| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
NYPost: "A city-based advocacy group today asked the Warwick hotel to reverse its decision to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his delegation during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) sent a letter to the hotel requesting it refuse to shelter the Iranian leader when he arrives September 19. 'By this letter, UANI requests that the Warwick immediately reconsider its decision and deny accommodation for and refuse to host President Ahmadinejad,' UANI President Mark D. Wallace, who was formerly the US Ambassador to the UN, wrote in the letter... Earlier this month UANI unveiled a billboard in New York City's Times Square highlighting Iran's connection to al Qaeda. The billboard features a large picture of Ahmadinejad raising his hands and states, 'As We Remember 9/11 Ten Years Later, al Qaeda's Silent Partner Is Coming to New York.'" http://t.uani.com/nIa9v8
Fox5 Video: "Group Fights To Keep Iran President Out" http://t.uani.com/p95RDy
AP: "There was a time when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his annual trip to the United Nations for two big objectives: Basking in the attention of America's media hub and personally delivering the views of the Islamic Republic to Western leaders. The spotlight seeking is still there. But what's missing this year is any sense that Ahmadinejad is still a trusted messenger for the ruling clerics after trying to expand the limits of his power and being batted down harshly. 'He's damaged,' said Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political affairs professor at Tehran's Azad University. Dubai-based analyst Theodore Karasik sees 'a badly wounded lame duck' arriving in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session that begins Tuesday. There's little doubt about Iran's political pecking order these days: Ahmadinejad and his allies are sharply diminished while the theocracy and its protectors - including the hugely powerful Revolutionary Guard - are grinding away at any opposition. This suggests Ahmadinejad's voice may be as booming as ever at the U.N. - and in possible side trips around New York - but his role as an emissary of Iran's ruling system is severely muted." http://t.uani.com/ntnvyM
AFP: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that she was confident Iran would free two US hikers convicted of spying and rejected concerns about the delay in their release. 'At this point we are not at all concerned because we have received word through a number of sources, publicly and privately, that the decision will be executed... and that we will see their return to their families,' she said. Clinton, speaking to reporters after talks with Australia in San Francisco, said that it was not unusual for Iran to take time in implementing decisions and declined to speculate on whether there was a rift inside the regime. 'We have seen in the past some delays that have occurred after decisions were announced,' Clinton said. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in interviews Tuesday that hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who have been held in Iran for more than two years, would be released imminently. But Iran's judiciary, which is dominated by ultra-conservatives, said that no decision has been taken." http://t.uani.com/qsa5T9
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
NYT: "The final legal and diplomatic building blocks fell into place this week for the Obama administration's rejiggered defense of Europe against a potential Iranian missile attack. Romania signed a deal for 24 interceptor missiles to be based there, and Turkey officially agreed to have in its territory a sophisticated American radar system that could be on the watch by the end of the year... The radar will be placed at a Turkish installation about 435 miles from Iran, officials said. A similar American missile-defense radar already operates in Israel. Iranian officials have said the American-led missile-defense initiative will increase tensions and destabilize the region. Russia's response to American proposals for a European missile-defense system has ranged from virulent objections to hints of cooperation, perhaps merely the sharing of information. 'The architecture of the system is designed to provide the optimal protection against ballistic missile threats from the Middle East, from Iran in particular,' said one senior administration official. 'The system is not in any way directed against Russia.'" http://t.uani.com/r2Sjth
Human Rights
Reuters: "Two U.S. citizens convicted of spying in Iran will be freed soon after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani negotiated their release with Iranian officials, an Iranian daily quoted an Iraqi envoy to Tehran as saying. Shane Bauer, 28, and Josh Fattal, 29, were arrested on the border with Iraq in 2009 where they said they were hiking. They were found guilty of illegal entry and espionage and were sentenced last month to eight years in prison. On Wednesday, Iran's judiciary rejected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement that Bauer and Fattal would be freed 'in a couple of days.' 'The Iraqi president contacted top Iranian officials after the pair's families asked for his mediation ... They will be handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tehran early next week,' the Thursday edition of Sharq daily quoted Nazem Dabbagh as saying." http://t.uani.com/pUHMRo
CNN: "A lawyer for two American hikers imprisoned in Iran said he has filed all the necessary paperwork for them to be released on bail, but he does not expect judges to act on it before Saturday, he told CNN on Thursday. Attorney Masoud Shafiee said he hoped a decision would be made then -- after the Iranian weekend -- but said he was 'not privy to what goes on behind the scenes.' He said earlier this week that he expects Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer to be freed after $500,000 bail is paid for each of them, but the Iranian judiciary said later that it was only considering the bail request." http://t.uani.com/nL6nGT
AFP: "European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton voiced concern Thursday about Iran's arrest of a prominent human rights lawyer, saying it signalled 'the erosion of political and civil freedoms.' 'I remain deeply concerned by the human rights situation in Iran,' Ashton said in a statement. Abdolfattah Soltani, a co-founder of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders along with Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and others, was arrested Saturday at a prosecutor's office in Tehran, Amnesty International said this week. 'This illustrates the erosion of political and civil freedoms in Iran and is indicative of the increasingly difficult conditions for human rights activists in Iran,' Ashton said." http://t.uani.com/orYygb
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will bear gifts when he attends next week's UN General Assembly, presenting delegates a book on the allied occupation of Iran during World War II, media reported Thursday. The Iranian leader would take copies of the book, entitled 'Documents of Iran's Occupation by the Allies during WWII,' to the UN 'to present them to delegates as gifts,' Ali Shojaee, the manager of publishers Book House, was quoted as saying. Ahmadinejad would take 1,000 copies of the work containing 'a multitude of documents regarding the injustices inflicted by the allies on the Iranian people during the occupation,' he said. Shojaee said the initiative was the brain child of the president, adding the books were prepared by the documentation department of his office based on 'ample war-era documents.'" http://t.uani.com/ozdIQI
Reuters: "Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has signaled that Turkey could launch a joint operation with Iran against Kurdish militants' main base in northern Iraq, according to reports in Turkish newspapers on Friday. In August, Turkey carried out a series of air and artillery strikes against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq and the interior minister said this week a ground operation could be launched any time against the guerrillas there, depending on the result of talks with Iraq... Erdogan was also asked in Tunisia about relations with Iran and cooperation against the PKK and he said: 'It's going well. We may act together at Qandil.' The Qandil mountains are on the Iraq-Iran border and the main PKK bases are believed to be located in the mountains, a part of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region around 80-100 km south of the Turkish border." http://t.uani.com/pXVxs4
Opinion & Analysis
Mona Charen in NRO: "The Columbia Spectator is the student newspaper at Columbia University, the school I was once proud to call my alma mater. A report in that newspaper raises the following question: Are leading American universities producing moral illiterates? According to the Spectator, a group of students who are members of a group called CIRCA, the Columbia International Relations Council and Association, has been invited to attend a private dinner with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he travels to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting next week. A student spokesman for the group, asked if the invitation provoked controversy within CIRCA, seemed surprised by the question. 'Everyone was really enthusiastic,' said Tim Chan. 'They're thrilled to have this opportunity.' Ahmadinejad represents everything that campus liberals profess to hate. In order of importance, those things would be: (1) persecuting homosexuals; (2) cruel and abusive treatment of women; (3) brutal treatment of minorities; (4) shooting opponents of the regime in the streets; (5) restricting free speech; (6) building nuclear weapons; and (7) sponsoring terror worldwide. Tehran provides material and moral support for Bashar Assad's murderous regime in Syria, which has mowed down protesters by the thousands in the past few months. The Iranian regime is also guilty of fetid anti-Semitism, and has the blood of many American soldiers who served in Iraq on its hands - though it isn't clear that the latter two offenses rate very highly with Columbia students. Even as members of CIRCA were eagerly anticipating dining with one of the world's true fiends, the Iranian government was refusing to release American hikers Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, who were recently convicted of espionage after a secret trial and sentenced to eight years in prison. Both Bauer and Fattal are graduates of Berkeley, and believers - if you can extrapolate from their backgrounds in 'sustainable development' and freelance photography for leftist outlets like Democracy Now! - in liberal causes. Even if members of CIRCA feel no particular solidarity with the hikers as fellow Americans, they might at least feel something for fellow members of the liberal clerisy. But apparently not." http://t.uani.com/rf1mP6
Jamsheed Choksy in WPR: "Predictions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fall from power have been frequent among Western observers. On this view, events involving two American hikers jailed in Tehran are seen as the latest display of Ahmadinejad's political impotence in the face of clerical power. But, despite the predictions, and as a few observers outside Iran ha ve realized, Ahmadinejad's political demise is far from imminent. The president and his appointees have been portrayed as diminished and defeated, and as about to resign or be sacrificed as scapegoats. Some analysts have speculated Ahmadinejad will be arrested on charges of treason for imprudently opposing the mullahs' system of velayat-e faqih, or governance by the Islamic jurist. Likewise, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now is presented in Western policy writings as an extremely adept and all-powerful supreme leader who has prevailed yet again over challengers. The supreme leader has been proclaimed victorious, having supposedly overwhelmed an insubordinate president. The unelected head of Iran's oppressive fundamentalist state has even been presented as a source of stability and consistency, one whose presence is a lesser evil. It is accurate to conclude that Ahmadinejad's political and socio-religious dispositions are proving increasingly divergent from those of the mullahs who endorsed his reappointment during the hotly contested election of June 2009. But, not only is the president's elimination unlikely, the executive branch's secularist rebellion comes in response to broader desires for change among the mass of Iran's polity and may in fact bode well for the country's future. Hope that Ahmadinejad's nadir has arrived is understandable. Iran's president has demonstrated that he is an erratic demagogue who is willing to threaten war against the U.S., the European Union and Israel. He often either denies the Holocaust or else claims it serves as the basis for depriving Palestinians' their rights. He spouts conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as either planned or manipulated by the U.S. to attack Muslim nations. Yet it is important not to let dislike color strategic evaluations of Iran's internal politics. The contest for power has bloodied Ahmadinejad -- but by no means fatally." http://t.uani.com/mUcmsr
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment