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Top Stories
NYT:
"After three and a half years of attempting to halt Iran's nuclear
program with diplomacy, sanctions and sabotage, the Obama administration
and its allies are imposing sweeping new sanctions that are meant to cut
the country off from the global oil market. Many experts regard it as the
best hope for forcing Iran to change its course. On Sunday, the European
Union is putting in place a complete embargo of oil imports from Iran,
which was the Continent's sixth-biggest supplier of crude in 2011. Three
days ago, the United States imposed a new round of sanctions that could
punish any foreign country that buys Iranian oil. However, it has issued
six-month exemptions to 20 importers of Iranian oil who have
significantly cut their purchases, including China, which has openly
opposed the pressure on Iran... 'It is our assessment that the Iranians
have not experienced deep enough sanctions, long enough to fully
understand what their isolation means,' a senior administration official
closely involved in strategy said Friday in an interview." http://t.uani.com/N6Vl7w
NYT:
"Bedeviled by government mismanagement of the economy and
international sanctions over its nuclear program, Iran is in the grip of
spiraling inflation... The imposition on Sunday of new international measures
aimed at cutting Iran's oil exports, its main source of income, threatens
to make the distortion in the economy even worse. With the local
currency, the rial, having lost 50 percent of its value in the last year
against other currencies, consumer prices here are rising fast -
officially by 25 percent annually, but even more than that, economists
say. Increasingly, the economy centers on speculation. In this evolving
casino, the winners seize opportunities to make quick money on currency
plays, while the losers watch their wealth and savings evaporate almost
overnight." http://t.uani.com/Oc7vPa
Reuters:
"Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe
Israel 'off the face of the earth' if the Jewish state attacked it,
brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began
enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions. The European sanctions
- including a ban on imports of Iranian oil by EU states and measures
that make it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran - were
enacted earlier this year but mainly came into effect on July 1...
Announcing three days of missile tests in the coming week, Revolutionary
Guards General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said the exercises should be seen as a
message 'that the Islamic Republic of Iran is resolute in standing up to
... bullying, and will respond to any possible evil decisively and
strongly.'Any attack on Iran by Israel would be answered resolutely: 'If
they take any action, they will hand us an excuse to wipe them off the
face of the earth,' said Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' airborne
division, according to state news agency IRNA." http://t.uani.com/MNqk89
Nuclear
Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said Iran will face increasing pressure from economic
sanctions aimed at its disputed nuclear program. 'The pressure track is
our primary focus now, and we believe that the economic sanctions are
bringing Iran to the table,' Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg
Radio in Geneva on June 30. 'They are going to continue to increase and
cause economic difficulties for them.' Sanctions advocates in the Obama
administration and U.S. lawmakers have been weighing ways to tighten American
sanctions. Proposals under discussion include expanding the restrictions
to cover all Iranian financial institutions and trading companies,
sanctioning money-changers and alternative payment systems, and banning
trade and investment in all of Iran's energy sector." http://t.uani.com/Noo0CV
Reuters:
"Iran pledged to counter the impact of a European Union oil embargo
which took full effect on Sunday, saying it had built up $150 billion in
foreign reserves to protect itself... 'We are implementing programmes to
counter sanctions and we will confront these malicious policies,' Mehr
news agency quoted central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani as saying. He
said the effects of the sanctions were tough but that Iran had built up
$150 billion in foreign reserves." http://t.uani.com/Nohyf0
Reuters:
"A U.N. Security Council committee has published a report on Iranian
sanctions violations, including shipments of weapons to Syria in breach
of a U.N. ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic. The Security
Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt
its nuclear enrichment program, which the United States, European Union
and their allies suspect is at the heart of a weapons program. Iran
rejects the allegation and refuses to halt what it says is a peaceful
energy program. The report appeared on the committee website on Thursday,
diplomats told Reuters on Friday. The report, which Reuters reported on
last month, said that Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms
shipments." http://t.uani.com/LMysdp
Reuters:
"Tanzania must stop the practice of 're-flagging' Iranian oil
tankers or it will face the threat of U.S. sanctions and damage its ties
with Washington, a U.S. lawmaker warned on Friday. Howard Berman, the
ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, accused
Tanzania of reflagging at least six and possibly as many at 10 tankers
owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company. 'This action by your
government has the effect of assisting the Iranian regime in evading U.S.
