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NYT: "A day after the United States imposed fresh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, President Obama's national security adviser argued Tuesday that the administration's pressure campaign had left Iran's leaders economically strained, diplomatically isolated and rent by internal divisions. The official, Thomas E. Donilon, predicted that the next blow to Iran would come with the fall of its major regional ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who is himself increasingly isolated as he battles a popular uprising. 'Having actively funded the regime's brutality and the killing of its own people, Iran will be discredited in the eyes of the Syrian people and any future government,' Mr. Donilon said in a closely monitored speech at the Brookings Institution. 'Iran's isolation from the Arab world will have deepened.' ... in making the case for Mr. Obama's strategy, Mr. Donilon said that sanctions had slowed down Iran's progress. Citing the atomic energy agency's report, he said Iran currently had about 6,000 working centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium to weapons grade, far fewer than the 50,000 centrifuges that the head of Iran's atomic energy organization predicted in 2007 that Tehran would have by 2011... As for Iran's broader economy, Mr. Donilon said the sanctions had brought it to a virtual standstill, with an inflation rate of 20 percent, high unemployment and 'negligible growth,' despite high oil prices. The growing economic sway of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a further cause of frustration, he said." http://t.uani.com/uQIE3l
AFP: "The United States should throw its 'full support' behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call to freeze Iran central bank assets and halt imports of Iranian oil, two key US senators urged Tuesday. Republican Senator John McCain and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman called France's push for new sanctions 'the logical next step' in efforts to force the Islamic republic to halt what the West charges is a nuclear weapons program. 'We applaud French President Nicolas Sarkozy's initiative to rally countries around the world to sanction the Central Bank of Iran and suspend oil purchases from Iran,' the lawmakers said in a joint statement. 'We hope President (Barack) Obama will throw the full support of the United States behind the Sarkozy initiative, working together with our French allies, along with other partners around the world,' they said." http://t.uani.com/v1WocX
Reuters: "European Union governments agreed in principle on Tuesday to extend sanctions against Iran by adding some 200 names to a target list of people and entities in an effort to add pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme, diplomats said. The decision will be formally approved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Dec. 1, they said. 'The silent procedure went through, it's done,' said one EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. He was referring to a procedure that allows EU governments to reach agreements on various policies. European companies will be banned from doing business with the listed firms and organisations, while officials will be subject to asset freezes and visa bans." http://t.uani.com/vSJUQf
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AP: "The West must prove its claims that Iran seeks to build nuclear weapons, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, repeating his denial and insisting that it's not up to Tehran to disprove the allegations. His remarks follow the latest report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog that cited evidence indicating that Iran is conducting secret experiments toward development of nuclear weapons. 'They (West) tells us, you should prove you don't have atomic bombs. How can something that doesn't exist be proved? It's nonexistent. How can we prove it?' he told thousands of people in Pakdasht, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of the capital Tehran. 'The one who levels the accusations must prove (their) claims. You must prove that someone is guilty,' he said." http://t.uani.com/rE27X3
The Hill: "If the Obama administration was hoping the announcement of new sanctions against Iran would stall sanctions legislation in Congress, those hopes appear to be dashed. Key members of the House and Senate on Monday said they would press ahead with legislation to tighten sanctions further against Iran, even as they welcomed President Obama's Executive Order on Iran. Obama's order sanctions entities that help Iran's petrochemical industry, expands sanctions on companies that help Iran's oil and gas industry, and sanctions Iran's entire banking system under the Patriot Act. But House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said more needs to be done, and that legislation is coming.'The U.S. and our allies should be imposing stronger sanctions from every possible angle in order to make the pressure crippling, including additional, more effective sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran,' she said. 'The administration has yet to take that critical step. Fortunately, the Congress is moving to remedy this.' Ros-Lehtinen's committee has moved on two bills, one of which would repeal the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) of 1996 and replace it with tougher language that limits the ability of the Executive Branch to waive sanctions against Iran. It also requires a report on the efforts of the Central Bank of Iran to help Iran acquire nuclear weapons. As other supporters of tough sanctions against Iran have done, Ros-Lehtinen noted that sanctions under ISA and a 2010 Iran-sanctions law have been lacking due to waivers." http://t.uani.com/rAksnZ
