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AFP: "Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in about a year and create the means for delivery in a further two to three years, the US defense chief said Sunday, reiterating President Barack Obama's determination to halt the effort. 'The United States -- and the president's made this clear -- does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,' Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the CBS program '60 Minutes.' 'That's a red line for us. And it's a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here.' Panetta maintained that US officials 'will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it' if Washington receives intelligence that Iran is proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon. Asked if that meant military action, he said: 'There are no options that are off the table.'" http://t.uani.com/A8VQhL
WSJ: "Pentagon war planners have concluded that their largest conventional bomb isn't yet capable of destroying Iran's most heavily fortified underground facilities, and are stepping up efforts to make it more powerful, according to U.S. officials briefed on the plan. The 30,000-pound 'bunker-buster' bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, wouldn't be capable of destroying some of Iran's facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them. Doubts about the MOP's effectiveness prompted the Pentagon this month to secretly submit a request to Congress for funding to enhance the bomb's ability to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding, the officials said." http://t.uani.com/w3Dvi7
AP: "Iran's foreign minister expressed optimism Sunday that a visit by U.N. inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities would produce an understanding, despite world concerns that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. The three-day inspection tour by the International Atomic Energy Agency team comes during rising tension. The West is imposing new sanctions to try to force Iran to slow or halt its nuclear program, and Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil passage, in retaliation. Visiting Ethiopia, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi appeared to be trying to defuse the crisis. 'We are very optimistic about the mission and the outcome' of the IAEA mission, Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying by Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency. 'We've always tried to put transparency as a principle in our cooperation with IAEA,' Mr. Salehi said. 'During this visit, the delegation has questions and the necessary answers will be given.'" http://t.uani.com/A2WGXv
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AP: "Iran's parliament has postponed a vote on a bill requiring the government to immediately halt crude oil sales to Europe, an Iranian lawmaker said Sunday. The ban would be a response to the EU's decision to stop importing Iranian oil and freeze assets of its central bank... Lawmaker Ali Adiani Rad is quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying lawmakers need experts' views before they vote on the ban. Because of the significance of the step, Rad was quoted as saying, 'Lawmakers proposing the bill believe the legislation should be put on agenda after strong expert evaluation is obtained.' Rad said no date has been set for a vote." http://t.uani.com/AbTmds
Bloomberg: "International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who arrived in Tehran yesterday to clarify aspects of Iran's nuclear program may extend their stay, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, according to IRNA. The delegation planned 'a three-day mission, but their stay can be extended if they wish,' Salehi said in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported today." http://t.uani.com/wPOvI3
WSJ: "The U.S. Treasury Department's point man on terrorist financing will travel to Europe next week to coordinate the implementation of new economic sanctions against Iran. David S. Cohen, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, will head to the U.K., Switzerland and Germany, for a four-day trip starting Monday aimed at 'increasing pressure on the Iranian Regime,' according a Treasury Department news release. The trip comes as increased sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union clamp down on Tehran's ability to sell its oil." http://t.uani.com/xBfJCG
AFP: "The head of the UN's atomic watchdog has urged Iran to cooperate with a team of inspectors heading to Tehran, after a recent damning report on the Iranian nuclear programme. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told AFP that the organisation's previous efforts to check Iran's claim its nuclear programme has only peaceful purposes had been hampered by 'a lack of cooperation'. 'We hope they will take a constructive approach. We hope that there will be substantial cooperation,' Amano said on Friday. An IAEA report in November highlighted a range of areas which had raised suspicions that Iran was pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, despite its repeated denials. It detailed 12 suspicious areas such as testing explosives in a steel container at a military base and studies on Shahab-3 ballistic missile warheads. Amano said it was too early to say definitively that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. But he added: 'We have information that indicates that Iran has engaged in activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.' 'We are requesting that Iran clarifies the situation. We proposed to make a mission and they agreed to accept the mission.'" http://t.uani.com/yC0fKl
AFP: "UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged Tehran to halt its nuclear programme and to resume talks with Western powers, saying that the onus is on Iran to prove its good intentions... 'Iran should comply with the relevant Security Council resolutions. They have to prove themselves, that their nuclear development programme is genuinely for peaceful purposes which they have not done yet,' Ban said. 'The onus is on the Iranian side,' added the UN secretary general." http://t.uani.com/wuBR73
Human Rights
AFP: "Iranian media on Sunday confirmed an Iranian man with Canadian residency has had a death sentence against him reinstated by the supreme court on charges he operated a pornographic website. 'The death sentence for Saeed Malekpour, in charge of a pornographic website, has been upheld in the Supreme Court,' Fars news agency said, without giving a source for its information. It said the ruling was reinstated after unspecified prosecution 'deficiencies' had been removed from Malekpour's case. The report confirms information from foreign lawyers connected to the case." http://t.uani.com/zXv4pI
Foreign Affairs
The Times: "Syria is deploying large numbers of Hezbollah and Iranian snipers as 'military consultants' to murder anti-regime protesters, a senior government defector has told The Times. The salaries of the marksmen are paid through a slush fund replenished with US dollars flown in from Iran, according to Mahmoud Haj Hamad, who was the treasury's top auditor at the Defence Ministry until he fled Syria last month. The same fund is used to pay the Shabiha, the gangs of thugs who have joined the state security services in torturing and killing protesters. Mr Hamad, appalled at the destruction of cities by the armed forces, fled Syria with his family last month. His account is the first by a senior insider to confirm the presence of foreign forces in Syria to help to prop up the regime." http://t.uani.com/w2G6pV
