|
|
Top Stories
AFP:
"US President Barack Obama urged Iran on Monday to take 'immediate
and meaningful steps' to move 'toward an enduring, long-term settlement'
with the world over its disputed nuclear program. In a video message in
honor of the Iranian Nowruz holiday, Obama said that if Tehran took such
action 'the Iranian people will begin to see the benefits of greater
trade and ties with other nations, including the United States.' ... In
the message in honor of Nowruz -- the Persian New Year -- Obama appealed
to ordinary Iranians, saying 'the people of Iran have paid a high and
unnecessary price because of your leaders' unwillingness to address this
issue. As I've said all along, the United States prefers to resolve this
matter peacefully, diplomatically. Indeed, if -- as Iran's leaders say --
their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, then there is a basis for
a practical solution.' Obama delivered his first annual Nowruz address to
Iran shortly after being sworn in in 2009 as part of a policy of
engagement with Iran's leadership." http://t.uani.com/16GJeZZ
Reuters:
"Six major powers gave Iran more details of their proposals to end a
standoff over Tehran's nuclear program in talks in Istanbul on Monday,
the European Union (EU) said. The EU's short statement on the expert-level
talks between the six powers and Iran offered no clue how the proposals
were received by the Iranian experts or whether any progress had been
made. The two sides agreed to hold the technical discussions at a
February 26-27 meeting between officials in the Kazakh city of Almaty,
when the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany
offered modest sanctions relief in return for Tehran curbing its most
sensitive nuclear work... The statement by Michael Mann, a spokesman for
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reaffirmed that Monday's
technical talks would be followed by another meeting at the political
level in Almaty on April 5-6." http://t.uani.com/10csuH5
WashPost:
"The Iranian new year arrives with the first moment of spring on Wednesday
afternoon, and many here say they are happy to close the book on the past
12 months. This year - 1391 on the Persian calendar that Iran uses - was
by many accounts the most financially difficult for Iranians since the
1979 inception of the Islamic Republic. Western-led sanctions over Iran's
nuclear program have damaged the country's economy and contributed to a
massive currency dive that has dented the purchasing power of ordinary
people. So on the eve of a fresh start, many Iranians say they are both
hopeful and fearful about the year to come, when the country is expected
to face make-or-break decisions about its nuclear program and hold a
presidential election, the first since the 2009 vote that led to protests
and a violent state crackdown." http://t.uani.com/YR0ace
Nuclear Program
NYT: "If President Obama's most
obvious goal on his trip to Israel this week is to forge a connection
with the Israeli people, his challenge behind closed doors is to persuade
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he can rely on the United States
to take care of Iran. This time, some analysts said, he may have better
odds of success than he has had in the past. Public disagreements between
Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu over how to deal with Iran have waned in
recent months. This comes from a combination of the president's repeated
warnings to Tehran; Iran's strategy of not crossing Israel's red lines
while continuing to build its nuclear program; and changes in Israel's
political landscape, which have weakened Mr. Netanyahu and made a
unilateral military strike less likely." http://t.uani.com/145v5pq
Sanctions
FT: "Iran is facing the loss of a
significant chunk of its oil export revenues as some of its largest
trading partners in Asia plan to reduce their imports because of the
pressure of US and European sanctions. India, the second biggest buyer of
Iranian crude after China, plans to stop importing Iranian oil from next
month to avoid losing insurance coverage for its refineries, according to
Asia-based oil traders. Japan and South Korea, two other big buyers, are
set to further reduce their imports from April. The combination could
force the Iran government, which depends on oil exports for half its
revenues, to further cut oil production, which has already fallen to its
lowest level in nearly 25 years. The drop in production, exports and
revenues has contributed to the sharp drop of the Iranian rial against
the US dollar." http://t.uani.com/XZnW9f
Reuters:
"Iran's NITC has replaced Hamid Behbahani, a former minister and
ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as head of the state tanker
company, Mehr news agency reported, just over a year after he was
appointed. National Iranian Tanker Company, which has a fleet with a
carrying capacity of at least 72 million barrels of oil, has been
blacklisted by the West as part of tougher sanctions against Iran over
its disputed nuclear programme. Mehr on Saturday said: 'Hamid Behbahani
was dismissed as the managing director of the National Iranian Tanker
Company. Based on a decision by the managing board of the National Iranian
Tanker Company, Ali Akbar Safa'ie has replaced Hamid Behbahani.' ...
'NITC was a well run company but it has increasingly become a puppet in a
bigger oil game now,' a ship industry source said. 'As the shutters have
closed, less is really known about what is happening inside NITC
now.'" http://t.uani.com/YQQNcu
Bloomberg:
"Affiliates of Glencore International Plc, the world's largest
publicly traded commodity supplier, entered into sales contracts last
year with entities controlled by Iran, according to Century Aluminum
Corp. Non-U.S. affiliates of Glencore, Century's largest shareholder,
entered into sales contracts for wheat and coal and sale and purchase
contracts for metals and metal oxides, Monterey, California-based Century
said today in filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission...
Century was spun off from Glencore in 1996. Glencore owned 47 percent of
Century as of Dec. 31, according to the filing." http://t.uani.com/16GHAHX
Syrian Uprising
AFP:
"Baghdad is 'looking the other way' as Iran sends military equipment
through Iraqi airspace to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime amid
the ongoing conflict in Syria, a US official said. The official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, called on Iraq to randomly search
Iranian planes flying to Syria, and said Washington had complained to
'all levels of the Iraqi government' about the lack of inspection. 'It's
reasonable to stop the planes and inspect them,' the official said. 'At
least do some randomly and legitimately to see. They (Iraq) have cause to
be suspicious. Instead, they are suspending their disbelief, looking the
other way, and averting their gaze.' 'If they really wanted to find out
they would stop flights randomly, periodically, and actually look at
them. And we are confident that they would find, and we have told them
this, military equipment and weapons, ammunition, those type of
things.'" http://t.uani.com/10cy0JO
Domestic
Politics
Reuters:
"Iran's supreme leader may have helped Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win
two presidential elections, but he is now bent on stopping his turbulent
protege from levering his own man into the job. Time was when even
reformist presidents would defer to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the
ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic's clerical system. Ahmadinejad
changed all that. Ahmadinejad's relentless quest for power and
recognition has led him into direct confrontation with Khamenei, the man
to whom he arguably owes his second term, if not his first. And as Iran's
first non-clerical president since 1981, he has not stopped short of
challenging the power of the clergy. Even though he cannot stand for a
third term, Ahmadinejad is widely seen as determined to extend his
influence by backing his former chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie
for president." http://t.uani.com/145uODa
Opinion &
Analysis
Simon Henderson
& Gabriel Scheinmann in WSJ: "It is useful,
then, to consider how the world would look with a nuclear Iran. Even
today, without a bomb, Iranian leaders already boast regularly of their intention
'to wipe Israel off the map.' While many non-Israelis consider this
scenario implausible, Iran's ambitions don't end with Israel. Tehran
wants to dominate the Middle East, playing for regional hegemony, energy
resources and cultural supremacy. As a double minority in the region-Iran
is Persian and Shiite, while the rest of the region is Arab and mostly
Sunni-Tehran seeks to tilt the balance of power by projecting influence
deep into Arab and Sunni lands. Iran has used the disorder of the Arab
revolutions to advance its influence in areas with large Shiite
populations under Sunni rule. Already influential in Syria (through its
support for the heterodox Alawite Assad regime), Lebanon (through its
proxy Hezbollah) and Iraq (where Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
government maintains strong Iranian ties), Tehran has exacerbated the
chaos in several other countries directly across the Persian Gulf.
Bahrain, an island kingdom with a Shiite majority but a Sunni royal
family, is wobbling under daily riots by Shiites. Saudi Arabia, which
sent forces to neighboring Bahrain to help put down the antiregime
protests in March 2011, has also experienced a spike in popular
demonstrations, especially in its Shiite-populated and oil-rich eastern
province. In Yemen, authorities recently seized an arms shipment
originating in Iran. The Gulf region looks today like Central and Eastern
Europe in the late 1940s, at the dawn of the Cold War. At that time,
Soviet control over the 'Eastern Bloc' wasn't yet absolute. Washington outmaneuvered
Moscow's attempt to isolate Berlin, and Harry Truman stared down Stalin
in Iran, leading to the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Greece and Turkey
were salvaged and remained in the Western camp. Then Stalin tested his
first atomic bomb in August 1949. Soviet dominance became total in the
Eastern Bloc, with dreadful consequences. Riots in East Germany in 1953,
protests in Poland and the invasion of Hungary in 1956, the erection of
the Berlin Wall in 1961, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968-all left
the West standing on the sidelines. Once the Soviets possessed nuclear
weapons, it was inconceivable to risk trading Moscow, Prague or Budapest
for Washington, New York or Los Angeles. Stalin and then Khrushchev even
made supposedly strong U.S. allies waver about lining up firmly behind
Washington. Think of the opposition in West Germany to the stationing of
U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on that country's soil, or of Austria's
neutrality and absence from NATO. Finland, despite having been invaded by
the Soviet Union during World War II, adopted a policy of coerced
neutrality-giving rise to the term 'Finlandization.' After Moscow went
nuclear, virtually half of Europe was abandoned to Stalinism. An Iranian
bomb would engender a similar crisis in today's Middle East. Iran would
dominate the small, energy-rich Gulf states, and it would cause tremors
among supposedly staunch U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The
larger nations in the region, if they deem that America has lost its will
to defend them from Iranian encroachment, may also fall into line. If the
U.S. allows Iran to go nuclear, it risks the 'Finlandization' of the
Persian Gulf. The period of Soviet terror and domination over Europe
lasted more than 40 years. How long would Iran's endure in the
Gulf?" http://t.uani.com/16GKvAf
|
|
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. For more information please
email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a
commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own
interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of
nuclear weapons.
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment