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Top Stories
AP:
"Republicans and Democrats are pressuring congressional negotiators
to produce legislation imposing the severest penalties on Iran, targeting
its energy sector and financial institutions as the United States seeks
to weaken Tehran economically and derail its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
With just one week before Congress' August break, proponents of tough
sanctions see this as their last, best chance for far-reaching, crippling
penalties as recent high-level talks between world powers and Iran have
failed to curb its uranium enrichment. Iran insists that its program is
solely for peaceful purposes. 'Now is the time to ratchet up the
pressure,' Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said in an interview this week...
Rep. Robert Dold, R-Ill., and Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., sent a letter
this week to the negotiators calling for a final bill that includes a
provision declaring Iran's energy sector 'a zone of proliferation
concern.' The blacklisting would bar all transactions with the state-run
National Iranian Oil Company... The lawmakers also said any legislation
should include sanctions on insurance companies that knowingly provide
coverage to an entity that has already been penalized. They also are
pressing for sanctions on the directors and shareholders of organizations
like SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunications, unless they stop providing services to the Central
Bank of Iran." http://t.uani.com/Ou9yft
WashPost:
"Syria has expanded its chemical weapons arsenal in recent years
with help from Iran and by using front organizations to buy sophisticated
equipment it claimed was for civilian programs, according to documents
and interviews. The buildup has taken place despite attempts by the
United States and other Western countries to block the sale of precursor
chemicals and so-called dual-use technology to Damascus, according to the
documents... A 2006 cable recounts a confidential presentation by German
officials to the Australia Group, an informal forum for 40 nations plus
the European Commission that protects against the spread of chemical
weapons. The cable described Syria's cooperation with Iran on Syria's
development of new chemical weapons, noting that Syria was building up to
five new sites producing precursors to chemical weapons. 'Iran would
provide the construction design and equipment to annually produce tens to
hundreds of tons of precursors for VX, sarin, and mustard [gas],' said
the cable, written by a U.S. diplomat. 'Engineers from Iran's DIO
[Defense Industries Organization] were to visit Syria and survey
locations for the plants, and construction was scheduled from the end of
2005-2006.'" http://t.uani.com/McZnzH
LAT:
"Near Iran's parliament building here, groups of men and women
gathered Sunday to protest what they called injustice. The men, mostly
middle-aged telecommunications workers from the provinces, said they were
owed back pay and had seen annual job guarantees slashed to daily work
contracts. The women, many donning traditional black cloaks covering
their heads and bodies, said they had been coming here for five days to
protest the loss of preschool teaching jobs as the number of classrooms
is cut for budget reasons... Amid soaring prices, sweltering temperatures
and escalating international tensions, a Ramadan of discontent is
unfolding in the Islamic Republic." http://t.uani.com/MWxGHz
Nuclear
Program
Reuters: "A
senior Israeli official denied on Sunday a newspaper report that
President Barack Obama's national security adviser had briefed Israel's
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a U.S. contingency plan to attack
Iran should diplomacy fail to curb its nuclear program. The Israeli
liberal Haaretz daily on Sunday quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying
the adviser, Thomas Donilon, had described the plan over dinner with
Netanyahu earlier this month. 'Nothing in the article is correct. Donilon
did not meet the prime minister for dinner, he did not meet him
one-on-one, nor did he present operational plans to attack Iran,' the
senior official, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the
issue, told Reuters." http://t.uani.com/OcFMht
Reuters:
"Iran expects to hold more talks with world powers on its nuclear
program following an inconclusive round of negotiations in Istanbul
earlier this month, its foreign minister said in a newspaper interview
published on Monday. The failure of the talks to secure a breakthrough
over Tehran's uranium enrichment, which the West fears is aimed at
developing nuclear weapons, has raised international concerns that Israel
may carry out a military strike. 'I can't say it with certainty but if
everything proceeds normally then there should be further negotiations,'
Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Austria's Der Standard. 'A
breakdown (in talks) is in nobody's interests. The gaps can only be
closed through talking.'" http://t.uani.com/Of8dZf
WashPost:
"Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta sought Sunday to portray the
United States and Israel as unified in their support for increasingly
tough international sanctions, rather than military measures, against
Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Although top Israeli
officials have said repeatedly that the economic sanctions are not
slowing the Iranian program, Panetta played down the possibility of an
Israeli strike in the near term. 'My view is that they have not made any
