| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
WSJ: "Iranian officials have delivered conflicting responses to U.S. allegations that Tehran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington, in a new sign of a split among Iran's decision makers. Washington has said all options are on the table to retaliate for the alleged plot, including military action and tougher sanctions on Iran's Central Bank-the only remaining conduit for the oil revenue that is the backbone of the Iranian regime's finances. On Monday, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, Manssor Arbabsiar, pleaded not guilty in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan to criminal charges of hiring a U.S. undercover agent posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel to murder the Saudi ambassador. While senior Iranian officials have defiantly denied and ridiculed the U.S. allegations, Iranian diplomats have offered to help investigate, in a sign of concern that the fallout from the alleged plot could be worse for Tehran than longstanding accusations over its nuclear program. How Iran weathers the allegations will depend in part on whether the faction advocating a confrontational tone wins over those supporting diplomacy. Iran's conservatives, who now control the government, are divided between loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who favor less clerical control. In the past, Iranian political factions have been able to unify against outside pressure, whereas internal cracks now make it difficult to present a consolidated front." http://t.uani.com/vKDf4J
AP: "Russia and China are urging the chief U.N nuclear inspector to scrap or delay U.S.-backed plans to reveal intelligence on Iran's alleged nuclear arms experiments, in a bluntly worded confidential document obtained Monday by The Associated Press. The diplomatic note to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano points to an East-West rift among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council over how to deal with concerns about Iran's nuclear activities. The United States, Britain and France want Amano to share what his agency knows or suspects about Iran's alleged weapons experiments with the IAEA's 35-nation board at its meeting next month. But Russia's and China's opposition likely will delay Western hopes of having the board report Tehran to the Security Council for the second time for its nuclear defiance, a referral that could open Iran to more sanctions. In the note, Moscow and Beijing warn Amano against 'groundless haste' and urge him to 'act cautiously,' adding that 'such kind of report will only drive the Iranians into a corner making them less cooperative.'" http://t.uani.com/s5NvPE
VOA: "For decades, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, has been extending its power and reach. Founded in 1979 to defend Iran's Islamic revolutionary principles at home and export them abroad, the IRGC now controls Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, its foreign terror operations, the repression of the Iranian populace, and broad swaths of the Iranian economy. U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Gordon Duguid commented on the IRGC's expanding role, including its current control of 9 out of 21 cabinet ministries: 'This is an unprecedented level since the Islamic Republic was established. Also, you've had disputed elections that have taken place since last year, and the unprecedented repression of opposition to those election results. You have a regime in Tehran that is more and more resembling a police state in which force is used to suppress discussion, to suppress demonstrations, and to control the activities of its people.' On her recent trip to the Middle East, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the increasing role of the Revolutionary Guard is moving Iran 'toward a military dictatorship.'" http://t.uani.com/v5dqJV
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Radio Farda: "'Iran needs to be held accountable for this plot.' That is the message being delivered this week in Europe by David Cohen -- the U.S. Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and the man responsible for overseeing sanctions against Iran -- in the wake of an alleged plot by the Persian Gulf country to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador on U.S. soil. The official's first stop was London, where Cohen met with British officials on October 24 to discuss potential new sanctions against Iran in response to the plot. From there, Cohen is taking his message to Berlin, Paris, and Rome. The potential sanctions would target the heart of Iran's financial dealings, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), in a move that analysts suggest could have a crippling effect on the country's economy by cutting off nearly all international financial transactions." http://t.uani.com/vZeZep
Domestic Politics
AP: "Iranian authorities have widened the investigation in a bank fraud case described as the biggest financial scam in the country's history, arresting nine more suspects, the country's state prosecutor said. State television broadcast late Monday an interview with the prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, in which he said that a total of 67 people have been summoned for questioning and 31 detained in the $2.6 billion case, details of which first broke in September. The accusations focus on the defendants' alleged used of forged documents to obtain credit at one of Iran's top financial institutions. Conservative opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have used the case to attack his allies." http://t.uani.com/sV1Ttu
