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Top Stories
WSJ:
"The economy and foreign policy emerged as the top issues in Iran's
June 14 presidential election with the eight candidates dedicating their
first live televised debate on Friday to economic woes. The four-hour
discussion exposed in a highly publicized way just how much Iran's
economy has deteriorated under international sanctions on the country and
mismanagement by the current government. Candidates shared grim facts
with viewers: Most factories have been closed or are operating at 50%
capacity; privatization has been sidelined in favor of giving security
branches a bigger stake in the economy; 3,000 cargo ships are stranded
because of sanctions; the government has borrowed from the central bank
to compensate for its budget deficit; three million people are
unemployed, including 800,000 college graduates. To many Iranians, none
of these revelations were news. They see the impact of the faltering
economy in their daily lives, but it was startling to hear candidates-who
made it on the ballot only after vetting by the regime-so bluntly express
the country's dire state." http://t.uani.com/15xZrjd
FT:
"If it goes on like this, Iran's regime may be about to witness an
embarrassingly low turnout in the upcoming presidential election. Ten
days into the campaign for the June 14 vote, the eight candidates are
struggling to create any buzz with their television campaigns and public
speeches. And that, together with a decision to ban two high profile
candidates from the election, means many ordinary Iranians are quietly planning
to stay home on election day. 'I do not know anyone who is going to
vote,' says Banafsheh, a 37-year-old housewife. The eight candidates took
part in their first televised debate on Friday. But they often sounded
the same notes on issues such as how to reduce the country's dependence
on oil revenues as a way to avoid international sanctions and it was a
performance unlikely to generate much enthusiasm." http://t.uani.com/1aVR9lG
Reuters:
"Iran's first debate between candidates for the presidency degenerated
into acrimony live on state television on Friday when, instead of
discussing the economy, some of the hopefuls resorted to sniping over the
questions and format. The testy exchange between the moderator and
reformist Mohammad Reza Aref, moderate Hassan Rohani, and conservative
Mohsen Rezaie was the subject of wide ridicule by Iranian viewers who had
tuned in for the four-hour discussion... Yasmin Alem, a U.S.-based expert
on Iran's electoral system, said Friday's debate showed that Iran's leadership
had tried to introduce a less explosive format. 'After what came to pass
in the heated 2009 debates, the leadership in Tehran has decided to dumb
down the process to a point where it now borders on ridicule,' she
said." http://t.uani.com/11dgRfZ
Nuclear Program
Reuters:
"The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said on Monday talks with Iran have
been 'going around in circles' - unusually blunt criticism pointing to
rising tension over suspected nuclear arms research by Tehran that has
increased fears of a new Middle East war. Yukiya Amano, director general
of the International Atomic Energy Agency, vented growing frustration at
the lack of results in getting Iran to address suspicions of military
dimensions to its atomic energy program. Tehran denies the accusations.
In hard-hitting comments to the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors, he
also said Iranian advances in building a heavy-water research reactor and
in its uranium enrichment work were in 'clear contravention' of U.N.
Security Council resolutions, dating to 2006, calling for a suspension in
such activities. The IAEA has been trying since early 2012 to engage with
the Islamic state over what the Vienna-based U.N. agency calls the
'possible military dimensions' to Iran's nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/16Dytuk
Reuters:
"Iran aims to start a reactor next year which the West fears could
arm an atomic bomb; Israel, which has bombed such construction sites
around the Middle East before, may try to stop the plant being completed.
The timetable for the planned start-up of the Arak heavy-water research
plant is closely watched: Israeli and Western experts say any attacker
would probably prefer to act before it becomes operational - to avoid
generating radioactive fallout. The Islamic Republic says it will make
isotopes for medical and agricultural use. But analysts say this type of
facility can also produce plutonium for weapons if the spent fuel is
reprocessed - something Iran says it has no intention of doing." http://t.uani.com/10LDWuB
AFP:
"The eight candidates standing for President this month may differ
on several issues, but when it comes to Iran's nuclear drive they are
united in pursuing what they see as its peaceful atomic ambitions.
