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NYT: "President Obama vowed on Thursday to push for what he called the 'toughest sanctions' against Iran, saying that the United States had strong evidence that Iranian officials were complicit in an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In his first public remarks on the assassination scheme, Mr. Obama sought to counter skepticism about whether Iran's Islamic government directed an Iranian-American car salesman to engage with a Mexican drug cartel to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and carry out other attacks. Mr. Obama insisted that American officials 'know that he had direct links, was paid by, and directed by individuals in the Iranian government.' 'Now those facts are there for all to see,' Mr. Obama said. 'We would not be bringing forward a case unless we knew exactly how to support all the allegations that are contained in the indictment.' The president did not lay out any specific new sanctions against Iran; his administration is considering a number of measures, but has limited leverage and would have to muster international support to impose anything with real teeth." http://t.uani.com/pef2Jz
LAT: "The Obama administration said it was 'actively' considering sanctioning Iran's central bank in retaliation for an alleged Iranian assassination plot, a move that could severely damage Iran's economy and potentially provoke a strong response from Tehran. David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the Senate Banking Committee that officials were 'looking very actively' at such a step and might carry it out if other nations could be persuaded to follow suit. The blacklisting is the first specific step the administration has identified as a possible response to the alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's envoy to the United States and to attack embassies in the U.S. and Argentina. Such sanctions would aim to isolate the Bank Markazi, or central bank, from the world economic system by barring any firm that deals with it from doing business with U.S. financial institutions. That would make it far more difficult for Iran to sell crude oil, which funds much of the government's activities. Some Iranian officials have warned that they would look on such a move as an act of war." http://t.uani.com/mWegpp
FP: "The Obama administration has been in intensive discussions with foreign leaders about the alleged Iran-sponsored assassination plot and, among other steps, is asking countries around the world to stop letting Iranian leaders stop by for official visits. 'We are taking robust diplomatic action to hold Iran accountable for this plot, isolate them internationally and increase pressure on the regime,' Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said at a Thursday hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. 'And we will be asking all countries to consider appropriate actions, including denying Quds Force officers any platform to operate within their countries.' Sherman said that, over the last 48 hours, calls have been made to every single capital in the world by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Sherman herself, and every assistant secretary in the State Department to encourage all countries to tighten sanctions and pressure on Iran. 'We have encouraged them to make sure that the Quds Force stops doing business in their countries, to look at high-level visits that might be coming from Iranians to their country, and to consider, let's say, postponing, if not cancelling outright, those visits,' she said." http://t.uani.com/p2Eeal
Terror Plot
AFP: "Iran may have strengthened its ties with Latin America, but it has failed to establish a 'meaningful financial foothold' in the region, US government officials said Thursday. The officials were testifying before a congressional committee examining threats in the region after the United States said it had foiled an Iranian plot to use a Mexican drug cartel to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Daniel Glaser, a senior Treasury official, said 'it is in the interest of an increasingly isolated Iran to seek expansion of its economic and financial ties to Latin America,' referring to UN and other sanctions against Tehran. However, 'the reality is that to date Iran has failed to establish a meaningful financial foothold in this region,' Glaser told the House Foreign Affairs Committee." http://t.uani.com/ogVlBY
Reuters: "Saudi officials advised Argentina four months ago of an alleged Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, an Argentine diplomatic source said on Thursday. Argentina is home to Latin America's largest Jewish population and a 1992 bombing at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people. Another 85 people died two years later in an attack on the AMIA Jewish community center, which Argentina has accused Iran of helping to plan. 'The Saudis advised us four months ago, at the request of the United States,' the Argentine source told Reuters on condition of anonymity, without providing further details." http://t.uani.com/oBHbKG
