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WashPost: "The CIA's use of surveillance drones over Iran reflects a growing belief within the Obama administration that covert action and carefully choreographed economic pressure may be the only means of coercing Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, current and former U.S. officials say. The administration's shift toward a more confrontational approach - one that also includes increased arms sales to Iran's potential rivals in the Middle East as well as bellicose statements by U.S. officials and key allies - suggests deepening pessimism about the prospects for a dialogue with Iran's leaders, the officials say. The administration's evolving strategy includes expanded use of remote-controlled stealth aircraft, such as the one that came down in eastern Iran last week, as well as other covert efforts targeting Iran's nuclear program, according to U.S. government officials and Western diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence-gathering efforts." http://t.uani.com/v7Dhic
Reuters: "Iran could likely build a nuclear bomb in six months or less, a U.S. defence analyst said on Wednesday, but another Western proliferation expert dismissed this as unrealistic. The differing estimates show the difficulty in trying to assess how long it could take Iran to convert its growing uranium stockpile into weapons-grade material and how advanced it may be in other areas vital for any bid to make a bomb. Such an assessment could determine the West's room for manoeuvre in trying to find a diplomatic solution to the long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear programme which has the potential to spark a wider conflict in the Middle East." http://t.uani.com/uF879w
AFP: "The United States on Wednesday criticized Iran for blocking Internet access to its new 'virtual embassy,' saying the move showed the Islamic regime's distrust of its own people. After weeks of effort, the State Department on Tuesday unveiled the website aimed at ordinary Iranians and voiced confidence in its security. But within one day, Iranian authorities blocked public access to the site. US officials said that they expected the Iranian action and voiced hope that some Iranians could still access the website, although they admitted that the vast majority of hits had come from outside Iran. 'Through this action, the Iranian government has once again demonstrated its commitment to build an electronic curtain of surveillance and censorship around its people,' the White House said in a statement. 'The Iranian government's systematic efforts to deny information to its citizens -- to control what the Iranian people see and hear --is doomed to fail in a 21st century when technology is empowering citizens around the globe,' it said." http://t.uani.com/vhuFAH
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AP: "Leading international broadcasters on Wednesday accused Iran of increasing its intimidation of foreign media and accelerating efforts to jam satellite broadcasts in Farsi from reaching Iranian audiences. Following a meeting of senior media executives in London, Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Germany's Deutsche Welle, France's AEF and Radio Netherlands Worldwide issued a joint statement calling for an end to attempts to block independent media. Iran has previously been criticized over its efforts to jam broadcasts and block websites of foreign-based Farsi-language media, including BBC Persian and Voice of America. 'We call upon the regulatory authorities to take action against those who deliberately cause interference to satellite signals,' the broadcasters said in a statement, urging national authorities to take up the issue at a meeting of the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva." http://t.uani.com/vV54PP
AFP: "The United States has doubts Iran will be able to make use of the highly sophisticated technology found in a stealth drone that crashed in Iran during a reconnaissance mission, a US official said Wednesday. The RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude stealth drone was on a surveillance mission when it crashed in eastern Iran, weekend news reports said. But even if Iran succeeds in recovering some technology from the wrecked aircraft, Tehran is unlikely to be able to make use of it, said a US official who declined to be named. 'US capabilities are remarkably advanced, and it's unclear that the Iranians have the expertise' to exploit the advanced know-how in the aircraft, the official said. Washington nevertheless is 'concerned' about the loss of the top secret drone, a senior military official told reporters." http://t.uani.com/v40uXK
Domestic Politics
Bloomberg: "Petrochemical operations in southern Iran by the country's Oil Ministry is causing air and water pollution and an increase in allergies, cancer and unhealthy newborns, Shargh reported, citing parliamentary member Asghar Jalalian. Numerous illnesses have been linked to gas and petrochemical plants in the southern port town of Assaluyeh and to a lack of oversight by the Health Ministry and the country's environmental organization, the Tehran-based newspaper said." http://t.uani.com/t5YjEv
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iran's foreign ministry said in comments published Thursday that a web-based U.S. 'virtual embassy' will fail to win over the Iranian people. Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in remarks carried on state television's website that the American outreach project will not overcome the effects of Washington's hostility to Tehran. 'The virtual initiatives will neither compensate for (American) mistakes, nor relay the U.S. message to the Iranian people,' Mehmanparast said." http://t.uani.com/vPzxBw
AFP: "Austria is considering recalling its ambassador to Tehran after the British embassy there was stormed, the foreign minister said Wednesday, adding all EU states should discuss this week doing the same. Several European nations including France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors after the November 29 attack, when protestors invaded and trashed the embassy and a second British diplomatic compound. 'I cannot rule out in the coming days or weeks taking a similar step,' Michael Spindelegger said, adding that an EU summit on Thursday and Friday was to discuss whether all members should follow suit." http://t.uani.com/tJ6dX1
Opinion & Analysis