Radio Farda: "Are millions of Iranians criminals? Yes, according to an announcement by Iranian Telecommunications Minister Reza Taghipour, who says the use of antifiltering tools and virtual private networks (VPN) is a crime. Many Iranians use such tools and proxies on a daily basis to bypass the country's Internet censorship, which is among the world's toughest. Iran blocks millions of websites and blogs deemed immoral or against the country's national interests or that offer uncensored news and information. One of the blocked websites is Facebook, which is used by 17 million Iranians, according to statistics from a Basij militia official." http://t.uani.com/uS8JkC
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iran is sending its foreign minister to mourn the Saudi crown prince in a possible effort to ease tensions amid allegations that Iranian agents plotted to kill the kingdom's ambassador in Washington. Iranian state TV says Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi will be among the dignitaries arriving Tuesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh to pay respects to the late Crown Prince Sultan, who died in New York on Saturday. It will be Iran's highest-level contact with Saudi officials since U.S. authorities alleged earlier this month that a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard was linked to the foiled assassination plot." http://t.uani.com/vwzwig
Reuters: "Western countries supported Muammar Gaddafi when it suited them but bombed the Libyan leader when he no longer served their purpose in order to 'plunder' the north African country's oil wealth, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday. While Tehran has applauded the people of Libya for overthrowing the man it considered an illegitimate dictator, Ahmadinejad warned Libyans that the West now aimed to run their country for them. 'Show me one European or American president who has not travelled to Libya or has not signed an agreement (with Gaddafi),' Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live in which he accused the West of ordering the former leader's execution. 'Some people said they killed this gentleman to make sure he would not be able to say anything, just like what they did to bin Laden,' he said." http://t.uani.com/vPxz7k
Bloomberg: "Iran is in talks with a Chinese group that may finance construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in the port town of Assaluyeh, state-run Press TV reported, citing the head of the nation's maiden LNG project. Ali Kheir-Andish, managing director of Iran Liquefied Natural Gas Co., didn't name the investors or give cost details in the report published today on the news channel's website." http://t.uani.com/tQieOJ
Opinion & Analysis
Christopher Hitchens in Slate: "There may conceivably be a reason to doubt the truth of the Obama administration's claim that the 'Quds Force' of the Islamic Republic of Iran went into the free market for murder in order to suborn the killing of the Saudi ambassador to the United States. But neither the apparently surreal nor the apparently flagrant nature of the thing would constitute such reasons. We have been here before, as a splendid recent book reminds us, and have learned that no allegation made against the goon squads in Tehran can be thought of as prima-facie implausible. This unmissable book is called Assassins of the Turquoise Palace and is by the Iranian exile author Roya Hakakian (who, I am proud to say, I count as a friend). It details the fallout from a murder in Berlin on Sept. 17, 1992. On that date, a group of Iranian Kurdish exiles were in the city to attend a conference of the Socialist International, the umbrella body that links the parties of social democracy. Chief of the delegation was Sadegh Sharefkandi, a man of huge respect in the Kurdish diaspora. As he sat in a restaurant favored by exiles and émigrés, the Mykonos, he and his associates were machine-gunned in cold blood. The murderers vanished swiftly. Arguments about motive, method, and opportunity soon began, all of them inevitably muddied in with the paranoias and internecine disputes of political factionalism. Though an obvious finger at first pointed toward Tehran, it was argued that relations between the regime and Germany were good and that it would be irrational for the mullahs to make trouble. It was also suggested that a Kurdish splinter group, the Turkish-based PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party, was responsible instead. (You may have noticed that Tehran is now also arguing for a similar red herring in the case of the Saudi ambassador, citing a shadowy figure who flits in and out of the Mujahedin Khalq and other circles opposed to the Khameini regime.) However, it was not long before more serious forensic evidence began to emerge from the Mykonos affair. In the waning days of Ayatollah Khomeini's life, a special department had been set up for the physical elimination of critics and opponents of his regime. These were to be targeted and taken off the chessboard, whether they lived in Iran or overseas. Money was available, as were weapons. Safe houses and false identities were provided for those willing to do the dirty work. Gradually, the German authorities came to realize that their own soil was being used for the settling of scores by a nightmare regime with which they were doing lucrative business." http://t.uani.com/tEghpx
