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WashPost: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged Tuesday that U.S.-designed financial sanctions are causing serious problems for Iran's banking sector, as he appealed to lawmakers to keep his government together despite a massive embezzlement scandal. 'Our banks cannot make international transactions anymore,' the embattled president said in a speech before parliament to defend his minister of economic affairs and finance against impeachment charges related to the scandal... U.S. sanctions against Iran played an important role in the debate, in which critics sought to blame Ahmadinejad and his team for a lack of oversight in a $2.6 billion fraud case in which most factions seemed to be involved." http://t.uani.com/v532Ro
AFP: "The United States on Tuesday dismissed as 'a rant' an Iranian letter to Washington over allegations of an Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington. 'We did receive a lengthy diplomatic note from the Swiss protecting power on behalf of the Iranians,' US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said after Washington received the letter from Swiss intermediaries. In the absence of US-Iranian diplomatic relations for more than three decades, Switzerland acts on behalf of US interests in Tehran. 'It was about seven pages. It was a rant. It was full of all kinds of denials. There was not a lot new in there from our perspective,' Nuland told reporters. In Tehran, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that Iran had sent a letter to the United States seeking an 'official apology of the Americans in protest of this made-up scenario.'" http://t.uani.com/uTBHkj
AP: "Iran's economy minister survived a vote in parliament Tuesday to dismiss him from office, after an appeal from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to keep his government intact to deal with international sanctions over its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad's open conflict with Iran's powerful clerics and the parliament served as a backdrop to the vote. Its outcome indicated that his opponents may be easing their attempts to discredit him. Lawmakers voted 141-93 against dismissing Shamseddin Hosseini, who was accused of failing to take action after learning of an alleged $2.6 billion bank fraud. Ten lawmakers abstained and 46 were absent. Ahmadinejad said that removing Hosseini from his post would be a setback in Iran's efforts to fight international sanctions over its nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/uutzGG
Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "Israel test-fired a missile on Wednesday, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the 'direct and heavy threat' posed to the Jewish state by Iran's nuclear program. 'Israel today carried out the test-firing of a rocket propulsion system from the Palmachim base,' a Defense Ministry statement said. 'This had been long planned by the Defense establishment and was carried out as scheduled.' ... Israeli media have carried a flurry of reports on purported efforts by Prime Minister Netanyahu to secure cabinet approval for military action against Iran. Some analysts say the speculation is designed to jolt world powers into toughening sanctions on Tehran." http://t.uani.com/vNRPts Domestic Politics
AP: "A petition to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to parliament for questioning over a long list of accusations, including corruption, failed Wednesday after some lawmakers withdrew their support for the motion, an Iranian legislator said. The petition was the latest salvo in a long battle between the president and his rivals and its failure in parliament was a boost for the embattled Ahmadinejad, who has come under increasing attacks in recent months from the same hard-liners who brought him to power. The power struggle is an internal conflict in Iran in the run-up to parliamentary elections in March 2012 and the 2013 presidential election. Had the petition succeeded, Ahmadinejad would have been the first Iranian president to be hauled before parliament - a serious blow to his standing in the conflict involving the president, lawmakers and Iran's powerful clerics." http://t.uani.com/u872bX
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Iran is happy with current oil prices above $100 a barrel, its oil minister said on Tuesday, despite warnings from the West on the impact on the world economy and a preference for softer prices from fellow OPEC producers in the Gulf. OPEC, which controls a third of global oil production, will meet in December for the first time since June, when its meeting broke down after Gulf producers failed to convince other members to lift production to compensate for the loss of Libyan output. 'The current oil prices are good ... we are not expecting the prices to change in winter,' Iran's oil minister Rostam Qasemi told an oil conference." http://t.uani.com/rNMm9w
AFP: "Bahrain's foreign minister on Tuesday accused Iran of eyeing the Gulf monarchy as 'the crown jewel' in a campaign to penetrate the Gulf, and called for Arab support in confronting Tehran, according to official Egyptian media. Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa also accused Shiite Iran of trying to garner the support of Shiites worldwide for its vision of a theocratic government ruled by a supreme cleric. Bahrain's Sunni monarchy has clamped down on pro-democracy protests, spearheaded by majority Shiites, with the help of troops of other Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia. 'Iran always looks at Bahrain as the crown jewel,' Khalifa was quoted as saying by the official Egyptian news agency MENA, adding it is the entry point into the Gulf." http://t.uani.com/rZwQ4B
