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AP: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran on Sunday that the planned U.S. withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by the end of the year should not be mistaken for a lack of commitment to democracy in the region. In an interview from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, her last stop on a four-nation tour of the region, Clinton conceded that Iraq's stability is not ensured... But she asserted that the United States would still maintain a robust presence in Iraq. 'We are providing a support and training mission. We will be there on the ground, working with the Iraqis,' she said. 'No one should miscalculate America's resolve and commitment to helping support the Iraqi democracy. We have paid too high a price to give the Iraqis this chance.' Pressed by multiple interviewers on the Sunday morning talk shows as to whether the withdrawal would open Iraq to greater influence from Iran, Clinton offered a warning: 'Iran would be badly miscalculating if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries in the region, both in bases [and] in training, with NATO allies, like Turkey,' she said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" http://t.uani.com/rbMZbw
WSJ: "The U.S. has dispatched its point man on economic sanctions to European capitals in an effort to increase pressure on Iran, amid new fears Tehran could expand its regional influence in the wake of America's troop withdrawal from Iraq. The visit by U.S. Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen, aimed at winning support for tough measures on Tehran's central bank, and Iranian airlines and port companies, was being planned even before Friday's announcement by President Barack Obama that he would withdraw all American troops from Iraq by year's end. The White House already was considering efforts to raise pressure on Iran, and it grew more resolved after the disclosure this month of an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, senior U.S. officials said. But the Treasury mission has taken on added importance in the wake of Mr. Obama's Iraq announcement, which effectively ended the U.S.'s plan to leave behind in Iraq 3,000 to 5,000 American troops to help stabilize the country." http://t.uani.com/pRxf9Z
WSJ: "The prospect of a U.S. pullout from Iraq at the end of this year is stoking fears among Washington's Middle East allies that Iran will profit from a diminished American military presence in the region. Baghdad's political leadership, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, already has close diplomatic ties with Tehran, and has backed Iran on important regional issues, such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' oil-production quotas and support for embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A number of U.S. allies said Washington's pullout from Iraq could be seen by Tehran as a green light to intensify its meddling. A common joke from the early days of the U.S. presence in Iraq was that the U.S. spent billions of dollars to invade Iraq only to hand it over to the Iranians on a golden plate. One worst-case scenario: Iraq could replace the role Syria has played for Iran: a pivotal Arab ally facilitating Iran's transfer of funds and arms to proxy groups such as Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and Palestinian militant group Hamas." http://t.uani.com/np7ThG
Terror Plot
NYT: "When the Justice Department announced last week that an undercover agent in Mexico had disrupted an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, using members of Mexican drug cartel recruited by a used car salesman, officials in Tehran dismissed the charges as fiction, and several prominent American experts on Iran also expressed their doubts. Scott Peterson, a Christian Science Monitor correspondent in Turkey, consulted someone who should know about such plots: an American who fled the United States for Iran in 1980 after carrying out a political assassination in the Washington suburbs on behalf of the Iranian government. The former assassin, who was born David Theodore Belfield, changed his name to Dawud Salahuddin when he converted to Islam in 1969. He was a security guard at an Iranian diplomatic office in Washington in 1980, when he accepted an assignment from the revolutionary government of Iran to assassinate a former member of the Shah's regime living in exile in Bethesda, Md." http://t.uani.com/rjxZYR Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "The U.N. nuclear watchdog is expected to publish intelligence soon pointing to military dimensions to Iran's nuclear activities but stopping short of saying explicitly that Tehran is trying to build atom bombs, Western diplomats say. Russian and Chinese reluctance may frustrate any Western bid to seize on next month's report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to press for expanded United Nations sanctions on Iran, a major oil producer. Moscow and Beijing signaled concern last week that the timing of the IAEA document could damage any chances for diplomacy to resolve the nuclear row. In contrast, Western envoys believe the report -- which they portray as incriminating for Iran -- will pile further pressure on the country to curb its sensitive nuclear work and address international concerns about its aims. 'We are in favor of a strong report,' one Western official said. 'The IAEA has a lot of information that would allow the agency to come to clear findings on the issue of possible military dimensions' of Iran's nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/nBJdyG
Reuters: "Major powers are willing to meet with Iran within weeks if it is prepared to 'engage seriously in meaningful discussions' and address concerns about its nuclear programme, the European Union's foreign policy chief told Tehran in a letter on Friday. In a long-awaited response to an offer of talks last month from Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Catherine Ashton made clear her position that there must be no repeat of the last round of talks, which took place in January in Istanbul and ended with no progress. EU foreign policy chief Ashton has been leading efforts on behalf of six countries -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany and non-Western powers China and Russia -- to negotiate with Tehran over its disputed atomic activities. Iran has said it is willing to resume discussions, but insists that other countries recognise its right to enrich uranium, a major stumbling block, particularly for Western diplomats who see it as an unacceptable precondition." http://t.uani.com/pwJSF8
Reuters: "European leaders warned Iran on Sunday it would face tougher sanctions if it failed to address concerns about its nuclear programme and said they would tighten restrictions on Syria if it continued to repress its population. At a Brussels summit, the 27 EU states called on Iran to engage in 'constructive and substantial talks' with Western powers to bring about a negotiated solution to the nuclear question 'to avoid possible future restrictive measures.' EU leaders called in a statement for the preparation of new sanctions 'to be implemented at the appropriate moment in the case that Iran continues not to cooperate seriously nor to meet its obligations.'" http://t.uani.com/rpVLXC