Reuters: "Iran assassination plot suspect Manssor Arbabsiar was introduced to an undercover federal informant by a woman Arbabsiar met years ago when he worked as a Texas used-car dealer, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Arbabsiar approached the woman earlier this year after returning last spring from a trip to Iran, two U.S. officials briefed on the investigation into the alleged plot said. He asked the woman, whose identity has not become public, whether she could introduce him to anyone who 'knew explosives,' one of the U.S. officials said. She arranged for Arbabsiar to get in touch with her nephew. What neither the woman nor Arbabsiar knew was that the nephew, whose identity is also unknown, had an established relationship with law enforcement agencies as a drug informant." http://t.uani.com/mRcByt Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Iran is facing a projected loss of $14 billion a year in oil revenue as a result of economic sanctions, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. 'Iran has been increasingly unable to attract foreign investment, especially in its oil fields, leading to a projected loss of $14 billion a year in oil revenues through 2016,' David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in prepared testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. The number and quality of foreign banks willing to transact with designated Iranian financial institutions has 'dropped precipitously' over the last year, Cohen said. 'Iran's shrinking access to financial services and trade finance has made it extremely difficult for Iran to pay for imports and receive payment for exports.'" http://t.uani.com/nEVcPU
Reuters: "The United States hopes the U.N. atomic watchdog will be more detailed about its concerns Iran is covertly developing nuclear missiles in a report due out next month, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Thursday. But it is too early to say if the report about Iran's uranium enrichment program could prompt Tehran's referral to the U.N. Security Council, Glyn Davies, the U.S. envoy to the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Santiago on the first stop of a Latin American trip to study uses of nuclear power. 'We expect the IAEA to begin to get more explicitly into the issue of what is called the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program,' Davies said. 'I hope what we'll see from the IAEA is sort of a sharpening of the case.'" http://t.uani.com/ncktDy
Reuters: "Wireless equipment maker Ubiquiti Networks Inc broke a two-month drought in the U.S. IPO market on Thursday pricing shares in its initial public offering at the low end of the expected range... Ubiquiti, whose shares will trade on Nasdaq under the stock symbol UBNT.O, makes wireless networking and video surveillance equipment. It said in its prospectus that certain of its products were sold to Iran, Cuba, Syria, the Sudan and North Korea and that some of its encryption components were sold without the appropriate export authorization... A review of Ubiquiti's sales to Iran by the Department of Commerce's Office of Export Enforcement earlier this year resulted in a warning letter, but no criminal or administrative prosecution or other penalties -- but Ubiquiti remains under review by the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control." http://t.uani.com/phTJ9w
Foreign Affairs
NYT: "Militants trained and financed by Iran's Quds Force attacked United States forces in Iraq on Wednesday, American officials said, continuing a role they have played in recent years in a proxy war between the United States and Iran... The militants fired rockets at American forces at Contingency Operating Station Garry Owen in the southern province of Maysan, which borders Iran. The military said three soldiers were wounded in the assault at the station, which has been hit by rockets repeatedly this year as militants have increased attacks. The military provided few other details of the attack. The Quds Force, little known in the United States until the assassination plot was revealed, is all too familiar to the military, American military officials here say. The Shiite militias aligned with the group have killed many Iraqi civilians and security forces this year. And they have also proved to be the United States' most lethal enemy in Iraq since the American 'surge' diminished the capacity of Sunni militants." http://t.uani.com/n9ApBj
Opinion & Analysis
Matthew Levitt in FP: "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement on Oct. 11 that a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen and a commander in Iran's Quds Force, the special-operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had been charged in New York for their alleged roles in a plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, represents a brazen escalation in Iran's struggle for regional dominance. But Iran's willingness to use brutal means to achieve its foreign-policy goals is nothing new: Since the creation of the Islamic Republic, U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly identified terrorism as one of the regime's signature calling cards. The timing of this plot suggests Iran feels itself under increasing pressure, both from the international community (led by the United States) and from the regional alliance of Sunni states in the region (led by Saudi Arabia). Intriguingly, the plot seems to have been launched shortly after the Saudi-led military intervention in Bahrain against Shiite protesters, to which Iran objected loudly but was unable to affect... Iran's use of terrorism as a tool of foreign policy, however, goes back as far as the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Writing in 1986, the CIA assessed in a now declassified report titled 'Iranian Support for International Terrorism' that while Iran's support for terrorism was meant to further its national interest, it also stemmed from the clerical regime's perception 'that it has a religious duty to export its Islamic revolution and to wage, by whatever means, a constant struggle against the perceived oppressor states.' In the early 1990s, these interests dictated an increase in operational activities in the Gulf. Shiite extremist violence was primarily the consequence of Iran's geopolitical calculus and its continued enmity toward