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Bloomberg: "The U.S. and European Union took steps to cut off from the international financial system Bank Tejarat, the last institution financing high-volume exports and imports between Iran and Europe. The coordinated actions will have consequences for tens of billions of dollars in legitimate and illicit trade. The U.S. Treasury Department yesterday designated Bank Tejarat, Iran's third-largest bank, for providing financial services to the country's banks and companies that are under international sanctions for involvement in Iran's nuclear and missile proliferation. Financial institutions anywhere in the world that do business with the bank risk being cut off themselves from the U.S. financial system." http://t.uani.com/y1nlE2
Reuters: "Iran accused Europeans on Monday of waging 'psychological warfare' after the EU banned imports of Iranian oil, and U.S. President Barack Obama said Washington would impose more sanctions to address the 'serious threat presented by Iran's nuclear program.' The Islamic Republic, which denies trying to build a nuclear bomb, scoffed at efforts to choke its oil exports, as Asia lines up to buy what Europe scorns. Some Iranians also renewed threats to stop Arab oil from leaving the Gulf and warned they might strike U.S. targets worldwide if Washington used force to break any Iranian blockade of a strategically vital shipping route." http://t.uani.com/ww8qIw
Bloomberg: "U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the European Union's agreement to ban oil imports from Iran and to freeze assets of the Iranian central bank are a 'strong step' to 'dramatically increase the pressure on Iran' and are consistent with steps the U.S. has taken. 'Taken in combination with the many other sanctions on Iran that continue to be implemented by the United States and the international community, this new, concerted pressure will sharpen the choice for Iran's leaders and increase their cost of defiance of basic international obligations,' Geithner and Clinton said in a joint statement today." http://t.uani.com/z1lstZ
Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "The U.N. nuclear watchdog Monday confirmed plans for a January 29-31 visit to Iran and said its main objective was to 'resolve all outstanding substantive issues,' referring to suspicions of military dimensions to the Iranian atomic energy program. A senior International Atomic Energy Agency team is expected to seek explanations during the talks in Tehran for intelligence information indicating that Iran has pursued research and development relevant to nuclear weapons, diplomats say. The IAEA mission will be led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, head of nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide, and will include Rafael Grossi, the assistant director general for policy." http://t.uani.com/yBedNO
AP: "The last time Iran's nuclear envoys held talks with the U.S. and other world powers, the negotiations limped along until a parting shot by the Islamic Republic: Its labs boosted the enrichment levels of uranium in reply to demands for a full-scale freeze. Since then, the standoff has only become tenser. The European Union on Monday joined the U.S. with new sanctions targeting Iran's critical oil exports. Authorities in Tehran fired back with another threat to block tankers in the Persian Gulf -- even while offering to restart international talks after a one-year gap. Yet one thing hasn't changed since the last round of meetings in January 2011. The chances of Iran agreeing to stop enriching uranium -- the core dispute between Tehran and its foes -- still appear slim." http://t.uani.com/ABROJf
Bloomberg: "China has hired at least two supertankers to ship oil from Iran as the U.S. and allies try to cut the Islamic Republic's oil income to pressure it over its nuclear program. The two supertankers were booked to carry about 2 million barrels of crude from Kharg Island to China, according to Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world's largest shipbroker. Two other ships that called at an Iranian oil terminal are heading for China, according to AISLive Ltd. ship- tracking data compiled by Bloomberg." http://t.uani.com/yc0PLU
Human Rights
DW: "An Iranian woman who won a 2005 blogging prize from Deutsche Welle was arrested earlier this month in Iran, as part of a recent crackdown against journalists and online activists. Dokouhaki became known for being one of Iran's earliest female bloggers, and her site, Zan-Nevesht (Woman Writer), often took on women's issues, although she has not worked as a journalist in recent years. Iran's supreme court has also confirmed last year's death sentence of Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian-Canadian web developer, who has been held since 2008. Mohammad Solimaninya, who founded a professional social networking site for Iranians, was also recently arrested at his home in Karaj, north of Tehran, on January 20. Marzieh Rasouli, a culture journalist who worked for some of the country's top reformist newspapers, was also taken into custody two days after Dokouhaki, on January 17. According to Reporters Without Borders, three other online journalists and writers were arrested on January 7." http://t.uani.com/zgLg6U
