Eye on Iran: EU Firms Join Debate Over U.S. Sanctions on Iran

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories WSJ: "Now that Standard Chartered PLC's dispute with a New York regulator over allegedly illegal transactions with Iran is settled, some European companies are stepping into the rhetorical fray over U.S. regulations. The companies say that banks acting for them are refusing to handle legitimate trades with Iran for fear of falling afoul of U.S. regulatory authorities. They claim the situation has put them at a disadvantage to U.S. businesses whose trade with Tehran is soaring. Some firms on the European Continent say that the confusion over sanctions is having a negative impact on their admissible exports to Iran because overly cautious European banks don't know where they legally stand with the U.S. Meanwhile, they say, U.S. companies are enjoying growing sales to Tehran of goods not under sanctions, following the easing of the approval process for humanitarian exemptions." http://t.uani.com/P0to1O Reuters: "Iran has asked South Korea to increase the interest rate on billions of dollars of its cash trapped in two government-owned banks, a Korean central bank source said on Thursday. The move seems designed to send a message to Iran's fourth-biggest oil buyer that its compliance with Western sanctions, which led to a 17 percent cut in its imports of crude from the Islamic Republic in the first half of 2012, will carry a cost. Iran's central bank has won-denominated accounts at Industrial Bank of Korea and Woori Bank, both owned by the Korean government, to settle payment for its oil sales to Seoul, and its product imports from the Northeast Asian country. Iran cannot repatriate the money because of the sanctions." http://t.uani.com/SrsTP6 St. Louis Jewish Light: "Bob Feferman, Midwest coordinator for the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, believes that his organization's 'unprecedented success in pressuring multinational corporations to cease business in Iran, has alerted the business community of the serious financial and reputational risks of doing business with the Iranian regime.' Feferman, 59, was in St. Louis last week to meet with local Jewish leaders in preparation for a return visit next month. His organization, which includes such key foreign policy luminaries as Dennis Ross, Admiral James Woolsey and former United Nations Ambassador Mark Wallace on its board, seeks to put maximum economic pressure on Iran through expanded sanctions in order to persuade its regime to stop its efforts to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/Ppd23f     Nuclear Program Reuters: "The United Nations' atomic watchdog may decide that less uranium is missing at an Iranian research site than it had previously thought, diplomats say, and that may go some way to easing concerns that it may have been diverted for military use. U.N. inspectors have asked Iran to explain a 'discrepancy' after an inventory they made last year of natural uranium metal and process waste at the Tehran facility showed there was 19.8 kg less than the Iranian laboratory's own count. The United States is concerned the material may have been diverted to suspected weapons-related research activity. Iran, which says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, dismissed the reported discrepancy as 'absolutely not an issue'." http://t.uani.com/RVvhQH Terrorism New York Times: "As American officials sound the alarm over what they call a resurgent threat from the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, thousands of its members and supporters operate with few restrictions in Europe, raising money that is funneled to the group's leadership in Lebanon. Washington and Jerusalem insist that Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization with bloody hands, and that it is working closely with Tehran to train, arm and finance the Syrian military's lethal repression of the uprising there. Yet, the European Union continues to treat it foremost as a Lebanese political and social movement." http://t.uani.com/OkI254 Syrian Civil War WSJ: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime rejected Tehran's request to conduct or allow a raid to rescue Iranians captured by Syrian rebels, U.S. officials said. Syrian rebels waylaid a bus carrying 48 Iranians as it traveled to Damascus this month. U.S. officials said at least some of those were operatives from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps sent to Syria to train government forces and potentially conduct covert missions to aid the embattled Damascus regime. Iranian and Syrian officials have denied the captured Iranians were government operatives, with Tehran calling them religious pilgrims. Qasem Soleimani-head of the Qods force, the international paramilitary arm of the Revolutionary Guard-directly asked Mr. Assad last week to help recover the Iranian operatives or allow Iran to mount its own rescue mission, say U.S. officials familiar with the latest intelligence reports. Mr. Assad turned him down, these officials said. A U.S. official said the information came from multiple sources, including human intelligence, communications intercepts and overhead imagery." http://t.uani.com/OjxFvz Opinion & Analysis David Rothkopf on Foreign Policy: "It is easy to be skeptical when the alarms start going off about a pending Israeli attack on Iran. They seem to come with the seasons, a geopolitical biorhythm that reminds us never to be too comfortable with one of the world's most volatile relationships. But it is worth remembering that the punch line of the story about the little boy who cried wolf is that ultimately, the wolf shows up. For all the good reasons Israel might want to show forbearance, seven of which were pointed out by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg recently, the reasons to attack are also clearly growing more compelling for Israeli leaders, uniting them on this issue to a greater degree than at any time in the recent past. Diplomacy doesn't seem to be working. The Iranian nuclear program continues moving closer to weapons capability. And the Iranians themselves have matched their rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel with direct support for attacks on its people, like the suicide-bomb murder of five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, which U.S. officials have linked to Iran. It is often hard for Americans to grasp the idea of an existential threat to a nation. While one existed for Americans during the Cold War, since then the notion that any single actor with any single act could effectively obliterate Americans or their lifestyle is very hard for many people to get their brains around. But that is exactly the threat that Israelis face from even a 'limited' Iranian nuclear attack. And though it is reasonable to debate whether the Iranians would actually use such a weapon against Israel given the likely consequences for them, from the Israeli perspective, given Iranian threats and actions, the risks of guessing wrong about the intent of the leaders in Tehran are so high that inaction could easily be seen to be the imprudent path. This summarizes the carefully worded case made last week in the Wall Street Journal by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. His article was nothing less than a case for war, and, over lunch on Friday, Aug. 10, he underscored to me how much thought and care was put into its drafting." http://t.uani.com/NrTmQ0 Tony Karon in Time: "The divide among Israeli pundits over Netanyahu and Barak's intentions is echoed among analysts in the U.S. Former Obama Administration defense official Colin Kahl, for example, warns that Israel's threats should be taken very seriously, seeing them as a campaign to prepare the Israeli public for war. Kahl believes the purpose is unlikely to be another round of theatrics designed to scare the U.S. into adopting tougher measures on Iran - largely because, he says, with sanctions nearly 'maxed out' and diplomacy stalled, 'what additional benefit does the saber-rattling produce here?' But former National Security Council Iran specialist and Columbia University professor Gary Sick takes a different view, seeing the latest wave as a continuation of a decade-old pattern of Israel threatening military action against Iran in order to shape the international community's handling of the nuclear standoff. Sick argues that the basic strategic and tactical calculus that has prevented Israel acting on any of its previous threats remains unchanged, although he does allow for the possibility that Israel's leaders paint themselves into a political corner in which they're forced to act." http://t.uani.com/PfCoTw David Blair in The Telegraph: "That was obvious to anyone who observed the last formal talks between Iran and its adversaries in Moscow in June. Even the shape of the furniture turned out to be a bone of contention during this singularly pointless affair. The rectangular table laid on by the Russian hosts was bound to create a 'competitive atmosphere', complained an official Iranian news agency. Did no one realise that placing everyone in a circle would be far more convivial? After two days of fruitless negotiations, the world's most dangerous looming crisis remained, well, dangerous and looming. With journalists loitering in every corridor, eager to report the first whisper of a concession, all sides were under pressure to play safe and stick to their existing positions. If anything, the conditions of set-piece summitry risked widening the gap by encouraging posture and rhetoric. Seven countries were represented in Moscow, but only two really mattered: Iran and the United States. Ultimately, the deadlock will only be broken if these two rivals can strike a deal. Wendy Sherman, number three in the US State Department, sat opposite Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, at the controversially shaped table. But the two never met one-on-one. The Americans had offered a bilateral, but Mr Jalili declined. This was quite understandable, for a public meeting with the Great Satan's emissaries would have exposed Mr Jalili to attack in the viper's nest of Iranian domestic politics, quite possibly ending his career. If total secrecy is guaranteed, however, the impossible can sometimes happen." http://t.uani.com/PfAVN5 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 media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. 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