decisions with regards to Iran and they continue to support the
international effort to bring pressure against Iran,' he said of
Israel." http://t.uani.com/LYEfvJ
Sanctions
WSJ: "Iran may be facing its biggest
economic challenge in years as international sanctions cut off its oil
revenue, but that hasn't made it any easier to find a table in an upscale
restaurant in Tehran's leafy northern suburbs. For the wealthy here, life
continues as normal. They enjoy social freedoms that would be unthinkable
in the more religiously conservative environments of neighboring Iraq or
Afghanistan. Lady Gaga-style platform shoes, loose veils with
skull-and-crossbones designs and nose piercings are in evidence among
young women in Tehran's trendiest neighborhoods. The richest segments of
Iranian society-including employees of the state and people with ample
savings and access to foreign currency-are partly insulated from the
inflation and cuts in state subsidies that have afflicted most of
Iran." http://t.uani.com/QDIquc
AP:
"An Iranian news agency is reporting the country has begun to
stockpile a three-month supply of foodstuffs for its population. The
Friday report by semi-official Mehr quotes deputy industry minister Hasan
Radmard as saying the country has been buying wheat, cooking oil, sugar
and rice for the food reserve. Radmard said the decision came based on a
decree by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in recent weeks. Part of the
purchased foodstuffs has already been imported, he added." http://t.uani.com/On3iJF
AFP:
"Iran is expanding a promise to insure shipments of its oil to
include both Iranian and foreign tankers, in an effort to get around EU
sanctions crimping its crude exports, reports said Saturday. The
insurance will be made possible through a new multi-billion-dollar line
of state credit, Iran's OPEC representative, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, was
quoted as saying. 'Iran is ready to give total insurance for the
transport of its oil... and the commitments by Iranian insurers are no
different from those by Western insurers and therefore all risks and
dangers are insured,' state-run newspaper IRAN reported him saying. Crude
buyers have the option of using Iran's fleet of 47 oil tankers or their
own, he said." http://t.uani.com/QVXBDA
Reuters:
"Japan's crude imports from Iran fell 33.9 percent in June from a
year earlier, as refiners reduced purchases from the Islamic Republic
before the imposition of EU sanctions from July 1. Customs-cleared
imports from Iran fell to 812,693 kilolitres (170,389 barrels per day),
Ministry of Finance data showed on Monday... On a month-on-month basis,
Japan's imports of Iranian crude in June rose 60.5 percent from 106,162
bpd in May as oil loaded in Iran before June flowed into the
country." http://t.uani.com/OCoPg1
Reuters:
"Iran is expected to try to revive demand for its oil in Turkey, its
biggest European customer, this week when, according to Turkish energy
ministry officials, its oil minister is to meet with Turkish officials in
Ankara. Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi is expected to meet Turkish
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz on Thursday to discuss supplying oil and gas
to one of Europe's fastest growing economies, the officials said. Tehran
has struggled to find new buyers for its barrels after U.S. and European
Union sanctions succeeded in halving Iran's global oil exports in the
four months from February to June." http://t.uani.com/MWyNqO
Reuters:
"Iran should wean itself off sales of its vast oil resources to
power its economy, the country's clerical supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said, as its crude exports become increasingly hampered by
Western sanctions. Revenues from crude oil sales supply about half of
Iran's national budget and make up about 80 percent of its foreign
exports, but the Islamic Republic is struggling to find buyers for its
crude, with top Asian consumers cutting purchases as Western sanctions
choke off business. Separately, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
acknowledged the 'difficult conditions' Iran faced as a result of
international sanctions levied against Tehran's disputed nuclear program,
and urged the government to save money to deal with the problem." http://t.uani.com/NQGwY5
Terrorism
Times of India:
"Alleging that an Iranian state agency was involved in the February
13 bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat in the capital, the Delhi Police
has concluded that the suspects were members of Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps, a branch of the nation's military. The investigation report,
exclusively accessed by TOI, states that the IRGC members had discussed
the plan to attack the Israeli diplomats in India and other countries
with Indian journalist Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi in January 2011, after
Iranian scientists had been attacked allegedly by the Israelis. The cops
have also learnt that Kazmi was in touch with these people for almost 10
years." http://t.uani.com/OcKoUJ
Human Rights
AP:
"The family of an ex-U.S. Marine sentenced to death for spying in
Iran said Friday that members have received little information about his
case months after a new trial was reportedly ordered. Amir Hekmati was
accused of working for the CIA and sentenced to death in January, the
first American to receive a death penalty since the 1979 Islamic Revolution
in Iran. His family and the U.S. government have denied the allegations.
