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Top Stories
AP: "Iranians
chanted 'Death to America' and burned the U.S. flag after weekly prayers
in Tehran on Friday despite their new president's outreach to the West
and promises of moderation and easing of tensions with the outside
world... During prayers Friday in Tehran, the master-of-ceremonies led
the crowd into chants of 'Death to America' at least twice from the
podium. The chant was then repeated several times by a group of
worshippers who rallied after the ceremony, burning the American and
Israeli flags, as they do almost every week." http://t.uani.com/1f5aSph
LAT:
"A senior U.S. diplomat urged Congress to delay tough new Iran
sanctions legislation until after upcoming negotiations on Iran's nuclear
program for fear of undermining the talks. Wendy Sherman, the State
Department's third-ranking official, told senators Thursday morning she
would prefer a delay so that she could tell Iranian negotiators at the
mid-October meeting in Geneva that 'this is your chance' to propose an
acceptable deal to curb Iran's disputed nuclear program. 'We do believe
it would be helpful for you to at least allow this meeting to happen on
the 15th and 16th of October before moving forward to consider these new
sanctions,' Sherman, the undersecretary of State for political affairs, told
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She said the administration
doesn't necessarily object to new sanctions, and would be willing to work
with Congress after the meeting to determine what kind of sanctions might
build additional pressure on Iran. She stopped short of endorsing the
pending legislation." http://t.uani.com/15MsyTG
The Hill:
"The government shutdown has 'totally depleted' the administration's
ability to enforce sanctions against Iran, a top State Department
official told lawmakers on Thursday. Wendy Sherman, State's under
secretary for political affairs, told a Senate panel that the shutdown
has all but closed the Treasury Department's sanctions office. She said
Congress's failure to fund the government has also hampered the State Department
and has 'devastated' the intelligence community, which identifies
sanctions evaders. 'Our ability to ... enforce sanctions, to stop
sanctions evaders, is being hampered significantly by the shutdown,'
Sherman told a Senate Foreign Relations panel hearing on Iran's nuclear
program. 'Quite frankly, where Iran is concerned, the sooner the shutdown
is over, the better we will be able to do the job you are asking us to do
and that we want to do.'" http://t.uani.com/18Bi87l
Nuclear
Program
NYT:
"While Washington and Jerusalem have the same stated goal of
stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, there is a growing chasm
over what might be the acceptable terms for an agreement. Mr. Netanyahu's
new mantra is 'distrust, dismantle and verify,' and in an interview with
NBC News he insisted on 'a full dismantling of Iran's nuclear program,'
something Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, has made clear is
unacceptable. Israel, like the Sunni Arab gulf states, also fears that
resolving the nuclear issue would remove the primary instrument for
containing Iran as a regional power. Lifting sanctions would not only
signal new international legitimacy for Tehran, but it would also allow
Iran to rebuild its hobbled economy, giving it the means to intervene all
across the region, financing radical groups and promoting its ideology.
The United States, on the other hand, sees broad benefits to a
rapprochement. And while its official position is also that Iran must
forgo major elements of its existing programs - including its 18,000 centrifuges,
which enrich uranium, and a heavy-water reactor that could create another
pathway to a bomb - Mr. Obama has not recently used the word 'dismantle'
in his own public comments. Instead he has simply said that Iran must
prove its program is peaceful in nature, as Mr. Rouhani insists it
is." http://t.uani.com/18Y9miH
Reuters:
"In his latest warning about Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Iran was working on
intercontinental ballistic missiles that could one day hit the United
States. 'They're not developing those ICBMs for us. They can reach us
with what they have. It's for you,' he told CBS News. 'The American
intelligence knows as well as we do that Iran is developing ICBMs not to
reach Israel. They want to reach well beyond,' he said on the network's
'This Morning' program... In another interview, Netanyahu also warned
Iran's work on ICBMs was clearly aimed at delivering nuclear weapons.
