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Top Stories
Reuters:
"The U.N. nuclear watchdog says it wants Iran to clarify past
production of small amounts of a rare radioactive material that can help
trigger an atomic bomb explosion, but which also has non-military uses.
The comment about polonium by U.N. atomic agency chief Yukiya Amano at a
weekend security conference in Munich suggested the issue may be raised
at talks between his experts and Iranian officials on February 8. It also
signaled his determination to get to the bottom of suspicions that Iran
may have worked on designing a nuclear warhead, even as world powers and
Tehran pursue broader diplomacy to settle a decade-old dispute over its
atomic aims... 'The separation of polonium-210, in conjunction with
beryllium, can be part of a catalyst for a nuclear chain reaction,' the
Arms Control Association, a U.S. research and advocacy group, said on its
web site." http://t.uani.com/1doJMnc
Al-Monitor:
"Images of Iranians standing in long lines to receive
government-subsidized food have led to criticism by the domestic Iranian
media both for the program's planned and the message it sends to the
world about the state of Iran's domestic situation. The food-subsidy
handouts, which were approved by President Hassan Rouhani's
administration, were designed to replace in part the cash subsidies
implemented under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The plan has been
criticized by some as revoking the spending discretion of the poorer
classes and deemed inefficient. The public manner in which the handout
was managed and the long lines that resulted in scuffles were also seen
as humiliating and demeaning toward the lower economic classes. The
controversy over the food handouts began almost immediately when, one day
before the plan was to take effect, a Ministry of Commerce official
announced the new income limits of 500,000 toman ($170) per month for
eligibility, depriving roughly 4 million people of subsidies." http://t.uani.com/1fEaY6k
Free Beacon:
"One of Iran's top former nuclear negotiators promised that Iran
'will never' dismantle its nuclear enrichment program, and that Tehran's
current promises to curb these activates are only temporary. 'Dismantling
will never occur on Iranian enrichment program,' Hossein Mousavian,
Iran's former ambassador to Germany and onetime top nuclear negotiator,
told the Iranian press over the weekend... 'If we accept limitations in
the final deal to build trust on enrichment, (the limitations) should be
only for the trust-building era and not forever,' Mousavian, who served
as Iran's spokesman during nuclear negotiations with the European Union,
was quoted as saying... Mousavian went on to state that any 'final' deal
with Iran should last no longer than five years. 'The final agreement, if
defined well, can last for three to five years, and then Iranian nuclear
issue will be in its routine path,' he was quoted as saying." http://t.uani.com/1eQcm21
Human Rights
Asharq Al-Awsat:
"Last month, Hassan Rouhani, the new President of Iran, made a
whirlwind visit to Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern province of
Khuzestan. According to official media, Rouhani spent much of his time
there dealing with 'a number of sensitive files' left undecided by the
outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One such file concerns 14
human rights activists who had been in prison for up to two years. When
Rouhani took over as president he had them moved from the Karoun Prison
in Ahvaz to an unknown destination. There, last July, an Islamic
Revolutionary Tribunal with a single judge, Ayatollah Muhammad-Baqer
Mussavi, sentenced the 14 to death on charges of 'waging war on God' and
'spreading corruption on earth' and 'questioning the principle of
velayat-e faqih' (the guardianship of the jurist). Before he left Ahvaz,
Rouhani gave his green light for the executions. The first two executions
were carried out last Monday when Hashem Shaabani and Hadi Rashedi were
hanged in an unidentified prison. Both men were well known in human
rights circles across Iran and had a long record of advocating greater
cultural freedoms for Iran's ethnic Arab-speaking minority, believed to
number almost two million. Shaabani, aged 32, was especially known in
cultural circles because of the poetry he published both in Persian and
Arabic." http://t.uani.com/1nNA5aL
ICHRI:
"New concerns about the safety of Internet communications have
emerged following statements by Iranian authorities about the
government's utilization of new, more complex, and undetectable filtering
methods. The new methods used by government organizations not only limit
access to Internet websites, but they also put the users' communication
security at risk, making them vulnerable to hackers wishing to access
their Internet communications. These new actions can allow the identities
of users of hacked websites to be tracked, making their data available to
government organizations, in addition to making it very easy for the
hackers to access the users' data. Although the Head of the Tehran Cyber
Police Colonel Mohammad Mehdi Kakovan had previously told ISNA, 'Under no
circumstances does the Cyber Police enter the individuals' private
domain, and emails, chat sessions between two individuals, and specific
pages are not monitored,' the new filtering system will make just such
access easily possible." http://t.uani.com/1e0vk4M
Foreign Affairs
Fars News (Iran):
"Some Israeli media, including Ynetnews and German TV station
Phoenix, have misquoted the Iranian foreign minister as saying that
'Holocaust should not happen again' and that 'the extermination of Jews
by the Nazi regime was tragically cruel and should not happen again.'
