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WSJ: "U.S. officials have uncovered an effort by Iran to help Syria mask its oil exports and evade an American and European embargo, in a potent new sign of Tehran's campaign to bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as his regime cracks down on public opposition. American officials investigating the Iranian operation said it is designed to quietly ship Syrian crude oil to Iran, where it can be sold on the international market, with revenue going back to Damascus. Transit records document one such shipment, involving more than 91,000 metric tons of crude, which took place last month. 'The oil shipment to Iran was designed to evade the sanctions that have been imposed on Syria,' said a senior U.S. Treasury Department official familiar with the case." http://t.uani.com/xpFLC9
Reuters: "European Union governments have agreed in principle to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank alongside a planned embargo on the OPEC producer's crude oil, but have yet to agree how to protect non-oil trade from sanctions, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. EU envoys have stepped up talks in recent days to prepare a package of new sanctions against Tehran, with the aim of adopting them at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. They have already agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian crude to the EU, though are still discussing details such as the when the embargo will start and how it will be implemented. 'On the central bank, things have been moving in the right direction in the last hours,' one EU diplomat said on Wednesday. 'There is now a wide agreement on the principle. Discussions continue on the details.'" http://t.uani.com/y6DYGW
AFP: "A high-level IAEA delegation visiting Iran January 29-31 aims to verify if Tehran's nuclear programme has a military dimension, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said in an interview to be published Thursday. 'We wish to simply verify all that has a military dimension... and I simply want Iran to cooperate,' Yukiya Amano told Financial Times Deutschland. Iran denies Western accusations of a military nuclear drive, saying its programme is geared toward peaceful ends. Amano also rebuffed suggestions from Tehran that the IAEA was in part behind the murder of a top Iranian nuclear scientist on January 11." http://t.uani.com/zAS6A1
Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "The Obama administration, still grappling with how to punish a nuclear-ambitious Iran, is focusing on making countries cut purchases of Iranian oil, rather than allowing them to avoid U.S. sanctions simply by winning price cuts. The White House intends to play it tough on implementing new Iran sanctions, and officials said they will not waive them on national-security grounds. But they also said the administration was so far getting 'enough indications' of reduced imports." http://t.uani.com/yztkvu
AFP: "Iran's currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar on Wednesday, the ISNA news agency reported, based on rates in blackmarket trading that the government has tried to ban. The rial's plunge, to 18,000 to the dollar, comes ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting next Monday that is expected to add further sanctions against Iran's economy. The Tehran government has tried to shore up the value of the rial in recent weeks by imposing a lower rate in banks and currency exchange bureaux, and banning transactions outside of those outlets. But many exchange bureaux have refused to buy or sell dollars at the imposed rate, and blackmarket dealers have managed to continue to do business despite the presence of police deployed to enforce the ban, according to witnesses in the centre of Tehran." http://t.uani.com/Anq7Nr
AP: "The U.S. military's top officer headed to Israel on Thursday at a time of mounting international anxiety over Iran's nuclear intentions and the possibility that the Jewish state might take military action to keep Tehran from building bombs... A former Israeli military intelligence chief stoked the growing jitters by contending Iran already has all the components to build a nuclear bomb. 'If the Iranians get together tonight and decide to secretly develop a bomb, then they have all the resources and components to do so,' Amos Yadlin was quoted Thursday as telling the Maariv daily. It was not clear whether Yadlin, who retired in November 2010, was referring to the mechanical elements of a bomb, or implying the Iranians have sufficient weapons-grade uranium, a critical ingredient for bombmaking." http://t.uani.com/zVj8QF
AP: "The U.S. military is now 'fully prepared' to deal with any Iranian effort to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital Persian Gulf avenue for international oil shipments, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday. At a Pentagon news conference, Panetta was asked whether, in light of Iran's threat to close the strait in retaliation for stronger international economic sanctions, Washington is adjusting U.S. forces in the region. 'We are not making any special steps at this point in order to deal with the situation,' Panetta replied. 'Why? Because, frankly, we are fully prepared to deal with that situation now.'" http://t.uani.com/zjpMOK
Reuters: "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended his country's extensive oil trade with Iran against Western sanctions pressure in comments published on Thursday, and yet also warned Tehran against any effort to acquire nuclear weapons. Wen spoke on Wednesday at the end of a six-day visit to the Middle East, against a backdrop of tensions over possible U.S. sanctions on nations that do energy trade with Iran, which Western powers say is focused on developing nuclear weapons... 'China adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons,' said Wen, and he warned against potential confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is usually much more coy in public about saying Iran could want nuclear arms." http://t.uani.com/zygLBf
