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Top Stories
ABC:
"Iran has increasingly become one of the Obama administration's top
talking points in the case for military action against Syria. 'Iran is
hoping you look the other way,' Secretary of State John Kerry bluntly
told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. 'Our
inaction would surely give them a permission slip for them to at least
misinterpret our intention if not to put it to the test.' In his Rose
Garden remarks on Saturday, President Obama did not mention Iran a single
time in announcing his decision to take action, only indirectly
referencing the message that will be sent to 'governments who would
choose to build nuclear arms.' Today, however, Kerry mentioned Iran four
times in his brief opening statement before the committee, repeatedly
tying U.S. action in Syria to deterrence of Iran's nuclear threat. He
said a U.S. strike against the Bashar al-Assad regime would send a clear
signal about the seriousness of American opposition to weapons of mass
destruction. Asked directly whether the Obama administration might use
congressional authorization to target Syria's WMD to also confront
threats in other countries, such as Iran's nuclear program, Kerry said
explicitly 'no.' Still, influencing Iran is clearly becoming a top
objective of supporters of U.S. military action in Syria. 'Our refusal to
act would undermine the credibility of America's other security
commitments, including the president's commitment to prevent Iran from
acquiring a nuclear weapon,' testified Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel." http://t.uani.com/1eemzba
FT:
"Comments by a former Iranian president and pillar of the country's
political establishment have shone a light on possible disagreements
within the country's elite over its support for President Bashar
al-Assad's regime in Syria. In a hotly disputed statement posted on the
internet, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's former president, accused Mr
Assad's government of using chemical weapons against the Syrian people in
what analysts saw as a warning to the government to rethink its support
for its main Arab ally. 'God bless the people of Syria... they were
subject to chemical weapons by their own government and now they have to
expect a foreign invasion,' Mr Rafsanjani, who heads the powerful
Expediency Council, said last week at an event in the northern province of
Mazandaran... Mr Rafsanjani's speech also referred to thousands of
Syrians who had been thrown into prison, painting a dire picture of human
rights under the Assad regime and reflecting what some say is widespread
Iranian sympathy for the Syrian uprising against Mr Assad. 'Mr Rafsanjani
has said what millions of Iranians believe in their heart but they either
do not dare to express it or they face censorship [by Iran's regime],'
said Sadegh Zibakalam, a reform-minded political scientist." http://t.uani.com/15ttHcS
Reuters:
"President Hassan Rouhani will attend the yearly United Nations
General Assembly in New York later this month, Iranian media reported on
Wednesday, an event his predecessor used to make incendiary statements on
the world stage. A relatively moderate cleric, who has said he wants to
ease tensions with the West, Rouhani will give three speeches there,
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying. Rouhani's
predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches at the General Assembly included
questioning the Holocaust and the U.S. account of the September 11, 2001
attacks. Western envoys typically walked out of his speeches in
protest." http://t.uani.com/17ts3HW
Sanctions
Financial Express
(India): "Amid indications that it maybe looking at
Tehran for crude, New Delhi on Tuesday made it clear that it only
subscribed to UN sanctions on the country and not the US. 'We don't
subscribe to the US sanctions, we subscribe to the UN sanctions. We were
party to the UN sanctions, to the UN resolution and voted for it,'
external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said in response to a question
on what India plans to do to circumvent US sanctions on importing oil
from Iran. 'There are issues of availability of insurance and vessels for
carrying oil and of a banking system active and ready to be used for
payments.' He was talking on the sidelines of the FICCI-organised 3rd
National Conference on Energy Security here." http://t.uani.com/13dtvB2
Syria
Conflict
AP:
"A senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards is
warning the United States against attacking Syria, saying such a move
would be a 'dangerous mistake.' Gen. Hossein Salami, acting commander of
the Guards told a group of students on Tuesday that an attack against the
regime of Bashar al-Assad would spread the 'spirit of jihad' among
Muslims and encourage animosity toward the West. Gen. Salami said Syria
is not 'alone.'" http://t.uani.com/14j4jM8
Free Beacon:
"The Iranian Navy unveiled on Tuesday a new warship equipped with
'advanced weapons and radar systems' and warned that Israel would be the
'main loser' if America decides to launch a military strike in Syria,
according to regional media reports... The announcement of these new
military capabilities was accompanied by threatening rhetoric against
Israel and the United States. A senior Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday
morning that Israel would be the 'first loser' following a U.S. attack on
Syria. 'The first loser of this crisis will be the Zionist regime,'
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security
and Foreign Policy Commission, was quoted as saying by Fars. 'We hope
that as the U.S. President has avoided a hasty move on Syria, the U.S.
congress will also act logically in this regard,' Boroujerdi was quoted
as saying following a meeting with Lebanon's foreign minister." http://t.uani.com/19i9oT8
AFP:
"A senior Iranian official warned in Damascus on Sunday that US
interests in the region would be at risk if Washington launched a
military strike against his country's ally Syria. Iranian officials have
issued stern warnings against US-led military action targeting Syria and
the latest came from the chairman of the foreign policy committee of
Iran's parliament. 'I hope that the United States will not undertake any
precipitated and irrational action, due to the sensitive situation in the
region,' Allaeddine Boroujerdi told reporters. 'The Americans cannot
threaten the countries of the region and expect that their own interests
will not be threatened,' he said, a day after talks with Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad... 'If the United States carry out a foolish act, our
response will be decisive,' said Boroujerdi, in remarks translated from
Farsi into Arabic by an interpreter." http://t.uani.com/17zgzXN
Human Rights
Iran Human Rights:
"Three prisoners were hanged in three different Iranian cities
according to the Iranian state media. According to the Iranian state
broadcasting one boy was hanged in the Karoun Prison of Ahwaz
(southwestern Iran) today. The prisoner who was identified as Samir (age
unknown) was convicted of murder, said the report. The state broadcasting
also reported about public hanging of a prisoner in Khomeini Shahr
(Isfahan Province, central Iran) on September 1, and another prisoner in
the Adelabad prison of Shiraz on August 31." http://t.uani.com/19ibbYl
Domestic
Affairs
Al-Monitor:
"Iranian Interior Minister Abdulreza Rahmani Fazli spoke today about
the financial condition of Iran's municipalities. In regard to 'problems
from the ninth and tenth governments [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two
terms] with payments in Tehran municipality, especially in public
transportation,' Rahmani Fazli said that 'Because revenues did not cover
the costs, 70% of the country's municipalities are bankrupt.' With the
exception of Tehran, the mayors of Iran's cities are appointed by the
interior minister... According to a Mehr poll, 43% of Tehran's residents
have someone in their family who is unemployed. The report stated that
official figures by the Ahmadinejad administration indicated that
unemployment was 10% and that 3 million people were looking for work.
However, unofficial reports put unemployment at above 20%, meaning that 5
million people were looking for work. According to President Hassan
Rouhani's economic minister, Iran 'will soon face 8 million people who
are looking for work.' According to labor specialist Hamid Haj Ismaili in
an interview with Mehr, 'The financial mess of the country has caused the
employment measures taken by the government to not be objective.'" http://t.uani.com/1783UKr
Trend:
"Iran's inflation hit 35.1 per cent in the fifth calendar month of
the current year (July 22 - August 21), which is 1.2 per cent more than
its preceding month, the Statistical Centre of Iran announced on
Sunday... Head of Majlis Research Center Kazem Jalali said in July that
the inflation rate is really alarming and the officials should try to
find a solution as soon as possible... Iran's average monthly inflation
rate was 25.4 percent during the previous Iranian calendar year, which
ended on March 20. In April, the International Monetary Fund reported
that Iran's economy contracted by 1.9 percent in 2012 and is expected to
shrink by 1.3 percent this year." http://t.uani.com/1cFLfHX
Foreign
Affairs
Reuters:
"A U.N. team said on Tuesday it had counted 52 bodies in a makeshift
morgue at an Iranian dissident camp, most with gunshot wounds and some
with their hands tied, two days after violence that it decried as an
'atrocious crime'. The dissident Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) group blamed the
Iraqi army for Sunday's bloodshed, but an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki, whose government is close to Iran, dismissed the accusation as
baseless. Following a visit to Camp Ashraf on Monday, the U.N. team said
most of the corpses had gunshot wounds to the head and upper body. It
said several buildings in the camp were also damaged, including one which
was burnt out. 'I call on the Iraqi government to ensure that a thorough,
impartial and transparent investigation into this atrocious crime is
conducted without delay and that the results of the investigation are
made public,' Gyorgy Busztin, acting U.N. envoy to Iraq, said in a
statement." http://t.uani.com/1dOSpOi
Opinion &
Analysis
Ali Alfoneh in
HuffPo: "The election of Iranian President Hasan
Rouhani has created an atmosphere of hope and optimism, both at home and
abroad, not seen since Mohammad Khatami's landslide victory in 1997.
Ignoring the ill fate of Khatami and his reformist movement, Iranian
voters dream of bread and freedom with Rouhani at the helm of the
executive branch, while Iran's neighbours and Western statesmen hope the
Rouhani cabinet will be the harbinger of a responsible foreign policy and
a negotiated solution to the nuclear crisis. Such optimism may be
unwarranted. After all, the history of the Islamic Republic is one of
shattered dreams and broken promises, and the fate of Khatami and the
reform movement, should serve as a warning for what may be in store for
Rouhani. The first signals from Tehran are not promising. As Rouhani
presented his cabinet to the parliament on August 4, 2013, it became
clear that his team is composed of one cleric, 10 technocrats, three
former members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and four
Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (MOIS) veterans, one of
whom is a cleric by training. The strong technocratic presence in
Rouhani's proposed cabinet follows a general trend from the founding of
the Islamic Republic in 1979. A relatively strong presence of
Intelligence Ministry veterans, however, is unprecedented. So is the
sharp drop in the presence of IRGC veterans, whose officers were in
charge of half of the cabinet portfolios under Ahmadinejad. Replacing
IRGC veterans with former Intelligence Ministry officials may be
Rouhani's, and even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's, attempt at containing
and counter-balancing the Revolutionary Guards, whose power was unbridled
under Ahmadinejad, but it does not bode well for prospects of reform in
Iran. Nor does the absence of Khatami era reformists in the cabinet
despite reformist support for Rouhani's election campaign. Rouhani has
also continued the sad tradition of ignoring Iran's religious minorities
in his cabinet. Women too are also notably absent, which makes Rouhani
less progressive than Ahmadinejad, who appointed the first woman cabinet
minister in the Islamic Republic. This means Rouhani either did not wish
to include reformists, religious minorities, and women in his cabinet or
was prevented from doing so... Such a cabinet does not bode well for
Rouhani's will or ability to 'deliver' on reform, which will be hampered
by these figures in key areas such as political and economic liberties,
human rights, and the nuclear issue. Worse, Rouhani may become another
Khatami: The smiling and humane mask covering the grim face of an
inhumane regime." http://t.uani.com/14qjhur
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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