The semiofficial ISNA news agency reported in March that Iran's Supreme
Court ordered a retrial for Hekmati." http://t.uani.com/Q12uK6
Reuters:
"An Iranian court has sentenced four people to death for their roles
in a billion-dollar banking fraud scandal that forced bank executives out
of their jobs and tainted the government of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, state media reported on Monday. The embezzlement case,
discovered in September 2011, revolved around forged documents allegedly
used by the directors of an Iranian investment company to secure loans
totaling $2.6 billion to buy state-owned enterprises. Thirty-nine people
were tried for their involvement in the fraud." http://t.uani.com/Q4QQ0F
Domestic
Politics
AFP:
"Iran is a very urbanised society with a largely educated, young
Muslim population that ranks as the Middle East's second-biggest, its
latest census figures, published on Sunday, show. The snapshot, issued on
the website of the presidency's planning and strategic supervision
department (www.amar.org.ir), also
corrected some misconceptions about the country, notably by reporting
fewer than expected Jews and Internet users. The census, whose data was
collected in 2011 and presented in resume last week by the department's
officials, gave Iran's total population as 75.2 million, 99.4 percent of
whom are Muslim." http://t.uani.com/NC4Wr8
AP:
"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and hardline rivals traded blows
Monday as a presidential appointee was dismissed while his government
pushed ahead with corruption claims against the brother of the parliament
speaker. Ahmadinejad has faced more than a year of withering political
attacks after challenging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the
selection of the intelligence minister. Dozens of Ahmadinejad's allies
have been arrested or driven from power by backers of Khamenei, and
Ahmadinejad has been left severely weakened with less than a year left in
his second and final term. The official IRNA news agency said a court
dismissed a top government official who has been implicated in the deaths
of prisoners. The ruling against Saeed Mortazavi, head of Iran's social
security organization, followed a suit filed by a group of anti-Ahmadinejad
lawmakers." http://t.uani.com/M59SyX
Foreign Affairs
WSJ:
"Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Sunni-led Arab
states and Turkey, who are supporting Syria's opposition in its battle
with Tehran's ally President Bashar al-Assad, that their insistence on
toppling the Syrian regime will destabilize their own countries and the
entire region. 'If they continue moving in the wrong direction then let
them rest assured that the consequences of this will affect them too,'
said Mr. Salehi in a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart,
Walid Moallem, who was visiting Tehran Sunday. Mr. Salehi said those
countries were 'wrong, naïve and deluded,' if they thought the removal of
President Assad from power will bring about a new government in Syria
friendly to their interests." http://t.uani.com/QKDMui
Reuters:
"Iranian and Syrian officials entered into agreements this week on
energy and water supply, Iranian news agencies reported, signaling
continued cooperation between the two countries as the Syrian government
battles an uprising within its borders. A Syrian economic delegation has
been touring Iran this week, and signed deals with Iranian officials on
electricity exports from Iran to Syria, Fars news agency said on Friday.