Speaking to FNA, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi rejected
the media reports about Zarif's statements as untrue, and said, 'In a
phone conversation that I had with Mr. Zarif he completely rejected the
remarks attributed to him and declared that the Islamic Republic's stance
about the (Zionist) regime is what has been repeatedly announced by the
country's diplomacy apparatus and this stance has not changed.'" http://t.uani.com/1jb9GDo
Opinion &
Analysis
Bret Stephens in
WSJ: "Every now and again, however,
some of these reports are worth rescuing from premature burial. So it is
with the 'Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification
Technologies,' the soporific title given to a report published last month
by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board. The report is long on phrases
like 'adaptable holistic methodologies' and 'institutionalized
interagency planning processes.' But at its heart it makes three timely
and terrifying claims. First, we are entering a second nuclear age.
Second, the history of nuclear proliferation is no guide to the future.
Third, our ability to detect nuclear breakout-the point at which a regime
decides to go for a bomb-is not good. On the first point, consider: Last
year Japan and Turkey signed a nuclear cooperation deal, which at Turkish
insistence included 'a provision allowing Turkey to enrich uranium and extract
plutonium, a potential material for nuclear weapons,' according to the
Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Japan, for its part, hopes to open a $21 billion
reprocessing center at Rokkasho later this year, which will be'capable of
producing nine tons of weapons-usable plutonium annually... enough to
build as many as 2,000 bombs,' according to a report in this newspaper.
The Saudis are openly warning the administration that they will get a
bomb if Iran's nuclear programs aren't stopped: Saudi billionaire Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal speaks of the kingdom's 'arrangement with Pakistan.'
Seoul is pressing Washington to allow it to build uranium enrichment and
plutonium reprocessing facilities, a request Washington is resisting.
Think of that: The administration is prepared to consent to an Iranian
'right to enrich' but will not extend the same privilege to South Korea,
an ally of more than 60 years. It isn't fun being friends with America
these days. On the second point, here's the board's discomfiting
takeaway: 'The pathways to proliferation are expanding. Networks of
cooperation among countries that would otherwise have little reason to do
so, such as the A.Q. Khan network or the Syria-North Korea and Iran-North
Korea collaborations, cannot be considered isolated events. Moreover, the
growth in nuclear power world-wide offers more opportunity for 'leakage'
and/or hiding small programs.' And that may not be the worst of it. At
least A.Q. Khan was working for a Pakistani government over which the
U.S. could exercise leverage. But what leverage does Washington have over
'Office 99,' which handles Pyongyang's proliferation networks? What
leverage would we have with Tehran should one of its nuclear scientists
go rogue? In the Iranian nuclear negotiations the administration is assuming
that a regime as famously fractious as the Islamic Republic will
nonetheless maintain rigid controls over its nuclear assets. Why is that
assumption good? Finally, there is the matter of nuclear detection. In
his 2012 debate with Paul Ryan, Joe Biden insisted that the Iranians 'are
a good way away' from a bomb and that 'we'll know if they start the
process of building a weapon.' The report junks that claim. 'The
observables are limited, typically ambiguous, and part of a high-clutter
environment of unrelated activities,' it notes. 'At low levels associated
with small or nascent [nuclear] programs, key observables are easily
masked.' Bottom line: We are dancing in the nuclear dark. Now the
administration is pressing for an agreement with Iran based on the
conceit that the intelligence community will give policy makers ample
warning before the mullahs sprint for a nuclear weapon. That is not true.
Iran could surprise the world with a nuclear test at least as easily as
India did in 1998, when the intelligence community gave the Clinton
administration zero warning that New Delhi was about to set off a
bomb-and a South Asian arms race. That failure is especially notable
given that India, unlike Iran, is an open society." http://t.uani.com/1gJeTSu
Anthony Cordesman
in CSIS: "No one has ever been able to travel to the
Gulf without discovering just how different the perspectives and values
of the West and the Middle East can be. During the last two years,
however, these differences have threatened to become a chasm at the
strategic level. Many in the West still see the political upheavals in
the region as the prelude to some kind of viable democratic transition.
Western commentators focus on Iran largely in terms of its efforts to
acquire nuclear forces, and see Saudi Arabia and the other conservative
Gulf states as somehow involved in a low-level feud with Iran over
status. The reality in the Gulf is very different. Seen from the
perspective of Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf states, the upheavals
in the Arab world have been the prelude to chaos, instability, and regime
change that has produced little more than violence and economic decline.