Reuters: "Iran's parliament voted on Wednesday to review relations with Britain after it imposed sanctions on its central bank, a move described as 'vindictive' by a leading lawmaker who called for the British ambassador to be expelled. 'Britain's government once again showed a depth of hatred and enmity towards the Islamic Republic system worse than that of the devil and it took another step towards being an enemy... by announcing sanctions on the central bank,' said a statement signed by 228 lawmakers and read out in parliament. Western countries imposed a new wave of sanctions this week to increase the pressure on Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear activities, with Britain banning all transactions with the Central Bank of Iran." http://t.uani.com/vEJZGH
Domestic Politics
NYT: "Iran's main government-run newspaper was published Tuesday without a front-page headline, replaced by photographs of its headquarters during an assault a day earlier by forces working for the judiciary who briefly arrested the newspaper's top official - the media adviser to the president - and more than 30 others. The presentation of the front page appeared to be an act of protest by the newspaper over the unusual episode on Monday, which judiciary officials described as a riot carried out by newspaper employees. The arrests underscored the bitter rifts between the president and adversaries in the Iranian government who have accused him of overstepping his authority and trying to subvert the role of the Islamic clergy in Iran. The president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had threatened to personally intervene on Monday to free his media adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, who is the chief executive of the official Islamic Republic News Agency and the manager of its affiliated newspaper, called Iran. Mr. Javanfekr was handcuffed for an hour in his office of the Tehran-based newspaper by armed officers of the judiciary, which is run by Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, a member of a powerful conservative family in Iran that has aligned itself against Mr. Ahmadinejad. Among the others who were arrested, at least one was beaten and hospitalized." http://t.uani.com/ula2MA
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "In an apparently serious setback for U.S. intelligence against a key adversary, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, has succeeded in identifying and arresting informants within its ranks who were working for the CIA, current and former U.S. officials said. Separately, counterintelligence officers in Iran also succeeded in uncovering the identities of at least a handful of alleged CIA informants, the officials said. Some former U.S. officials said that the CIA informants, believed to be local recruits rather than U.S. citizens, were uncovered, at least in part, due to sloppy procedures - known in the espionage world as 'tradecraft' - used by the agency." http://t.uani.com/vfkvMt
AFP: "Iran dares Israel to attack, because the retaliation would send the Jewish state to 'the dustbin of history,' a senior Revolutionary Guards commander said, according to the Fars news agency Monday. 'Our greatest wish is that they commit such a mistake,' the chief of the Guards' aerospatial division, Amir-Ali Hadjizadeh, was quoted as saying. 'For some time there has been a hidden energy we hope to expend to consign the enemies of Islam forever to the dustbin of history,' he said. 'Our ballistic (missile) capacity never ceases to grow,' he added." http://t.uani.com/uRb5JE
Opinion & Analysis
WashPost Editorial Board: "The Obama administration pledged that Iran would suffer painful consequences for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and for refusing to freeze its nuclear program. Key European allies and Congress - not to mention Israel - are ready for decisive action. But on Monday the administration unveiled another series of half-steps. Sanctions were toughened on Iran's oil industry, but there was no move to block its exports. The Iranian banking system was designated 'a primary money laundering concern,' a step U.S. officials said could prompt banks and companies around the world to cease doing business with the country. But the administration declined to directly sanction the central bank. The result is that President Obama is not even leading from behind on Iran; he is simply behind. At the forefront of the Western effort to pressure Tehran is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who issued a statement Monday calling on the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada and 'other willing countries' to 'immediately freeze the assets of Iran's central bank' and suspend purchases of Iranian oil. France rejects the Obama administration's view that these steps would cause a counterproductive spike in oil prices. In any case, higher oil prices are preferable to allowing an Iranian bomb - or having to take military action to stop it. Congress is ahead of Mr. Obama, too. It's likely that large bipartisan majorities will support legislation mandating sanctions against the central bank; in the Senate's case it could be attached to the defense authorization bill. Another comprehensive sanctions bill, targeting both Iran and its ally Syria, could be brought to the Senate floor within a couple of weeks. The administration's slowness to embrace crippling sanctions is one of several persistent flaws in its Iran policy. Another is its continued insistence on the possibility of 'engagement' with a regime that has repeatedly rejected it while plotting murder in Washington. 'The United States is committed to engagement,' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted Monday. Some European officials say they are concerned by the concessions the administration appears prepared to offer Tehran if there are new talks. By now it should be obvious that only regime change will stop the Iranian nuclear program. That means, at a minimum, the departure of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly blocked efforts by other Iranian leaders to talk to the West. Sanctions that stop Iran from exporting oil and importing gasoline could deal a decisive blow to his dictatorship, which already faced an Arab Spring-like popular revolt two years ago. By holding back on such measures, the Obama administration merely makes it more likely that drastic action, such as a military attack, eventually will be taken by Israel, or forced on the United States." http://t.uani.com/sZHmUr