WSJ Editorial Board: "The Obama Administration claims its economic sanctions will bring Iran's nuclear program to heel short of war. So why is it working behind the scenes to neuter the latest sanctions that passed the Senate last week, 100-0? The rare bipartisan compromise, led by Senators Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), imposes sanctions on anyone who does business with the Central Bank of Iran, which pays terrorists and funds the nuclear program. The White House supported such sanctions in October, after the FBI uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C. restaurant. Then it changed its mind. Administration officials now say that if the U.S. closes its financial system to foreign banks that do deals with Iran, then U.S. trading partners might stick with Iran and deprive Americans of their business. Senator Menendez made quick work of that one: 'So we basically say to financial institutions, do you want to deal with the $300 billion [Iranian] economy, or do you want to deal with a $14 trillion [American] economy? I think that choice is pretty easy for them.' The Treasury also claims that central-bank sanctions could destabilize Iran's economy and thus disrupt world oil markets, making prices go up and creating a windfall for Iran, which exports oil. Anything's possible, but if you fear an oil-price spike, wait until Israel bombs Tehran after it concludes the U.S. isn't serious about stopping its nuclear plans. The Senate passed the sanctions anyway, yet now the Administration is trying to water them down in a House-Senate conference on a defense bill. Treasury is asking the conferees to strike the Menendez-Kirk bill's most important provision, which applies the sanctions to any foreign central bank trading in oil via the Central Bank of Iran. The Administration wants the leeway to choose whether to block such banks from the U.S. financial system, or merely to 'impose strict conditions' on them. Treasury also wants to make it easier for President Obama to exercise the waiver option that the Senate gave him in a failed attempt to earn his support. In the Senate bill, the sanctions take effect after 60 days, so the President would have to issue three waivers before the 2012 election, answering to the public each time. Treasury would have the sanctions take effect after 180 days, so Mr. Obama would have to issue only one waiver before Election Day. All of which suggests that the Administration's real motive for watering down the sanctions is fear that they could hurt Mr. Obama's re-election chances. The White House fears that disrupting Iran's oil exports would increase oil prices and thus the price of gasoline at the American pump. House conferees are led by Buck McKeon (R., Calif.) and Adam Smith (D., Wash.). We hope they help the Senate give Mr. Obama a stiffer spine to support the sanctions policy he used to favor." http://t.uani.com/s5gFy9
Michael Singh in FP: "Given the alarms that have increasingly been sounded in recent months about Iran's nuclear progress and furor over its alleged plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington and the storming of the British embassy in Tehran, one might think that Iran's leaders would be worried about the prospect of a Western attack on their country. However, their remarks suggest just the opposite. In recent days, Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei has boasted of 'shatter(ing) the resolve' of the West, and the commander of Iran's paramilitary Basij forces -- who were responsible for the embassy rampage -- predicted that the U.S. would be too weak even to respond to an Iranian attack. Perhaps this is just bluster; however, U.S. officials have done little to dampen the regime's overweening self-confidence and the proclivity for escalation which is fueled by it. While Obama administration officials continue to assert that the military option remains 'on the table' with respect to Iran, they have a counterproductive tendency to simultaneously undermine those assertions and thereby undermine our efforts to deter Iran and muster support for tougher sanctions. The latest disquisition on the inadvisability of military action came from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who on Friday described five reasons why the U.S. should not strike Iran. All of them were debatable. First, Panetta claimed that an attack might only set back the regime 'one, possibly two years' because 'some of [the nuclear] targets are very difficult to get at.' Putting aside the advisability of broadcasting the limits of our military capabilities to Iran and others, this analysis is questionable. Presumably Panetta is in a position to know whether it would actually be difficult to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, though recent unexplained explosions such as the one which nearly obliterated an Iranian missile complex suggest they are vulnerable. In any case, even partial damage could be difficult for Iran to recover from quickly. Centrifuge manufacturing, for example, depends critically on specialized, hard-to-acquire components, which would make reconstituting the program difficult with vigorous sanctions enforcement. Second, Panetta asserted that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would result in increased support for the regime in Iran and the region. However, it is far more likely that our Arab allies -- especially those in the Gulf, who see Iran as the chief threat to their security -- would at least privately cheer a successful attack. Among Muslim-majority populations, a mid-2010 Pew poll found that only in Pakistan is there majority support for Iran's nuclear program. In Iran itself, far from bolstering the regime an attack may undermine it. Khamenei himself recognized this recently, warning in a speech to the Iranian navy that two previous Iranian regimes -- the Qajars and Pahlavis -- had shown vulnerability in the face of foreign powers and had been swept aside as a result. Panetta's third, fourth, and fifth assertions all concerned Iranian retaliation -- that Iran would target U.S. ships and bases; that an attack would carry economic consequences, presumably because Iran would target oil shipping or seek to close the Strait of Hormuz; and that an attack would lead to Iranian escalation and a conflict that would 'consume the Middle East.' It is a risk of any military activity that one's adversary will retaliate; the question is how capable he is of doing so. While the threat posed by Iran and the uncertainties inherent to any conflict should not be discounted, neither should they be exaggerated." http://t.uani.com/tqz3Pb |
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