Opinion & Analysis
Matthew Levitt in WINEP: "Quirky though it was, U.S. officials are convinced that the recently exposed plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington was the work of the vaunted Quds Force, the special operations branch of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC). As policymakers consider how best to respond to Iran's increasingly dangerous behavior they should look first to our own back yard south of the border. To be sure, this plot demands a response. Pointing to the 1983 and 1984 Beirut bombings, the CIA reported in 1987 that 'many Iranian leaders use this precedent as proof that terrorism can break U.S. resolve' and view 'sabotage and terrorism as an important option in its confrontation with the United States in the Persian Gulf.' It is critical that the United States and the international community take concrete steps in response to the planned assassination of a foreign ambassador in the U.S. capitol to signal the international community's resolve to confront Iranian state sponsorship of terrorism. One step the United States and its allies could pursue would send a strong message to Tehran and at the same time have a tangible impact on U.S. security: Press allies to restrict the size of Iranian missions to the minimum needed to conduct official business. Over the past few years, Iran has vastly expanded its presence in South and Central America, opening new missions and populating them with far more people than required for normal diplomatic duties. Consider the finding of Argentine officials investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by Hezbollah operatives working in tandem with Iranian intelligence agents... Amazingly, Iran's intelligence penetration of South America has expanded significantly since the AMIA bombing. Five years later, the commander of U.S. Southern Command indicated the Iranian presence in the region had grown still larger by expanding the number of embassies in the region from just a handful to 12 missions by 2010. Taken together with other developments, such as the now regular flights between Tehran and Caracas, Venezuela, which law enforcement officials have taken to calling 'Aero Terror,' Iran's increased presence in the southern half of the Western Hemisphere presents a clear and present danger to U.S. security. According to press reports, the Quds Force plot to murder the Saudi ambassador may have also included plans to target Saudi or Israeli diplomats in Argentina. To execute the attack in Washington, the Quds Force apparently approved a plan to subcontract the attack to someone tied to a Mexican drug cartel." http://t.uani.com/shNHqN
Ilan Berman in Forbes: "It is something of a truism that in Washington, bad ideas never truly go away. Instead, they keep cropping up at the most inopportune moments. So it is with American policy toward Iran. Stymied in recent months by the resilience of Iran's increasingly mature nuclear effort and complicated by the unfolding turmoil of the 'Arab Spring,' policymakers inside the Beltway are once again flirting with the idea that some sort of diplomatic rapprochement with the Islamic Republic is in fact possible. The latest proponent of a return to 'engagement' is none other than Fareed Zakaria, CNN's resident foreign policy guru and editor at large of Time magazine. In a recent column in the Washington Post, Zakaria urged the Obama White House to 'go back to 2008,' when unconditional engagement with Iran seemed like a good idea. 'Obama should return to his original approach and test the Iranians to see if there is any room for dialogue and agreement,' Zakaria suggests. A nice sentiment, to be sure. But even if the United States wanted to, why would Iran-which spurned outreach from Washington when it was originally attempted in the early days of the Obama administration-jump at the opportunity now? After all, America is in a far weaker regional position today than it was three years ago. With withdrawal from Iraq now literally around the corner, and a similar pullout from Afghanistan also in the offing in the coming year, Iran has become convinced that America is eyeing the exits in the Middle East. As a result, it would be difficult to envision what tangible benefits Tehran could gain from negotiating with a departing Washington that it couldn't by simply waiting it out. After all, it's not as if Iran faces an imminent threat as a result of its intransigence. While Administration officials continue to intone that all options remain 'on the table' in dealing with Iran, it has become abundantly clear to Tehran (and everyone else) that a U.S. military strike against Iran's nuclear program isn't in the offing. Economic pressure is a different story, but although the comprehensive energy sanctions levied against Iran last year have begin to bite, they remain under-utilized and embryonic in nature. (Only a handful of foreign firms have been sanctioned to date, and the White House has shied away from applying additional ones on countries such as China which continue to aid and abet Iran's nuclear