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Top Stories
Reuters:
"Iran is shipping oil to China, its top buyer, despite a row over
freight terms, and Japan has taken steps to resume imports in August as
Tehran finds ways to get around Western sanctions on ship insurance for
its drastically reduced shipments... On Wednesday, industry sources said
Japanese insurers were expanding their maritime coverage to allow more
domestic tankers to transport Iranian crude and that Iranian shipments to
China were flowing despite the dispute about terms. At least 4 million
barrels of Iranian oil from the July program are on their way to Chinese
refiners, said a Chinese crude trader familiar with the negotiations.
'Looks like the freight negotiations are not a package, but voyage by
voyage,' said the trader, who declined to be identified due to the
sensitive nature of the matter. He referred to talks between Chinese
state refiner Sinopec and the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC). China
plans to buy about 15 million barrels of Iranian oil in July, sources
have told Reuters." http://t.uani.com/NruOna
FP:
"Legislation that would impose a new regime of sanctions against
Iran appears stalled in Congress, but behind the scenes both chambers are
working to come up with a package that can be signed into law this
summer. The Senate passed the Johnson-Shelby Iran Sanctions,
Accountability and Human Rights Act of 2012 in May, legislation that
would punish any entity that provides Iran with equipment or technology
that facilitates censorship or the suppression of human rights, including
weapons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and other riot control equipment -- as
well as communications jamming, monitoring, and surveillance equipment.
It also calls on the Obama administration to develop a more robust
Internet freedom strategy for Iran and speed new assistance to
pro-democracy activists in the country... The House version was passed
last December and has some key differences compared to the Senate bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in May that the sanctions
were so urgent he couldn't even allow floor time for senators to debate
the bill and offer amendments. Now, two months later, there seems to be
no progress... The clock is ticking, however. If the bill isn't finished
by the end of this month, which is the end of the current legislative session,
there's little chance Congress will pass it this fall so close to the
election." http://t.uani.com/NA5AD4
WSJ:
"South Africa has suspended its former ambassador to Iran amid
allegations he accepted a bribe from MTN Group Ltd. to help the
mobile-phone operator obtain an Iranian business license. The charges are
part of a broader corruption case that have cast a shadow over one of
South Africa's star companies and complicated the country's commercial
ties with Iran, a large supplier of crude oil. On Thursday, a spokesman
for South Africa's foreign ministry said Yusuf Saloojee, who was South
Africa's ambassador to Iran when MTN obtained a business license seven
years ago, had been suspended at the start of July. The foreign ministry
has been investigating whether Mr. Saloojee engaged in wrongdoing during
his time as ambassador, but so far hasn't released details of the
probe." http://t.uani.com/NjMqSO
Nuclear
Program
NYT: "One of the Navy's oldest
transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for
warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition
to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed
as a counter to Iran. The keel for the ship, the Ponce, was cast in 1966,
and the vessel, nearing the end of its service, was to have been
scrapped. But the Ponce was reborn as a floating forward base for staging
important military operations across the region - the latest example of
the new American way of war." http://t.uani.com/NjKslo
LAT:
"The Navy is rushing tiny underwater drones to the Persian Gulf to
help find and destroy sea mines as part of an American military buildup
aimed at stopping Iran from closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the
event of a crisis, U.S. officials said... The first drones began arriving
in recent weeks as the latest round of negotiations with Iran over its
disputed nuclear development program appears to have stalled. Renewed
diplomatic talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council plus Germany have failed to achieve a
breakthrough or lessen tensions." http://t.uani.com/P2rJeB
Guardian:
"A former Iranian interior minister, Abdollah Nouri, has called on
the leaders of the Islamic republic to hold a referendum over the fate of
the country's nuclear programme. As economic sanctions begin to take
their toll and the threat of war looms, Nouri said that 'the
disadvantages' of the nuclear programme meant that it should be left to
people to find a way out of the current stalemate. 'The harms,
disadvantages and pressures caused by the Iranian nuclear programme have
got out of control and the establishment should make a reasonable and
