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AP: "A recent visit by the commander of Iran's elite Quds force to Damascus is the strongest sign yet that Iran is supplying weapons to aid Bashar Assad's crackdown on the Syrian people, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday. While the U.S. has long believed Iran is helping drive the deadly crackdown on dissent in Syria, the official says the visit by Quds Force Commander Ghassem Soleimani provides a concrete example of direct high-level cooperation between Iran and Syria. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to speak publicly." http://t.uani.com/xZFiSp
WSJ: "Iran warned Saudi Arabia against delivering additional oil to world markets to compensate for a drop in Iranian oil exports if they are hit by sanctions, as the U.S. continued to have mixed success in convincing Iran's major oil customers to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil. The warning from Tehran came a day after Saudi Arabia's oil minister publicly pledged to boost the kingdom's production by as much as 2.7 million barrels a day, more than Iran exports, if there was market demand for more oil. Though Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi didn't mention Iran, the pledge came as the West is ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program by targeting its exports." http://t.uani.com/AcDdtR
Fox News Latino: "JLO from the block and her FIAT endorsement are once again causing controversy. And it sure isn't pretty. This time, a foreign policy advocacy group dedicated to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran, 'United Against Nuclear Iran' (UANI) is urging Jennifer Lopez to end her deal with FIAT because they claim the Italian car company continues to do business with Iran. 'We've contacted FIAT several times about their business in Iran,' Nathan Carleton, UANI's Communications Director told FOX News Latino. 'Giving the high profile endorsement contract that Ms. Lopez has with FIAT we've decided to contact her and seek her help in pressuring FIAT to end their business in Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/xmFl6O
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AFP: "A high-level IAEA delegation is to visit Iran January 29-31 to discuss issues it has over Tehran's nuclear program, Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog said Tuesday according to the Fars news agency. The delegation, to be led by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts, will 'negotiate and discuss questions raised by the IAEA,' Ali Ashgar Soltanieh was quoted as saying. Diplomats in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is headquartered, had already said Nackaerts and the agency's number two, Rafael Grossi, were going to visit Iran late this month. They had spoken of a visit starting around January 28 and lasting into the first few days of February. Soltanieh said the three-day visit finally agreed was 'a new sign of the transparency in Iran's nuclear program and activities and in our interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency.'" http://t.uani.com/zgdBCG
NYT: "Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel said on Wednesday that any decision on attacking Iran because of its nuclear program was 'very far off,' seeking to lower the tone of increasingly nervous discourse as powers maneuver in advance of European moves to intensify sanctions against Tehran. At the same time, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia renewed his country's aversion to both sanctions and military threats against Tehran, while Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi of Iran said his country was ready to resume negotiations with the outside powers trying to broker a settlement - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany." http://t.uani.com/zntYp8
WSJ: "Japan's foreign minister urged the U.S. Wednesday to get China and India to join a ban of oil imports from Iran to make sanctions against the Middle Eastern country effective. 'Without cooperation within the world community, there's no way to carry out effective sanctions,' Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba told reporters in a press conference, noting that the U.S. should try to talk more with India and China as they are big buyers of Iranian crude... India and China have said they will keep buying Iranian crude oil, despite the call by the U.S. to isolate the country to persuade it to give up its suspected efforts to develop nuclear arms." http://t.uani.com/zVNS94
Bloomberg: "India continues to buy oil from Iran amid increasing international pressure on Asian buyers to cut supplies from the world's fourth-biggest producer, according to Oil Minister S. Jaipal Reddy. 'But we have to be prepared for all eventualities,' Reddy said in New Delhi today. India opposes sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation from anyone other than the United Nations, Ranjan Mathai, India's foreign secretary, told reporters in New Delhi yesterday. Indian buyers are struggling to find lenders willing to handle payments to their second-biggest crude supplier because of international sanctions aimed at Iran's nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/xB6FOs
Bloomberg: "France is pushing for faster enforcement of the European Union's proposed ban on oil imports from, two officials with knowledge of the matter said. France wants the embargo to be delayed by no more than three months to allow nations including Greece, Italy and Spain to find alternative supplies, according to a French government official, who declined to be identified, citing state rules. While France is seeking a shorter exemption for existing crude purchase contracts, a six-month delay favored by more EU nations remains the more likely compromise, said the second person, an EU diplomat, who also asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential. Both officials spoke yesterday." http://t.uani.com/wsHnTZ
Human Rights
Toronto Star: "Hope is fading for Richmond Hill's Saeed Malekpour, who has lost his final appeal against a death sentence in Iran. 'The branch of the Supreme Court responsible for (his) case announced to one of his lawyers that the court reached the decision to have the death sentence carried out,' says Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, a Toronto-based human rights activist. 'Saeed Malekpour is in imminent danger of execution.' Malekpour, a 35-year-old permanent resident of Canada, was awaiting citizenship when he was arrested. 'Canada condemns Iran's reported decision to execute Mr. Malekpour,' said a statement issued Tuesday by Foreign Minister John Baird's office." http://t.uani.com/zfZ4Ka
Opinion & Analysis
David Ignatius in WashPost: "The squeeze is already beginning on Iran's oil exports - and guess which nation quietly reduced its purchases from Tehran this month. Why, that would be China, Iran's supposed protector. The Chinese cut their imports from Iran roughly in half for January, trimming 285,000 barrels per day from their average last year of about 550,000 barrels per day, according to Nat Kern, the publisher of Foreign Reports, a respected industry newsletter. Iran's reduced sales to its biggest oil customer resulted from a dispute over payment terms, Kern explains. But it's an early sign of what may be significant reductions in Iranian exports to Europe and Asia, as buyers there hedge against the likelihood of tighter sanctions. Here's how Kern and other oil industry analysts add up the potential dents in Iran's exports, which were 2.2 million barrels a day last year. First, U.S. allies are considering sanctions: Europe has agreed on an embargo that by year's end could cut about 450,000 daily barrels; Japan is talking about cutting 100,000 barrels; South Korean officials have discussed a reduction of 40,000 barrels. Even nonaligned countries are getting nervous about Iran's reliability: Indian refineries, for example, bought extra oil from Saudi Arabia in January 'just in case.' The oil-market action shows how pressure by the United States and its allies is affecting the Iranian economy. Analysts reckon that, even if sanctions are only partly successful, Iran is likely to lose about 20 percent of its oil export volume and 25 percent of its revenues. For an economy that is already weak, that loss of revenue will be painful. What's driving this new squeeze is legislation signed Dec. 31 by President Obama, which authorizes him to ban dealings with the Iranian central bank." http://t.uani.com/yL9B40
Michael Weiss in The Daily Telegraph: "According to Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, a group of armed Hamas fighters 'brutally attacked' Shi'ite worshippers in the Gaza Strip last Friday, in part of a crackdown on Shi'ite groups that was sparked 'by Hamas' fear of growing Iranian influence in Gaza.' This is what happens with the Ayatollah stops paying the bills: up until a few months ago, 'Iranian influence; was the sole reason for Hamas' existence. The two men most responsible in the last decade for ensuring that the Palestinian party of jihad was kept thoroughly flush with arms and cash were Qassam Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Mouhsen Hussein Azahi, Iran's intelligence minister. Since its 2007 seizure of Gaza, Hamas has been on the receiving end of Persian largesse that includes 120mm Grad rockets, Raa'd anti-tank missiles (Iranian knock-offs of the Russian-made Sagger variety), explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) which can cut through eight inches of steels, and the tech savvy to construct and place a host of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Hamas operatives used to spend anywhere between a month and six months training in Iranian camps learning how to fire guns, as well as drinking deep of the Khomeinist-flavoured ideology - without quite making the full leap to Shia Islam. So strong was the nexus between the Sunni terrorist organisation and the Shi'ite theocracy that, a senior agent of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades - the military wing of Hamas - told The Sunday Times in March 2008 that 'Anything [the Iranians] think will be useful, our guys there email it to us right away.' Also, there was money. When Hamas' administrative head in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Tehran in 2006 and met with Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he was rewarded with $250 million, a bundle that was allegedly confiscated by Egyptian authorities as Haniyeh attempted to make his way back to Gaza via the Rafah border crossing. According to the London-based Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awasat, Hamas was granted an additional $150 million in 2008 contingent on its refusal to negotiate with Israel in any way. So what dark turn has destroyed so fruitful a marriage of true minds? Nothing other than the imminent demise of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran wants Hamas to hang around Damascus, currently its global headquarters, and show solidarity with the dictator who advertises himself as the last titan of Arab 'resistance'. But Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal has other ideas which is why, when not promising to retire, he's been shopping for new real estate in the Middle East and shuttering all business in Damascus. As punishment for going wobbly on a regional ally, Iran has reportedly cut some or all of its funding to Hamas, forcing the group into a budgetary shortfall that's been somewhat compensated by Turkish and Qatari funds." http://t.uani.com/A45dqv
Mark Helprin in WSJ: "To assume that Iran will not close the Strait of Hormuz is to assume that primitive religious fanatics will perform cost-benefit analyses the way they are done at Wharton. They won't, especially if the oil that is their life's blood is threatened. If Iran does close the strait, we will fight an air and naval war derivative of and yet peripheral to the Iranian nuclear program, a mortal threat the president of the United States has inadequately addressed. A mortal threat when Iran is not yet in possession of a nuclear arsenal? Yes, because immediately upon possession all remedies are severely restricted. Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons-to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe and thereby cleave it from American interests in the Middle East; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent so as to limit it to the attrition of conventional battle, or to destroy it with one lucky shot; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia, which aided by geography and American arms now outclasses it; and to threaten the U.S. directly... Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. Subsequently, the U.S. completed 67 water-supported launches, ending as recently as 1980; the U.S.S.R. had two similar programs; and Iran itself has sea-launched from a barge in the Caspian. And if in 2007, for example, 1,100 metric tons of cocaine were smuggled from South America without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of Iranian nuclear charges of 500 pounds or less ending up in Manhattan or on Pennsylvania Avenue. The probabilities of the above are subject to the grave multiplication of nuclear weapons. Of all things in respect to the Iranian nuclear question, this is the most overlooked. A 1-in-20 chance of breaking a leg is substantially different from a 1-in-20 chance of dying, itself different from a 1-in-20 chance of half a million people dying. Cost drastically changes the nature of risk, although we persist in ignoring this. Assuming that we are a people worthy of defending ourselves, what can be done? Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators 'drilling' one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect." http://t.uani.com/wtqkph |
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