Reuters: "Iran dismissed on Saturday a threat by Washington to impose sanctions on its central bank in response to an alleged assassination plot, saying the United Nations would block the plan and other central banks would not accept it. Central bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani said allegations that Iran had plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington -- already rejected by Tehran as a fabrication -- should not be used as an excuse to further undermine an economy already under a raft of sanctions over its nuclear activities. 'This (alleged plot) is a political discussion and many countries will not support this decision in the wake of it,' the ISNA news agency quoted Bahmani as saying. 'The UN would not buy that notion and neither would the world's central banks go along with it,' he said, referring to Washington's announcement last week that it was considering 'very actively' sanctions on Iran's central bank." http://t.uani.com/qithkD
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Iran's parliament threatened on Sunday to impeach two of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ministers, in a new wave of pressure against the president who is under attack from lawmakers. Unhappy about the government's handling of a $2.6 billion bank fraud and other policy failings, enough parliamentarians signed motions to start impeachment proceedings against Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini and Energy Minister Majid Namjou, news agencies reported." http://t.uani.com/pAFZ0q
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed confidence Sunday that Iraq would be able to deal with any threat from Iran-backed militants, even after America completely withdraws its troops this year. President Barack Obama announced Friday that all remaining American troops would leave Iraq by the end of 2011, keeping a campaign promise, after Washington and Baghdad failed to reach agreement on maintaining perhaps thousands of troops as trainers, in part as a buttress against Iranian influence. But Panetta said Iraq would be able to handle itself and noted that America would still have some 40,000 troops in the region -- not counting those fighting in Afghanistan. 'Iraq itself has developed an effective force to be able to deal with those threats,' Panetta told reporters after meeting with Southeast Asian defense ministers on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. 'And what we've seen in the past when we had concerns about what Iran was doing was that Iraq itself conducted operations against those Shia extremist groups... They did it in conjunction with our support, and we thought they did a great job.'" http://t.uani.com/pAXgfZ
BBC: "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has criticised the killings in its ally Syria sparked by the government's violent crackdown on dissent. In his most outspoken comments yet, Mr Ahmadinejad told CNN: 'Nobody has the right to kill others, neither the government nor its opponents.' He said Iran would encourage all sides to reach an understanding, but warned the US not to intervene in Syria. Syria has close ties with Iran, which suppressed its own protests in 2009. Iran has also put down or prevented about a dozen protests since the wave of anti-government uprisings in the Middle East began earlier this year." http://t.uani.com/rgi8uW
Radio Farda: "Iran's alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States -- on U.S. soil -- brought swift vows of revenge from Riyadh. In the days after the alleged plot was revealed by U.S. authorities, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal accused Tehran of 'murder and mayhem' and said his country would deliver a 'measured response' to the plot. 'We hold them [Iran] accountable for any action they take against us,' he said during a trip to Vienna. 'And this is not the first time Iran has been suspected of similar acts.' Asked about the kingdom's likely actions against Iran, he replied, 'We have to wait and see.' So what might Saudi Arabia do -- especially given the continued rippling effects of the Arab Spring across the Middle East?" http://t.uani.com/pOOTwa
Opinion & Analysis
NRO Editorial Board: "If the Iranians pride themselves on playing chess while we play checkers, they never could have expected us to walk away from the board. But that's our next move in Iraq. President Obama announced on Friday that all of the roughly 40,000 U.S. troops will leave the country by the end of the year. We are thus handing the Iranians a goal they have sought for years - to remove us from Iraq entirely so they can better influence the country for their ends. It once seemed that Iraq could be a strategic ally and base for our influence in the Middle East; it now may become both those things for our foremost enemy in the region. The Iranians must think they either are very lucky or - more likely very good. The announcement of our total withdrawal comes just weeks after the revelation of an Iranian plot to execute the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on our soil. It comes as Iran's key Arab ally, the Assad regime in Syria, is rocked by a revolt. Just as Tehran's dangerousness is put in stark relief and as events in Syria threaten to deal it a strategic setback, it gets this windfall... Instead, President Obama took to the podium on Friday for a snap announcement of the end of the war. His commanders on the ground wanted to keep more than 20,000 troops in Iraq (the administration had bid this number down to several thousand, perhaps convincing Iraqi political players that cutting a painful deal on immunity wouldn't have enough of a corresponding upside). Such a force would have enhanced our political leverage in Baghdad, checked Iran's already considerable influence, ensured against a return of al-Qaeda, and helped keep a lid on Arab-Kurdish tensions in the north. Now, we'll simply have to hope for the best. Deputy National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough said Iraq is 'secure, stable, and self-reliant.' It is none of these things. Its government is still inchoate and it is not capable of defending itself from Iran in the air or on the ground. Our pullout is a bonanza for Tehran. Its militias were already active in Iraq. Now, it can use Iraq for bases for its proxy forces to spread its tentacles in the rest of the Persian Gulf. Independent ayotollahs in Iraq will have an incentive to keep their heads down. Political decisions of the Iranian-influenced Shiite bloc running the country are sure to begin to tilt more and more Iran's way. Our diplomatic leverage will diminish, even as maintain our largest embassy in the world in Baghdad. The Iranians will crow in Iraq and throughout the region that they were right that the Americans would eventually leave." http://t.uani.com/qb1ppu |
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