'Those ... long-range ballistic missiles have only one purpose in the
world. Their sole purpose is to arm them with a nuclear payload,' he told
NBC's Andrea Mitchell in an interview set to air later on Thursday."
http://t.uani.com/1dZnECH
BBC:
"Israel's prime minister says Iranians 'deserve better' than their
current government and that their lives could get worse if it gains
nuclear weapons. In an interview with BBC Persian, Benjamin Netanyahu
warned: 'If they get nuclear weapons this brutal regime will be immortal,
like North Korea.' He also said the new President, Hassan Rouhani, could
not 'change the real decisions' made by the Supreme Leader... In his
interview - his first with an international Persian-language media
organisation - the Israeli leader said Mr Rouhani did not 'represent the
Iranian people'. 'He represents a desire for change, but it wasn't
expressed in a free open election.' 'I don't think he has the mandate to
change the real decisions that are made by Khamenei. Khamenei wants
nuclear weapons for Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/19Z3CnG
Times of Israel:
"Israel has held a series of meetings with prominent figures from a
number of Gulf and other Arab states in recent weeks in an attempt to
muster a new alliance capable of blocking Iran's drive toward nuclear
weapons, Israel's Channel 2 reported Wednesday. According to the report,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been supervising a series of
'intensive meetings' with representatives of these other countries. One
'high ranking official' even came on a secret visit to Israel, the report
said... The Arab and Gulf states involved in the new talks have no
diplomatic ties with Jerusalem, the report noted. What they share with
Israel, it said, is the concern that President Hasan Rouhani's new
diplomatic outreach will fool the US and lead to a US-Iran diplomatic
agreement which provides for 'less than the dismantling of the Iranian
nuclear program.'" http://t.uani.com/GCG4y5
New Jersey Jewish
Standard: "You couldn't ask for a better time for
face time with Iranian experts. The Jewish Community Relations Council of
the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey is sponsoring a program, 'A
Nuclear Iran: What It Means For You,' on Sunday at the Bergen County Y in
Washington Township, from 2 to 4 p.m. The panel discussion will feature
three speakers: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a fellow at the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies in Washington and the author of four books on
Iran; David Ibsen, executive director of United Against Nuclear Iran; and
Hindy Poupko, director of Israel and international affairs for the Jewish
Community Relations Council of New York. Ibsen said the Iranian 'charm
offensive' is 'a somewhat sophisticated public relations effort by
elements in the Iranian regime who are looking to achieve as much as they
can from the international community without giving up anything
significant. It's certainly a significant tonal shift from what we saw
with Ahmadinejad. It's all about what the objective of the tonal shift
is. It's clear the underlying objective is not to see an overhaul of the
regime's conduct and behavior; it's to change the behavior of the
international community which rightfully sees the Iranian regime as a
threat." http://t.uani.com/1f5gCzv
Sanctions
Reuters:
"The United States held out the possibility on Thursday of giving
Iran some short-term sanctions relief in return for concrete steps to
slow uranium enrichment and shed light on its nuclear program... Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat, voiced
concern about early sanctions relief, saying this could undermine
international support for the economic penalties that would then be very
hard to restore. Sherman said the fundamental, major sanctions - which
she did not name - should remain in place until all U.S. concerns about
Iran's nuclear program are addressed, but suggested some openness to
partial sanctions relief as negotiations proceed... Republican Senator
Mark Kirk criticized Sherman for suggesting that the Senate should hold
off on additional sanctions against Iran before the talks. 'The State Department
should not aid and abet a European appeasement policy by pressuring the
Senate to delay sanctions while the world's leading sponsor of terrorism
races toward a nuclear weapons capability,' he said, urging 'maximum
economic pressure on Iran to give diplomacy a chance to succeed.'" http://t.uani.com/1garbjz
Human
Rights
BBC:
"Facebook says the 'post' button on its Persian site may have been
hijacked to pay tribute to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Reports
suggest the word 'befrest' - or 'post' - was temporarily replaced with
'Hail Dr Rouhani'. This homage - along with a similar tweak hailing
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif - 'did not last for more
than a few hours' on Wednesday before being rectified, according to the
Tazehnews website. But some social media users captured it on
screengrabs. Facebook was unable to confirm the switch but admitted it
was technically possible because of its crowd-sourcing translation
method, which allows features to be renamed if enough users agree on the
interpretation." http://t.uani.com/15725xq
RWB:
"Reporters Without Borders condemns Iran's threats and defamatory
attacks on Iranian journalists living in exile, including UK-based
freelancer Masih Alinejad and US-based Arash Sigarchi of Voice of
America. The intelligence ministry and Revolutionary Guards are using the
government-controlled national radio and TV broadcaster to orchestrate
these harassement campaigns from Tehran. 'Efforts are being made to mask
the origins of these threats, but it is definitely the national
broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), that is
