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Top Stories
Reuters: "Iran
has doubled the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges it has in an
underground bunker, a U.N. report said on Thursday, showing Tehran has
continued to expand its nuclear program despite Western pressure and the
threat of an Israeli attack. As Israeli politicians increased their talk
of air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites in recent months, the Islamic
Republic was rapidly increasing the enrichment capacity of its Fordow
site, buried deep underground to withstand any such hit. The U.N.
International Atomic Energy Agency also said in its quarterly report on
Iran that buildings had been demolished and earth removed at a military
site the IAEA wants to inspect, in what Western diplomats see as a
determined effort by Tehran to clean up any evidence of illicit
nuclear-linked tests. These 'extensive activities' at the Parchin
complex, the Vienna-based U.N. agency added, would significantly hamper
its investigation there, if and when inspectors are allowed access."
http://t.uani.com/Oy1VW3
NYT:
"Iran has installed three-quarters of the nuclear centrifuges it
needs to complete a site deep underground for the production of nuclear
fuel, international inspectors reported Thursday, a finding that led the
White House to warn that 'the window that is open now to resolve this
diplomatically will not remain open indefinitely.' The report by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the last to be issued before the
American presidential election, lays out in detail how Iran over the
summer has doubled the number of centrifuges installed deep under a
mountain near Qum. Iran has also, the report said, cleansed another site
where the agency has said it suspects that the country has conducted
explosive experiments that could be relevant to the production of a
nuclear weapon. Based on satellite photographs, the agency said the
cleanup had been so extensive that it would 'significantly hamper' the
ability of inspectors to understand what kind of work had taken place
there." http://t.uani.com/PFlhMB
NYT:
"For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the International Atomic
Energy Agency on Thursday offered findings validating his longstanding
position that while harsh economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation may
have hurt Iran, they have failed to slow Tehran's nuclear program. If
anything, the program is speeding up. But the agency's report has also
put Israel in a corner, documenting that Iran is close to crossing what
Israel has long said is its red line: the capability to produce nuclear
weapons in a location invulnerable to Israeli attack. With the report
that the country has already installed more than 2,100 centrifuges inside
a virtually impenetrable underground laboratory, and that it has ramped
up production of nuclear fuel, officials and experts here say the
conclusions may force Israel to strike Iran or concede it is not prepared
to act on its own." http://t.uani.com/NBaF1p
Nuclear
Program
Reuters: "Iran may have
doubled its uranium enrichment capacity in an underground facility but it
seems to be struggling to develop more efficient nuclear equipment that
would shorten the time it would need for any atom bomb bid, experts say.
Iran's progress - or lack of it - in deploying a new generation of
enrichment centrifuges is closely watched by the West as it could allow
it to produce potential weapons-grade material much faster. Tehran denies
this is its aim. 'Iran appears to be continuing to encounter problems in
its testing of production-scale cascades of advanced centrifuges,' a U.S.
think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS),
said. Cliff Kupchan, a Middle East analyst at consultancy Eurasia Group,
said: 'I note that the real game-changer, the advanced centrifuge
program, still seems to be failing.'" http://t.uani.com/OxVWAN
AFP:
"The United States warned Iran on Thursday its window for opening
serious talks is limited, after the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had
doubled enrichment capacity at its underground facility at Fordo. White
House spokesman Jay Carney also reiterated that President Barack Obama is
determined to prevent Iran getting a nuclear bomb but added that US
officials would know whether it reached breakout capacity to reach that
stage. 'The window of opportunity to resolve this remains open ... but it
will not remain open indefinitely,' Carney said." http://t.uani.com/NGyFKE
AP:
"Under pressure from a U.N. nuclear agency probe, Iran is urging
member countries to revamp the agency in a way that would dilute the
power of nations that fear it may be trying to make atomic arms, while
giving its allies more authority. The bid is outlined in a document
submitted for the consideration of the International Atomic Energy
Agency's General Conference next month and appears to be part of Tehran's
broader efforts to weaken the IAEA's attempts to follow up on suspicions
that it has experimented with components of a nuclear weapons program.
Iran says such allegations are based on fabricated intelligence from the
U.S., its Western allies and Israel. It also denies that its public
nuclear work - uranium enrichment - is meant to create nuclear missile
warheads, saying it is enriching only to make reactor fuel, medical
isotopes and for research." http://t.uani.com/RwcDiw
Sanctions
Reuters:
"Four months after a U.N. agency's decision to send computer
equipment to Iran and North Korea first stirred controversy, a feud has
erupted between the body's director general and a suspended senior
manager over misconduct allegations. In a suit filed with a U.N.
tribunal, the manager accuses Francis Gurry, the Australian head of the
Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, of pledging the equipment
to the two sanctioned countries in exchange for their votes... Although
the suit alleges that the transfers to Iran and North Korea were promised
in return for their votes in Gurry's 2008 election, it contained no proof
to support this claim. The allegations of vote buying could not be
independently verified by Reuters. WIPO records show that Iran and North
Korea were among 83 countries on the WIPO committee that selected the
director general in 2008 in a secret ballot." http://t.uani.com/SZlnQ6
Reuters:
"Japan's imports of Iranian crude oil fell to zero in July for the
first time since 1981, trade ministry data showed on Friday, as Iran's
No.3 oil buyer reined in its appetite to keep from falling afoul of
European Union sanctions targeting insurance. The data had been
anticipated as Japanese buyers stopped lifting Iranian crude from early
in June until late in July so that vessels on the final leg of the
journey to Japan would not be left uninsured in early July, after an EU
ban on insurance of Iranian cargoes took effect. To compensate, Japan
increased imports from the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, among other
suppliers." http://t.uani.com/RtK0OZ
Reuters:
"South Africa imported no crude oil from Iran in July, customs data
showed on Friday, a sign Pretoria is avoiding Iranian shipments until it
can be certain to avoid European sanctions. In May, imports from Iran
stood at 285,524 tonnes, but since June, Africa's biggest economy has
replaced shipments from Iran with crude from other suppliers, especially
Saudi Arabia. South Africa used to import a quarter of its crude from
Iran but has come under Western pressure to cut the shipments as part of
sanctions designed to halt Tehran's suspected pursuit of nuclear
weapons." http://t.uani.com/PS0Qut
Reuters:
"Essar Oil, the only private refiner in India that buys Iranian oil,
has raised imports of oil from Tehran by a third in July compared with
June and about 37 percent from a year ago, according to tanker discharge
data made available to Reuters. Essar has renewed its term deal with Iran
to buy 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil in 2012/13 (April-march) but
plans to cut purchases by 15 percent after a verbal directive by the
government. However, the refiner has shipped in an average 104,000 bpd
since April." http://t.uani.com/Oy12go
NAM Summit
WSJ:
"Many Iranians complained about the government's spending on the
conference. 'I pray to God that this conference isn't just about meeting
and greeting and something useful comes out of it. It would be a big gain
for the country and people if the result is easing or removing the
sanctions,' said Mahin, 32, a Tehran resident who didn't give her last
name. That appears unlikely, analysts say. 'When the dust settles and the
last NAM diplomat has left Tehran, what has changed? Iran remains under a
harsh international sanctions regime, foreign investment remains paltry,
and its only reliable allies remain the dream team of Venezuela, Syria,
and North Korea,' said Karim Sadjadpour, an expert of Iran at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." http://t.uani.com/PFlABG
YnetNews:
"Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi received a warm welcome in Tehran
on Thursday but it would seem that his historic speech at the Non-Aligned
Movement summit may not have been the same speech heard by the Islamic
Republic's citizens on national television and radio stations... One
website specializing in coverage of Iran's conservative media wrote that
'in an unprecedented action, the interpreter falsified part of Morsi's
speech declining to translate Morsi's severe attack on the Syrian
president's regime.' The Iranian interpreter translated Morsi's criticism
of Assad's regime as statement's in support of Assad: 'There is a crisis
in Syria and we must support the ruling regime in Syria,' he said, in
complete contrast to Morsi's negative statements." http://t.uani.com/S59fh9
Human Rights
CNN:
"Relatives of a former U.S. Marine jailed in Iran for allegedly
spying for the CIA say they are pleading with the leaders of the Islamic
Republic to show mercy and set Amir Mirzaei Hekmati free. 'I just want to
ask President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei, these two are our only hope. These two can bring Amir home,'
pleaded Behnaz Hekmati, Amir's mother. 'We just want (him) to come home,
I think one year is enough. If you want to punish us, if you want to
punish Amir, for whatever reason he is there, just one year is enough.
