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Reuters: "Iran executed some 670 people last year, most of them for drug crimes that do not merit capital punishment under international law and more than 20 for offences against Islam, a United Nations investigator said on Monday. The investigator, former Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed, also reported what he said were a wide range of violations by Iran of U.N. human rights accords, from abuse of minorities to persecution of homosexuals and labor unions. Shaheed was delivering his first report to the U.N.'s 47-nation Human Rights Council on the rights situation in the country since being appointed last year. It was dismissed by Iran as a 'compilation of baseless allegations'. 'It is with great concern that I report the significant increase in the rate of executions in Iran from 200 in mid-September 2011 to over 600 executions by the end of the year,' Shaheed told the council." http://t.uani.com/ytQpqf
NYT: "Britain will add its voice to President Obama's in discouraging an Israeli military strike on Iran when Prime Minister David Cameron begins a three-day visit here this week, a senior British diplomat said Monday. 'The prime minister is pretty clear that he does not think military action against Iran would be helpful,' the diplomat, Peter Westmacott, Britain's recently appointed ambassador to the United States, told reporters. 'We do not regard that as the right way forward in the months to come.' Mr. Cameron, he said, supports Mr. Obama's vow that Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. And, like the president, the prime minister believes military force must be preserved as an option. But an Israeli strike, Mr. Westmacott said, could 'unleash a whole variety of different consequences' and might backfire by strengthening the Iranian regime and the resolve of the Iranian people to acquire nuclear status." http://t.uani.com/wWbRfy
Bloomberg: "Oil exports from Iran, OPEC's second-biggest producer, may drop because the nation's tanker fleet is too small to carry all its cargoes as European Union sanctions cause international ship owners to avoid the country. NITC owns 39 vessels able to carry about 70 million barrels of crude, according to its website. The fleet would be insufficient to deliver the nation's monthly exports of about 65 million barrels because journey durations can be as long as two months, said Dag Kilen, an analyst at Fearnley Consultants A/S, a unit of Norway's second-largest shipbroker. Sanctions already cut shipments by 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day, Barclays Capital said March 7. Frontline Ltd., Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. (OSG) and owners of at least 100 supertankers said a month ago they would no longer call at Iran because of an insurance ban announced Jan. 23 by the EU as part of a wider sanctions package." http://t.uani.com/xBho8h
Nuclear Program
AP: "For more than a decade, Israel has systematically built up its military specifically for a possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. It has sent its air force on long-distance training missions, procured American-made 'bunker-busting' bombs and bolstered its missile defenses. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's threats to strike Iran, voiced last week during a high-profile visit to the White House, were not empty bluster. Although a unilateral Israeli attack would probably not destroy Iran's nuclear program, it appears capable, at least for now, of inflicting a serious blow. 'If Israel attacks, the intention is more to send a message of determination, a political message instead of a tactical move,' said Yiftah Shapir, a former Israeli air force officer who is now a military analyst at the INSS think tank in Tel Aviv." http://t.uani.com/z8JAJ0
AP: "Iran on Tuesday rejected allegations it attempted to clean up radioactive traces possibly left by secret nuclear work at a key military site before granting U.N. inspectors permission to visit the facility. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters in Tehran that the allegations were misleading and false, and insisted that such traces could not be cleaned up. Satellite images of Iran's Parchin military facility that circulated last week appeared to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the location. That set off assertions by diplomats, all nuclear experts accredited to the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna, Austria, about a cleanup operation. The diplomats said the crews at Parchin may be trying to erase evidence of a test of a small nuclear-weapon trigger." http://t.uani.com/wgzj7k
AP: "Iran is confident that neighboring Azerbaijan would not allow attacking forces to pass through its territory, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, according to the official IRNA news agency. Ahmadinejad told visiting Azerbaijan Defense Minister Gen. Safar Abiyev, 'We are sure that no problem will take place against Iran from (the land of) our friend and brother, Azerbaijan.' Earlier, Abiyev, told reporters Azerbaijan will not act against 'great Iran' or allow an attack using its territory. This came after he met his Iranian counterpart, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi." http://t.uani.com/zap0Ol
The Hill: "The House Homeland Security Committee is planning a hearing next week to explore Iran's capacity to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the panel's chairman, told The Hill that the U.S. intelligence community has become greatly concerned with Iran since law enforcement officials disrupted a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States five months ago. American authorities have accused Iran of orchestrating the plot. 'It seems to have really shaken up the intelligence community, more than it did the media, the general public, or members of Congress,' said King of the plot." http://t.uani.com/zFrZ1t
Sanctions
WSJ: "Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is prepared to fill any gap in world oil markets caused by sanctions against Iran, but will do so only reluctantly, an official from the Gulf state said Monday. 'We don't want to replace Iranian oil, and we never said we wanted to. We will step in and fill any gap in the market if needed,' said the oil official. 'No one is happy with the current situation about the Iranian sanctions. Neither the Americans, the Europeans or Asians are pleased with it.' Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, previously said the Gulf state isn't seeking to replace Iranian crude should foreign sanctions be imposed on Iran, but it could immediately ramp up production by about two million barrels a day if customers were to want more oil. The kingdom will respond to its customers' demands for more oil, but 'it doesn't want to get involved in the politics behind the sanctions,' the Saudi official clarified Monday." http://t.uani.com/xYzF0z
Reuters: "South Africa hopes to have a plan by the end of May for replacing Iranian crude that currently makes up a quarter of its crude imports, the country's energy minister told Reuters. The United States has pressured many of Iran's biggest oil buyers in Asia to reduce their purchases in a Western push to starve Tehran of funds for its disputed nuclear programme. Iran is South Africa's leading crude supplier, making up about 29 percent of imports by Africa's biggest economy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. energy officials visited South Africa in January but did not make any formal request to halt or reduce Iranian crude imports, South African officials say." http://t.uani.com/xMgawR
Reuters: "Japan on Tuesday placed Iran's third-largest bank on a blacklist for allegedly having helped Tehran develop its nuclear programme, following up on similar moves by the United States and the European Union announced in January. The addition of state-owned Bank Tejarat takes to 21 the number of Iranian banks with which Japan has suspended its correspondent banking ties, the government said in a statement. Tokyo's sanctions do not include the central bank of Iran, although Japan, Iran's third biggest crude oil customer after China and India, is looking to cut its dependence on the OPEC member under pressure from the EU and the United States." http://t.uani.com/y8HTta
FT: "Late last year tougher US sanctions tightened Iranian access to international finance, restricting Tehran's ability to convert crude oil exports into hard currency. Since then, the Iranian rial has collapsed. Its 60 per cent decline in value against the dollar on unofficial currency markets has staunched Iranian demand for consumer goods. For traders in Khasab, on the Musandam peninsula, the impact has been disastrous. Mohammed Sharif, a trader in consumer goods, says his business has plummeted to a fifth of what it was four months ago... Khasab's dormant souk is a vivid illustration of the ripple effect that US sanctions are having on Iran trade, as well as the broader deterioration in the centuries-old links between the Gulf and Iran amid rising concern over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme." http://t.uani.com/AFxK98
USA Today: "Western sanctions against Iran are having an unintended effect on a Teutonic treat: the near-sanctified Nuremberg bratwurst. Germans are complaining about the rising price of the beloved sausages, which are made with sheep intestines imported from Iran. 'Meat in Iran has become much more expensive,' said Nuremberg-based butcher Claus Steiner. 'People in Iran are buying less meat, and the intestines are a by-product.' The price of sheep intestines has almost tripled in 18 months, he says. As the West steps up sanctions on Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear program, inflation in Iran has hit 20%, and the price of food and other staples has sometimes doubled or tripled within a few weeks, analysts say." http://t.uani.com/ySmHZp
WSJ: "We spoke recently with Amanda Debusk, the chair of the international trade department of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, about her recent appointment to the State Department Advisory Sanctions Subcommittee. As you might expect, most of the conversation was about Iran." http://t.uani.com/xU8CWE
Human Rights
NYT: "Iran issued an angry rejoinder to a United Nations Human Rights Council report that castigated its record, calling the contents false, fabricated, biased and a reflection of manipulations by 'certain Western countries and their cronies on the council,' a reference to the United States and its allies. First circulated last week, the 36-page report by Ahmed Shaheed, a former foreign minister from Maldives, found what he called evidence of a 'striking pattern of violations of fundamental human rights guaranteed under international law,' offering numerous examples of illegal detentions and maltreatment of prisoners, dissidents, minorities and women." http://t.uani.com/zyY62u
Foreign Affairs
UPI: "Western supporters of Israel are losing credibility in the eyes of the international community, the Iranian president said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the Israeli government as a 'dead' regime. He said Western backers of Israel are losing face in the international community. 'You have made investments and are losing face for the sake of a bunch of criminals and are not aware that the Zionist regime is like a rotten tree that you have invested in, but you will lose face,' he was quoted by the semiofficial Mehr News Agency as saying." http://t.uani.com/xsoQoD
Opinion & Analysis
Jeffrey Goldberg in Bloomberg: "I'm talking about the belief, advanced to me by a former senior Israeli military official, and echoed by other non-insane people, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bluffing: He has never had any intention of launching air and missile strikes against Iran's nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions. In this interpretation, what Netanyahu has been doing -- for the past 15 years, in and out of office -- is creating conditions in which U.S., Western and Arab leaders believe that they must deny Iran its dream of nuclear weapons or else suffer the chaotic fallout of a precipitous, paranoia-driven Israeli attack. The theory has its attractions. For one, Israel hasn't yet attacked Iran, though its leaders, going back to Yitzhak Rabin, have all stressed the danger an Iranian nuclear program would pose to Israel's existence. For at least the past two years, experts have argued that an Israeli strike is highly likely, yet it hasn't happened. Another attraction has to do with the personality of the man himself: Netanyahu is much better at talking than doing. Despite his reputation in some circles as a trigger-happy extremist, Netanyahu has, when compared with his recent predecessors, only sparingly used force against foes such as Hezbollah and Hamas. What he does deploy, daily, are words -- huge gusts of words infused with drama and portents of catastrophe. His speech on March 5 to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee convention in Washington is a case in point. Before an audience of 13,000, mainly Jews attuned to threats against their people, Netanyahu drew a direct line between Auschwitz in 1944 and Iran's nuclear facilities today. If indeed the Iranian nuclear program is a physical manifestation of the Auschwitz spirit, then shouldn't Netanyahu have ordered airstrikes from the stage? Yet he didn't. The former Israeli military official I spoke with Sunday in Tel Aviv suggested three possible explanations for Netanyahu's lack of action: 1) He is paralyzed and won't act, no matter what he believes the threat to be; 2) He fears he would risk a serious rupture in his country's alliance with the U.S. if he attacked Iran unilaterally; and 3) It's all part of a game, one he has tacitly engineered with Obama. I remain fairly confident that Netanyahu means it when he says that Israel would strike Iran to prevent it from going nuclear, but this third option is an interesting one, mainly because the game -- a sustained Israeli bluff -- would seem to be working so well. Obama and Netanyahu don't like each other very much. When I asked Obama if he and Netanyahu are friends, he said, in essence, 'Well, we're all so busy with our jobs.' It certainly seems clear from the outside that the two men don't have a trusting relationship. But they have accomplished something extraordinary together over the past two years. The sanctions Obama has placed on Iran are some of the toughest ever placed on any country. Even some hardliners now believe that they just might force a change in Iran's nuclear calculus. And how has Obama convinced the world that these sanctions are necessary? By pointing to Netanyahu and saying, 'If you don't cooperate with me on sanctions, this guy is going to blow up the Middle East.' Obama's good-cop routine is then aided immeasurably by the world's willingness to believe that Netanyahu is the bad cop." http://t.uani.com/A6Xejd
Amitai Etzioni in The National Interest: "Much has been made of President Obama's recent comments on Iran. During an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama said that America is 'not taking any option off the table.' This was a reiteration of his State of the Union comment that 'America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.' Obama's explicit acknowledgement of the 'military component' as one of the options on the table has been interpreted as a commitment to undertake military action should diplomatic efforts and sanctions not have the desired effects. Indeed, speculations in the media increasingly seem to revolve around the question of when-and not if-the United States would be willing to resort to military action against Iran should other options prove unsuccessful. James Dobbins of the RAND Corporation, for example, commented that Obama's rhetoric has provided Netanyahu with 'rather more explicit . . . commitment to eventually take military action against Iran if Iran persists in pursuing nuclear weapons.' However, Dobbins noted, 'Obama has pushed back hard and effectively on the question of timing.' Mark Landler, White House correspondent for The New York Times, similarly observed that Obama has not yet 'close[d] the gap' with Netanyahu on the issue of when military force should be exerted (Israel holds that military action should come before Iran acquires the capability to manufacture a bomb rather than before it actually builds one). Commentators, however, are reading too much into Obama's phrase 'all options are on the table.' The Cambridge dictionary tells us that saying that something is on the table means that it is 'being discussed or considered.' In other words, the military option has merely not been ruled out-a far cry from the implication that it will be exercised if other options are exhausted. Some things can be put on the table and just stay there. The fact that President Obama has ruled out containment gives further support to those who hold that the military option will remain the only course of action if sanctions and diplomacy fail. However, the decision that these options have failed is a very fungible one." http://t.uani.com/zpbCbW
Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Ralf Neukirch & Christoph Schult in Der Spiegel: "When Catherine Margaret Ashton, also known as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, became Europe's top diplomat two years ago, even her husband Peter Kellner expressed skepticism. Upon her appointment, the British people 'weren't exactly dancing in the streets,' admitted Kellner, president of the YouGov international opinion polling group. Following an unpromising start, Ashton's reputation has continued in one direction: downward. After one and a half years, the job performance of Europe's first high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy -- as Ashton is officially known -- was so dismal that there was open speculation that she would be replaced. 'We are slowly running out of time,' warned Elmar Brok, the foreign policy spokesman for Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the European Parliament. Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) at the parliament in Brussels, described Ashton's policies as 'ridiculous.' The Briton, who has the 'charisma of a caravan site on the Isle of Sheppey,' as British journalist Rod Liddle once quipped, has endured the reproaches without complaint. When she is criticized, she dutifully takes notes. She gladly reads off prepared statements. Her strengths lie in her work behind the scenes, she asserts. When she became the EU's foreign policy chief, she said that she was not 'an ego on legs,' adding: 'The skills I bring (are) of negotiation, of diplomacy.' Over the coming months, Ashton will have an opportunity to prove whether this is true. The top EU foreign policy representative currently faces the most difficult mission in international politics. It is her job to negotiate with Iran over its controversial nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/wmWCJL
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