responsible,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'IRIB is a government
propaganda mouthpiece and, in some cases, tool of repression. The regime
must end its harassment of Alinejad and its reprisals against the
relatives in Iran of Sigarchi and other exile journalists.'" http://t.uani.com/GCFws1
RFE/RL:
"Prominent Iranian reform journalist Issa Saharkhiz has been
released from jail, according to his son. Saharkhiz was among dozens of
activists and intellectuals jailed following Iran's disputed 2009 presidential
vote. He had been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of
insulting Iranian leaders and harming national security. He was later
sentenced to another year and a half in prison on other charges. His
release on October 3 came two months before the end of his latest prison
term. The spokesman of Iran's judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei,
said recently that about 80 political prisoners have been pardoned by
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He said a number of them have been
released, and others will be released soon." http://t.uani.com/19mLyZF
Guardian:
"The recent election of Hassan Rouhani and the reopening of House of
Cinema prompted speculation that Iran's film industry may be on the cusp
of a progressive new era. Such optimism looks likely to be dampened,
however, by the news that director Mohammad Rasoulof has been banned from
leaving the country to receive a lifetime achievement award. Rasoulof,
one of Iran's most prominent film-maker, was sentenced with fellow
director Jafar Panahi to five years in prison and a 20-year ban on
film-making for alleged anti-regime propaganda in 2011. Now out on bail,
he was booked to attend this month's Nuremburg International Human Rights
film festival (NIHRFF) in Germany. Organisers were expecting Rasoulof to
pick up his award in person and present his latest film, Manuscripts
Don't Burn. Screen Daily reports that Rasoulof's passport was confiscated
by authorities upon his return to Tehran on September 19. The film-maker,
who according to the report has been freely travelling between his
homeland and Germany, is therefore unable to return to Europe as planned
this weekend." http://t.uani.com/18WUGlM
Opinion &
Analysis
Michael Doran in
Politico: "The Obama administration today rejects
any suggestion that it is walking into a similar trap. This time, it
says, the Islamic Republic really is in dire straits. As a result of
crippling economic sanctions, moderate elements are, in fact, seeking a
rapprochement. Unlike in Reagan's day, they clearly have the backing of
the supreme leader. These claims are not frivolous, and it is certainly
wise to put them to the test. But the key assumptions that led Reagan
astray still inform American diplomacy today. Chief among them is the
belief - certain knowledge in some quarters - that historic
reconciliation is just around the corner. Many experts believe that the
United States and Iran are natural allies. The goal of diplomacy,
therefore, is to find common ground. With that thought in mind, Obama has
worked hard to define the essential minimum that the United States needs
in order to start afresh. Few have noticed, however, that this effort has
had the practical effect of offering up a series of unilateral American
concessions - gifts that Iran has gladly pocketed without offering
anything tangible in return. Three are particularly noteworthy. The first
came in 2009, when the Green Movement took to the streets in protest in
Iran. Obama clearly signaled then - and continues to signal today - that
violations of basic human rights and suppression of democracy will not be
an impediment to reconciliation. The second major concession came last
April in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the Americans and their negotiating
partners offered Iran an interim nuclear agreement. Their proposal
permitted uranium enrichment at levels of 5 percent - this, despite the
fact that six Security Council resolutions order Iran to cease all
enrichment and reprocessing activities. Instead of demanding full
compliance with the United Nations, Obama opened negotiations from a much
weaker position. The third concession came in the context of the Syrian
civil war. When Iran intervened to help crush the opposition, the United
States ignored the advice of its allies and refrained from mobilizing
international opinion against Tehran. In fact, it did more than just give
the Iranians a pass. Washington used Tehran as an interlocutor with
Syrian President Bashar Assad on chemical weapons. More recently, Obama,
much to the chagrin of traditional allies, is working to include Tehran
in the negotiations to achieve a political settlement to the civil war.
Like Reagan, the president seems to assume that conciliatory gestures
will strengthen the moderates in the Iranian regime. But the exact
opposite could also be true. Hard-liners like Qassem Soleimani, the
commander of the Quds Force and a close confidant of the supreme leader,
have ample material to argue that these concessions from the United
States are a sign of decline, part and parcel of an American retreat from
the Middle East. If the supreme leader listens to such arguments, then
Rouhani's charm offensive will become no more than a tact designed to
collect even more concessions - whether in the nuclear realm or in the
arena of regional security. Obama can mitigate this risk by taking a
number of steps. To begin with, he should specify a time limit to the
negotiations. The Iranians must be disabused of the notion that American
patience is limitless, a reasonable assumption after a full decade of
nuclear negotiations. Next, Obama should seek a package deal, not a
phased process. He must, that is to say, refrain from making any tangible
concessions until Iranian obligations are detailed and fully ratified.
Finally, Obama should work with the Europeans and Israel now, ahead of
time, to define the specifics of an acceptable nuclear agreement - and he
must advise his partners that he will break off the negotiations if the
Iranians do not fully satisfy his demands. To be sure, the seduction of a
bad deal is the greatest risk the president faces. If Iran meets the
United States halfway, the temptation to compromise will be immense. In
that case, many will counsel Obama that reaching an agreement, even a bad
one, is preferable to walking away, because it is a prelude to historic
reconciliation." http://t.uani.com/1bwmvVV
Emily Landau in
The National Interest: "Now Iran is taking steps to
significantly alter the overall structure of the talks in its favor.
Rouhani-focused solely on sanctions relief-is changing tactics in order
to reframe the situation; the charm offensive vis-à-vis the U.S., with
hints of a possibly changed bilateral relationship, is instrumental in
this regard. Tying the nuclear issue to the hope for change in bilateral
relations instantly raises the stakes. It means that if the U.S. is
perceived as being 'too harsh' on the nuclear front, it now risks
squandering not only a nuclear deal, but the very prospect for a broader
change in the overall relationship. This translates into greater U.S.
vulnerability to Iran's tactical games. In addition, the offer of a
change in bilateral relations has been framed by Iran as its own
initiative (rather than America's), to which the U.S. is now required to
respond by altering its approach and policies. Iran demands that the U.S.
lift all sanctions, which Rouhani has deemed are illegal and unjust. This
is intended to undermine the Obama administration's efforts to convince
the world that it is Iran that must take concrete steps to prove that it
has changed course. Catherine Ashton's statement that the P5+1 proposal
is on the table for the upcoming October talks, but that Iran could also
come with its own proposal, reflects the problem. To wit, you cannot gain
the upper hand in a negotiation-especially when time is of the
essence-when you explicitly play along with the other side's attempt to
call the shots, and make demands, while at the same time the other side
continues to advance its dangerous nuclear program. It would be a grave
mistake for the US to play along with Rouhani's attempt to change the
structure and rules of the game of nuclear negotiations to its advantage,
and to not take steps to counter the new framing of the situation. Making
sure that America is the one in the driver's seat is imperative for
ensuring that Iran seriously responds to international demands on the
nuclear front." http://t.uani.com/18YfF5H
Payam Akhavan in
HuffPo: "To better understand why the Iranian people
suffer today from oppression and injustice, it is necessary to address
the repressed memories of the first decade of the Islamic revolution of
1979. In those years, in the name of justice and progress, a utopian
regime imprisoned, tortured, and executed tens of thousands of Iranian
citizens on grounds of their political and religious beliefs. Typical of
power-hungry authoritarian regimes throughout history, these massacres
were justified in the name of a noble cause. While the victims were
portrayed as sub-human and deserving of punishment, the horrors visited
upon them was erased from the public memory, in order to preserve the
legitimacy of the ruling elite. Such extensive violence cannot be reduced
to statistical debates as to exactly how many thousands were victimized.
Behind every statistic there is a grieving mother and father, a brother
and sister, a school-friend and work colleague. In this way, the violence
visited on a single victim affects a much wider circle of society. It
creates a culture of fear and terror, and it becomes the instrument by
which the regime perpetuates its power. This deep national trauma
continues to haunt Iranian society today. The culture of impunity, the
failure to address past atrocities, continues to encourage human rights
abuses today. Left unaddressed, the violent past will continue to govern
the future; it will continue to perpetuate a political culture in which
power and violence prevails over justice and the rule of law. Despite the
widespread executions of the first decade of the revolution, one event stands
out as a shocking symbol of the excesses of those years. In 1988, towards
the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
instructing the authorities to deal with political prisoners 'with
revolutionary rage and rancour'. In an exemplary fashion, Ayatollah
Montazeri, putting principle before his self-interest as the heir to
Khomeini, denounced the planned executions, but to no avail. During that
summer, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 political prisoners were executed
following an inquisition-style hearing before 'death commissions' in
which people were sent to their death based on whether they believed in
the Islamic Republic's political theology or not. Their bodies were
dumped among other places in Tehran's notorious 'khavaran' cemetery. A
policy of denial was adopted to erase any trace of this massive crime.
Such was the determination of the regime to maintain silence that even
the grieving mothers that went to mourn their children at symbolic graves
were beaten and imprisoned. If we move from the Mothers of Khavaran in
1988 to the Mothers of Laleh Park in 2009, we begin to see the thread of
violence and denial that connects the past with the present. In 2012, in
an unprecedented initiative, the Mothers of Khavaran, together with the
survivors and families of victims of these heinous abuses, established
the Iran Tribunal. Its purpose was to expose the historical truth through
a credible and rigorous process; to break the silence and denial that was
imposed for the past twenty-five years by Iran's rulers. Because Iran
does not accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the
decision was made to create a truth commission with no formal legal
standing but with objectivity and legitimacy so that its findings would
be accepted in the court of public opinion... The truly powerful leader
of the future Iran will be the one that with courage and democratic
legitimacy walks with a handful of flowers to Khavaran cemetery and
apologizes to the grieving mothers for their long years of suffering.
Only then can our nation begin to find a way out of the darkness that has
eclipsed its immense potential." http://t.uani.com/1bE3rl1
David Andrew
Weinberg in The National Interest: "President
Obama's Friday telephone call with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani-the
first at such a level in over three decades-has exacerbated existing
problems between the United States and its Saudi ally. Now we learn that
Saudi Arabia cancelled its address at the United Nations, evidently in
protest at recent shifts in U.S. policy. The Saudi royal family has seen
Iran as a threat to their survival ever since 1979, when Iranian leaders
began encouraging Shi'ite communities in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern
Province to rebel. Subsequently, the Kingdom has been engaged in a
regional battle for influence with Iran, and the fall of Saddam Hussein's
regime in Iraq removed a traditional counterweight to Iranian power.
Sunni rulers now fear a Shi'ite crescent stretching from Iran to the
Mediterranean-and possibly south into the Arab Gulf states. Fearing
Iranian advances, the Kingdom spearheaded a 2011 military intervention by
the Gulf Cooperation Council that was designed to rescue the minority
Sunni regime in Bahrain from its Shi'ite opposition. But of late, Syria
has been the biggest regional source of conflict between Riyadh and
Tehran. Saudi officials insist that Syria's Assad regime is guilty of
genocide, and they see Iran's efforts to rescue Assad as aiding and
abetting this slaughter. The Saudis were therefore incensed when the U.S.
backed away from launching a military strike against the regime in
Damascus. President Obama's telephone diplomacy, part of a broader effort
to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program, was the proverbial straw
that broke the camel's back. Although Israeli sources said that PM
Netanyahu would singlehandedly 'spoil the party' on Iran at the United
Nations, his concerns are actually shared by America's Arab allies,
especially in the Gulf. While Oman facilitated the recent contact between
Washington and Iran, the administration has privately received warnings
or complaints on this issue from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait,
Jordan and Egypt. Like Israel, these countries fear that drawn-out
negotiations or even an agreement could allow Iran to achieve a nuclear
breakout capacity. Regardless, they oppose sanctions relief so long as
Iran continues to threaten them with terrorism or political subversion.
The Saudi reaction-cancelling an opportunity to address the world
community-may be the most blunt articulation of those concerns to date,
perhaps trumping even Netanyahu's tough UN speech. Of course, the U.S.
should not predicate its foreign policy on trying to keep the government
of Saudi Arabia happy. However, it is important to recognize that the
current diplomatic effort to engage Iran may come at the expense of our
relations with the Saudis. There are several ways the Saudis could
respond to this latest challenge. One possibility is to grumble but
ultimately give in, recognizing at the end of the day that they depend
upon us for regime survival. However, cancelling their address to the
UNGA is probably a sign Riyadh is not prepared to let the latest dispute
blow over. Another possibility is for Saudi Arabia to decrease its
dependence on the U.S. alliance, either in a fit of anger or as a
cold-blooded strategic calculation. The Saudis might turn to Europe or
Asia for future military sales or energy transactions. They may also
revisit their posture on Syria, arming more extreme rebel groups and sending
weapons that the U.S. opposes such as MANPADS. But paradoxically, a
third possibility is for the Kingdom to cut its own limited deal with
Tehran. Although the Saudis' enmity toward Iran runs deep-and involves a
prominent sectarian dimension-they have responded this way before when
U.S. overtures toward Iran left them feeling exposed." http://t.uani.com/1bwoaLc
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
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in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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