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WSJ: "When Western companies pulled back from Iran after the government's bloody crackdown on its citizens two years ago, a Chinese telecom giant filled the vacuum. Huawei Technologies Co. now dominates Iran's government-controlled mobile-phone industry. In doing so, it plays a role in enabling Iran's state security network. Huawei recently signed a contract to install equipment for a system at Iran's largest mobile-phone operator that allows police to track people based on the locations of their cellphones, according to interviews with telecom employees both in Iran and abroad, and corporate bidding documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It also has provided support for similar services at Iran's second-largest mobile-phone provider. Huawei notes that nearly all countries require police access to cell networks, including the U.S. Huawei's role in Iran demonstrates the ease with which countries can obtain foreign technology that can be used to stifle dissent through censorship or surveillance." http://t.uani.com/rOFJf0
Reuters: "The United States plans to open a 'virtual embassy' for Iran that will give Iranians online information about visas and student exchange programs despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday. Clinton, in interviews with the Persian language services of the BBC and Voice of America, defended U.S. sanctions against Iran and said Washington had a strong criminal case linking Tehran to a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Clinton used both interviews to stress that the United States hoped to broaden contacts with regular Iranians despite tensions with the Tehran government, which she said was being transformed into a military dictatorship." http://t.uani.com/tLyUqb
LAT: "The Obama administration should punish Iran, which allegedly plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, by waging a covert war that includes lethal strikes against Iranian intelligence operatives, a group of conservatives told a joint House subcommittee hearing Wednesday. 'Why are we permitting the Quds Force leaders who have been organizing this killing of us for 30 years to go around still walking around?' asked retired Gen. Jack Keane, an influential military thinker who helped craft the 2007 troop buildup in Iraq. 'Why don't we kill them? We kill other people who are running terrorist organizations against the United States.' The Justice Department alleges in court papers filed Oct. 11 that the Quds Force, a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, ordered an Iranian American to hire a man he thought was a Mexican drug cartel operative to blow up the Saudi envoy at a Washington restaurant. The cartel figure turned out to be a U.S. informant who tipped his American handlers." http://t.uani.com/tfYJnq
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Companies and individuals that invest in Iran's energy sector would be barred from doing business with New York state and its municipalities under a bill proposed by the state Assembly speaker. Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said 'the prohibition is necessary because of Iran's role in state-sponsored terrorism, pursuit of nuclear weapons and threat to world peace,' according to a copy of his schedule. The bill, which Silver plans to unveil on Thursday, is modeled after a similar proposal in California. If enacted by New York, the Office of General Services would have to review 50 companies that California has identified as possibly qualifying for such a curb." http://t.uani.com/s4hcD0
AFP: "A Georgia man was jailed for nearly four years Wednesday for his role in a 'broad conspiracy' to illegally export sensitive military equipment to Iran, officials said. Michael Todd, president of The Parts Guys company, was also ordered to forfeit more than $160,000 in connection with his efforts to supply Iran with components for US fighter jets and attack helicopters. 'This case demonstrates the importance of keeping America's sensitive military technology from falling into the wrong hands,' said Michael Moore, US attorney for the Middle District of Georgia." http://t.uani.com/sFxW5g
The Hill: "House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) called Wednesday for the expulsion of Iranian officials serving in posts in the U.S. 'Because of Iran actively plotting against the U.S. ... the U.S. is clearly in its legal right to expel those officials from Washington, D.C., and from the United Nations,' King said on CNN... King held a hearing Wednesday investigating Iranian terror operations targeting the U.S. and said that based on his findings there are Iranian officials working in America involved in spying and plotting attacks." http://t.uani.com/rJbf5r
AFP: "Russia has sent a set of mobile radar jammers to Iran and is negotiating future deliveries that Moscow believes do not contravene current United Nations sanctions on the Islamic state's regime, an official said Tuesday. The Avtobaza truck-mounted jammers are part of a broader line of arms Russia hopes to sell Iran despite concerns over Tehran's nuclear program, the deputy head of the military and technical cooperation agency said. 'This is a defensive system,' the agency's deputy director Konstantin Biryulin was quoted as saying by the state RIA Novosti news agency." http://t.uani.com/sVBlx0
Domestic Politics
NYT: "An unusual proposal by Iran's supreme leader to eliminate the position of president has highlighted an increasingly bitter struggle within the country's political elite, as the leader and his allies continue to try to undercut the powers of Iran's ambitious president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told an academic gathering last week that "changing Iran into a parliamentary system" in which voters no longer elected a president would not be a problem. His words were widely seen as the latest blow in a battle that began in April when Mr. Ahmadinejad crossed a line by openly feuding with Ayatollah Khamenei - who has the final word in affairs of state - over cabinet appointments. Some analysts see the power struggle as a legacy of the disputed 2009 presidential election, when accusations of rigging - and months of street protests - deepened rifts and reduced the supreme leader's support among the public and the political elite. Although Mr. Ahmadinejad had the supreme leader's support in both the 2009 and 2005 elections and the two men were long seen as ideological soul mates, the president has tried to build an independent power base, and many conservatives feel threatened by his vision of an Iran less dominated by clerics." http://t.uani.com/uRovM0