Whoever is elected on June 14 to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic
republic is unlikely to alter the course of its programme of uranium
enrichment. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei takes the key decisions
in Iran, including on the nuclear issue. Western powers believe Iran's
nuclear activities may have a covert military purpose, but Tehran denies
this, saying they are peaceful. 'Definitely the result of the
presidential election will not have any influence on the nuclear issue,'
atomic chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani has said. The presidential hopefuls
- including top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili - have all insisted that
the nuclear project will proceed." http://t.uani.com/18Mnuyp
LAT:
"Although nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is favored to win the
upcoming presidential election in Iran, U.S. Secretary of State John F.
Kerry said Friday that the outcome would have little effect on Tehran's
disputed nuclear program and wouldn't alter the Obama administration's
search for a diplomatic solution. Kerry noted that Iran's nuclear program
is not controlled by the president, but by the country's most powerful
figure, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'I do not have high
expectations that the election is going to change the fundamental
calculus of Iran,' Kerry told reporters during a joint appearance at the
State Department with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. 'The
supreme leader will ultimately make that decision.'" http://t.uani.com/13g6b4h
Sanctions
Reuters:
"The United States blacklisted on Friday eight companies in Iran's
petrochemical industry, sending a warning to the Islamic Republic's
global customers as Washington strives to cut off funds to the country's
nuclear program. Petrochemical companies owned or controlled by the
Iranian government that are on the Treasury Department list include
Bandar Imam Petrochemical Co, Bou Ali Sina Petrochemical Co and Mobin
Petrochemical Co. This was the first time Washington sanctioned the
petrochemical industry, which an administration official said was the
largest source of foreign earnings for Iran's nuclear program after oil
sales. 'Companies should end immediately their purchases of Iranian
petrochemical products,' the official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said on a call with reporters." http://t.uani.com/19C38Ha
WSJ:
"The U.S. said Friday it used a variety of measures to increase its
sanctions on Iran, including one authority used for the first time. The
U.S. Treasury Department said that it and the State Department placed
sanctions on Cyprus and Ukraine-based Ferland Company Ltd. for
facilitating deceptive transactions on behalf of the National Iranian
Tanker Co., which was named in July 2012 as an entity of Iran's
government. In March 2013, Ferland and the NITC schemed to help Tehran
evade sanctions by helping sell Iranian crude in a plan that also
involved a vessel owned by Dimitris Cambis, Treasury said. Cambis, a
Greek businessman, was placed under sanctions in March, but he denies the
allegations." http://t.uani.com/18MlCG4
Bloomberg:
"Iran is storing 30 million barrels of crude at sea as sanctions
hinder exports and projects that would allow it to build onshore
facilities to hold oil, according to E.A. Gibson Shipbrokers Ltd.
Fourteen very large crude carriers are storing Iranian oil, the
London-based shipbroker said in an e-mailed report today. Sanctions are
hindering exports and preventing the Persian Gulf country from importing
the steel it needs to build storage plants on land, according to the
report... Iran exported 1.1 million barrels a day in March, about 50
percent less than a year earlier, the International Energy Agency
estimates... Iran was storing oil on at least 11 VLCCs and one smaller
vessel at the end of April, according to IHS Fairplay, a maritime
researcher based in Redhill, England, that collates data on vessel
movements." http://t.uani.com/14ba7Ez
Reuters:
"Ships on the world's busiest waterways face growing threats to
their satellite navigation systems, including jamming attacks, prompting
Britain and South Korea to deploy back-up devices to avert potential disasters
at sea... Captain Tim Gallaudet of the U.S. Naval Observatory, citing a
U.S. navy sailor recently returned from a deployment in the Middle East
Gulf, pointed to signal disruptions close to Iran. 'When transiting near
the Iranian territorial sea limit in the northern Arabian Gulf, his ship
consistently experienced interference with the vessel's GPS receivers,
almost certainly due to intentional jamming,' Gallaudet told a forum last
month." http://t.uani.com/18MmL0g
FT:
"The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is looking to tap deepwater
oil reserves in the Caspian Sea and needs related equipment. Yet economic
sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and the UN
Security Council due to concerns over Iran's nuclear program prevent most
top-tier Western manufacturers and operators from doing business with the
country, forcing Iranian energy officials to develop alternate
procurement channels. 'Because of the embargo, it is hard for us to get
anything,' Maleck Mohammad Gity, head of the petrophysics department of
the Khazar Exploration and Production Co. told XportReporter. Khazar is
the NIOC subsidiary that is in charge of the company's initiatives in the
Caspian... Khazar is particularly interested in obtaining blowout
preventers, subsea wellheads, and other equipment from GE and one of its
subsidiaries, Wellstream Holdings, Gity told this news service. In
September of 2009, GE signed a declaration with United Against Nuclear
Iran, the US-based advocacy organization, pledging that it does and will
not conduct any business with Iran. While Khazar does not use
Chinese-made drilling equipment, it cooperates with the China National
Logging Corporation (CNLC), which provides well-bore services for
petroleum extraction projects, Gity said. Khazar has also been working
with Schlumberger, one of the last Western oilfield services firms
currently operating in Iran." http://t.uani.com/13zL6Ra
June 14
Elections
AP:
"Iranians have seen it before: A youngish presidential candidate
firing up crowds with fist-waving rants against the West, then displaying
his Islamist bona fides with courtesy calls to hard-line clerics. Saeed
Jalili, familiar to outsiders because of his prominence as a nuclear
negotiator, has tried to distance himself from outgoing president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who has fallen out with the clerical leadership that
controls Iran. But he is employing the same strategy that worked for
Ahmadinejad eight years ago - and in the murky world of Iranian politics,
where there are no credible polls and elections are a highly controlled
affair, it has made him, for many, the presumed front-runner. 'No
compromise! No submission!' shouted supporters at rallies this week that
had men in front and women segregated in the back." http://t.uani.com/10TAs5M
AP:
"Iranian media say that a court has imposed a six-month publishing
ban on a state-owned newspaper for its allegedly false reporting. The
semi-official Mehr news agency reported Sunday the suspension of IRAN,
which is under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is
seen to express views close to his. The semi-official Fars also reported
the ban. The agencies did not say which report triggered the ban. Calls
to IRAN were not immediately returned." http://t.uani.com/11dfrC1
AP:
"Iranian police have arrested several people campaigning for a
reformist candidate in this month's presidential election, an aide said
Sunday, as a senior official pledged to impose ideological limitations on
the race. Police picked up several supporters of candidate Hasan Rowhani
after he delivered a speech Saturday night, his campaign manager,
Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency. 'Some
people were detained on the street after leaving the meeting,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/11R3qbp
Syrian Civil
War
WashPost:
"Sophisticated technology from Russia and Iran has given Syrian
government troops new advantages in tracking and destroying their foes,
helping them solidify battlefield gains against rebels, according to
Middle Eastern intelligence officials and analysts. The technology
includes increased numbers of Iranian-made surveillance drones and, in
some areas, anti-mortar systems similar to those used by U.S. forces to
trace the source of mortar fire, the officials and experts said. Syrian
military units also are making greater use of monitoring equipment to
gather intelligence about rebel positions and jamming devices to block
rebel communications, they said... 'We're seeing a turning point in the
past couple of months, and it has a lot to do with the quality and type
of weapons and other systems coming from Iran and Russia,' said a Middle
Eastern intelligence official whose government closely monitors the
fighting. The official, who spoke on the condition that his name and
nationality be withheld in discussing sensitive intelligence, said the
new gear is cementing an advantage gained by Syrian forces with the
arrival of hundreds of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon in recent
weeks." http://t.uani.com/16Dz6Ef
Daily Telegraph:
"Iran has cut up to £15 million a month in funding for Hamas as
punishment for the movement's backing for the uprising in Syria, the
Palestinian Islamist group's leaders have admitted. The two former close
allies have also ceased military cooperation, effectively ending a warm
relationship that saw Tehran provide weapons, technical know-how and
military training to Hamas fighters. The rupture has been caused by
Hamas's refusal to toe the Iranian line by supporting President Bashar
al-Assad, whose Alawite regime is religiously loosely related to the Shia
Islam practiced by Iran's ruling theocracy." http://t.uani.com/17S0Cya
Human Rights
Human Rights Watch: "Iran's judiciary should refrain from
implementing a proposed penal code that retains execution by stoning and
other provisions that violate basic rights. The Guardian Council,
composed of 12 religious jurists, reinserted the stoning provision into a
previous version of the draft law which had omitted stoning to death as
the explicit penalty for adultery. No official statistics are available,
but human rights groups estimate thatthe Iranian authorities currently
hold at least 10 women and men who face possible execution by stoning on
adultery charges. At least 70 people have been executed by stoning in
Iran since 1980. The last known execution by stoning was in 2009." http://t.uani.com/11dfgXi
Foreign Affairs
CBS:
"A semi-official Iranian news agency says Tehran has hosted a
delegation of the Afghan Taliban, the radical Sunni group that has long
been a sworn enemy of Iran's ruling Shiite clerics. The Fars agency
reported on Saturday that the Taliban held talks with Iranian
intelligence officials. Fars says the visitors came from the Taliban's
political office in Qatar. The group recently opened a mission in the
Gulf Arab country to provide a venue where Afghan President Hamid
Karzai's emissaries could hold talks with the Taliban to try to find a
peaceful end to the 12-year war in Afghanistan." http://t.uani.com/16DBFWN
AP:
"Several dozen Iranian tourists touched down in an ancient Egyptian
city on Friday, the first time Iranians were back in Egypt following a
two months' interruption in the warming-up of ties between the two
nations. The group of 132 Iranians was greeted with tight security
measures meant for their own protection, an Egyptian security official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
talk to media. It was not immediately clear how long the group would stay
or which locations it would visit. Aswan is known for ancient pharaonic
archaeological sites, monuments of the Nubian culture and the High Dam
along the Nile River." http://t.uani.com/13g7iRn
Opinion &
Analysis
Sharon
Harris-Zlotnick in Newsmax: "Three years after
federal sanctions were enacted, the majority of U.S. states have yet to
sign off on comprehensive barriers to trade with Iran. Worse, 13 states
allow shipping companies that do business with Iran to access their
ports. Those revelations come from the New York-based United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) group, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing Iran from
attaining nuclear weapons. Only seven states, California, Indiana,
Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Florida, have enacted
so-called 'debarment legislation.' And a few of those have ports that
continue to allow access to companies that do business with Iran. Three
other states, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Missouri, have pending
debarment legislation. 'We've had real success with debarment, because it
forces companies to immediately make a choice,' UANI Communications
Director Nathan Carleton tells Newsmax. 'Some companies have stopped
doing business immediately with Iran.' UANI wants the debarment process
adopted in all 50 states. Doing so would reinforce federal sanctions. ...
UANI views divestment as a step in the right direction. ... But
divestment falls short of actual debarment. Ports and shipping play a key
role in Iran's push for regional hegemony. Ports in Iran are controlled
by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
and his regime use the ports to bring in components for Iran's nuclear
and ballistic-missile programs. Also, it uses its ports to ship weapons
to other radical forces in the Middle East. Experts say that almost
certainly means that goods bound for Iran are transiting through U.S.
ports en route to the Islamic nation. ... Orde Kittrie, a professor of
law at Arizona State University and senior fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, a D.C.-based think tank, says the best way to
tighten sanctions is to enlist the support of major U.S. states. 'The
most impactful next step, at the state level, would be to persuade the
remaining big budget states, topped by Texas, to adopt Iran contracting
laws,' says Kittrie... UANI CEO Mark D. Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations under George W. Bush, lauds sanctions as using 'pen
and ink over bullets and bombs.' He adds, 'Robust sanctions must be part
of a total strategy.'" http://t.uani.com/1aVWhGh
Josh Wolonick in
Minyanville: "Four years ago, social media proved
one of its great values to the world: Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of
their peers could allow people in dangerous and censored situations to
instantaneously share information. Social media coverage of the 2009
presidential election in Iran brought to light violence, oppression, and
human-rights crimes. A year later, social media weighed even heavier in
the politics of a foreign part of the world: the Arab Spring was not so
much televised as it was tweeted and Facebooked. Protesters and
revolutionaries have used social media to great effect, and now, leaders
are catching up. In particular, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the
supreme leader of Iran, is making his mark on Facebook: His page has
107,767 likes. His posts include tutorials on beard-shaving (shaving
one's beard is haram, meaning 'rulings and consequences of a sinful act
are applied to it as a matter of caution'), and on the upcoming
presidential election ('the words of the candidates should be real,
friendly, [and] based on accurate and true information'). According to
the organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), the page is also
used to foment pro-regime sentiment, and to attack Western influences. As
one post from May 1, 2013 read, 'You (the US government) are the symbol
of evil! This is who wages war in the world, plunders the nations....'
UANI has launched a campaign to have Khamenei's page taken off of
Facebook, with a petition and a message sent directly to Mark Zuckerberg.
The group argues that the page goes much further than being
anti-American, that it breaks Facebook's guidelines against hateful,
sexist, and discriminatory comments. As Nathan Carleton of UANI told
Minyanville, 'The regime violates all those terms, and it's particularly
hypocritical for them to be using Facebook when the people of Iran
can't.' Many are banned from using the social network in Iran, but as
Carleton said, '...in reality a lot of Iranians can still look at
Facebook. Sometimes they're going around filters with other computer
programs, but they can still see Facebook and that is one of the main
reasons Khamenei has a page, so people can view it.' Moreover, UANI
argues in its letter to Zuckerberg that Iranians have been tortured or
even killed in relation to something they posted on Facebook." http://t.uani.com/15viwSu
WSJ Editorial
Board: "Speaking of Iran (see above), the
Iranian-American who pleaded guilty to conspiring to assassinate the
Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. was sentenced on Thursday to 25 years in
prison. Another day at the office for Tehran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American, was charged in October 2011 with
conspiring with 'factions of the Iranian government' to blow up Saudi
Adel al-Jubeir as he dined at Cafe Milano, a popular Georgetown
restaurant. Arbabsiar first denied any role in the plot, but prosecutors
say that after his arrest he made phone calls to an Iranian Quds Force
official that the FBI secretly recorded. He had made a number of trips to
Iran in 2011, and prosecutors say he was recruited by a cousin who was a
senior official in the Quds Force. Arbabsiar was caught after he tried to
recruit a man he thought was part of a Mexican drug cartel to do the
bombing. The man was an informer for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Prosecutors say Arbabsiar cooperated for a time but then stopped. The
conviction in federal court in Manhattan is good news, but the way the
case has vanished from the public mind is not. The original charge was
announced with great fanfare at a press conference by Attorney General
Eric Holder, FBI director Robert Mueller and others. President Obama
promised the 'toughest sanctions' on Iran in response. But as the case
concluded this week, the government's main public reaction was a
statement from the U.S. Attorney in New York. The White House has taken
little public interest in the case, though it could have led to a
horrific act of terrorism against civilians in the heart of the U.S.
capital. Perhaps the plot doesn't fit conveniently with Mr. Obama's
larger narrative that the war on terror is over, or maybe with his
diplomatic ambitions for a deal on Iran's nuclear weapons. But that can't
gainsay the evidence that Iran tried to plan and carry out a terrorist
act on U.S. soil." http://t.uani.com/15vdmpt
Mary Anastasia
O'Grady in WSJ: "To hear Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad tell it, Iran is a peace-loving country that minds its own
business and just tries to get by in a world that is inexplicably
hostile. But an eight-year investigation by an Argentine prosecutor into
the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos
Aires-where 85 people died-has led to a very different conclusion about
Iran's global agenda. According to Alberto Nisman, who was assigned to
the bombing case in 2005, Iran is sowing revolution all over the world,
and Latin America is a key target. In a 500-page report released on May
29, Mr. Nisman outlines a sophisticated Iranian terrorism network that
runs from the Caribbean to the Southern Cone. Its targets are not limited
to areas south of the Rio Grande. The foiled attempt to blow up New
York's John F. Kennedy Airport in 2007, Mr. Nisman contends, was an
Iranian-planned operation that was managed from Guyana in a manner almost
identical to the Buenos Aires attack. His report delivers evidence
suggesting that numerous similar terror cells operate in the region. In
October 2006, Mr. Nisman indicted seven Iranians and one Lebanese-born
member of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia for the AMIA murders.
Interpol notices for their arrest were issued but none was captured.
Then, late last year, the Argentine government of Cristina Kirchner
announced that a 'truth commission,' to be chosen by Argentina and Iran,
would examine the viability of the prosecutor's case. To many Argentines,
that seemed like letting the fox decide the fate of the chickens. But
Mrs. Kirchner forged ahead, getting congress to agree. On May 20
Ahmadinejad approved Iran's participation on the commission. Mr. Nisman's
response was to release a mountain of evidence against Tehran into
cyberspace for all the world to see. The thread that led Mr. Nisman to
look more closely at the JFK airport plot, and then the rest of the
region, seems to have begun with Mohsen Rabbani. He was the Iranian
cultural attaché in Buenos Aires in 1994 and the man whom Mr. Nisman's
report says was 'the principal architect of the local connection in the
AMIA bombing.'" http://t.uani.com/11z53nW
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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
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.
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