drive.) Such measures, moreover, are less and less likely to appear over time, as our engagement in the region declines and Iran's freedom of action increases. All of which mitigates strongly against a durable negotiating track-or Iran's receptivity to it. But perhaps the most compelling reason not to do a deal with Iran is the Iranians themselves. Administration officials have recently waxed optimistic that the regional unrest sweeping the greater Middle East-which already has claimed the regimes of strongmen in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya-could end up yielding similar results within the Islamic Republic. Indeed it might; the current political ferment taking place in the region, after all, can rightly be said to have begun not in Tunisia in December 2010, but in Iran in June 2009, when the fraudulent reelection Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian presidency galvanized a groundswell of opposition to the Iranian regime. The pro-democracy 'Green Movement' that emerged as a result of that discontent may now be largely marginalized because of massive regime pressure and repression. But conditions within Iran, from rising inflation to widespread unemployment to economic stagnation, suggest that Tehran could still go the way of Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli. Against that backdrop, renewed 'engagement' with the Iranian regime wouldn't just be futile; it would be fatal to prospects for real grassroots change within Iran." http://t.uani.com/rLSHhm
Jayshree Bajoria in The Atlantic: "The human rights situation in Iran has worsened since the government's crackdown on anti-government protests following the disputed June 2009 presidential election. Political activists, lawyers, journalists, students, women's rights activists, and ethnic and religious minorities have been increasingly targeted. A September 2011 report by a UN Special Rapporteur notes a sharp increase in executions. Prominent opposition political leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were put under house arrest in February 2011 after calling for protests in solidarity with pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the region. Amid an increasingly repressive regime focused on survival amid internal strife and external pressures, experts say prospects for reform are bleak, and urge the international community to keep the spotlight on Iran's human rights violations. Iran has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights without reservations, committing itself to the protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, and social rights including freedom of expression, assembly, association, and religion. The Iranian Constitution also guarantees these freedoms. But Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Mehrangiz Kar says several articles of the constitution guaranteeing specific liberties suffer from ambiguity and are often restricted by various conditions and provisions. For instance, Article 24 on press freedom states: 'publications and the press are free to express their ideas unless these contravene the precepts of Islam or harm public rights. These conditions will be defined by laws.' Since the precepts of Islam and public rights are not clearly defined by legislated laws, Kar writes, the authorities are free to interpret the 'article in support of their own political and factional interests.' In the aftermath of the June 2009 disputed presidential election and the ensuing mass protests, the Iranian government has severely limited citizens' rights to many of the freedoms it ratified under international covenants. In October 2009, even after security forces killed dozens of protesters, arrested and detained thousands of demonstrators and opposition figures, and reportedly tortured and mistreated detainees, Iran submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Committee claiming it was in compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Independent group Human Rights Watch said the report 'does not begin to adequately address allegations concerning violation of core civil and political rights.' While the report makes references to legal provisions in the country's constitution and criminal and civil codes, the watchdog group said it fails to show how the authorities are complying with these provisions. International organizations have accused several branches of the Iranian government of human rights abuses, particularly security forces like the elite Revolutionary Guards and the volunteer paramilitary force the Basij, as well as the judiciary. Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, writes that after the 2009 protests, the 'judiciary has emerged as a key instrument to intimidate protestors and remove many leading activists and opinion makers, steps that were both critical to the regime's survival.' The judiciary, he notes, also implements the Islamic penal code, including stoning, amputations and flogging, all considered torture under international law. Plus, Iran has separate Islamic revolutionary courts whose legal standing has been repeatedly questioned by rights groups. Formed after the 1979 revolution to prosecute government officials of the previous regime, they are primarily charged with trying offenses involving acts against national security, drug smuggling, and espionage." http://t.uani.com/tOXoU2
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