wise decision to find a way out of this deadlock in order to protect the
country's national interests,' he told a group of student activists
gathered at his house, according to opposition websites." http://t.uani.com/NrCrtS
Sanctions
WSJ:
"India has been forced to seek its own arrangements to insure its
purchases of Iranian oil, officials said, even as it reduces imports
under pressure from U.S. and European Union sanctions. Indian state-owned
insurers, shipping lines and government officials met to discuss the
situation in Mumbai on Wednesday. India's state-run insurance firms have
agreed to offer coverage of up to $50 million for each Indian ship
carrying Iranian crude. The state-run General Insurance Corp. will
reinsure the cargoes. Such coverage is much lower than the up to $1
billion that European insurers would normally give per ship to cover
third-party claims in the event of an oil spill or other accident... 'Our
exposure would run into billions of dollars, but since there haven't been
many insurance claims in the last several years, we have taken a
pragmatic view,' said Sabyasachi Hajara, chairman and managing director
of state-owned Shipping Corp. of India, the country's biggest shipper of
crude from Iran." http://t.uani.com/LhP8s1
Bloomberg:
"Iran's oil-production costs will more than quadruple in coming
years, Donya-e-Eqtesad said. The cost of producing each barrel will rise
to $30 or more from $7 currently, the newspaper said, citing citing
Gholamreza Manouchehri, an adviser to the head of National Iranian Oil
Co. He didn't give a timeframe for the increase. Iran currently allocates
$20 billion a year to develop fields and $10 billion on maintaining
output, the report said. In the next decade, maintaining production will
cost $50 billion, with a similar sum required for development, it
said." http://t.uani.com/NOFH0M
Terrorism
National Post:
"One of Canada's most recognizable Iranian-born activists says
Iran's embassy in Ottawa should be shut down amid allegations the Islamic
regime is using its office here to recruit Iranian-Canadians to serve
Tehran's interests. '[The embassy] has no purpose here,' said Nazanin
Afshin-Jam, a human rights activist who fled Iran in 1979 after her
father was imprisoned and tortured. 'The embassy in Ottawa sometimes uses
cultural events as an excuse to spread their own propaganda.' ...
'[Iranian-Canadians] call it the house of terror,' said Sayeh Hassan, a
Toronto-based criminal lawyer who fled Iran 25 years ago and has for
years pressured Ottawa to close the embassy. 'I don't want to see Canada
become a safe haven for the Islamic regime and those affiliated with the
dictatorship, rather than a safe haven for people who are running away
from the dictatorship.'" http://t.uani.com/MmT4Wi
Human Rights
Guardian:
"A former general of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards has
accused the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of having
blood on his hands over the brutal crackdown on the country's opposition,
and described government claims that its nuclear programme is entirely
peaceful as a 'sheer lie'. In a letter to prominent opposition activist
Mohammad Nourizad (website in Farsi), the former officer gives a rare
glimpse of political dissent within the ranks of the elite force in
charge of the nuclear programme and Khamenei's personal security.
Identified only by his initials, the general says that he and a number of
his colleagues were threatened with execution for disloyalty and then -
after a series of secret courts-martial - dismissed 'because we refused
to participate in the betrayals and the crimes committed by our
seniors.'" http://t.uani.com/MlNf9V
Guardian:
"Activists with Reporters Without Borders staged a protest in front
of Iran Air offices in Paris to denounce the imprisonment of journalists
in Iran and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death in jail of
the Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi." http://t.uani.com/LLibWn
Foreign Affairs
WSJ:
"Iran is opening a public debate over its approach toward Syria's
crisis, with some diplomats publicly questioning whether Tehran should
continue supporting Syria's regime. The diplomats' statements, in
interviews and online pieces, suggest a split of opinions within Tehran,
the most important regional ally of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
The debate emerged ahead of diplomat Kofi Annan's visit to Tehran this
week, amid questions in the international community over whether to
include Iran in negotiations for a Syrian peace plan. Iran's foreign
policy rests largely with the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the country is still
considered a staunch ally of Mr. Assad. But dissent over Iran's support
of Mr. Assad has appeared to grow, largely from diplomats in the Foreign
Ministry, signaling to some analysts that Tehran is at least considering
a backup plan-such as reaching out to the opposition and advocating
