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CNN: "As Gen. Martin Dempsey toured around the globe over the last eight days, one issue was prominent -- Iran's nuclear intentions. Dempsey, in an exclusive interview with CNN, warned that Iran is playing a dangerous game that could ensnare the Middle East, the United States and others into conflict and a renewed nuclear arms race. From Iraq to Afghanistan, Kuwait to Saudi Arabia, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff heard about growing concerns about Iran's ambitions. 'My biggest worry is they will miscalculate our resolve,' Dempsey said in an interview conducted during a stop in Afghanistan. 'Any miscalculation could mean that we are drawn into conflict, and that would be a tragedy for the region and the world.'" http://t.uani.com/vrmjg1
NYT: "Iran's currency, the rial, tumbled in value to its lowest level ever against the dollar on Tuesday in panic selling caused in part by the country's increased economic isolation from international sanctions, an unbridled inflation problem and worries that government officials there are ideologically incapable of devising a workable solution. The rial's value has been weakening for months, but the traumatic drop on Tuesday reflected what Iranian economists called a new level of economic anxiety in the country, exacerbated by conflicting information coming out of the Tehran hierarchy that reinforced a sense of indecision and confusion. A report in Iran's state-run news media that the government had decided to suspend trading relations with the United Arab Emirates in retaliation for that country's support of American sanctions on Iran - denied later by Iran's vice president - apparently contributed to a rush by Iranian merchants and trading companies to sell their rials for other currencies. The United Arab Emirates is a major gateway for Iran's exports." http://t.uani.com/tx4vJQ
Reuters: "The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday it was expanding sanctions on Iran to include 10 'shipping and front companies and one individual based in Malta' affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). 'As IRISL and its subsidiaries continue their deceptive efforts to escape the grasp of U.S. and international sanctions, we will continue to take action - as we are today - to expose the front companies, agents and managers working with IRISL and work to stop this illicit business,' David Cohen, U.S. Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement." http://t.uani.com/uptxCP
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AFP: "The Pentagon on Tuesday sought to play down remarks by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who has suggested Iran's nuclear program could be on a faster track than previously suspected. In an interview with CBS News, Panetta said Iran could have a nuclear weapon in a year or possibly sooner and that the timeline might be different if Tehran had a secret 'hidden' site. 'It would be sometime in around a year they would be able to do it (build a nuclear weapon),' Panetta said in the interview aired Monday. 'Perhaps a little less. The one proviso is if they have a hidden facility somewhere in Iran,' he said. But Pentagon spokesmen said Panetta was speaking 'hypothetically' and that the defense secretary was not suggesting there was new intelligence pointing to secret facilities." http://t.uani.com/rMp8zc
Reuters: "Diplomats from the United States, the European Union and other allies agreed on Tuesday to step up pressure on Iran to force it to resume talks over its nuclear program, an Italian diplomatic source said. The diplomats from the so-called 'group of like-minded nations' met in Rome to discuss further sanctions against Iran, which could include a possible EU oil embargo. 'The participants repeated the need for Iran to conform to resolutions of the United Nations and the IAEA (the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency), and asked the country to satisfy demands by the international community for timely and immediate clarifications on its nuclear program,' the source said." http://t.uani.com/spz6z8
Domestic Politics
YnetNews: "A malfunction at an Isfahan refinery caused a leakage of cooling water from its generators - the latest in a string of mysterious mishaps in Iran in the past few months. A power outage was created as a result and a state of emergency was declared at the refinery, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported. According to the report, one person was injured and taken to hospital. Various eye-witnesses reported seeing flames and thick smoke covering the area. The report stated that workers burned off the excess oil and gas in pipes to prevent a blast in the site. Traffic to the site was blocked and all phone lines were disconnected to prevent an explosion." http://t.uani.com/u5lqkj
Reuters: "Iran has moved most of its government websites from foreign-based hosting companies to new computer facilities inside the country, to protect them against cyber attacks, a senior official said on Tuesday. The new security arrangements were announced a year after a Iran said a powerful computer virus known as Stuxnet attacked computers at its Bushehr nuclear reactor. 'The location of the hosts of more than 90 percent of Iran's governmental internet sites has been transferred inside the country,' Ali Hakim Javadi, Iran's deputy minister for communications and information technology, told the official IRNA news agency." http://t.uani.com/swx9n4
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Gulf Arab leaders on Tuesday broadly endorsed Saudi King Abdullah's call to form a 'single entity' in what appeared to be an attempt to form a more united front against a perceived threat from Iran. King Abdullah on Monday said the security of Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors was being targeted, in an apparent reference to Iran, and called on Gulf Arab states to 'move beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity.' The goal of greater union is enshrined in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council's 1981 founding charter, but has only been given impetus by the mass uprisings that have reshaped the power balance in the Middle East, as well as fears of a newly assertive non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran across the Strait of Hormuz." http://t.uani.com/rzIRG8
Opinion & Analysis