The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia reflect a broad regional power
struggle that focuses on internal security, regional power, and
asymmetric threats far more than nuclear forces. It is a competition
between Iran and the Arab Gulf states that affects the vital interests
and survival of each regime. This struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia
is now made more complex by growing doubts among Saudis and other Arabs
about their alliance with the United States and about U.S. policies in
the region. At a popular level, these doubts have led to a wide range of
Arab conspiracy theories that the United States is preparing to abandon
its alliances in the Arab world and turn to Iran. At the level of
governments and Ministries of Defense, these doubts take the form of a
fear that an 'energy independent' and war-weary America is in decline,
paralyzed by presidential indecision and budget debates, turning to Asia,
and/or unwilling to live up to its commitments in the Gulf and Middle
East. Finally, few in the United States and the West understand the
extent to which this is a time when both Iran and Arab regimes face a
growing struggle for the future of Islam. This is a struggle between
Sunnis and Shi'ites, but also between all of the region's regimes and
violent Islamist extremists... If one looks at the second set of threats
and tensions in terms of Iranian, Saudi, and other Arab Gulf
perspectives, it is again important to point out that Saudi and Arab Gulf
strategic priorities do not give Iran's nuclear programs the same
priority as do those of the United States, Europe, and Israel. Saudi
Arabia and its neighbors are particularly concerned with the threats
posed by the outcome of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the political
upheavals in Syria, and the long-standing instability of Lebanon have
created. They fear what Arab voices like King Abdullah of Jordan have
called the 'Shi'ite crescent' - a zone of Iranian influence which extends
from the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Iran now
has a significant military presence and zone of influence in Iraq, Syria,
and Lebanon. The U.S. invasion of Iraq not only destroyed Iraqi military
capability to counterbalance Iran, it created a level of sectarian and
ethnic tensions and Shi'ite dominated central government which has come
to give Iran more influence in Iraq than the United States. Iraq is not
an Iranian proxy, but it also is not an 'Arab state' tied to other Arab
states, and its Shi'ites and not its Sunnis are now the dominant
political elite. The Arab Gulf states do not take a unified approach to
Iraq, but Saudi Arabia and several other states see Prime Minister Maliki
and his government as being under heavy Iranian influence and Iraq as a
potential threat. Saudi Arabia has adjusted its military forces to deal
with a potential threat from Iraq and Iran in the upper Gulf and with the
fact that Iraq has an 814-kilometer long border with Iran. Saudi Arabia
is building a security fence and barrier along this entire border, and
also plans for the risk that Iran might try to thrust through Iraq
against Kuwait. While Saudi Arabia probably does not see these as a high
probability threats, it again has a fundamentally different perspective
from the United States and Europe. These threats are on its borders, and
proximity alone gives them a strategic importance that Saudi Arabia
cannot ignore. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and all of the Gulf states
see the Syrian civil war as a nightmare that has created a humanitarian
disaster, tied Assad to Alawite and Iranian support, pushed Sunni rebels
increasingly into Jihadist extremism, and linked instability in sectarian
conflict in Iraq to sectarian conflict in Syria and Lebanon - boosting Al
Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in ways that have spread its influence deeply into
Syria and had some impact in strengthening Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, (AQAP) in posing a threat inside Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The
end result not only poses what Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab states
see as a serious growth in Iran's influence and the Iranian threat, it
has raised serious questions about the credibility of the U.S. role in
the Gulf and the credibility of many of the West's humanitarian goals and
postures." http://t.uani.com/1ao5pt9
David Albright
& Andrea Stricker in ISIS: "On June 26, 2013, a
United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois
indicted Nicholas Kaiga, 36, of Brussels and London, on charges of
attempting to transship a specialized U.S. aluminum metal usable in gas
centrifuges and transshipping other U.S. metals and materials to
Iran. Kaiga was indicted and arrested as the result of a U.S. sting
operation which involved an agent posing as an employee of a targeted
Illinois company. The indictment alleges that between November 2010
and February 2012, Kaiga worked on behalf of an unnamed illicit
procurement agent located in Iran to serve as a purported recipient of U.S.
goods in Belgium. Kaiga would allegedly claim the goods brokered for sale
by the unnamed Iranian would not leave Belgium. He would then
allegedly transship or attempt to transship U.S. materials from Belgium
to Malaysia, where the Iranian operated front companies, via freight
forwarder, and they would go onward to Iran. The Iranian individual
used his front company or front companies in the United Arab Emirates to
broker the deals. Significantly, the Iranian attempted to arrange the
purchase and shipment of 1,800 feet of U.S.-made 7075 T6 aluminum tubing,
with an outside diameter of 4.125 inches and a tensile strength of 572
megapascals (MPa), for Kaiga to transship from Belgium to Malaysia.
Aluminum tubing of this specification is controlled because of its
application in nuclear and missile programs and requires a license for
export to Malaysia; a license is not needed for exports to Belgium.
U.S. law forbids shipments of any such metals to Iran due to its
application in nuclear programs and its general embargo against Iran.
Iran is openly and illicitly breaking export and sanctions laws of other
countries. Those efforts likely continue today. Sanctions on
these types of goods remain in force under the recent Joint Plan of
Action between Iran and the P5+1. Authorities and companies must
not relax efforts to catch these attempts. Iran needs to accept
additional provisions against nuclear trafficking in the comprehensive
solution to be negotiated with the P5+1 under the Joint Plan of
Action. These conditions would help ensure that Iran's smuggling
efforts are ended in a way that is verifiable. If a long term
solution is reached, Iran's limited, legitimate nuclear programs will
require overseas supply, and the comprehensive solution will thus need to
establish a legitimate procurement channel for such items." http://t.uani.com/1eQhDGK
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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