Sunni Gulf states. To that end, the CIA noted, Iran not only supported and sometimes directed Hezbollah operations but also 'smuggled explosives into Saudi Arabia and conducted terrorist operations against Kuwaiti targets.' As tensions in the region persisted, the CIA assessed in 1992 that 'for now, Iran will sponsor easily deniable attacks on US targets and allow Hizballah to retaliate for [Hezbollah leader Abbas] Musawi's assassination.' ... Despite Iran's apparent attempt to mask its role in the plot by employing a team of assassins from Mexico tied to a violent drug cartel, the indictment -- as well as the parallel Treasury Department designations of several senior Quds Force officers as specially designated global terrorists -- exposes Iran for the terrorist state it is. It is too early to tell what the consequences of Iran's assassination plot may be, but there should be no doubt the plot lays bare the myth that sufficient carrots -- from offers of dialogue to requests for an emergency hotline to reduce naval tensions in the Gulf -- can induce the regime in Tehran to abandon its support for terrorism, part with its nuclear weapons program, or respect human rights." http://t.uani.com/q61dcK
Jose Cardenas in FP: "Much of official Washington has been stunned by the Justice Department announcement this week that an Iranian-American, acting on behalf of the elite Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has been arrested for allegedly conspiring with an individual he believed was tied to a violent Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and carry out other possible terrorist activities. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for one, remarked, 'The idea that [Iran] would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?' But as outlandish as it may seem, it can also be seen as the fruits of Iran's steady expansion into Latin America and attempts to make common cause with transnational criminal operations in its global conflict with the United States. Last week, former Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roger Noriega and I co-authored a paper, The Mounting Hezbollah Threat in Latin America, for the American Enterprise Institute, in which we establish that, over the last several years, Iran, with its Hezbollah proxy in tow, has made a major diplomatic and economic push into the Western Hemisphere. Their goals are three-fold: to break down their international isolation and gain access to strategic resources; undermine U.S. influence in the region; and establish a new platform from which to wage their war against the United States. That effort has been largely facilitated by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who has served as the principal interlocutor on Iran's behalf with other like-minded governments in the region, primarily the Rafael Correa and Evo Morales governments in Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively, who themselves have established dubious networks with criminal groups. Moreover, Iran and Hezbollah's ties to Mexican drug cartels are nothing new. For years, they have been involved in drug smuggling and people smuggling in Mexico and across the U.S. border. What experts say is new, however, and indicative of a deepening relationship, is Mexican drug traffickers' increasing use of small improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and car bombs in waging their mayhem in Mexico, an expertise for which Hezbollah is particularly known; and, secondly, the ongoing discovery of increasingly sophisticated narco-tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border, which experts say ¬resemble the type used by Hezbollah in Lebanon." http://t.uani.com/mQNdWD
Amir Taheri in the NYPost: "No one knows where the accusations leveled against Iran by US Attorney General Eric Holder might lead. If true, the claim that Iran planned to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington would amount to an act of war against the United States. And that would require a response beyond the jumble of 'new sanctions' proposed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That the Islamic Republic plots terrorist operations abroad is neither new nor surprising. In 1980, the mullahs organized the murder in Bethesda, Md., of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian diplomat who'd turned against the regime. The assassin, Dawoud Salahuddin, a US convert to Islam, claimed that the murder was 'an act of war' and fled to Iran where he later emerged as an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The United States was not the only place where the mullahs carried out 'acts of war.' Between 1980 and 1995, the Islamic Republic planned and carried out 112 political assassinations in 22 countries across the globe. France alone saw the murders of 17 Iranian exiles. In 1994, a French court issued arrest warrants against nine senior Iranian officials. In 1997, a German court issued warrants for the arrest of a number of Iranian officials charged with participation in the murder of four exiled Iranian politicians in Berlin five years earlier. Among those named were Iran's 'Supreme Guide' Ali Khamenei and former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. At trial, former President Abolhassan Banisadr testified that a four-man committee, headed by Khamenei, was orchestrating the murder of dissidents abroad. The Islamic Republic has always regarded Saudi Arabia as an enemy, a sentiment amply reciprocated. The two neighbors market rival brands of militant Islam and have been engaged in proxy wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, among other places." http://t.uani.com/qnOsh2 |
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