Lee Smith in The Weekly Standard: "Killing Muammar Qaddafi wasn't easy. What President Obama said would take days wound up taking eight months. At first the administration did not seem to understand that NATO's objective of protecting the civilians rising up against the Libyan tyrant's 40-year rule would require capturing or killing the man who was most likely to harm them. Unfortunately, the learning curve here seems to be something of a yardstick for Washington's understanding of the Middle Eastern state most likely to kill Americans-the Islamic Republic of Iran... The point of American leadership is not only that we lead, but that we do so for the purpose of maintaining and advancing American security, especially the protection of U.S. citizens. If this is not a priority for the British, then it is certainly not going to matter to, say, the Russians and Chinese. So why is the Obama administration wasting valuable time seeking support from Moscow and China in its efforts to isolate Iran? ... Iranian aggression and American wishful thinking will bring not peace but war. Hitler was incensed with Chamberlain when the Brits finally went to war after the invasion of Poland: There was nothing in the past behavior of the allies that suggested they would ever do anything but appease the German dictator. We can imagine Iran's supreme leader Ali Khameini will be similarly furious when we finally take action against the Iranian regime. The Americans did nothing to stop us before, they will rightly note-not when we bombed their embassy in Beirut and the Marine barracks, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not when we plotted to kill the Saudi envoy regardless of American casualties in the U.S. capital. One day soon, however, the Iranians will cross the line, and the American president will have no choice but to retaliate-even if the Iranians have the bomb. There won't be time then for the 'collective action' prized by Obama and his deputies. The time for 'collective action' is now. Collective action does not mean bringing the unmovable Russians and Chinese on board. It means going after Revolutionary Guard camps. It means destabilizing Iran's ally Syria by creating a no-fly zone there that protects the Syrian opposition and helps bring down Bashar al-Assad. Collective action means using every possible method and tactic to destabilize the Iranian regime by working with allies inside and outside of Iran. It means doing everything possible to ensure that Ayatollah Ali Khameini, stripped of his clerical robes, is the next Middle East dictator dragged from a hole in the ground." http://t.uani.com/uMhvLS
W. Jonathan Rue in Foreign Affairs: "While much of the world's attention focuses on Iran's nuclear program, Tehran has made considerable progress on another security front in recent years -- steadily increasing the reach and lethality of its naval forces. The goal by 2025, if all goes as the country has planned, is to have a navy that can deploy anywhere within a strategic triangle from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea to the Strait of Malacca. Should such plans materialize -- and Iran is making steady progress -- Tehran would redraw the strategic calculus of an already volatile region. The Persian Gulf is home to some of the world's most valuable supply lines, routes that are vital to the global energy supply. In the last few years, Iran has invested heavily in a domestic defense industry that now has the ability to produce large-scale warships, submarines, and missiles. Since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Iran has largely pursued a strategy of deterrence. Its ground forces, which number roughly 450,000, are trained and equipped to fight a prolonged, asymmetric defensive battle on its own territory. Likewise, Iran's air force can protect high value domestic targets such as the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and numerous military and political headquarters inside Tehran; it is incapable of long-range strike missions abroad. Iran simply does not possess the capability to project hard power into neighboring states. But Iran's navy is different. It is the best organized, best trained, and best equipped service of the country's conventional military establishment. More than a nuclear weapons program, which would likely function as a passive deterrent, Iran's navy is an active component of Iran's activist foreign policy. The country's leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly said that Iran's navy is the critical foundation on which its long-term development and prosperity rests. Iran actually has two navies -- the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) and the vaunted Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN). The responsibilities of both have been expanding since 2007. The IRIN operates conventional surface and subsurface platforms and fulfills a more traditional naval role. It is now responsible for the Caspian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, and the blue waters outside the Persian Gulf. The IRGCN, which executes asymmetric operations with swarms of small boats that overwhelm the defenses of larger ships, has been tasked with defending the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. This reorganization reflects Tehran's desire to be a naval power that can deploy and operate well outside Persian Gulf waters (via the IRIN) while still retaining formidable coastal defenses in the Persian Gulf (via the IRGCN). Evidence of Iran's growing naval assertiveness is already on display." http://t.uani.com/txbS9G |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment