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Top Stories
Reuters:
"India's oil imports from Iran fell by more than 40 percent in
July from June and a year ago, as imports by Tehran's biggest local
client MRPL were hit by a shortage of ships and insurance cover caused
by European Union sanctions. The U.S. and EU sanctions that took full
effect on July 1 target Iran's nuclear programme which the West thinks
is aimed at making weapons, but the Islamic Republic denies that.
Refiners in India, Iran's biggest oil client after China, have
struggled to find insurance and shipping for imports since the European
Union brought in sanctions on July 1 banning most major insurance firms
from covering Iranian oil shipments. India shipped in 201,860 barrels
per day (bpd) from Iran in July compared with 346,600 bpd in June and
about 338,900 bpd in July 2011, trade data made available to Reuters
showed on Tuesday... Falling imports pushed Iran to sixth position in
the list of India's biggest suppliers of oil in July, compared with the
third position it enjoyed in June and No. 4 a year ago." http://t.uani.com/TRNYol
Reuters:
"Iran unveiled on Tuesday what it said was an upgraded short-range
missile and said it would build a new air defense site, in what
appeared to be an attempt to show its readiness against any Israeli
attack. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi
attended a ceremony at which officials unveiled the fourth-generation
Fateh 110 short-range missile, with a range of about 300 km (180
miles), and other upgraded hardware. Ahmadinejad said Iran's military
upgrades were purely for defensive purposes and should not be taken as
a threat, but said they would dissuade world powers from imposing their
will on Iran." http://t.uani.com/RdcvEF
Economist:
"The last time fruit and chicken were luxuries in Iran was back in
the 1980s, when the country was fighting against Iraq. On the whole,
Iranians believed that their young Islamic Republic needed protecting
from Saddam Hussein and his Western backers. Non-combatants in the big
cities generally accepted shortages and other privations with patriotic
stoicism. Two-and-a-half decades on, Iran again gives the impression of
a country at war even if, for the moment, the guns are silent. Prices
of basic food, clothes and electronic goods have soared as a result of
international sanctions and a plummeting currency; the rial has more
than halved in value over the past year. Nobody believes the official
figure of 24% for the annual rate of inflation. Civil servants have been
reduced to moonlighting in menial jobs to make up for their shrinking
buying power. The solidarity of the 1980s is conspicuous by its
absence. Last month a limited sale of subsidised chicken prompted
mini-riots... Ordinary Iranians are suffering from policies of
confrontation on which they have not been consulted." http://t.uani.com/QlNMsV
Nuclear
Program & Sanctions
Economist: "Iran
has also become a lucrative market for Chinese products and services.
China is investing $1 billion to improve Tehran's infrastructure. A
Chinese conglomerate has already expanded the sprawling capital's
underground railway, under a contract worth $328m... Navid, an Iranian
trader, owns a midsized company that imports chemicals from China to
supply Iran's plastics industry. Five years ago his suppliers were all
in Europe but, after successive rounds of anti-Iranian sanctions, he
now gets most of his chemicals from China. Most Iranians, however, bear
no special love for either China or the Chinese. Many think China is
just another country seeking to exploit their country's weakness."
http://t.uani.com/NhH0nP
Reuters:
"With international sanctions squeezing Iran, the Islamic Republic
is seeking to expand its banking foothold in the Caucasus nation of
Armenia to make up for difficulties in countries it used to rely on to
do business, according to diplomats and documents. Iran's growing
interest in its neighbor Armenia, a mountainous, landlocked country of
about 3.3 million people, comes at a time of rising international
isolation for Tehran and increasing scrutiny by Western governments and
intelligence agencies of Iranian banking ties worldwide as they attempt
to stifle the country's nuclear program... An expanded local-currency
foothold in a neighbor like Armenia, a former Soviet republic which has
close trade ties to Iran and is working hard to forge closer links to
the European Union, could make it easier for Tehran to obfuscate
payments to and from foreign clients and deceive Western intelligence
agencies trying to prevent it from expanding its nuclear and missile
programs." http://t.uani.com/PC7nJ0
Bloomberg:
"An Iranian crude oil-tanker signaled it's sailing for Singapore
after calling at Kharg Island, the Persian Gulf country's biggest
export facility, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. The
Leadership, a very large crude carrier controlled by Tehran-based
National Iranian Tanker Co., can go as low as 22.5 meters when filled
with a 2 million barrel cargo. The vessel signaled for Singapore on
Aug. 15 with a draft of 22 meters, according to data from IHS Inc.
(IHS), an Englewood, Colorado-based research company. It had a draft of
11.3 meters on Aug. 14 and the depth change suggests cargo was loaded.
At least 16 tankers calling at Iranian oil terminals unloaded or
delivered cargoes in India, China, or Japan this month, or are
signaling they'll arrive at Asian destinations in August, according to
the tracking data." http://t.uani.com/MJ3670
Dow Jones:
"Iran is asking French oil giant Total SA (TOT) to resume
refuelling its passenger aircraft and has even raised the question with
the French president, an Iranian official said recently. The move
underscores Iran's hopes that the election in May of a new French
administration could lead to a thaw between the two countries. Iran
asked French President Francois Hollande last month to intercede with
Total over the refuelling of its aircraft. "He said he would look
into it," the Iranian official said. Under Mr. Hollande's
predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, France led a European push to tighten
sanctions against Iran, culminating in a European Union embargo July 1.
But the Islamic Republic hopes France will soften its stance under Mr.
Hollande, who was elected in May." http://t.uani.com/ShiR5J
Syrian Civil
War
The National:
"This is bad news for the opposition and its international
backers, since Iranian military support will probably stiffen the
regime's resolve and, at the least, prolong the conflict. Active
Iranian military advisers help the regime in two ways. First, Iran can
teach Syrians what few states know how to do effectively: defeat armed,
non-state entities such as the ragtag groups now engaged in urban
warfare. Iran knows all about such groups; it has created, trained and
armed insurgent groups of this type for more than three decades - and
with effect, as US and British forces found out in Iraq after the 2003
invasion. If anyone knows the tactics of such groups, Iran does. The
Syrian regime can also draw some confidence from recent events in Iraq,
and Iran's role there. Many Shia militias, battle-hardened from
fighting against US and British forces, were under the guidance of
Tehran's military commanders. Some of these groups are still
intact." http://t.uani.com/OuBKjt
Human Rights
Bloomberg:
"Iran's decision to forbid women from studying dozens of subjects
including nuclear physics and oil engineering threatens to wipe out one
of the last vestiges of gender equality in the country, a Nobel Peace
laureate said... The new rules 'demonstrate that the Iranian
authorities cannot tolerate women's presence in the public arena,'
Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi wrote in an open letter to the United
Nations dated Aug. 17. 'They are trying to push women back to the
private sphere of their homes so they may abandon their opposition and
legitimate demands.' The restrictions follow gender-segregation
guidelines that Science Minister Kamran Daneshjou tried --
unsuccessfully -- to impose last year." http://t.uani.com/TRPgj5
Domestic
Politics
NYT:
"Energized by anger over widespread accusations that Iran's
official relief organizations were not adequately helping survivors,
they, and hundreds of others, spontaneously organized a 48-hour charity
effort using text messages, Facebook and phone calls to gather money
and goods. But instead of handing over their collection to the Iranian
Red Crescent Society - which is close to the government - as the authorities
had asked in the state media, these youths were determined to transport
it themselves to the most remote hill villages ravaged by the
earthquakes, which struck a rural Turkish-speaking part of the country.
More than 300 people were killed and thousands left homeless." http://t.uani.com/NeglOH
Foreign
Affairs
AP: "The
Obama administration said Monday that Iran doesn't deserve to host a
summit of non-aligned nations later this month but urged foreign
leaders who decide to attend to press the Iranian government comply
with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program. The
State Department predicted Iran would use the Non Aligned Movement
summit in Tehran to advance its own agenda and shift attention from its
defiance of requirements to prove it is not trying to develop atomic
weapons. The department also condemned anti-Israel comments made by
Iranian officials last week. 'Iran is going to try to manipulate this
NAM summit and the attendees to advance its own agenda and to obscure
the fact that it is failing to live up to multiple obligations that it has
to the U.N. Security Council, the IAEA and other international bodies,'
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters." http://t.uani.com/She3gN
AFP:
"Iran and Egypt are moving towards restoring diplomatic relations
which were severed more than three decades ago, Iranian Foreign
Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview published on Tuesday.
Salehi said in comments reported in Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram
newspaper that Tehran was keen on establishing relations of 'friendship
and brotherhood' with Cairo. 'Egypt is the cornerstone of the region
and has a special stature in the Arab and Muslim countries... and we
want relations of friendship and brotherhood with it,' Salehi said,
adding that Tehran hoped to restore 'normal' relations with
Cairo." http://t.uani.com/PCcOYn
Opinion &
Analysis
Lyle Bacaltos
& Andrea Stricker in ISIS: "On July 10, 2012
Abdollah Nouri, an Iranian reformist politician and cleric, proposed
that Iran hold a national referendum that would give the Iranian people
the power to decide the future of Iran's nuclear program. He argued
that recent economic sanctions against Iran combined with threats of
war were starting to have detrimental effects. Publics around the world
and in Iran should support Nouri's call, despite the unlikelihood of
the Iranian regime holding a referendum that would truly let the people
of Iran decide the future of the country's nuclear policy. Nonetheless,
an Iranian national debate on the nuclear issue is long overdue, and
Nouri's call is a step in the right direction. The Iranian regime
started its centrifuge program, the most sensitive part of the nuclear
program, under great secrecy in the mid-1980s, revealing it publicly
only in 2003 under intense international pressure. It has hidden
the true costs of its centrifuge and associated facilities behind a
nationalist smokescreen, preferring to confront the West rather than
face the fact that the program is uneconomical and often
incompetent. Unless the real reason the regime pursues this
program is to build nuclear weapons the centrifuge program serves no
worthwhile purpose. The Iranian people should decide if it is
worth the costs. It is also time for reformists and others to stop
defending the charade of Iran's 'fundamental right' to uranium
enrichment. Iran does not have a right to enrich uranium under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the regime falsely
claims. The NPT provides a conditional right to nuclear energy,
including enrichment, based on the state being in conformity with
Articles I and II; the latter prohibits non-nuclear weapon states such
as Iran from building nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) has stated for years that Iran's compliance with Article
II is in doubt. Thus, the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council have
judged that they are well within their legal mandate to demand a
suspension to Iran's centrifuge program and more transparency over its
entire nuclear program, including past and possibly on-going activities
related to building nuclear weapons. It is wrong to defend Iran's
centrifuge program as a 'right.' This obvious distortion serves mainly
to intensify the suffering of the Iranian people and block any
resolution of this controversy with the international community.
Reformists and pragmatists both in Iran and abroad should instead focus
on Nouri's argument that the nuclear issue should not be allowed to
'threaten all of (Iran's) national interests.' The need for all to
question the costs and benefits of the Iranian regime's nuclear program
is essential." http://t.uani.com/PywNFD
Jeffrey Goldberg
in Bloomberg: "It has been a tumultuous couple of
weeks in the Iran-Israel War, and it hasn't even started yet. Over the
past few days, Iranian leaders have promised Israel's coming
destruction about half a dozen times, and have gotten so overheated
they've begun to mix metaphors: There has been much talk about wiping
the cancerous tumor of Zionism from the map, and so on. The Iranians'
language has become sufficiently genocidal that even the secretary general
of the United Nations, not generally known as a hotbed of Zionist
feeling, said he was 'dismayed by the remarks threatening Israel's
existence.' Israel's leaders are also 'dismayed.' But their dismay is
prompted by something much deeper than rhetoric. They understand that
much of the civilized world is prepared to live with a nuclear Iran,
and they harbor seemingly ineradicable fears that U.S. President Barack
Obama, and his Western allies, might secretly be willing to do the
same. The Israelis -- Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in particular --
have been suggesting to the news media these past two weeks that the
time is nearly at hand for a strike on Iran's nuclear sites. Of course,
Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been discussing the
existential threat posed by Iran since they came into office.
(Netanyahu, in an interview with me three years ago, said Iran was led
by a 'messianic, apocalyptic cult,' and told me he thought the two
great tasks before Obama were fixing the U.S. economy and stopping Iran
from crossing the nuclear threshold.) ... Amos Yadlin, a former chief
of Israeli military intelligence (and one of the pilots in the 1981
Israeli raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor), argues that Obama
should visit Israel to deliver a face-to-face message that stopping
Iran is a vital U.S. national security interest. A visit to Israel
would do more to delay a strike on Iran than any other step the
administration could take. The beauty of this idea is that Obama won't
have to say anything new. He's on record explaining why the idea of
containing a nuclear Iran isn't an option; he's on record promising to
stop Iran by whatever means necessary; and he's on record explaining
why a nuclear-free Iran is in the interests of the U.S. 'If Iran gets a
nuclear weapon, this would run completely contrary to my policies of
nonproliferation,' he told me in an interview this year. When I asked
him what his position would be if Israel were not in the picture, he
answered: 'It would still be a profound national-security interest of
the United States to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.' These
words, delivered in the Oval Office, are powerful. But delivered in
Jerusalem, before the Knesset, they would deeply reassure the prime
minister and the Israeli public. What could be more effective than the
U.S. president explaining to Israelis, in Israel, that their two
countries share the same interests? Yes, Obama is running for
re-election, and it is hard to leave Ohio and Florida. But a trip to
Israel -- a place he hasn't visited as president -- would put Iran on
notice that Obama is deadly serious about thwarting their plans." http://t.uani.com/QlW97K
Frida Ghitis in
The Miami Herald: "In recent days, much attention
has focused on signs from Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear
installations may be imminent. Amid the flurry of analysis, little
attention has gone to what Iran is telling the world about its views.
We would do well to listen closely. The world should never become
jaded, immune to the genocidal hatred spewed by leaders of a nation
that is still treated as a full-fledged member of international
institutions. On Aug. 17, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
proclaimed that Israel's existence is an 'insult to all of humanity.' A
couple of weeks earlier, he told a gathering of Muslim diplomats that,
'anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation
of the Zionist regime.' Ever the optimist, the president explained that
this would help 'solve all the world's problems.' Global attention has
lately centered on the news from Israel. Observers and analysts have
posed valid questions about whether or not attacking Iran is the best
course of action, and about whether Israeli officials are bluffing or
are truly preparing for a new armed conflict. Israel's plans, of
course, are a legitimate subject of debate. But we should not take our
eyes away from Iran, not just its actions in pushing ahead with its
fast-growing nuclear enrichment program, but also its words, the
rhetoric of its leaders - the men who set the country's agenda - for
hints into their worldview. Ahmadinejad is not the country's top
leader. But that should offer little comfort. The views of Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei are even more chilling. A few months ago, Khamenei
declared that Israel is a 'cancerous tumor that should be cut and will
be cut.' Then he pledged his support to anyone willing to participate
in carrying the operation. 'From now on, in any place, if any nation or
any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will
help.' The rhetoric coming from Tehran is so extreme that it strikes
against a western tendency to simply dismiss ideas that clash too
violently against our own. There's just no place in our minds, in
civilized society, to file the repulsive words disgorging from the
Ayatollah and his acolytes. In case anyone doubted him, Khamenei openly
admitted for the first time something everyone already knew. 'We have
intervened in anti-Israel matters,' he said, boasting of Iran's
participation in wars between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas in recent
years. If you want to understand the larger ideology, Ahmadinejad told
Muslim ambassadors in Tehran that 'It has now been some 400 years that
a horrendous Zionist clan has been ruling the major world affairs,'
saying the Jews control 'the major power circles in political, media,
monetary and banking organizations in the world.' Now, where have we
heard this before?" http://t.uani.com/NXT1Rm
Matthew Levitt
in The Weekly Standard: "Over the past few months,
Iran has demonstrated a renewed willingness to carry out attacks
targeting its enemies. From India and Azerbaijan to Cyprus and
Thailand, recent Iran directed plots have targeted diplomats and
civilians, Israelis, Americans, Saudis, and more. To execute these
attacks, Iran has sometimes dispatched its own agents, such as members
of its elite IRGC Quds Force. Other times Iran has relied on trusted
proxies like Hezbollah. In a number of cases Quds Force and Hezbollah
operatives have worked together to execute attacks abroad. Now,
evidence has emerged indicating Tehran is employing another type of
agent-the unlikely surrogate assassin-to target Iranian dissidents
abroad, including here in the United States. Last October, dual
U.S.-Iranian citizen Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, a commander
in Iran's Quds Force, the special-operations unit of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were charged in New York for their
roles in an alleged plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United
States, Adel al-Jubeir. According to the Department of Justice,
Arbabsiar told a Drug Enforcement Administration confidential source
posing as an associate of an international drug cartel that "his
associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions" for
the source and his associates to perform, including the murder of the
ambassador. When the DEA source noted that others could be killed in
the attack, including U.S. senators known to frequent the restaurant
where they planned to target the ambassador, Arbabsiar allegedly
dismissed these concerns as 'no big deal.' Later, after Arbabsiar was
arrested and confessed to his role in the plots, he reportedly called
Shakuri at the direction of law enforcement. Shakuri again confirmed
that the plot should go forward and as soon as possible. 'Just do it
quickly. It's late,' he said. For many pundits, the plot was deemed too
outlandish and unprofessional to be taken seriously. Surely Iran's
vaunted Quds Force was too clever to tap a failed used car salesman to
carry out an operation as sensitive as this? In fact, Iran has relied
on fairly unskilled and simple operatives to carry out attacks in the
past. For example, Iran and Hezbollah relied on Fouad Ali Saleh to run
a cell of twenty operatives responsible for a series of bombings in
Paris in 1985 and 1986. Saleh, a Tunisian-born Frenchman (a convert
from Sunni to Shia Islam) who sold fruits, vegetables, and clothing in
the Paris subway, was as unskilled and unlikely an operative as
Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American car salesman arrested in the al-Jubeir
assassination plot. In fact, this is no new tactic, but a tried and
true operational model Iran has used to target political opponents in
the United States as early as 1980. Recently, ProPublica's Sebastian
Rotella offered the most detailed account to date of the July 2009
arrest of Iranian-American house painter Mohammad Reza Sadeghnia.
Arrested in California, Sadeghnia a Michigan resident, had conducted
surveillance of an Iranian dissident who hosted a Farsi language radio
program. He hired an Iranian immigrant with a criminal record as an
accomplice, and the two planned their assassination. But his accomplice
got cold feet and alerted police to the plot. Sadeghnia suspected his
accomplice wanted out, and threatened to have his family in Iran
killed. 'I have done other missions around the world,' he warned."
http://t.uani.com/Sj22cb
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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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