and EU sanctions and generating additional revenues for its nuclear
enrichment and weapons research program and its support for international
terrorism,' Berman said in a letter to President Jakaya Kikwete that was
obtained by Reuters. Berman said if the tankers were allowed to continue
sailing under the Tanzanian flag, Tanzania could face the sanctions that
President Barack Obama signed into law." http://t.uani.com/Ls1jPM
BBC:
"A complete European Union oil embargo on Iran over its nuclear
programme comes into force on Sunday, but the Islamic Republic has
already found some ways of circumventing the sanctions. The Pacific
islands of Tuvalu have some 11,000 inhabitants on a total of 26sq km (10
square miles) of land. Few Iranians can find the tiny state on the map or
have even heard of it, but out of a fleet of 39 Iranian oil tankers, 15
now fly the Tuvaluan flag. In recent weeks, the National Iranian Tanker
Company (NITC) has changed the names and flags of its fleet to try to
avoid sanctions by the EU." http://t.uani.com/N3THF0
WSJ:
"Sanctions on everything from banks to equipment imports have raised
the costs of producing and processing oil and natural gas in Iran. Tehran
now has to use intermediaries to order products such as gas turbines or
spare parts for its refineries and to make the payments, and that raises
the cost. For example, an intermediary abroad buying oil-and-gas
equipment from a company that doesn't want to sell to Iran will charge 7%
of the value of the equipment being purchased, an Iranian oil official
said. During its lifetime, a refinery will be 30% less profitable owing
to delays and commissions paid to middle men to buy equipment and the
lack of spare parts to maintain the facility in good condition, one
Iranian contractor said." http://t.uani.com/KOf3mh
AP:
"A semiofficial Iranian news agency says Tehran plans to deploy
submarines in the Caspian Sea. The Saturday report by Fars quotes Adm.
Abbas Zamini as saying Iran plans to deploy 'light submarines' to the
oil-rich sea that adjoins Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and
Azerbaijan. He did not elaborate. Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan
have soured in the past year." http://t.uani.com/M0QWTU
Reuters:
"Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi urged OPEC's secretary general
to call for an extraordinary meeting amid falling oil prices, Iranian Oil
Ministry's website SHANA said on Saturday. 'In 161st meeting of OPEC it
was agreed if oil prices fall below $100 per barrel it means that prices
are in crisis, so we have urged secretary general of OPEC...to make
preparations for holding an emergency meeting,' Qasemi told SHANA.
International crude benchmarks Brent and U.S. oil futures posted their
biggest quarterly declines on Friday since the fourth quarter of 2008 due
to weak demand, ample supply and economic worries." http://t.uani.com/OVLoOc
Human Rights
LAT:
"Human Rights Watch has urged Iran to scrap the death penalty for
citizens convicted of drinking alcohol following reports that the
nation's judiciary has upheld two such sentences. The watchdog called on
Iranian authorities to end capital punishment for 'crimes that are not
considered serious and exceptional under treaties that bind it.' The
prosecutor general of Iran's Khorasan Razavi province confirmed that
Iran's Supreme Court had upheld death sentences against two people
convicted of consuming alcohol, the Iranian Students' News Agency
recently reported." http://t.uani.com/NdRYvq
Foreign Affairs
AP:
"The IOC says it has sent a second letter to Iran's Olympic
Committee warning it against government interference. The Olympic body
says it is urging Iran's Olympic Committee to observe the Olympic charter
and act independently of the government. Leaders of some national sports
federations in Iran have reportedly been fired by the government
recently." http://t.uani.com/LN1g5r
Opinion &
Analysis
David Ignatius in
WashPost: "A popular new slogan making the rounds
among government ministers here is that in dealing with Iran, Israel
faces a decision between 'bombing or the bomb.' In other words, if Israel
doesn't attack, Iran will eventually obtain nuclear weapons. This stark
choice sums up the mood among top officials of the government of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It's clear that Israel's military option is
still very much on the table, despite the success of economic sanctions
in forcing Iran into negotiations. 'It's not a bluff, they're serious
about it,' says Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, Israel's
intelligence service. A half-dozen other experts and officials made the
same point in interviews last week: The world shouldn't relax and assume
that a showdown with Iran has been postponed until next year. Here, the
alarm light is still flashing red. Israeli leaders have been warning the
Obama administration that the heat isn't off for 2012. When a senior
Israeli politician visited Washington recently and was advised that the
mood was calmer than in the spring, the Israeli cautioned that the
Netanyahu government hadn't changed its position 'one iota.' The
negotiations with Iran by the group of leading nations known as the
'P5+1,' rather than easing Israel's anxieties, may actually have deepened
them. That's not just because Netanyahu thinks the Iranians are stalling.
He fears that even if negotiators won their demand that Iran stop
enriching uranium to 20 percent and export its stockpile of fuel already
enriched to that level, this would still leave more than 6,000 kilograms
of low-enriched uranium that, within a year or less, could be augmented
to bomb-grade material. Netanyahu wants to turn back the Iranian nuclear
clock, by shipping out all the enriched uranium. And if negotiations
can't achieve this, he may be ready to try by military means. The numbers
game on enrichment reveals a deeper difference: For President Obama, the
trigger for military action would be a 'breakout' decision by Iran's
supreme leader to go for a bomb, something he hasn't yet done. For
Netanyahu, the red line is preventing Iran from ever reaching 'threshold'
capability where it could contemplate a breakout. He isn't comfortable
with letting Tehran have the enrichment capability that could be used to
make a bomb, even under a nominally peaceful program." http://t.uani.com/LRSBPq
Hadi Kahalzadeh
& John Schiemann in The Guardian: "The latest
wave of sanctions against Iran comes into effect today. Such measures are
largely predicated on a 'rational actor model' in which the west hopes
Iran's leaders will eventually find it in their own interests to give up
their nuclear programme. The problem with such a strategy is not that
Iran's leaders are irrational but that such a game only works if the west
knows how Iran evaluates costs and benefits and the options Iran believes
it has available. After the failure of previous sanctions, the west has
imposed a new set of much tougher sanctions while Iran has adopted a more
assertive stance vis-a-vis the west, stating that it will respond to
economic and military threats with its 'own threats'. Why, then, has Iran
failed to respond to international pressure? According to the basic
sanctions model, the target of sanctions will alter its behaviour in the
desired direction when the costs of defiance become greater than its
perceived costs of compliance. Yet despite Iran's reliance on oil, the
structural weakness of its economy, and deep economic costs such as the
sharp rise in inflation, negative economic growth and increasing
unemployment, it has failed to bend. This should prompt policymakers to
ask how Iran evaluates the costs of sanctions and defying the west.
First, for Iran's leaders, ideological and security concerns trump
economic ones: the security of the ruling class and being seen as
protecting the Islamic Republic's founding myths. The regime has
emphasised three central myths since its creation in 1979 - 'Islamic
justice', 'divine rule' and the 'struggle against imperialism' - all of
which are essential for maintaining its power and legitimacy. Hence, in
the eyes of the Iranian leadership, any damage to these myths is of far
more importance than, for example, losing even billions of dollars...
Rationally, Iran will choose the preservation of the regime. In the eyes
of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, however, continuation of its nuclear
programme and pursuance of its regional ambitions constitute that
preservation of the regime. He believes that promotion of the Iranian
model in the Middle East is the key to the regime's long-term security
and so external pressure from sanctions is tolerable in the short
term." http://t.uani.com/MNvVOB
Geoffrey St. John
in The Ottawa Citizen: "The most chilling scenario
is often overlooked: other countries in the region, should Iran make
nuclear weapons, will also seek to get them. The prospect of a number of
countries in the Middle East having fingers on the nuclear trigger
markedly increases the possibility of a nuclear war, started either by
design, or more likely by miscalculation, borne of fear of the intentions
of hostile neighbours. Israel is of course the country most concerned
about the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Irrespective of the exact
words used by Iranian leaders when talking about Israel, the tone is
unquestionably menacing. Indeed, it is more than just words. Iran
continues to arm both Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and Palestinian
terrorists in the Gaza Strip with increasingly long-range rockets and
missiles, some of which have already been launched against Israel. The
first shots in the war underway between Israel and Iran were fired long
ago by Lebanese and Palestinian militants. This is not a cold war. It is
however highly unlikely that the current Iranian regime would actually strike
Israel with a nuclear weapon, since the Israeli nuclear response would be
devastating to Iran. There is no evidence that Iranian leaders are
suicidal. Survival of Iranian regime and of the Iranian Islamic
revolution are their top priorities, not nuclear war with Israel.
However, what is poorly appreciated is that, while it may well be highly
unlikely that the present Iranian leadership would fire a nuclear weapon
at Israel, highly unlikely is not the same as one hundred per cent
guaranteed. This is the deep Israeli fear. And the possibility that an
irrational Iranian military commander who has the ability to launch a
nuclear-armed missile might decide to do so, contrary to the intent of
Iran's political leaders, cannot be dismissed. Equally relevant, no one
can be certain that future Iranian political leaders will not themselves
be irrational, and willing to attack Israel regardless of the undoubted
Israeli response. Finally, it is not just Israel that is a possible
target. So too are countries in Europe, as Iran develops missiles of ever
greater range. In this context, should the West elect to take such risks
and abandon efforts, if necessary the last-resort military option, to
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms? Given its very small size,
Israel has only to be wrong once about Iran to suffer the devastating
consequences of an Iranian nuclear attack. One Iranian nuclear weapon
striking Tel Aviv would rip the economic heart out of the country and
inflict massive psychological damage on the survivors. Even the small
American atomic weapons used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki (13 kilotons
and 21 kilotons respectively) in 1945 killed some 70,000 Japanese in each
city. Thousands more died from the effects of radiation later. A
similarly small Iranian nuclear weapon, within Iran's capacity to
produce, would kill tens of thousands in Tel Aviv." http://t.uani.com/N3Yc2v
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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