Jamsheed Chosky in WSJ: "Why, despite the growing danger posed by Iran's nuclear program, have the United States and other nations restricted themselves to negotiations, economic sanctions and electronic intrusions? None of those tactics has been particularly effective or produced enduring changes. The main argument against military action is that it would set Iran's nuclear program back only a few years, and that Tehran would retaliate directly and via surrogates, drawing the U.S. into another unwinnable war. Many fear also that Iranians will rally behind their regime with nationalist fervor, dashing hope of regime change for decades and turning Iran's largely pro-Western population against the West once again, to the mullahs' great benefit. These concerns are based on worst-case scenarios that assume Iran has the resources to rebuild quickly, to retaliate without being thwarted, and to get the average Iranian to rally behind a regime hated for its violent oppression of dissent, stifling social codes, economic failures and isolationist policies. Yet Iran's government is already weakened by very public infighting between its much disliked ruling factions. We should not conclude that a nuclear Iran is inevitable. Instead we should think about another way of confronting the threat. The real goal of air strikes should be not only to target Iran's nuclear facilities but to cripple the ayatollahs' ability to protect themselves from popular overthrow. The mass uprisings in 2009-known as the Green Revolution-have dissipated because few protesters saw any hope of mustering the force necessary to defeat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij paramilitary forces who brutally enforce Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's authority. Yet dissatisfaction and resentment still run deep across all social groups and economic ranks, even among civil-service bureaucrats, rank-and-file military men, and elected officials. This means Western air strikes should hit other military production facilities and the bases of the IRGC and Basij. A foreign takedown of those enforcers would give Iran's population the opportunity to rise again. As a popular Tehrani female rapper notes: 'No regime can hang on through intimidation and violence. We are ready and waiting. The regime thinks it has put out the fire. We are the burning coals under the ashes.' The IRGC's claims that it can retaliate significantly are largely bluster. The Iranian Navy's fast boats and midget submarines in the Persian Gulf could be eliminated through pinpoint strikes, as could army artillery batteries along the Strait of Hormuz-thereby removing any threat to the region's maritime trade, including crude oil shipments. While the nuclear program may not be completely destroyed, sufficient damage will occur so even facilities deep underground would require several years of restoration. Most importantly, once the power of the Basij and the IRGC to enforce the regime's will upon the people has been seriously compromised, it would not be surprising to see large segments of Iran's population casting off the theocratic yoke." http://t.uani.com/uOI3gO
Michael Eisenstadt in U.S.News & World Report: "Military action is a last resort. But for nuclear diplomacy to succeed, Tehran must believe that if it tries to build a bomb, the United States will undertake military action to disrupt such an effort. Iran's near-term nuclear intentions are unclear. The recent International Atomic Energy Agency report supports the conclusion that at the very least, Tehran seeks an option to build a bomb. Believing that its nuclear program would be attacked if it sought to exercise this option might deter it from doing so, or at least cause it to defer such a decision. The recent alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington should be a wake-up call. It indicates that 30 years of Iranian terrorist attacks on American interests, without a U.S. military response, has convinced Tehran that it can continue to act with impunity-even on U.S. soil. Unless Washington alters Tehran's risk calculus, the United States may be targeted again. Iran may even conclude that it can also build a bomb with relative impunity. Advocates of containment-the much-touted alternative to diplomacy or to preventive military action-often present it as a low-cost, low-risk policy option. They frequently gloss over the fact that to work, it must be backed up with a credible threat of force; that the costs of a nuclear deterrence failure in a proliferated Middle East may be measured in millions of lives lost; and that the likelihood of a nuclear deterrence failure is not trivial, given the propensity of an embattled, and increasingly insular and hard-line regime in Tehran, to miscalculate and overreach. U.S. interests are best served by a diplomatic deal regarding Tehran's nuclear program, bolstered by a robust deterrent posture toward Iran. Paradoxically, to succeed diplomatically and to deter, the United States needs to be ready to use force in response to further acts of terrorism by Iran, or to an attempt by Iran to build a bomb. For the threat of force to work, however, it has to be credible, and it has to dramatically alter Iran's risk calculus. Right now, neither condition is present. The United States ignores this state of affairs at its own, and its allies' peril." http://t.uani.com/uhQHdf |
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