Foreign Affairs
NYT: "Iran's efforts to cultivate political support in Latin America at a time of rising international tension over its nuclear program appear to have encountered a significant obstacle: Brazil, the region's economic powerhouse. After President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran took a four-country tour of Latin America this month, during which he met with several outspoken critics of the United States but was notably not invited to stop in Brazil, one of his top advisers took a public swipe at Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, saying she had 'destroyed years of good relations' between the two nations." http://t.uani.com/zfCwAK
Opinion & Analysis
Chicago Tribune Editorial Board: "'EU' and 'bold action' don't often share the same sentence. But they did on Monday. The 27 nations of the European Union dealt a huge oil shock to Iran. They agreed to ban Iranian oil to stop its rogue nuclear program. The Europeans will immediately stop signing new contracts to buy Iranian oil. Countries with existing contracts may honor them until July 1. After that, Iran loses 18 percent of its oil export business ... or more. Some of Iran's other big oil customers - Japan and South Korea - also are scrambling to switch suppliers. Two more words you don't often see on these pages: Bravo, EU. The EU embargo promises to be a massive economic blow to a country already staggering from tightening U.S. and European sanctions. Iran's currency has plummeted by half against the dollar since December. Inflation rages at more than 20 percent a month. All this, before the gathering embargo. Still, the Obama administration has been reluctant to aggressively back the European ban, fearing a huge spike in oil prices and a worldwide economic upheaval in the heart of the presidential campaign. That's a risk, yes, even though Saudi Arabia has promised to cushion any oil shock by boosting production. We could suffer $6-a-gallon gasoline. Or not. World oil prices climbed on Monday, but the market didn't hyperventilate, even as a top Iranian leader repeated a threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for 20 percent of the world's oil. Last month, President Barack Obama signed a law aimed at draping a giant 'closed for business' sign on Iran's central bank. That bill passed the U.S. Senate 100-0. That is not a misprint. That's a show of resolve from Democrats and Republicans to stop Iran's nuclear program. 'We do mean to close down the central bank of Iran,' a U.S. official recently told The New York Times. That's a refreshingly blunt statement from an administration too often leading from behind on Iran. We hope the president follows through... Obama needs to make economic sanctions stick - and sting. Financial chaos is a risk with strong sanctions. But the greater risk is allowing Iran to waltz into the nuclear club and set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East." http://t.uani.com/xOgvDH
Irwin Cotler in The National Post: "Iran's Supreme Court has now confirmed the death sentence of Iranian-born web programmer Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian permanent resident. Malekpour was convicted of 'crimes against Islam' and 'spreading corruption on Earth' - which have emerged as classic trumped-up charges in the Iranian pattern of the criminalization of innocence. For supposedly creating pornography websites in Iran, Malekpour is set to receive the death penalty. Malekpour maintains his innocence, insisting that image-uploading software he developed as a web programmer was used by an illicit site without his knowledge or consent. The international community spoke out against his death sentence when it was first handed down, and Iran moved to suspend it; however, with the escalation of rhetoric between the West and Iran -and the case disappearing from the radar screen - Malekpour is back on death row. When he was first arbitrarily arrested in 2008 - while visiting his ailing father in Iran - Malekpour was taken to the notorious Evin prison in Iran, where he spent a year in brutal solitary confinement without charge, without access to legal representation or visitation. He subsequently 'confessed' to his 'crimes' on state television, a not unknown form of show trial. Writing from prison, Malekpour says his initial confession to the charge had been 'extracted under pressure, physical and psychological torture' as well as threats. He recounted in particular an instance when 'interrogators stripped me while I was blindfolded and threatened to rape me with a bottle of water.' He described his detention in similarly horrific terms: 'While I remained blindfolded and handcuffed, several individuals armed with cables, batons, and their fists struck and punched me. At times, they would flog my head and neck.' It should be known that Iran has been on an execution binge. This past December, Amnesty International reported on the escalation of Iranian executions, even by wonton Iranian standards. Six hundred people were put to death between the beginning of 2011 and November alone. While many of these executions were for alleged drug-related crimes, this category, too, recently has become a catch-all for the suppression of dissidents. According to Malekpour's family, the death sentence was reinstated under pressure from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has emerged as the epicentre of Iran's four-fold threat to human rights, peace and international security: The IRGC plays a central role in Iran's domestic repression, international terrorism, incitement to genocide, and nuclear proliferation. Further, as the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center at Yale University notes, the IRGC is responsible for the murder of political dissidents both inside and outside of Iran. This case should serve as the wake-up call that the Canadian needs to sanction the IRGC and list it as a terrorist entity." http://t.uani.com/wGnoJN
