| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
AP: "Iran's president claimed on Tuesday the country's military can cripple enemies on their own ground as Tehran put a new Iranian-made cruise missile on display, the latest addition to the nation's growing arsenal. The state TV reported that the new missile, showcased at a ceremony in Tehran, is designed for sea-based targets, with a range of 200 kilometers and is capable of destroying a warship. The TV said it can travel at low altitudes and has a lighter weight and smaller dimensions. 'The best deterrence is that the enemy does not dare to invade,' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during the ceremony. As he spoke, the TV showed footage of the weapon, dubbed 'Ghader,' or 'Capable' in Farsi. 'The enemy should be crippled on its own ground and not over the skies of Tehran,' said Mr. Ahmadinejad." http://t.uani.com/qMXYQh
AFP: "Iran is to 'temporarily' import petrol to meet its daily consumption needs and compensate for the poor quality of its domestically produced fuel, a top MP told Mehr news agency on Monday. The Iranian Oil Ministry has decided to import petrol, a commodity targeted by international sanctions imposed on Iran over its controversial nuclear program, said Nasser Soudani, deputy chairman of parliament's energy commission. 'The domestically produced petrol due to its low octane [rating] lacks a desirable quality and has to be mixed' with imported fuel with a better quality, Soudani said. The decision would also allow the government to meet daily petrol needs, following a decrease in output that he blamed on a May 23 blast at the southern Abadan refinery during a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He insisted the imports would 'definitely be temporarily' and likely to come to an end by the end of the Iranian year, by March 2012." http://t.uani.com/nzZOwq
Guardian: "The conviction of two Americans held in Iran for spying and illegally crossing the border has been condemned by a human rights group. Amnesty International said the eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, made a 'mockery of justice' and were designed to be used as 'a bargaining chip to allow Iran to obtain unspecified concessions from the US government'. A court sentenced the two men to three years each for illegally entering Iran and further five years each for espionage, it emerged over the weekend. 'The conduct of this trial has quite simply made a mockery of justice. There does not appear to be any substance to the allegations that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are spies,' said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East director. He described the trial as 'deeply flawed' and said there was no evidence known to have been presented to suggest the pair were conducting espionage in Iran. 'They have already spent over two years waiting for justice. The Iranian authorities should take act now and release these two men now without further delay,' added Smart." http://t.uani.com/mSYned
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "An Iranian man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the murder of a scientist that prosecutors said was an assassination ordered by Israel to halt Tehran's race for nuclear technology. Majid Jamali-Fashi, a man who looked in his mid-20s, appeared in court to confess the murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in January 2010, the first of several attacks on scientists which Iran has blamed on foreign agents, state television said. Ali-Mohammadi, an elementary-particle physicist, was leaving his Tehran home to go to work on Jan. 12, 2010, when a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded and killed him. Two similar attacks on one morning in November killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriyari and wounded another, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who has since become Iran's atomic energy chief. Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the attacks, saying the aim was to derail its nuclear programme. Tehran denies Western accusations it is seeking nuclear weapons. Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told state TV the prosecution was a blow to Israel, which has not ruled out military action against Iran to stop it getting the bomb." http://t.uani.com/pk9gLZ
Bloomberg: "Iran has tested the most advanced model of a domestically manufactured long-range radar system, the state-run Fars news agency reported, citing a military official. 'We are designing a radar system that has the ability to detect objects at a range of several thousand kilometers,' Ebrahim Mohammadzadeh, managing director of Sa-Iran, a company that develops industrial, telecommunication and military equipments, was cited by Fars as saying. 'One unit was successfully tested and we hope the model will be operational in coming years.' The production of Iran's new generation of air-defense radar systems with a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) is in 'its final stages,' Amir-Hamid Arjangi, deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbia air base, said last year, according to a report published today on the website of the state-run news channel Press TV." http://t.uani.com/nJDeYw