Please let him come home,' his mother added." http://t.uani.com/NGAsiP
Opinion &
Analysis
WashPost Editorial
Board: "Four months ago, the Obama administration
radiated optimism that a deal could be struck curbing the most dangerous
parts of Iran's nuclear program. What's followed has been a dismal
summer. Not only has Iran not agreed to stop its production of
higher-enriched uranium, but it has increased its stockpile by 30 percent
since May, according to a new report by international inspectors. Not
only has it rejected proposals from the United States and five partners
that it close an underground production facility near the city of Qom,
but it has doubled the number of centrifuges installed there. Rather than
negotiate with the international coalition - the last formal talks were
in June - Tehran this week is hosting a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement
at which it is defiantly reasserting its right to uranium enrichment,
despite multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions ordering it to stop.
Meanwhile, terrorist attacks by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and
Lebanon's Hezbollah have targeted Israeli diplomats and tourists in half
a dozen countries. What's particularly striking about Iran's behavior is
that the nation's leaders seem to ignore the possibility that it will
provoke Israel into launching a military strike on the nuclear facilities
in the coming weeks. Perhaps supreme leader Ali Khamenei doesn't take the
Israeli threat seriously, though clearly he should; perhaps he might
welcome such an attack as a way to rally domestic and international
support, bust out of tightening economic sanctions and justify a
unqualified race for a bomb. Whatever the case, Iran's behavior has
pushed the Obama administration into an awkward position. Most U.S.
diplomacy now appears to be directed at persuading Israel to hold off on
a strike at least until next year, though that could mean allowing Iran's
nuclear capabilities to advance to the point where only U.S. military
action would be effective. Last week, the White House, anticipating the
new report by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, insisted
there was still 'time and space' for diplomacy." http://t.uani.com/Q7aTvp
Charles
Krauthammer in WashPost: "There are few
foreign-policy positions more silly than the assertion without context
that 'deterrence works.' It is like saying air power works. Well, it
worked for Kosovo; it didn't work over North Vietnam. It's like saying
city-bombing works. It worked in Japan 1945 (Tokyo through Nagasaki). It
didn't in the London blitz. The idea that some military technique 'works'
is meaningless. It depends on the time, the circumstances, the nature of
the adversaries. The longbow worked for Henry V. At El Alamein, however,
Montgomery chose tanks. Yet a significant school of American 'realists'
remains absolutist on deterrence and is increasingly annoyed with those
troublesome Israelis who are sowing fear, rattling world markets and
risking regional war by threatening a preemptive strike to stop Iran from
acquiring nuclear weapons. Don't they understand that their fears are
grossly exaggerated? After all, didn't deterrence work during 40 years of
Cold War? Indeed, a few months ago, columnist Fareed Zakaria made that
case by citing me writing in defense of deterrence in the early 1980s at
the time of the nuclear freeze movement. And yet now, writes Zakaria, Krauthammer
(and others on the right) 'has decided that deterrence is a lie.'
Nonsense. What I have decided is that deterring Iran is fundamentally
different from deterring the Soviet Union. You could rely on the latter
but not on the former. The reasons are obvious and threefold." http://t.uani.com/Rw8Cut
Amir Abbas
Fakhravar & G. William Heiser in FP: "As the
Non-Aligned Movement holds its summit this week, we can expect more than
the usual finger-pointing at the United States and its allies. This time,
the summit is in Tehran. Iran's ruling mullahs plan on using the summit
-- and the expected presence of United Nations Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon -- as cover to snuff out the life of one of their most principled
political opponents. On August 31, unless the U.N. leader and others
intervene, the Islamic Republic will impose a death sentence on the
sickly but courageous dissident writer Arzhang Davoodi. If all goes
according to standard practice, an executioner will place a cable around
Arzhang's neck, haul him off his feet by a crane, and slowly strangle
him. Arzhang and Amir Fakhravar became the closest of friends as
political prisoners in the regime's notorious Evin Prison. His crime, for
which he was arrested in October 2003, was his participation in the PBS
Frontline documentary, 'Forbidden Iran,' about how the regime executes
its political opponents. Arzhang spoke to journalist Jane Kokan about
human rights violations and in support of the Iranian student movement
against the mullahs. I was one of the imprisoned student leaders at the
time, heading the organization Arzhang had founded. Arzhang spoke out on
my behalf, only to end up joining me in prison. Following a trial in
2005, a Revolutionary Court imposed on Arzhang a sharia sentence of 15
years' imprisonment and 75 lashes for 'spreading propaganda against the
system,' 'establishing and directing a student organization called the
Confederation of Iranian Students opposed to the government,' advocacy in
his writings of a secular and democratic government for his country, and
participating in the PBS documentary. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei needs
the U.N. Secretary General and the Non-Aligned leaders to remain unaware
of -- or at least quiet about -- Arzhang's execution during their visit.
The regime has spared no expense to showcase the Iranian capital as a
seemingly prosperous and calm city devoid of population and discontent.
Despite a collapsed economy, the regime has spent a fortune in
preparation. It constructed a lavish conference hall in the affluent
Velenjak area of northern Tehran, along with a new hotel expressly for
the foreign dignitaries. Authorities 'beautified' the shabby routes from
Tehran's two airports to the summit site, as well as other thoroughfares
the foreigners are likely to use, and purchased two hundred C Class
Mercedes Benz sedans to whisk the Non-Aligned and U.N. leaders to their
destinations. On Aug.5, the regime imposed a mandatory 'holiday' during
the summit to limit the prospect of protests by keeping people off the
streets, matched with a gasoline giveaway program of to all who would
leave town during the summit. Regime agents forced 1,400 homeless people
out of the area. Most tellingly, the mullahs flooded Tehran with 110,000
police and security forces, as well as Basiji militia -- the force that
murdered young violinist Neda Agha Soltan three years ago." http://t.uani.com/NGysqF
Geneive Abdo &
Reza Akbari in FP: "Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad had high hopes for the visit to Tehran by new Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi. His trip on Thursday for the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) summit might have been brief -- his spokesman emphasized
ahead of time that he would spend only four hours on Iranian soil,
including getting stuck in traffic -- but Iran's leaders relished the
opportunity to demonstrate progress in overcoming its isolation in the
Arab world and to gain some democratic and revolutionary legitimacy by
proxy. Worried that Morsi's visit would indeed bestow such a
diplomatic blessing on Tehran, the New York Times for example, sternly
advised him to get briefed on the events of 2009, when the Iranian regime
crushed the Green Movement by killing and imprisoning demonstrators
demanding reform -- the same kind of uprising that brought Morsi to power
in Cairo. But Morsi's performance in Tehran disappointed his Iranian
hosts as cruelly as it mocked those who warned that his visit would
deliver Egypt into Iran's camp and reveal a radical new Egyptian foreign
policy. When Morsi spoke at NAM, he vocally and directly sided with
the Syrian opposition against Iran's ally Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad. 'Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against
an oppressive regime that has lost legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is
a political and strategic necessity,' he said, prompting Syrian officials
to walk out of the summit in protest. Sitting directly beside
Ahmadinejad, Morsi said: 'I am here to announce our full and just support
for a free, independent Syria that supports a transition into a
democratic system and that respects the will of the Syrian people for
freedom and equality at the same time, preventing Syria from going into
civil war or going into sectarian divisions.' Despite Morsi's harsh
comments, however, the Iranian media barely mentioned them. This came
as no surprise. Ever since Morsi announced he would make the trip to
Tehran, Iran's propaganda machine had been working overtime and it could
hardly afford to back down now. Iranian state media has gone out of its
way to exaggerate the importance of Morsi's trip by publishing frequent
updates during his brief visit. The two countries broke off diplomatic
relations after former President Anwar Sadat signed the 1979 peace
agreement with Israel, and Egypt gave refuge in Cairo to the ailing Shah,
when he was deposed by the Islamic revolution. Morsi's visit is the first
by an Egyptian president since then... Iran has already declared victory
based upon Morsi's visit. But it is not much of a victory, certainly not
outside of Iran's carefully controlled media. Tehran's desperation for a
relationship with a disinterested Egypt speaks volumes about its
declining place in the hearts of the Arab world." http://t.uani.com/RwaS59
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