Korea Times: "Korea's imports of Iranian oil nosedived in December, hitting a 14-month low, as the U.S. government stepped up its imposition of sanctions to weaken Tehran economically and derail its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. According to data from the Korea Customs Service (KCS), Korean imports of Iranian crude were measured at 639,000 tons in December, a 46.5 percent decline from 1.19 million tons brought in the preceding month. The volume of Iranian oil purchased last month also represented nearly a 17 percent annual drop and marked the lowest level since October 2010, when Korea imported 528,000 tons... Among the nation's four oil refiners, SK Innovation and Hyundai Oilbank import about 10 and 20 percent of their crude oil requirements respectively from Iran." http://t.uani.com/A1OPCa
Reuters: "Japan is likely to cut Iranian crude purchases in about three months, the head of an industry body said on Thursday, a reassuring message for U.S. officials touring Asia to muster support for sanctions aimed at starving Iran of oil revenue. The remarks by Akihiko Tembo, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ), could also help clear up some doubts about Japan's response to the sanctions after conflicting comments by policymakers. Last week the prime minister had distanced himself from a pledge by the finance minister to reduce Iran's crude imports." http://t.uani.com/zLUfo6
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Iran's foreign minister warned Arab neighbors on Thursday not to put themselves in a 'dangerous position' by aligning themselves too closely with the United States in the escalating dispute over Tehran's nuclear activity... 'We want peace and tranquility in the region. But some of the countries in our region, they want to direct other countries 12,000 miles away from this region,' Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in English during a visit to Turkey. The remark was an apparent reference to the alliance of Iran's Arab neighbors with Washington, which maintains a big naval force in the Gulf and says it will keep the waterway open. 'I am calling to all countries in the region, please don't let yourselves be dragged into a dangerous position,' Salehi told Turkey's NTV broadcaster." http://t.uani.com/x8qj8w
Reuters: "Iranian officials contacted Syria's Muslim Brotherhood to try to mediate a political solution to a 10-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but their efforts were rebuffed, a senior Brotherhood member said on Wednesday. The unrest in Syria is threatening to slide into civil war as Assad's forces try to crush a protest movement. In recent months, armed rebels backing the protesters have brought the fight increasingly to security forces. A senior Muslim Brotherhood member, Melhem al-Droubi, told Reuters that the group had seen no details of the Iranian offer made on December 20 but that it would not deal with Tehran unless it revoked its support for Assad." http://t.uani.com/zHEggS
Opinion & Analysis
David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker and Andrew Ortendahl in ISIS: "In the discussion regarding the nature of the Iranian nuclear program, some have sought to downplay Iran's nuclear progress by emphasizing that Iran has not yet 'made the decision to build a nuclear weapon.' While it is true and important that there are no indications that Iran has made a decision to actually construct a nuclear weapon, such a statement does not accurately portray the real concern about Iran's nuclear program and progress. In fact, Iran has already made a series of important decisions that would give it the ability to quickly make nuclear weapons. In doing so, it has pursued a strategy of nuclear hedging: it has put together a gas centrifuge program to provide the necessary fuel for a weapon, worked on developing a nuclear weaponization capability, and developed a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, all under ostensibly civilian purposes or great secrecy. The international community should not take ease in the absence of this final decision since Iran has already overcome many obstacles on the path to finally acquiring nuclear weapons. Whether or not Iran will ultimately build nuclear weapons depends greatly on what is done now. Given Iran's steady, albeit slow progress, downplaying the threat can end up serving to undermine the development of non-military methods to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. Iran's strategy of 'nuclear hedging,' or developing the capability to rapidly build nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, is laid out in the evidence of work on nuclear weaponization, particularly efforts to make specific nuclear components, contained in the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards report on Iran. The intent of such hedging is very different than the latent nuclear weapons capabilities possessed by states such as Japan or Germany and is inimical to the objectives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If Iran's ability to quickly build nuclear weapons increases during the next few years, this will only shorten the period of time between taking a decision to build a bomb and constructing one. The lengths Iran has gone to both conceal major elements of its enrichment program, such as the originally undeclared Natanz, Kalaye Electric, and Fordow enrichment facilities, and establish controversial capabilities, such as its 19.75 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) production program, have raised concerns that its hedging strategy may be aimed at eventual highly enriched uranium production." http://t.uani.com/Am1vrT
