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WSJ: "U.S. President Barack Obama, seeking to mollify critics of his Iran policy, said he could employ a 'military effort' to thwart Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons but warned that 'too much loose talk of war' could undermine diplomatic efforts. Mr. Obama's efforts to recalibrate the administration's position-cooling talk of war while nodding to the concerns of hawks such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-won some applause, including from the Israeli leader. Some of Israel's strongest backers on Capitol Hill weren't appeased, however. 'I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say,' Mr. Obama said Sunday at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington's most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. Mr. Obama said such an effort includes isolating Iran politically and economically, monitoring the regime's nuclear program and, 'yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.'" http://t.uani.com/yLBSfw
NYT: "With the bulk of seats decided in Iran's parliamentary elections, it appeared on Sunday that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has gained the ironclad majority he needed not just to bring the country's president to heel, but to eliminate the position entirely. Ayatollah Khamenei has jousted repeatedly with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - as well as the two previous presidents - so the supreme leader secured this majority at Mr. Ahmadinejad's expense. The ayatollah will seek 'to eliminate the post of president,' said Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former reformist member of the Parliament now living in exile in the United States... With 90 percent of the districts counted, Ayatollah Khamenei's allies had won about 75 percent of the 200 seats in those districts, according to Press TV, Iran's state-financed satellite channel, quoting the Interior Ministry." http://t.uani.com/ApamPf
Reuters: "Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium and the U.N. nuclear watchdog has 'serious concerns' about possible military dimensions to Tehran's atomic activities, the agency's chief said on Monday. Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also told the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors about the lack of progress in two rounds of talks between the Vienna-based U.N. agency and Tehran this year... 'The agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program,' Amano told the closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his speech." http://t.uani.com/zIfIza
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
NYT: "President Obama, speaking days before a crucial meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, stiffened his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, even as he warned Israel of the negative consequences of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Seeking to reassure a close American ally that contends it has reached a moment of reckoning with Iran, Mr. Obama rejected suggestions that the United States was willing to try to contain a nuclear-armed Iran. He declared explicitly that his administration would use force - a 'military component,' as he put it - only as a last resort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a bomb... On a critical timing issue - whether any attack against Iran should come at the point it acquired the capability to develop a nuclear weapon rather than later, if it manufactured one - Mr. Obama was conspicuously silent. The Israeli government argues that Iran cannot be allowed to achieve nuclear capability, saying there would not be enough time to prevent it from producing a bomb once its leaders decided to do so." http://t.uani.com/ygGWEM
NYT: "On the eve of a crucial visit to the White House by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that country's most powerful American advocates are mounting an extraordinary public campaign to pressure President Obama into hardening American policy toward Iran over its nuclear program. From the corridors of Congress to a gathering of nearly 14,000 American Jews and other supporters of Israel here this weekend, Mr. Obama is being buffeted by demands that the United States be more aggressive toward Iran and more forthright in supporting Israel in its own confrontation with Tehran. While defenders of Israel rally every year at the meeting of the pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, this year's gathering has been supercharged by a convergence of election-year politics, a deepening nuclear showdown and the often-fraught relationship between the president and the Israeli prime minister... The pressure from an often-hostile Congress is also mounting. A group of influential senators, fresh from a meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, has called on Mr. Obama to lay down sharper criteria, known as 'red lines,' about when to act against Iran's nuclear ambitions." http://t.uani.com/y2vpyU
WSJ: "Iran's ambassador to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog suggested that his government might try to defuse international tensions over its nuclear program by allowing the agency to visit a suspected nuclear-test site from which inspectors had been barred. 'We haven't ruled out a visit to Parchin,' Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in an interview, referring to an explosions test range outside Tehran. Western officials have accused Iran of playing cat and mouse over the site, saying they fear it is important to efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Access to Parchin is a 'litmus test' for assessing Iran's willingness to assist the International Atomic Energy Agency in determining whether Iran is developing technology for a nuclear weapon, agency Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts told diplomats last week." http://t.uani.com/zsdBdN
Sanctions
WSJ: "Japan and Spain said this week they had reduced Iranian oil imports and switched to Saudi crude, providing the first evidence that some of Iran's largest customer nations are reducing their reliance ahead of stifling sanctions this summer. The disclosures come as Iran's customers are rushing to sign new supply deals with rival producers, triggering expectations that the Islamic Republic's overall shipments-now broadly stable-could fall by the summer... Iran's oil sales to Japan, its third-largest customer, fell 12% in January compared with a year earlier, data from Tokyo's Ministry of Finance showed Tuesday. Tehran's oil was partly displaced by Saudi Arabia, whose exports to Japan shot up 19.6% in the period. Spanish imports of Iranian crude-one of Iran's top three clients in the European Union-fell by 37% in December on a monthly basis, and Saudi Arabia filled much of that shortfall, according to data released Monday by Madrid's strategic hydrocarbons reserve board Cores. The December figures are the most recently available from Cores." http://t.uani.com/wXn4mS
Guardian: "The effectiveness of an EU embargo on Iranian oil imports has been cast into doubt by growing evidence of a rise in shipments from the Islamic republic arriving in the Mediterranean. The apparent surge comes even though tough sanctions are supposed to be stemming the flow. The latest shipment data show that most oil loaded on to tankers in Iran during the first two weeks of February was bound for Ain Sukhna in Egypt. Analysts from Lloyd's List Intelligence noted that the Gulf of Suez port was a terminal for the SuMed pipeline, feeding oil north to the Mediterranean. 'From the northern Egyptian port, it can be sold on to European countries as it is blended with other Middle Eastern crude oil,' Lloyds List said in a recent update. 'Saudi Arabia represents 49% of oil pumped through the SuMed pipeline and Iranian crude 46%.'" http://t.uani.com/wZ7oJk
AFP: "An Indian trade delegation will travel to Iran next week to explore 'huge opportunities' created by US-led sanctions over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme, an export group says. The group will visit Iran from March 10-14, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations said late Friday, adding exporters had settled a major problem on how to receive payments from Tehran in the face of sanctions on dollar deals. 'We are expecting to get a lot of business from this trip,' Anand Seth, spokesman for the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, an Indian government partner in promoting trade, told AFP." http://t.uani.com/A7ns8P
Reuters: "Iran's biggest Indian oil client, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), plans to cut its annual import deal with Tehran by as much as 44 percent to 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2012/13, two sources said, as western sanctions make trade more difficult. The cuts in oil imports from Iran by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) would imply a reduction of more than 20 percent in India's total purchases of Iranian oil in the next fiscal year, according to Reuters' estimates. MRPL plans a hefty cut in imports of Iranian oil in the next fiscal year beginning April, said the sources, who are both familiar with the company's crude import plans." http://t.uani.com/waJ9Rc
Human Rights
AP: "A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer has been sentenced to 18 years in prison by a Tehran revolutionary court, his daughter said Sunday. Abdolfattah Soltani was also banned from exercising his profession for 20 years and he will be sent to a remote prison where it will be difficult for the family to visit him, Maede Soltani told The Associated Press. 'It is a harsh and heinous sentence,' she said. 'The trial was completely politically motivated,' added Maede Soltani, who lives in Germany. Soltani, 58, co-founded a human rights group with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. He was arrested last year and has since been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison." http://t.uani.com/yhLQUh
AP: "An Iranian semiofficial news agency reports that the country's Supreme Court has ordered the retrial of an ex-Marine who was sentenced to death for working for the CIA. The Monday report by ISNA quotes state prosecutor Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehei as saying the Supreme Court has found shortcomings in the case and sent it for review by another court. In January an Iranian court sentenced Arizona-born Amir Hekmati to death for allegedly being a CIA spy." http://t.uani.com/yq509l
Foreign Affairs
WashPost: "U.S. officials say they see Iran's hand in the increasingly brutal crackdown on opposition strongholds in Syria, including evidence of Iranian military and intelligence support for government troops accused of mass executions and other atrocities in the past week. Three U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports from the region described a spike in Iran¬ian-supplied arms and other aid for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad at a time when the regime is mounting an unprecedented offensive to crush resistance in the key city of Homs. 'The aid from Iran is increasing, and is increasingly focused on lethal assistance,' said one of the officials, insisting on anonymity to discuss intelligence reports from the region. The expanded Iranian role in the conflict has been underscored by reports - supported by U.S. intelligence findings - that an Iranian operative was recently wounded while working with Syrian security forces inside the country." http://t.uani.com/wHWTux
Opinion & Analysis
Emanuele Ottolenghi in NYT: "In the current standoff over Iran's nuclear program, Western policy is guided by a key assumption: Iran's decision makers are rational actors, and their calculations about their nuclear program are driven by cost-benefit analyses. By gradually increasing the costs of Iran's nuclear pursuit, Western decision makers believe, Tehran will eventually concede. They are only half right. Western expectations that Iran will behave rationally and agree to a compromise under the increasing pressure of sanctions ignore Iran's perspective on the costs already incurred, the price of completing the journey and the advantages of turning back. For Iran, it is far more rational at this point to accelerate the program and reject any agreement the West would be prepared to sign. Historical precedents demonstrate that Iran's decision makers are not impervious to cost-benefit analysis. One such instance was the decision, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to agree to a cease-fire with Iraq in the summer of 1988. Ayatollah Khomeini had previously refused to entertain such a possibility - for him, defeating Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a religious duty. Yet he was able to reverse the religious imperative to avoid greater damage. But he could have made that calculus in 1982, when, two years into the bloody conflict, Iran had managed to reconquer all Iranian territory that Iraq had initially captured following its surprise attack in September 1980. Iran's leaders knew their army was woefully unprepared and underequipped to conduct a war of conquest against a vastly superior Iraqi Army. But they chose to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of young lives in pointless trench warfare reminiscent of World War I because they understood that under the cover of conflict they could consolidate the still fragile government and defeat all residual opposition to Islamic rule - a rational choice at the time. Ayatollah Khomeini ended the war when it became clear that the front was collapsing and discontent was undermining his rule. In short, letting the war go on was rational in 1982, and so was ending it in 1988; the difference was half a million dead and the fact that Iran was on its knees... What lessons can one learn from these precedents? In their long and labyrinthine path to nuclear weapons, Iran's leaders have gone as far as the men who reached the 99th wall. No matter how hard, painful and difficult the last jump may be, it is but a stroll compared with the arduous journey undertaken by Iran in its nearly 30-year pursuit of nuclear weapons. Why, then, should anyone expect Iran to renounce its aspirations now, when the goal appears within reach? And why would the prospect of some economic hardship alone persuade Iran to turn around, when the end of its journey is in sight? As tough as the current sanctions against Iran are, they will work only if Iran is brought to its knees once again. The pain inflicted must be far greater for the country to see backtracking as preferable. Iran is a rational actor; and it cannot be dissuaded at this point, barring extreme measures. If Western nations wish to avoid a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf and prevent a nuclear Iran, they must adopt crippling sanctions that will bring Iran's economy to the brink of collapse. That means a complete United Nations-imposed oil embargo enforced by a naval blockade, as well as total diplomatic isolation. And they must warn Iran that if it tries to jump the last wall, the West is willing and capable of inflicting devastating harm. Otherwise, Iran's leaders will rationally conclude that it is better to make a run for their money rather than stop at the last wall and pull back." http://t.uani.com/A3kyQM
WSJ: "If the President's contention is that an Israeli strike would be less effective and have more unpredictable consequences than an American strike, he's right-and few Israelis would disagree. Israelis don't have the same military resources as the U.S. The question Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have to ponder is whether Mr. Obama now means what he says. The President has built up an immense trust deficit with Israel that can't be easily dispensed in a week. All the more so when Israelis know that this is an election year when Mr. Obama needs to appear more pro-Israel than he would if he is re-elected. It's good to hear Mr. Obama finally sounding serious about stopping a nuclear Iran. But if he now finds himself pleading with Israel not to take matters in its own hands, he should know his Administration's vacillation and mixed signals have done much to force Jerusalem's hand. More fundamentally, a President who says he doesn't "bluff" had better be prepared to act if his bluff is called." http://t.uani.com/xKv8cq
Michael Makovsky & Blaise Mizstal in The Weekly Standard: "As President Barack Obama is set to address the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday, policymakers around the world will be paying close attention to how he phrases his administration's policy toward Iran's nuclear development. In recent days and months, some senior administration officials have a drawn a 'red line' against Iranian 'development of a nuclear weapon,' while others have stated the intention is to prevent Iran achieving 'nuclear weapons capability.' The difference in language is significant, so the confusion is potentially dangerous. The more provable and preventable nuclear threshold is Iranian weapons capability. On April 5, 2010 President Obama made an important distinction, acknowledging that Iran's 'current course... would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.' When pressed whether he 'could live with a nuclear-capable Iran,' but not 'a nuclear weapons state in Iran,' Obama replied that he was 'not going to parse that right now.' Other senior officials have parsed it but without resolution. On December 1, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said international efforts were 'critical to...preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.' The very next day Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared that 'to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.... That is a red line.' Panetta has since repeated this red line four times. Yet, Panetta released in January strategic guidance for the Department of Defense that states 'defense efforts in the Middle East will be aimed...to prevent Iran's development of nuclear weapon capability.' ... A country can be considered to have developed a nuclear weapon once it has assembled the three main components of a nuclear weapon and successfully tested it. First, fissile material; either highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium, that can release massive, destructive amounts of energy. Second, the device, or 'weapon,' which creates the nuclear explosion by triggering a nuclear chain reaction in the fissile material. Third, a delivery mechanism-bomb, missile, or some unconventional means-that gets the weapon to its target. A nuclear weapons capability is achieved when a country has all the requisite technology and components, but has not yet assembled them or tested a weapon. It is this eventuality that the Obama administration should be aiming to prevent, as suggested by bipartisan resolutions in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Even though Iran has made advances in all three components of a nuclear weapon, it could delay assembling and testing it. As then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly warned in a memo to the White House shortly before he resigned, Iran might 'assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon - fuel, designs and detonators - but stop just short of assembling a fully operational weapon.' This could allow Iran, especially if the official U.S. red line is weapons development, to achieve the political impact of nuclear weapons without risking U.S. military action. More important, Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapons capability is more easily verified than weaponization... Determining whether Iran is building a nuclear device, however, is exceedingly difficult. Panetta testified before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on February 16: 'If . . . we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it.' However, international inspectors have been routinely denied access to nuclear-related military facilities. Also, given the uproar over faulty intelligence over Iraq's nuclear program preceding the 2003 war, U.S. intelligence agencies will be reluctant to declare any 'slam dunks' without an unequivocal, even if hard to obtain, 'smoking gun.' Indeed, U.S. intelligence agencies have never before predicted any country's initial test of a nuclear weapon. Accordingly, if Iran sought to assemble a nuclear weapon, we would likely only detect it after the weapon was tested, by which time it would be too late. If the administration's intent is to prevent a nuclear Iran, it should draw a red line that is clear, verifiable and preventable before it is too late. The red line should be nuclear weapons capability, not the imperceptible turning of the screwdriver to assemble a weapon." http://t.uani.com/xZYLDR
Colin Kahl in WashPost: "On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets, protected by six F-15 escorts, dropped 16 2,000-pound bombs on the nearly completed Osirak nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha complex in Iraq... For Israelis considering a strike on Iran, Osirak seems like a model for effective preventive war. After all, Hussein never got the bomb, and if Israel was able to brush back one enemy hell-bent on its destruction, it can do so again. But a closer look at the Osirak episode, drawing on recent academic research and memoirs of individuals involved with Iraq's program, argues powerfully against an Israeli strike on Iran today. To begin with, Hussein was not on the brink of a bomb in 1981. By the late 1970s, he thought Iraq should develop nuclear weapons at some point, and he hoped to use the Osirak reactor to further that goal. But new evidence suggests that Hussein had not decided to launch a full-fledged weapons program prior to the Israeli strike. According to Norwegian scholar Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a leading authority on the Iraqi program, 'on the eve of the attack on Osirak ... Iraq's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability was both directionless and disorganized.' Moreover, as Emory University political scientist Dan Reiter details in a 2005 study, the Osirak reactor was not well designed to efficiently produce weapons-grade plutonium. If Hussein had decided to use Osirak to develop nuclear weapons and Iraqi scientists somehow evaded detection, it would still have taken several years - perhaps well into the 1990s - to produce enough plutonium for a single bomb. And even with sufficient fissile material, Iraq would have had to design and construct the weapon itself, a process that hadn't started before Israel attacked. The risks of a near-term Iraqi breakthrough were further undercut by the presence of French technicians at Osirak, as well as regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As a result, any significant diversion of highly enriched uranium fuel or attempts to produce fissionable plutonium would probably have been detected. By demonstrating Iraq's vulnerability, the attack on Osirak actually increased Hussein's determination to develop a nuclear deterrent and provided Iraq's scientists an opportunity to better organize the program. The Iraqi leader devoted significantly more resources toward pursuing nuclear weapons after the Israeli assault. As Reiter notes, 'the Iraqi nuclear program increased from a program of 400 scientists and $400 million to one of 7,000 scientists and $10 billion.' Iraq's nuclear efforts also went underground. Hussein allowed the IAEA to verify Osirak's destruction, but then he shifted from a plutonium strategy to a more dispersed and ambitious uranium-enrichment strategy. This approach relied on undeclared sites, away from the prying eyes of inspectors, and aimed to develop local technology and expertise to reduce the reliance on foreign suppliers of sensitive technologies. When inspectors finally gained access after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they were shocked by the extent of Iraq's nuclear infrastructure and how close Hussein had gotten to a bomb. Ultimately, Israel's 1981 raid didn't end Iraq's drive to develop nuclear weapons. It took the destruction of the Gulf War, followed by more than a decade of sanctions, containment, inspections, no-fly zones and periodic bombing - not to mention the 2003 U.S. invasion - to eliminate the program. The international community got lucky: Had Hussein not been dumb enough to invade Kuwait in 1990, he probably would have gotten the bomb sometime by the mid-1990s. Iran's nuclear program is more advanced than Hussein's was in 1981. But the Islamic republic is still not on the cusp of entering the nuclear club. As the IAEA has documented, Iran is putting all the pieces in place to have the option to develop nuclear weapons at some point." http://t.uani.com/yTfVCK
Avi Jorisch in Asia Times: "In recent years, a large number of Asian companies have profited by doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States and the European Union have struck back, cutting off access to these companies' markets by levying sanctions on Iran. As a result, Asian giants such as Huawei Technologies, one of the world's largest and most powerful telecommunications firms, have finally decided to cut back their Iranian dealings. Those companies that have yet to make the right decision should consider carefully whether doing business with the mullahs is worth the risk... Until late last year, Huawei dominated Iran's telecommunications business and garnered massive revenues from doing so. Unfortunately, there are also reports that it played a role as Iran's partner in crime as the regime went about tracking, silencing, and killing Iranian opposition figures. In 2009, when Iranians took to the streets to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election, Huawei reportedly installed tracking equipment for all of Iran's telecommunication providers that allowed the Iranian intelligence services to locate people through their cellphones, thus enabling the regime to pursue, jail, and often kill opposition members. Of course, this type of technology exists in many countries, and it is widely known that law enforcement professionals in the West, including the United States, use cellphones to track illicit actors. But repressive regimes like Iran use this type of technology not only to go after criminals but also to quash their political opposition. The US State Department is now investigating Huawei, stating that it 'shares the concern of potential export of technology to Iran that is used specifically to disrupt, monitor, or suppress communication'. For Huawei, doing business in Iran has had a definite downside, costing the company at least some of its access to the US market... As a result, in December 2011, Huawei decided to scale back its operations in Iran. Bowing to US pressure, the company chose to 'restrict its business development by no longer seeking new customers and limiting its business activities with existing customers'. In other words, it chose the US market over the Iranian market. Other Chinese companies will face the same decision in the months to come. In 2009, the People's Republic emerged as Iran's top economic partner, with trade totaling around $21.2 billion annually. Chinese companies supply Iran with 13% of its imports, approximately $7.9 billion per annum. In addition, more than 100 Chinese state companies operate in Iran, where they invest heavily in the energy sector. US lawmakers are increasingly trying to force companies doing business in both jurisdictions to make tough choices." http://t.uani.com/wh0nTg
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