reform and a quiet transition-should Mr. Assad fall." http://t.uani.com/MmPGe1
RFE/RL:
"A cartoon by an Iranian illustrator that portrays stereotyped Jews
worshipping the New York Stock Exchange has won first prize in the
inaugural 'International Wall Street Downfall Cartoon Festival.' The
festival was co-sponsored by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency in an
attempt to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement and 'help
people in the United States take their message out to the world.' ... At
least one, the winning entry by Mahmod Mohammad Tabrizi, was anti-Semitic
in nature. It depicts Wall Street, the hub of the U.S. financial world,
as Jerusalem's Western Wall, one of the holiest sites of Judaism." http://t.uani.com/LLlzAC
Opinion &
Analysis
Robert Fisk in The
Independent: "Syria strikes again. After weeks of
shelling across the Lebanese border, the inevitable has happened. An
anti-Iranian activist group, along with a host of 'informed sources' in a
Wall Street Journal report, is claiming that Beirut's wealthy banks have
become a sovereign money-laundering jurisdiction for 'massive inflows of
illicit deposits ... from Hezbollah's terror and criminal activities, and
the illicit symbiotic relationships among Iran, Syria and Hezbollah'. At
least, that's what the United Against Nuclear Iran group says. And, of
course, everyone says that the Central Bank of Lebanon is involved. Poor
old Lebanese banks. Or rather, rich old Lebanese banks. For every time
there is a new hate wave against the hateful Islamic Republic, or a new
Israeli-Hezbollah dust-up, New York fumes with allegations that Lebanon's
bankers are deep in the financial mud with the various Hitlers of the
Middle East. And of course, Riad Salameh, the Lebanese central bank
governor has trotted out to deny all the accusations. 'Everything that
has been said about the traffic of money from Syria to Lebanese banks is
untrue,' he said, adding that the number of Syrian deposits in Lebanese
banks had gone down... But now that the US Treasury is being told to
designate Lebanon's financial system as a 'money-laundering concern', is
it true? Well, the Treasury blacklisted the Lebanese Canadian bank last
year over money-laundering charges and 'connections to a terrorist
group'. But, long before the Arab revolutions, it was said that up to
three-quarters of all Syria's privately-held dollar liquidity rested in
Lebanese accounts. After all, who would open an account in the Central
Bank of Syria?" http://t.uani.com/NrsVal
David Ignatius in
WashPost: "Hopefully we won't see a Middle East
replay of 'The Guns of August,' as Barbara Tuchman titled her account of
the slide toward World War I. But the region is edgy this summer as
negotiators struggle to resolve confrontations with Syria and Iran. One
small sign of the rising tension is that Saudi Arabia is said to have alerted
some of its military and security officials to cancel their summer
leaves. Saudi and U.S. sources say this limited mobilization reflects
worries about possible military conflict with Iran, the war of succession
in Syria, and Sunni-Shiite tensions in neighboring Bahrain... On the
Iranian front, talks are continuing over controls on Tehran's nuclear
program. This effort is backed by the five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council and Germany, but meetings in Istanbul, Baghdad and
Moscow have produced little beyond an exchange of paper. Talks are
continuing among technical 'experts' who perhaps can explore a deal
outside the parameters of the canned negotiating scripts. Certainly, this
will be a summer for diplomatic brinkmanship... The Iran negotiations are
also driven by the prospect of war, if diplomacy should fail. U.S.
analysts believe that the past three months of talks should at least have
convinced the Iranians that their bargaining position is weak. Tehran's
hard line hasn't prevented the imposition of new sanctions, it hasn't
amplified Europe's economic jitters and it hasn't fractured the P5+1
coalition. Now the real bargaining begins, in the view of some U.S. and
European officials, with economic sanctions adding more pressure on Tehran
every day... Once an escalation begins, it may be hard to stop. In Syria,
many analysts think the level of sectarian killing is already past the
tipping point; there are too many scores to settle. In Iran, the
definition of the crisis is the lack of trust between Tehran and the
West. There's too little mutual confidence even for a hotline. The Obama
administration has opted to work with international coalitions to
confront Syria and Iran. This still seems like the most sensible policy.
But if these multilateral efforts are failing, it will fall to the United
States to devise an alternative strategy. If the United States wants to
get to 'yes' in these negotiations, it will have to bargain more
independently and aggressively." http://t.uani.com/NAbcxb
Alan Elsner in
HuffPo: "Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad got a rude shock when he arrived in Rio for a U.N.
sustainability conference known as Rio+20. Instead of being the center of
attention, he found himself snubbed by many of the world leaders in
attendance who passed up the opportunity to meet with him. This is
entirely appropriate behavior toward the leader of a nation which is
defying multiple U.N. resolutions to stop developing nuclear weapons and
who personally has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, a
fellow member of the U.N. in good standing. Lately, utterances from
Iranian leaders have crossed the bounds of what might be described as
mere 'anti-Zionism' into the clear realm of anti-Semitism. On June 26,
Iranian vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi delivered an unprecedented,
public anti-Semitic tirade in front of local and international
dignitaries. He blamed the spread of drugs on the teachings of the
Talmud, a basic holy Jewish text that collects centuries of discussions in
Jewish academies explaining Judaism's oral laws. Rahimi said,
outrageously, that the Talmud teaches how to destroy non-Jews. He stated
that four fifths of American wealth in owned by Jews. As if that wasn't
enough, Rahimi dug up a new variation of the traditional blood libels
used against Jews, claiming that Jews sterilized thousands of Native
Americans. Last week, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali
Larijani, added his voice to the chorus, saying the entire West as well
as Israel should 'disappear.' 'Today, the time has come for the
disappearance of the West and the Zionist regime (Israel) -- which are
two dark spots in the present era -- from the face of the universe,' said
Larijani. These kind of hateful statements should put Iran beyond the pale
for responsible leaders of other nations. It's time for them to shun
Ahmadinejad and his colleagues and to cut them off from the normal
niceties of diplomatic relations. Any world leader who meets them is in
effect saying that their genocidal threats are not important and not to
be taken seriously. The regime in Tehran continues to place high
importance on international meetings. Just this week, Ahmadinejad is
addressing an international conference on 'Women and Islamic Awakening'
which is being attended by delegates from 80 Muslim states as well as
representatives of Muslim minorities of non-Muslim countries." http://t.uani.com/Mk2K7B
Lee Smith in
Tablet: "In late May, at a major security conference
in Tel Aviv, former Obama Pentagon official Michelle Flournoy assured her
mostly Israeli audience that a military strike against Iran was very much
on the table. But she hastened to add that 'any military strike in its
most wildly successful incarnation' would set back Iran's nuclear weapons
program only one to three years. That one-to-three year caveat has become
more than an estimate. Over the past several years, as Defense Sec. Leon
Panetta, his predecessor Robert Gates, former Chairman of the Joint Chief
of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and other officials have recited it at press
conferences and think tanks, it has become received wisdom. But is it
true? It's hard to believe that the United States lacks the military
might to destroy the Islamic Republic's nuclear program-if not in one
campaign, then in a series of campaigns to ensure that it doesn't get the
bomb. 'I always felt the time frame was very conservative,' (Ret.) Gen.
Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the United States Army, said.
'My judgment tells me that if we did something as devastating as we could
do, taking down their major sites, which also means their engineers and
scientists, I think the setback would be greater than five years. I don't
like to read too much into people's motivations, but at times when we
don't want to do something, we build a case in terms of our
interpretation that it is too hard or it isn't worth the payoff.' Indeed,
the assessment that Iran's program could only be delayed began with the
George W. Bush White House, as former CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden
recently explained. It's hard not to conclude that the assessment was
driven by political calculations: Because Bush could not embark on a
third theater of conflict in the Middle East, it was convenient to say a
military strike would not make much difference. In contrast, the Obama
Administration has pulled out of Iraq and will soon pull out of
Afghanistan. Yet the White House continues to repeat the trope that the
program can, at best, be delayed a few years. Just as politics informed
the Bush White House's insistence on the delay-not-destroy mantra,
politics of a different sort are informing this White House: This
administration is conducting a public diplomacy campaign with the purpose
of undermining the capability of a U.S. attack because the administration
has no intention of striking." http://t.uani.com/NrHkDe
Emanuele
Ottolenghi in The Weekly Standard: "Despite all
evidence that sanctions are hurting Iran's economy, four rounds of
nuclear talks failed to prove that Iran's regime is now more malleable to
a compromise. Diplomacy will continue, but with Iranian proposals falling
short of Western minimum requirements, it is time to ask whether
sanctions are working. It is true that the U.S.-EU partial oil embargo
that began on July 1 will cost Iran dearly, but so far sanctions failed
to persuade Iran's leaders to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Part of the reason is that the regime has managed to circumvent the sanctions
by creating shell companies, both at home and overseas, with the sole
purpose of taking over business that Iran's sanctioned entities can no
longer handle. Whenever an Iranian company's ties emerge to proliferation
efforts or to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a new company is incorporated
with a yet unblemished record to take over the business of the sanctioned
entity. By the time the West catches up, Iran has already prepared the
papers for the next front company. Take for instance, Iran's main shipping
line, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). After the Bush
administration hit IRISL with sanctions in September 2008, Iran sought to
preempt a similar European move. In January 2009, IRISL incorporated a
shell company called First Ocean Administration GmbH to handle its
European business. First Ocean then proceeded to establish 20
subsidiaries-First Ocean, Second Ocean, Third Ocean, and so on-each of
which owned and managed a single IRISL vessel. This tactic made it harder
for Western governments to curtail IRISL activities and when it was
uncovered, IRISL renamed vessels. When it got caught, it reflagged them.
The problem is that it takes months for Western officials to document the
fraud, and it is always easier to commit a fraud than to prove it in a
court of law. Moreover, in Europe, courts have determined that defense
counsel for Iranian designated entities can see the evidence based on
which the designation was made. Because intelligence agencies are
reluctant to expose their sources to the scrutiny of a solicitor
representing Iranian entities, governments have no choice but to
designate companies only after abundant open source evidence becomes
available to build their case. Because designations do not automatically
extend to subsidiaries, when they are hit by sanctions, Iranian companies
proliferate their networks of subsidiaries both home and overseas.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the energy sector." http://t.uani.com/LRxCYu
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
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