AFP: "The opposition Syrian National Council on Saturday accused Iran of 'participation' in the bloody crackdown on protests in Syria and called on Tehran to stop supporting the Damascus regime. 'The Council condemns the participation of the Iranian regime in killing Syrians who are demanding freedom and urges it to stop taking part in quelling the Syrian revolution, in order to protect the relations between the two people,' Samir Neshar, a member of the SNC's executive committee, said at a news conference in Istanbul. The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed Friday to have captured five Iranian military officers in the restive city of Homs and urged Tehran to 'immediately' withdraw any additional troops it may have in Syria. In a statement, the FSA said the Iranians captured 'were working under the orders of the intelligence services of the Syrian air force' and had no valid papers to reside or work in Syria." http://t.uani.com/zk7RM6
Reuters: "Iran called on staunch ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday to hold free elections and allow multiple political parties to operate in the country, but said he must be given time to implement these reforms. Iran had at first wholeheartedly supported Assad's hardline stance against the 10 months of popular protests that have called for an end to his leadership. It has since tempered its rhetoric as the uprising has dragged on and international pressure has risen, although it condemns what it calls foreign interference in Syrian affairs." http://t.uani.com/zXtZIC
Opinion & Analysis
Seth Jones in Foreign Affairs: "Virtually unnoticed, since late 2001, Iran has held some of al Qaeda's most senior leaders. Several of these operatives, such as Yasin al-Suri, an al Qaeda facilitator, have moved recruits and money from the Middle East to central al Qaeda in Pakistan. Others, such as Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian that served as head of al Qaeda's security committee, and Abu Muhammad al-Masri, one of the masterminds of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, have provided strategic and operational assistance to central al Qaeda. The Iranian government has held most of them under house arrest, limited their freedom of movement, and closely monitored their activities. Yet the organization's presence in Iran means that, contrary to optimistic assessments that have become the norm in Washington, al Qaeda's demise is not imminent. Perhaps more disturbing, Iran appears willing to expand its limited relationship with al Qaeda. Just as with its other surrogate, Hezbollah, the country could turn to al Qaeda to mount a retaliation to any U.S. or Israeli attack. To be sure, the organization is no Iranian puppet. And the two have sometimes been antagonistic, as illustrated by al Qaeda in Iraq's recent attacks against Shias. But both share a hatred of the United States. U.S. policymakers should think twice about provoking a closer relationship between them and should draw greater public attention to Iran's limited, but still unacceptable, cooperation with al Qaeda. Evidence of the Iranian-al Qaeda partnership abounds -- and much of it is public. This past year, I culled through hundreds of documents from the Harmony database at West Point; perused hundreds more open-source and declassified documents, such as the U.S. Department of Treasury's sanctions against al Qaeda leaders in Iran; and interviewed government officials from the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Through that research, the history of al Qaeda in Iran emerges as follows: over the past several years, al Qaeda has taken a beating in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa. In particular, an ongoing campaign of drone strikes has weakened -- although not eliminated -- al Qaeda's leadership cadre in Pakistan. But the group's outpost in Iran has remained almost untouched for the past decade. In late 2001, as the Taliban regime collapsed, most al Qaeda operatives fled Afghanistan. Many of the leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy and future successor, headed for Pakistan. But some did not, choosing instead to go west. And Iran was apparently more than willing to accept them. Around October 2001, the government dispatched a delegation to Afghanistan to guarantee the safe travel of operatives and their families to Iran." http://t.uani.com/x7gau7
Roger Noriega in Commentary: "In early January, Iran caught the world's attention by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz and brandish shore-to-sea cruise missiles in what was to be a 10-day naval exercise. That same week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a five-nation trip through Latin America to advance his country's influence and operational capabilities on the doorstep of the United States. It would take a very generous view of the Islamic Republic to dismiss these simultaneous events as mere coincidence. Tehran makes no secret of its determination to carry its asymmetrical warfare to the Western Hemisphere. Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi was in Bolivia in May 2011 when he promised a 'tough and crushing response' to any U.S. offensive against Iran. Such provocations are part of what should be understood as Iran's five-year push into the Americas. The Obama administration and career U.S. diplomats have been slow to recognize the threat posed by this creeping advance. Only after several Republican presidential candidates highlighted the problem in a debate on November 22 sponsored in part by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., did President Obama say, '[W]e take Iranian activities, including in Venezuela, very seriously, and we will continue to monitor them closely.' Unfortunately, merely monitoring Iran's foray into Latin America is not enough. The United States must find its way toward adopting new forward-leaning policies that will frustrate Tehran's plans to threaten U.S. security and interests close to home. In the last five years, Iran has begun to take full advantage of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez's unprecedented hospitality in the Americas. Chávez's petro-diplomacy has enabled Ahmadinejad to cultivate partnerships with anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia as well. Today, a shadowy network of commercial and industrial enterprises in several countries affords Iran a physical presence in proximity to the borders of its greatest foe. It is increasingly clear that Iran intends to use safe havens in these countries to deploy conventional and unconventional weaponry that pose a direct threat to U.S. territory, strategic waterways, and American allies. Bracing for a potential showdown over its illicit nuclear program and emboldened by Washington's inattention to its activities in Latin America, Iran is looking, logically, for some strategic advantage by concocting a military threat near U.S. shores. And, as a notorious promoter of international terrorism, it is working that angle. Iran is exploiting its intimate ties with Venezuelan operatives as well as its Quds Force agents' connections to a decades-old network in the region to proselytize, recruit, and train radicalized youth from Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and beyond. We now know that we underestimate Tehran's audacity at our own peril." http://t.uani.com/zgDatS |
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