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Iran's Foreign Ministry congratulated Libyans while it urged them to prevent interference from foreign 'oppressors' after rebels said they gained control of most of the nation's capital and western leaders declared an end to Muammar Qaddafi's 42-year rule. 'Iran congratulates the Muslim people of Libya for the latest developments that arose from their months-long resistance and stand as another symbol of the popular movements in the region,' the ministry said in a statement published by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. 'The popular uprising in Libya shows once more that meeting people's rightful demands and respect for their opinions are undeniable necessities.' Iranian authorities have applauded the ouster of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whom they portrayed as U.S. 'puppets,' and expressed support for Bahrain's mostly Muslim Shiite protesters, a faith Iran shares." http://t.uani.com/pjINN1
Opinion & Analysis
Roshanak Taghavi in CSM: "A day after two American hikers received an eight-year jail sentence for allegedly crossing the border illegally into Iran and spying for the United States, it appears the men may now be victims of Iran's internal political tensions. Iran has held Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal in prison for more than two years. In the weeks leading up to their sentencing, senior Iranian officials close to the president made comments to local media outlets that fueled speculation that the two men would likely be released. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had himself urged the court to make a light ruling. Within the world of Iranian politics, however, a lighter sentence would have created the impression that the judiciary had caved to political pressure from the Ahmadinejad administration. Thus, the court's reversal appears to represent more of a message to the president that the court acts independently of his desires and policy objectives than an affirmation of the two men's guilt, according to analysts inside the Islamic republic. Coming amid increasing frustration throughout the Iranian government that Mr. Ahmadinejad has overstepped the bounds of his position, the sentencing is also likely designed as a check to the president's power. 'The judiciary doesn't want to hand the government any victories or to be dictated to by the government,' says an analyst speaking by phone from Tehran on condition of anonymity. For the past six years, Ahmadinejad has successfully appointed political allies to senior positions within a number of state institutions and fired those who oppose his policies. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say in all government matters, has tacitly approved the Ahmadinejad government's extension of power at the expense of Iran's judiciary and legislature, stepping in only when the president was perceived as having gone too far. In large part, the president has been engaged in a power struggle to carve out a permanent power base that will endure even after his presidential term ends in 2013. Iran does not have a system of strong political parties and the influence of the president typically ends when his term his over. As a result, Ahmadinejad has worked to consolidate power in the executive branch - often at the expense of the parliament and judicial branch - and has worked hard to place his political allies in positions of influence." http://t.uani.com/q6VDYI
Daniel Vajdic in NRO: "Several events in recent days indicate deepening ties between Iran and Russia. Last Monday, Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev paid an official two-day visit to Iran. Patrushev predictably held talks with Iran's Supreme National Security Council head Saeed Jalili. In an effort to highlight warming relations between the two countries, he also met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. The next day Salehi traveled to Moscow at the invitation of his Russian counterpart. Moreover, in several weeks Russian energy minister Sergei Shmatko will likely be in Iran to inaugurate the commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which Russia has been constructing for the last 16 years. Shmatko is expected to discuss with Iranian officials plans for increased cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in the realm of energy, especially Russian participation in the development of Iran's massive yet relatively unexploited natural-gas fields. The sudden opening in Russian-Iranian relations comes 14 months after Moscow consented to a fourth round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran - hailed by the Obama administration as the most tangible benefit of its Russian 'reset.' The Kremlin's acquiescence to additional, albeit heavily watered down, sanctions against Iran was followed by its decision last September to cancel the sale of Russia's advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran. But Russia seems to be changing its approach toward Iran. The flurry of high-level exchanges comes at a time when Moscow is once again becoming engaged in finding a diplomatic solution to Iran's ongoing nuclear activities. To this end, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced last month in Washington, D.C., Moscow's "step-by-step" proposal for restarting negotiations with Iran. Some have suggested that Russia's attempts to reinvigorate its relations with Iran are a reflection of its displeasure with a number of recent U.S. actions. The State Department slapped travel bans on 60 Russian officials for their likely involvement in the murky prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. A Senate resolution reaffirmed U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity and demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Kremlin was reportedly angered by leaked reports of a consensus within the U.S. intelligence community that Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, was involved in an explosion outside the U.S. embassy in Georgia last year. And Russia remains uncomfortable with even the feeble pressure that the Obama administration has placed on Bashar al-Assad's regime for its brutal repression of protesters in Syria. Mutual support for Assad has provided Moscow with another incentive to reestablish closer ties with Tehran. But it would be wrong to consider Moscow's abrupt change in approach toward Iran an entirely altered policy. Russia's recent behavior remains consistent with its strategy in Iran over the last decade. The Kremlin increases its involvement in Iran in order to generate leverage that can, in turn, be used to extract concessions from the U.S. Its present effort to engage Iran is nothing more than an attempt to convince the U.S. to alter some of its less accommodating Russia policies. Let's hope that the Obama administration doesn't yield to Moscow's implicit blackmail, first and foremost because Russia doesn't have the capacity to decisively affect the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear program. Giving in to Russia's demands - which include reduced U.S. involvement in the former Soviet Union and disregard for Russia's democratic deficiencies - will at best result in another round of heavily diluted Security Council sanctions against Tehran. As we've seen with the existing four rounds of sanctions, however, weak economic penalties won't convince Iran to forgo its nuclear ambitions. There's simply no reason to capitulate to the Kremlin's attempts to employ Iran as an artificial bargaining chip in its relations with the West." http://t.uani.com/qvahIt
Yoel Guzansky & Jonathan Schachter in JPost: "Despite the focus on the dramatic political change taking place in the Middle East, Tehran's barely hidden drive toward nuclear weapons remains justifiably high on the international agenda. Iran's nuclear efforts and lack of cooperation with IAEA inspectors have led to international and unilateral sanctions, innumerable diplomatic discussions, and a near-constant flow of op-eds. Much of the debate, however, has examined Iran's nuclear potential in binary terms; either Iran will have nuclear weapons or it won't. The manufacture and deployment of a nuclear weapon ('unacceptable,' according to President Obama) would be an obvious violation of Iran's obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), and would subject the country to harsher punitive measures than it currently faces. Abandoning its nuclear weapons efforts, though decreasingly likely, would include cessation of Iran's entirely superfluous uranium enrichment activities and compliance with the transparency requirements of the NPT. Rarely raised is a third possibility: that Iran will pursue the 'Japanese option of becoming and remaining a nuclear threshold state. Japan is widely acknowledged to have both the technological ability and the stockpile of plutonium (the by-product of its peaceful nuclear energy generation) required to produce over 1,000 nuclear weapons (by comparison, China is estimated to have around 175). The saying goes that Japan is just a 'screw-turn' away from being a nuclear armed state, but for historical, ideological and political reasons, as well as because of its comprehensive defense agreement with the United States, it has chosen not to turn the screw. Japan thus remains comfortably at the nuclear threshold, enjoying the legitimacy conferred by nuclear transparency, while knowing that, if needed, nuclear weapons are well within reach. Iran, though currently far from transparent, and with a record of nuclear obfuscation, might be pursuing a technically similar path, opening some of its facilities to observers, while developing the technology and infrastructure needed to field and deliver nuclear weapons within months, but not planning to take that last step. The threshold is not a single point; depending on a state's progress to date, it includes a variety of activities that could be completed in anywhere from days to months. Regardless of whether Iran is at the threshold, a nuclear weapon could be little more than a decision away. In someways the nebulousness inherent in Iran remaining a threshold state threatens to put the US as well as its Middle Eastern allies in a tougher spot than would be the case if Iran unmistakably developed nuclear weapons. Such a situation could nevertheless strengthen domestic support for and enhance the regional and international prestige of the Iranian regime, making efforts to influence or undermine it more difficult. Iran could exploit its posture by pairing diplomatic demands with explicit or implied threats that it will cross the threshold. Avoiding this outcome is likely to cost the international community dearly in political, economic, and other terms... Given the dangers posed by Iran as a threshold state and its record of NPT violation, it is essential to ask if the US administration's and its allies' current approach is sufficient. A more comprehensive stance would broaden its scope to define explicitly and consistently what these states' red lines are, and what the penalties will be for crossing them, and ensure that these messages are unambiguously conveyed to Tehran." http://t.uani.com/p5TVPa |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment