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NYT: "The Obama administration on Tuesday exempted Japan and 10 European nations from the prospect of biting sanctions intended to punish countries that continue to buy oil from Iran, but it left open the fate of other major importers, including China, India and South Korea. The sanctions, ordered by Congress late last year to intensify diplomatic and economic pressure over Iran's nuclear activities, have put the administration in the difficult position of threatening to punish some of the United States' closest allies while it seeks to squeeze Iran's main source of hard currency. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced the exemptions in a statement, cast them as evidence of the success of the new sanctions because the countries had cut imports. The United States, she said, was making progress in 'shrinking Iran's oil export markets and isolating its Central Bank from the world financial system.'" http://t.uani.com/GEA03I
Reuters: "The Obama administration is looking for more ways to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and is encouraged by the help it is getting from Tehran's largest trading partners, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday. 'We are going to keep looking at ways we can bring more pressure to bear,' Geithner said at a congressional hearing. 'We are making really substantial progress, and our hope is of course that it will alter Iran's calculations about their interest in pursuing nuclear capabilities.' ... At Tuesday's hearing, Democratic Representative Brad Sherman questioned why the Obama administration had not blacklisted all Iranian financial institutions. 'If you forced me to change from Bank of America to Wells Fargo or even a lesser-known institution, that would not cause me to change my heartfelt policy. Shouldn't we designate all banks?' Sherman said." http://t.uani.com/GGLvUH
Reuters: "In the face of aggression from the United States or Israel, Iran will attack to defend itself, Iran's most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday. 'We do not have nuclear weapons and we will not build them but in the face of aggression from the enemies, whether from America or the Zionist regime, to defend ourselves we will attack on the same level as the enemies attack us,' Khamenei said live on television. 'Americans are making a grave mistake if they think by making threats they will destroy the Iranian nation,' he said in his annual speech to mark Nowruz, the Iranian New Year." http://t.uani.com/GDiiNC
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Japan said Wednesday it would continue reducing its Iran oil imports 'considerably', while hailing a US decision to exempt it from new sanctions against doing business with the nuclear aspirant. 'We have explained to the US side that this trend will accelerate in the future and that we will carry out our reductions considerably,' Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told reporters. Fujimura did not elaborate on the planned cuts, but Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said that Tokyo has already reduced its Iran oil shipments by 40 percent over the past five years." http://t.uani.com/GGYafk
Bloomberg: "China, the biggest buyer of Iranian crude, cut imports by 45 percent in February from a month earlier as the nations disagreed over payment terms... Purchases from Iran slid as China International United Petroleum & Chemical Co., the Asian nation's biggest oil trader, delayed signing a 2012 term contract with National Iranian Oil Co. because of the payment dispute. The issues were largely resolved late last month, according to three people with knowledge of the talks... China's crude imports from Iran 'may rebound in the following months but are unlikely to reach average levels purchased last year,' Gong Jinshuang, a Beijing-based senior engineer at China National Petroleum Corp., said by phone today." http://t.uani.com/GEv16m
Reuters: "India, publicly disdainful of sanctions to pressure Iran, has been left off a list of nations given a U.S. waiver from the measures, but is privately pushing its refiners for substantial cuts in imports from the Middle Eastern country... However, the 15 percent cuts sources say India is privately demanding from state-run refiners could help it qualify for such an exemption. Reuters' calculations show the overall cuts refiners are planning to make could be deeper at around 20 percent." http://t.uani.com/GDwGZD
Foreign Affairs
NYT: "The leaders of Iran and the United States issued starkly divergent New Year messages to Iran's home audience on Tuesday, with President Obama calling for a new relationship that would end Iran's prolonged isolation, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exhorting fellow citizens to beware of enemy plots and to buy only domestically made products." http://t.uani.com/GCDqTh
Reuters: "Iran paid the Islamist group Hamas to block a deal with the rival Fatah movement that would have ended a five-year rift between the two main Palestinian factions, a Fatah spokesman said on Tuesday. He said Tehran recently resumed financial aid to Hamas which it had suspended six months ago over the Palestinian movement's failure to back their mutual ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in his military campaign to crush dissent." http://t.uani.com/GH4vY3
Opinion & Analysis
Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard: "The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program lives on in the imagination of some government officials. At the end of a lengthy piece by James Risen in the New York Times this past weekend an anonymous official claims: 'That assessment holds up really well.' No, it does not. The authors of the 2007 NIE famously argued that the Iranians halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not restarted it since. The U.S. intelligence community defined 'nuclear weapons program' as 'Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work.' For no good reason, the NIE's definition excluded 'Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.' The idea was that while Iran continued to install centrifuges and improve its long-range missile capability it did so as part of a declared and purportedly civilian program, so there was nothing to worry about. As was widely pointed out at the time, this was foolish because a 'civilian' nuclear program today can quite easily become a military program tomorrow. This has happened time and again around the globe. The 2007 NIE was also flat wrong about Iran's covert work. In September 2009, President Obama announced that 'Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.' Obama noted that 'the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.' Incredibly, the intelligence community was aware of the facility at Qom before it even published the 2007 NIE. This should have been the end of the 2007 NIE. Covert uranium enrichment was explicitly included in the NIE's definition of Iran's 'nuclear weapons program.' By continuing to build such a facility, the Iranians showed that they had not decided to end all work on the bomb. They were simply trying to hide it. And that is one of the main flaws in both the 2007 NIE and the narrative offered by U.S. officials to Risen. The part about covert uranium enrichment efforts has been disproven, so American officials are hanging onto nuanced arguments about the most clandestine aspects of Iran's nuclear weapons program, including weapon design, or 'weaponization.' The potential for failure cannot be overstated." http://t.uani.com/GHSt0W
Ari Shavit in IHT: "An Iranian atom bomb will force Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to acquire their own atom bombs. Thus a multipolar nuclear arena will be established in the most volatile region on earth. Sooner or later, this unprecedented development will produce a nuclear event. The world we know will cease to be the world we know after Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo or Tel Aviv become the 21st century's Hiroshima. An Iranian bomb will bring about universal nuclear proliferation. Humanity's greatest achievement since 1945 was controlling nuclear armament by limiting the number of members in the exclusive nuclear club. This unfair arrangement created a world order that guaranteed relative world peace. But if Iran goes nuclear and the Middle East goes nuclear so will the Third World. If the ayatollahs are allowed to have Robert Oppenheimer's deadly toy, every emerging power in Asia and Africa will be entitled to have it. The 60-year-old world order that guaranteed world peace will collapse. An Iranian atom bomb will give radical Islam overwhelming influence. Once nuclear, the rising Shiite power will dominate Iraq, the Gulf and international oil prices. It will spread terror, provoke conventional wars and destabilize moderate Arab nations. As Iranian nuclear warheads will jeopardize Israel, they will imperil Europe. For the first time, hundreds of millions of citizens of free societies will live under the shadow of the nuclear might of religious fanatics. The union of ultimate fundamentalism with the ultimate weapon will imbue the world we live in with a hellish undertone... The crippling sanctions that should have been imposed back in 2005 are yet to be imposed. The assertive-diplomacy track was not seriously pursued when it could have been effective. The creative-political-solution track was never really explored. Western leadership did not endorse a comprehensive, resourceful, consistent and tough third-way-strategy that could prevent Bomb and Bombing. Now we are witnessing a shift. Terrified by the prospect of an imminent Israeli strike, decision makers and opinion leaders in the United States and Europe have Iran on their mind. Last week Tehran was cut off from the SWIFT bank-transfer network. By July, all E.U. nations will stop purchasing Iranian oil. Yet all this is too little too late. Within nine months the Iranians will be immune to an Israeli air strike. By Christmas, Israel will lose the military capability to stop the Shiite bomb. As it will be existentially threatened, the Jewish State will feel obliged to take action. So the summer of 2012 now seems to be the summer of last opportunity. If in the coming months crippling sanctions are not imposed on Iran and Israel doesn't get substantial guarantees that will ensure its future, anything might happen. All hell might break loose. If the West doesn't get its act together at this very last moment, it might soon face the dire consequences of its own impotence." http://t.uani.com/GJakCJ
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