Iran is a rare ally for Syria, which faces international condemnation
over the government's crackdown on a sixteen-month rebellion that has in
recent weeks reached its largest cities." http://t.uani.com/MroD0D
Opinion &
Analysis
WSJ Editorial
Board: "Nearly everyone in Congress agrees that
crippling sanctions ought to be imposed on Iran. Or at least they claim
to agree. We're about to find out who means it. House and Senate
conferees are now working to reconcile two new Iran sanctions bills
before the August Congressional recess. The bills seek to close various
loopholes by expanding the list of Iranian entities subject to sanctions.
They also call on the Obama Administration to impose penalties on foreign
companies doing business with Iranian energy and financial companies.
Unfortunately for this approach, the Iranians are pros when it comes to
creating hundreds of new front companies to replace those on the
sanctions' list. So it has been, for instance, with the National Iranian
Tanker Company (NITC) and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines
(IRISL), which have been reflagging ships from Cyprus to Malta to
Tanzania to Tuvalu. Tehran is also adept at opening new and creative
financial channels that circumvent existing sanctions. This includes
using shady foreign-exchange houses and forfeiting companies to obtain
hard currency, or selling their oil for (Turkish) gold. In April, the
Journal reported on the Bank of Kunlun, which does a brisk business with
Iran and is controlled by China's National Petroleum Company. Because
Kunlun maintains no correspondent banks or payable-through accounts in
either the U.S. or the European Union, it is effectively immune to
Western sanctions. All of this means that the current U.S. approach to
sanctions, which depends on the ability and willingness of the
Administration to go after individual Iranian or foreign companies, is
destined to become increasingly ineffective over time. It also doesn't
help that the Administration is waging a behind-the-scenes campaign to
water down existing sanctions by granting nearly every available waiver
to countries that continue to buy Iranian oil. There is a better way.
Congress could follow the bipartisan lead of Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.)
and Congressmen Ted Deutch (D., Fla.) and Bob Dold (R., Ill.) and
blacklist Iran's entire energy industry-or, to use fancy terminology,
designate it a 'zone of primary proliferation concern.' ... Congress
could also put the Kunlun banks of the world on notice by demanding that
Swift, the Belgian bank consortium that provides financial communications
and clearing systems, cut off any financial entity facilitating Iran's
oil trade. If Swift refuses, Congress could impose sanctions against the
consortium's board of directors, who can be named and shamed and moved to
act." http://t.uani.com/OwtFtk
Advisory Board
Member Irwin Cotler in The Times of Israel: "The
recent suicide bombing of an airport tourist bus in the Bulgarian city of
Burgas - which killed five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver, and
injured dozens more - was but the latest in a series of major terrorist
assaults against Israeli and Jewish targets in 2012 alone. Thankfully,
most of these attacks were thwarted without serious casualties, but all
reflect a common pattern: the lethal convergence of Hezbollah operatives
and Iranian instructions, as will be seen more fully below. Moreover, in
an eerie but revealing coincidence, the Burgas attack took place on the
18th anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Cultural Centre in
Argentina (AMIA), in which 87 people were murdered and more than 300
wounded. Then, there were clear and documented Iranian and Hezbollah
ties. Indeed, when I met with the Argentinean minister of justice, he
called the Buenos Aries bombing 'the worst terrorist atrocity in Argentina
since the Second World War.' Argentinean authorities determined that it
was carried out by Hezbollah - operating at the behest of Iran - with
enormous implications for the present Iranian-Hezbollah wave of terror
that has engaged five continents and 24 countries in the last two years
alone, reminding us of the annual US State Department's Country Report on
Terrorism, which lists Iran as 'the most active state sponsor of
terrorism.' Moreover, as a result of the Argentinean investigation into
the AMIA bombing, INTERPOL issued Red Notices against several Iranian
nationals, none of whom have been brought to justice. Indeed, some have
been rewarded for their criminality, such as Ahmad Vahidi, the former
head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Al-Kuds Force, who was
named Minister of Defense in Iran by President Ahmadinjead, and who is
responsible for overseeing its nuclear program. Apart from the need to
bring the named perpetrators to justice, the Argentinean Special
Prosecutors' exhaustive 800-page report bears recall for its other
conclusions regarding the AMIA bombing, and its nexus to the current
spate of terrorist attacks targeting Jewish Israeli nationals... Simply
put, the recent wave of terrorist attacks must serve as a wake-up call
for the necessary action to be taken by the international community to
combat this culture of incitement, terror and impunity. Indeed, history
teaches us that a sustained and coordinated international response is
required to combat such grave threats to international peace and
security. We must act now to hold Iran's state-sanctioned terror to
account, lest more lives be lost. Such Iranian state-sanctioned terror is
a chilling warning of what dangers await the international community
should Iran become a nuclear power." http://t.uani.com/OxguIK
Max Boot in
Commentary: "The new Johns Hopkins SAIS dean, Vali
Nasr, is right to worry, in this New York Times op-ed, about the dangers
lurking in a post-Assad Syria, which could turn out to experience a civil
war like Lebanon or Iraq did-only with scant hope of outside forces (the
Syrian army in Lebanon, the U.S. Army in Iraq) intervening to end the
carnage. But he is advocating the height of unrealism when he argues that
to prevent the worst, 'the United States and its allies must enlist the
cooperation of Mr. Assad's allies - Russia and, especially, Iran - to
find a power-sharing arrangement for a post-Assad Syria that all sides
can support, however difficult that may be to achieve.' Iran is the No. 1
backer of the Assad regime. As a Shi'ite state it is closely linked with
Assad's Alawite clan, an offshoot of Shia Islam. But Alawites are only 12
percent or so of the Syrian population. There is scant chance the
overwhelmingly Sunni population will stand for the Alawites and their
Iranian backers maintaining a significant share of power in a post-Assad
state. Nor is this in America's interest-the biggest upside of the fall
of Assad, from our perspective, is that it will deny Iran a foothold in
the Levant and hopefully lead to a decrease in support for Hezbollah. The
chances of Russia-another backer of the ancient regime-maintaining a
significant role in a post-Assad Syria are even more remote. Nasr's
suggestion is reminiscent of the popular Washington delusion about Iraq,
circa 2006, that its problems could somehow be solved by a 'regional
contact group' that would rope in interested parties from Iran to Saudi
Arabia. This overlooked the fact that (a) countries such as Iran and
Saudi Arabia had diametrically opposed interests in Iraq; and (b) outside
players could not really control a volatile state anyway-that required
boots on the ground. Both objections are just as valid in Syria as they
were in Iraq. The way forward in Syria does not lie in trying to
perpetuate Iran's malign influence, which is likely to be employed to
keep the civil war going by providing backing for Assad's security
forces." http://t.uani.com/NDDrxo
Joel Brinkley in
the San Francisco Chronicle: "As the world struggles
to deal with its two largest foreign-affairs dilemmas, Syria and Iran,
resolutely standing in the way are the BRICs. That's the acronym
foreign-policy wonks use for the block of nations that routinely refuses
to join the multilateral world of diplomacy, dominated by the United
States and the West. They seem to glory in being contrary. The nations
are Brazil, Russia, India and China. Russia and China, of course,
routinely veto any U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing Syria, as
they did for the third time earlier this month. China and India, ignoring
Western sanctions, continue buying oil from Iran at a furious rate. In
fact, after European Union sanctions took effect July 1, both countries
actually began purchasing even more Iranian oil. Between them, they now
buy more than half of Iran's daily output. (Brazil hasn't been a big
player in the Iran-Syria debates, though its government does openly
oppose sanctions against Iran.) The nations like to say they bring a
principled alternative opinion to the table. In fact, look at what they
do and you'll see that actually they're totally self-interested. They
don't seem to care about the rest of the world's concerns. Who cares if
Syrian President Bashar Assad continues slaughtering his own people? It's
not our problem if Iran builds a bomb. They look out only for themselves.
But even at that, they're doing an extremely poor job. India, Russia and
China have mammoth domestic problems that they don't like to talk
about." http://t.uani.com/P1kEqr
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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
Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive
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discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please
email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
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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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