Mark Wallace in CNBC: "While the international movement to pressure companies into leaving Iran has had a great deal of success over the past few years, there is one argument that seems to never go away. For years now, Western firms have attempted to justify their business in Iran by claiming that if they were to pull out, their competitors from other countries-notably China-would rush in to fill the vacuum. The prevailing wisdom is that Chinese companies and lawmakers in Beijing do not lose much sleep over Iran's illegal nuclear weapons program, its sponsorship of global terrorism, or its egregious human rights record. Yet now, in a move that could change the entire dynamic on the drive to economically isolate Iran's regime, one Chinese company has done the unthinkable, and chosen to voluntarily stop pursuing new business activities in Iran. The company, Huawei Technologies Co., is the world's second-largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, and until recently has maintained a robust, 1000-employee presence in Iran... Huawei had a particularly compelling reason to pull back from Iran: there was clear evidence of Iran abusing foreign telecommunications technology to crack down on dissidents and other opponents of the ruling mullahs in Tehran. Many in fact argue that the regime's manipulation and abuse of mobile technology is all that has kept the Arab Spring from spreading to Iran... And while there may have been other factors that influenced Huawei's decision, this was not just a raw calculation based on market share and profit. I speak from personal experience on this point, as my colleagues at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and I participated in weeks of substantive discussions with Huawei representatives, all of whom took seriously the concerns raised about Iran's nuclear weapons program, its well-known sponsorship of organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, and, of course, the potential danger that Huawei technology was being used by the Iranian government to oppress its own citizens... The Huawei case has disproved the pessimistic thought that it is pointless to engage Chinese companies on issues such as proliferation and human rights. Clearly, a Chinese company IS capable of making a conscientious and responsible decision. More importantly, this event has completely debunked the argument used by irresponsible Western companies still operating in Iran, that leaving would just result in Chinese companies moving in to fill the void." http://t.uani.com/uDcece
Matthias Küntzel in Realite-EU: "'Great Britain isolated!' Numerous German commentators summed up the result of the last EU summit with headlines like this. The German weekly 'Die Zeit' even saw the 'force' with which Great Britain was 'pushed away from continental Europe' as being a sign of a 'rebirth' for Europe and 'a split ... in the West'. Here, however, I will not address the debate over the fiscal union, but rather a different 'split in the West' and a danger that even the most robust fiscal policies will not be able to eliminate: the risk of an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. On this, Berlin and London are diametrically opposed as well - albeit in a different constellation: While London's Iran policy can count on approval from the USA and important EU actors, the Berlin approach towards Iran is more isolated than it may seem on the surface. This is demonstrated in the discussion over Iran's Central Bank. Today, the sanctioning of Iran's Central Bank is seen as the key instrument for avoiding war while at the same time halting the regime's nuclear ambitions. Accordingly, last week the U.S. Congress passed the Iran Threat Reduction Act, which bars foreign banks from operating in the United States if they conduct transactions with the CBI. 'This may cause short term difficulties for the world's oil market, and it may rankle some of our allies' explained Congressman Howard Berman, 'but it is necessary, because stopping Iran's nuclear program is of paramount strategic importance, and we're running out of time.' Berman's concern regarding 'some of our allies' refers, in particular, to Berlin. While Great Britain severed all connections with the CBI, and similar calls were made by France and others for freezing the CBI accounts in Europe, Berlin has taken a different tack: 'The Federal Government does not support this demand.' Why? Because 'Germany - ahead of France and Italy - is by far the country with the largest volume of business dealings with Iran', explained the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 'In the case of much more severe financial sanctions, this business could be threatened.' There are 'strong voices within the German Federal Government that don't want to jeopardize German-Iran business as long as this could then be taken over by companies from other areas like Russia or Asia.' Of course Berlin also wants to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. But business takes priority. According to Spiegel, Germany's Minister of Economics and Technology Philipp Rösler is 'basically in agreement with using a more severe boycott to address the nuclear threat from Iran, as long as existing contracts that have been permissible in the past are not unduly affected, as officials of his ministry announced.' This is an absurd argument. Germany, however, holds the technological key that could bring Iran's economy to a standstill: Two thirds of Iranian industrial firms and three quarters of the country's small and medium enterprises use machinery and equipment of German origin. Therefore, 'the Iranians are totally dependent on German spare parts and suppliers', stated Michael Tockuss, the former President of the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran. Thus the concept of Western sanctions is threatened by Philipp Rösler's priorities." http://t.uani.com/vqmahI
Roxana Saberi in CNN: "In March 2009, when I was detained in Evin Prison in Iran, two evangelical Christians were arrested. I never met them but spotted them a few times through the barred window of my cell as they walked back and forth to the bathroom down the hall. I would later learn that Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh had converted from Islam to Christianity and faced charges of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic, insulting religious sanctities, and committing apostasy. They resisted severe pressure to renounce their faith, and in November 2009, after an international outcry, the two women went free. News headlines are now highlighting the plight of another Iranian Christian accused of apostasy, or abandoning one's religion. When Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was 19, he converted from Islam to Christianity. In 2010, a provincial court sentenced him to death. This year, Iran's Supreme Court ruled that the case should be reviewed and the sentence overturned if he recants his faith -- a step Nadarkhani, now 34, has so far refused to take. Now, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Iran's judiciary has ordered the verdict to be delayed, possibly for one year. But Naderkhani's supporters hope sustained worldwide pressure will lead to his just and immediate release. As international criticism has mounted, an Iranian official has alleged that Nadarkhani is being prosecuted not for his faith but for crimes including rape and extortion. Nadarkhani's attorney, however, says the only charge the pastor has faced is apostasy, and court documents support this assertion. Although Iran's penal code does not include a specific provision for apostasy, judges are given a fairly wide degree of latitude to issue rulings based on their own interpretation of Islamic law. In the past this has led to punishments ranging from imprisonment to death. The last person officially executed in Iran for apostasy was Hossein Soodmand, a Pentecostal minister who converted from Islam before Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and was hanged in 1990. Iranian officials often say their country's recognized religious minorities (Christians, Jews, and adherents of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism) enjoy freedoms equal to their Muslim counterparts. Iran's constitution gives these three religious minorities certain rights, such as five seats in the 290-member parliament and the freedom to perform their religious rituals. The constitution's articles, however, are all set within the boundaries of Islam, and Islamic codes grant superior legal status to male Muslims." |
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