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Organisers of an international chess tournament in Corsica said on Tuesday they had expelled Iranian Grandmaster Ehsan Ghaem Maghami for refusing to take on an Israeli player. Scheduled to face Ehud Sachar in the fourth round of the Corsica Masters in the French island's city of Bastia, Maghami told organisers he would not play the Israeli for political reasons. The tournament's organiser and head of the Corsican Chess League, Leo Battesti, said there had then been no choice but to expel Maghami. 'Politics has no place in competition at this level. I was forced to expel Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, who unfortunately refused to change his mind. I had no other choice,' he said." http://t.uani.com/uMcj6k
Opinion & Analysis
Frederick & Kimberly Kagan in LAT: "Iran has just defeated the United States in Iraq. The American withdrawal, which comes after the administration's failure to secure a new agreement that would have allowed troops to remain in Iraq, won't be good for ordinary Iraqis or for the region. But it will unquestionably benefit Iran. President Obama's February 2009 speech at Camp Lejeune accurately defined the U.S. goal for Iraq as 'an Iraq that is sovereign, stable and self-reliant.' He then outlined how the U.S. would achieve that goal by working 'to promote an Iraqi government that is just, representative and accountable, and that provides neither support nor safe haven to terrorists.' Despite recent administration claims to the contrary, Iraq today meets none of those conditions. Its sovereignty is hollow because of the continued activities of Iranian-backed militias in its territory. Its stability is fragile, since the fundamental disputes among ethnic and sectarian groups remain unresolved. And it is not in any way self-reliant. The Iraqi military cannot protect its borders, its airspace or its territorial waters without foreign assistance. Although Obama has clearly failed to achieve the goals for Iraq that he set five weeks after taking office, Iran, in contrast, is well on its way to achieving its strategic objectives. Since 2004, Tehran has sought to drive all American forces out of the country, to promote a weak, Shiite-led government in Baghdad, to develop Hezbollah-like political-militia organizations in Iraq through which to exert influence and intimidate pro-Western Iraqi leaders, and to insinuate its theocratic ideology into Iraq's Shiite clerical establishment. It has largely succeeded in achieving each of those goals. Preventing the extension of a Status of Forces Agreement allowing American military forces to remain in Iraq has been the primary goal of Iranian activities in Iraq since 2008... Many Americans felt a sense of relief when the president announced that 'America's war in Iraq is over.' That relief must be tempered, however, by the recognition that Tehran has achieved its goals in Iraq while the U.S. has not. Henceforth, Iranian proxy militias are likely to expand their training bases in southern Iraq and use them as staging areas for operations throughout the Persian Gulf. An Iraq dependent on Iran for survival could undercut any sanctions that the international community places on Iran to prevent its acquisition of nuclear weapons. And the unresolved ethnic and sectarian disputes in Iraq are likely to devolve into armed conflict once again. In a year that also saw the 'Arab Spring,' it will ultimately be Iran that emerges ascendant in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. America's defeat is nothing to be relieved about." http://t.uani.com/vdQVHt
Fareed Zakaria in WashPost: "Early in the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama signaled that he was going to break with the Bush administration's Manichean foreign policy. The topic was Iran. He explained repeatedly that the Bush policy of simply pressuring Iran was not working and that he would be willing to talk to the country's leaders to find ways to reduce tensions and dangers. Two years into his presidency, Obama's Iran policy looks a lot like George W. Bush's - with some of the same problems that candidate Obama pointed out two years ago. To be fair, the administration started out in 2009 by making overtures to Iran, which were rebuffed by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Then it watched as the Green movement rattled the regime. But the result is that the administration has lapsed into a policy of pressure, pressure and more pressure. The punitive tactics have paid off in some measure. Iran faces economic problems. But the tactics are also having a perverse impact on the country, as I saw during a brief visit to Tehran last week. The sanctions are stifling growth, though not as much as one might imagine because Iran has oil money and a large internal market. Their basic effect has been to weaken civil society and strengthen the state - the opposite of what we should be trying to do in that country. 'If you need to import anything, it has to be smuggled, which means you have to be in cahoots with the regime. I won't do that, but many thugs will,' said one businessman to me. By some estimates, Iran's Revolutionary Guard - the hard-line element of the armed forces, supported by the supreme leader - controls 40 percent of the economy. Recall Iraq, where decades of sanctions created a country of gangs and mafia-capitalism, and allowed the regime to create an ever-tighter grasp on the society. Is that the goal of our policy? In fact, what is our goal? Is it to overthrow the Iranian regime? Is it to make it cry uncle and give up its nuclear program? A wholesale revolution continues to strike me as a distant prospect. The regime still has some domestic support, and it uses a mix of religious authority, patronage and force quite effectively. Sanctions have made people somewhat resentful of the West for hurting them more than the regime. And we keep forgetting the inconvenient fact that, even if the regime changed, the nuclear program - which is popular as an expression of Iranian nationalism and power - will continue... Obama should return to his original approach and test the Iranians to see if there is any room for dialogue and agreement. Engaging with Iran, putting its nuclear program under some kind of supervision and finding areas of common interest (such as Afghanistan) would all be important goals. This might not be possible. Iran has its own deep divisions, and many in the regime feel threatened by any opening to the West. But that is precisely why the administration should keep searching for ways to create that opening. Strategic engagement with an adversary can go hand in hand with a policy that encourages change in that country. That's how Washington dealt with the Soviet Union and China in the 1970s and 1980s. Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic. It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order. We need a strategy that combines pressure with a path to bring Iran in from the cold." http://t.uani.com/thmAIm |
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