Patrick Clawson in WINEP: "Victory in war means accomplishing one's political objectives, and some Iranian leaders seem to believe they could advance four of their main goals through armed conflict with the United States: namely, resisting 'global arrogance,' creating disorder in the oil markets, justifying nuclear breakout, and rallying the nation. If Iran were to make significant progress toward these objectives via hostilities against American forces, some in Tehran might conclude that they had won. More likely, however, the optimistic expectations of these overly confident, risktaking Iranian hardliners would not be realized, and war could turn out badly for the regime. Washington can do much to shape the perceptions of both Iranian leaders and world opinion regarding the risks Iran would face from such a conflict. The Iranian doctrine of resistance assigns primary importance to psychological effects. In assuming that victory is achieved by demoralizing the enemy, it emphasizes the moral and spiritual dimensions of war over the physical and technological. From this viewpoint, how an action appears is the key test of its success. This fits well with a twenty-four-hour-news world in which image often matters more than reality. The United States presents itself as, and is seen to be, a great military power. Standing up to U.S. forces could therefore be a great propaganda coup for Tehran. Consider that the Iranian navy still regards its 1988 confrontation with the United States -- sparked by the mining of a U.S. warship -- as a great victory that it studies closely, despite the sinking of several Iranian vessels. A new confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby Persian Gulf waters might play to Iran's greatest naval strength and the U.S. Navy's greatest weakness -- though of course even at its strongest, Iran's navy is still much weaker than the U.S. Navy at its weakest. Iran has invested heavily to create a multilayered system for sinking ships: mines, missiles from fast craft, missiles from bunkers hidden in the hills along the strait, and submarines. In the most realistic U.S. Navy simulation of what war with Iran might be like -- the $250 million Millennium Challenge exercise conducted in 2002 -- a similar array of forces sank sixteen American ships and might have done even more damage had the Navy not stopped the game to change the rules. If Iran got lucky and sank a U.S. warship during an actual conflict, television viewers around the world might conclude that the Navy had lost the war no matter what happened next, since the destruction of a U.S. ship could define the conflict's public image. The Navy has not lost a ship since 1968, and its leaders rarely if ever mention the possibility that it might lose one in any war, much less one with Iran. Washington would therefore be prudent to shape expectations, frequently pointing out that while Iran might get in a few blows during a conflict, the more relevant measure of success would be whose forces are left standing at the end of the day, which would most assuredly be the U.S. military." http://t.uani.com/xVI87N
Jamie Fly & Gary Schmitt in Foreign Affairs: "It has been the policy of U.S. presidents over the last three decades to state that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. Yet as Iran moves closer to achieving that goal, political leaders, including key Obama administration officials such as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, have begun to waver. They now speak more frequently about the potentially disastrous consequences of an Israeli or U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear program than about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. Matthew Kroenig thus deserves credit for advancing the argument that the repercussions of a military attack on Iran's nuclear program are a worthwhile risk, given the far more dangerous consequences of Iran getting the bomb ('Time to Attack Iran,' January/February 2012). There are, however, problems with Kroenig's strategy for avoiding the nightmare scenario. Namely, a limited military strike would only be a temporary fix, and it could actually do the opposite of what it intends -- drive the program further underground and allow Iran to retain the ability to threaten the United States and its allies. If the United States seriously considers military action, it would be better to plan an operation that not only strikes the nuclear program but aims to destabilize the regime, potentially resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis once and for all. Kroenig bases his argument on Israel's successful limited strikes against Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 and against Syria's Al Kibar reactor in 2007. Yet the Iranian nuclear program of 2012 is not comparable to either of those cases, which were embryonic and focused on building reactors with limited auxiliary facilities. Once those reactors were destroyed, it was difficult for either country to reconstitute their efforts immediately. Even so, Saddam Hussein did eventually return to the nuclear weapons business. After the Osirak strike, he drove the Iraqi program further underground and diversified it, exploring multiple pathways to the bomb. By 1991, Iraq was close to developing a nuclear weapons capability -- a fact only discovered after the Gulf War. In contrast, Iran has had years to expand its program and already boasts several large reactors and enrichment facilities, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspects, and a host of associated research programs and facilities at which equipment to enrich uranium is studied, manufactured, and assembled. Although the declared facilities tend to be isolated in secure compounds or on military installations, many of the subsidiary facilities are in residential urban neighborhoods. Thus, Kroenig is wrong when he writes that an attack on Iran's nuclear program 'could reduce the collateral damage... by striking at night or simply leaving those less important plants off its target list.' If the United States decides not to target associated sites for humanitarian reasons, Iran could still have a nuclear future." http://t.uani.com/A7VJfk |
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