling jurist to overturn any government action or law for the sake of regime interests. Such decrees, called hokm-e hokumati, are rare, occurring only when a dispute cannot be resolved in private. Significantly, Khamenei's instruction was made directly to Moslehi rather than Ahmadinezhad. Also, 216 members of the Majlis (parliament) signed a letter criticizing Ahmadinezhad on the issue. After Khamenei reinstated Moslehi, Iran's official news agency (IRNA) as well as Ahmadinezhad-affiliated websites hesitated to publish the news, waiting some fourteen hours to do so. During that delay, pro-Ahmadinezhad media waged a campaign against the president's conservative critics, accusing them of falsely claiming that Ahmadinezhad and the Supreme Leader had disagreed... The contest between Iran's two conservative factions will worsen as the 2012 elections approach. Ahmadinezhad is under pressure from the clerical establishment, the traditional conservatives (e.g., bazaar merchants), and the Larijani brothers (including judiciary chief Sadeq and Ali, speaker of the Majlis). The usual pattern in the Islamic Republic has been for the president's power to decline in his second term. For example, Khamenei successfully expanded his authority at the expense of the executive branch during Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami's second terms, and he has managed the current conservative dispute skillfully so far. If this trend continues, the most likely outcome for the June 2012 parliamentary elections will be defeat for those associated with Ahmadinezhad." http://t.uani.com/htU51V
Hossein Askari in The National Interest: "Kuwait is again taking bold action that could threaten its sovereignty. It has dispatched its small navy to Bahrain in support of Saudi Arabia's misadventure to crush peaceful Shia protestors. It has accused Iran of interference in its and Bahrain's internal affairs and expelled a number of Iranian diplomats. It has frustrated Iraq's ability to rebuild its national airlines by seizing Iraqi aircraft around the world. Yes, Iraq owes Kuwait reparations, but is this a good tactic for collecting reparations from a more powerful neighbor (especially when, in contrast, Iran has forgiven any claims to reparations by attributing its war with Iraq only to Saddam Hussein)? To put it mildly, Iran and Iraq have been irritated to no end and Kuwait has their attention. But the realities of the Persian Gulf are very different in 2011 than they were in 1991. Saddam has been replaced by a Shia-led regime with close ties to Iran. The United States is in a difficult military and financial position, reducing its ability to intervene on behalf of its friends. Kuwait should tread lightly. The question for Kuwait is simple: Are its actions against Iran and Iraq (in part in support of Saudi Arabia) in its national interest given the new realities in the Persian Gulf? If Saddam assumed that the takeover of Kuwait would be a financial bonanza in 1991, today that calculus is even more compelling for Iran and Iraq, especially given the fact that the risk of US intervention is slim to none. It will take time for Iraq to rebuild its economy and its military and to see the last of the US forces removed. But five years should afford it sufficient time. Iran, in all likelihood, will have limited nuclear capability within three years. Iran and Iraq will not stand by and be humbled by Kuwait or the GCC. Kuwait would do well to realize that its geography and size are very different than Saudi Arabia and that Saudi Arabia will be in no position to defend Kuwait if invaded yet again. In short, over the next three to five years, it is more likely that Kuwait will be invaded by Iran or a combination of Iran and Iraq than it was in 1991 before Saddam marched in; and this time around, its only defenders may be its militarily-untested GCC brethren. Kuwait could be its own worst enemy." http://t.uani.com/g0YQ4M
Roshanak Taghavi in TIME: "Iran may have had a political boost from the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East - with some new regimes apparently more sympathetic toward Tehran while others brace themselves against the Iranian regime's influence among opposition movements in the region. But there is no attendant economic windfall to all the change. Indeed, the Islamic Republic, the second largest oil producer in OPEC, has come to be very concerned about petroleum. Iranian oil ministry officials are worried that Tehran's clout will actually weaken in OPEC, which as a group decides on each member's maximum amount of oil output. Current gulf rival Saudi Arabia is the heaviest hitter in the cartel; meanwhile, old rival Iraq has started to ramp up oil production. 'When you talk to people internally, there is fear,' says a veteran Tehran-based analyst who advises the government. 'Now that Iraq has announced its expanded reserves, there is serious concern that our standing in OPEC has been damaged.' That comes on news that Iran last year either lost or suffered reductions in contracts with many longtime business partners and traditional purchasers of its oil. Iran has counted on the shortage of Iraqi oil production as a buffer against potential sanctions on purchases of Iranian crude, says the Tehran-based analyst. Although Iraq is currently excluded from the organization's quota system, Iranian oil officials admit they are worried the resurgence of its historical rival will affect Tehran's standing within OPEC. (Baghdad and Tehran clashed over OPEC production targets before Iran's 1979 revolution and during the 1980s, when the two countries were engaged in an eight-year war.) While Iran has increased influence in Baghdad nowadays because of the country's Shi'ite dominated government, that is not likely to sway Iraq's determination to rehabilitate its war-hobbled petroleum industry. The continued rise of Iraq's production capacity could, in the wake of an oil glut and international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic, endanger Iran's standing as OPEC's second-largest oil exporter. Already, Iran has lost some of its market share to Iraq, which has better technology and can offer lower prices for similar grades of crude. 'Some of Iraq's customers came to us after it occupied Kuwait and again in 2003 after Saddam Hussein fell with the U.S. invasion,' says an official from Iran's national oil company, speaking from Tehran on condition of anonymity. 'Now, because of Iran's political situation and difficulties with sanctions, those customers are going back to Iraq.'" http://t.uani.com/gQXyfS
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