Jeffrey Goldberg in Bloomberg: "One of the arguments often made in favor of bombing Iran to cripple its nuclear program is this: The mullahs in Tehran are madmen who believe it is their consecrated duty to destroy the perfidious Zionist entity (which is to say, Israel) and so are building nuclear weapons to launch at Tel Aviv at the first favorable moment. It's beyond a doubt that the Iranian regime would like to bring about the destruction of Israel. However, the mullahs are also cynics and men determined, more than anything, to maintain their hold on absolute power. Which is why it's unlikely that they would immediately use their new weapons against Israel. An outright attack on Israel - - a country possessing as many as 200 nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems -- would lead to the obliteration of Tehran, the deaths of millions, and the destruction of Iran's military and industrial capabilities. The mullahs know this. But here's the problem: It may not matter. The threat of a deliberate nuclear attack pales in comparison with the chance that a nuclear-armed Iran could accidentally trigger a cataclysmic exchange with Israel. The experts who study this depressing issue seem to agree that a Middle East in which Iran has four or five nuclear weapons would be dangerously unstable and prone to warp-speed escalation. Here's one possible scenario for the not-so-distant future: Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese proxy, launches a cross-border attack into Israel, or kills a sizable number of Israeli civilians with conventional rockets. Israel responds by invading southern Lebanon, and promises, as it has in the past, to destroy Hezbollah. Iran, coming to the defense of its proxy, warns Israel to cease hostilities, and leaves open the question of what it will do if Israel refuses to heed its demand." http://t.uani.com/ymgiZr
Javad Heydarian in The Diplomat: "With the United States formally ending its military operations in Iraq, many are beginning to turn their eye to Iran's deep influence in the country. And, in light of Tehran's growing tensions with the West over its nuclear program, Tehran's maneuvers in Iraq have tremendous implications. Tehran has arguably been among the biggest beneficiaries, albeit inadvertently, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Not only has the United States neutralized Iran's historical nemesis, namely the Baathist Sunni regime in Baghdad, but it also facilitated the commencement of a new chapter in Tehran's bilateral relations with Iraq. Today, Iran enjoys a strong and amicable partnership with its neighbor, and has cultivated a growing trade and investment relationship with Baghdad. Iraq is already among Iran's biggest economic partners, serving as the country's second largest non-oil export market. Bilateral trade has the potential to grow exponentially in the coming years. Iranian companies, meanwhile, are spread across Iraq, aggressively courting consumers. Over time, they've successfully increased their market shares in Iraq's booming economy, which has benefited from steady increases in the country's oil revenues. In the aftermath of the 2007 U.S. military surge, there was a noticeable improvement in Iraq's overall security. Major oilfields are either back online or are expected to be relatively soon. Iranian products account for a significant chunk of Iraq's imports, but Iran's presence in Iraq is most pronounced through growing commodity exports and the numerous Iranian pilgrims who regularly visit holy shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Iranian commodities, from vegetables to electronic products, construction materials, machinery, and automobiles, have flooded Iraqi markets. Iran has also been active in health, education, and major infrastructural projects in Iraq. The relationship is friendly and comprehensive. Prior to the fall of Saddam Husain, Iran had to contend with decades of hostile, expansionist pan-Arabist ideology, espoused by Sunni-dominated Iraq. Both the monarchical and revolutionary Iran had to grapple with a hostile Arab neighbor to the west. While the pro-American Shah of Iran was bent on reining in the intransigence of Soviet-backed Baghdad - a state which engaged in territorial disputes and sponsored separatist movements within Southern Iran - a nascent post-revolutionary Iran greatly suffered as a result of the 1980 Iraqi invasion." http://t.uani.com/wztXcX |
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