Eye on Iran: Iran's Supreme Leader says US Cannot Be Trusted To Fight The Islamic State

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "One irony about the fight against Islamic State is that the nations now striking the extremist group the hardest also dislike each other the most. Iran's supreme leader, for example, declared last month that the United States has "a corrupt intention and stained hands" and cannot be trusted to fight against Islamic State. Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington is "not and will not coordinate militarily" with Tehran. Washington and Tehran say they abhor each other. Yet they appear to be tacitly working together - if awkwardly and at arm's length - to fight Islamic State. When everyone hates everyone else (welcome to the Middle East!) and pursues their own self-interest, strange political alliances can emerge". http://t.uani.com/1wH9ZL8 Reuters: "Iran would take at least five years to start exporting natural gas to the European Union if sanctions were removed, industry experts said on Wednesday. Last month, Reuters reported that the EU was increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw while those with top gas supplier Russia grow chillier due to the Ukraine crisis. Russia meets a third of Europe's gas demand worth $80 billion a year. The EU has imposed sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, increasing the need for gas from elsewhere. Iran boasts the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia but has also been hit with sanctions, in this case over its nuclear programme. Diplomats are pessimistic on whether Iran and world powers will conclude a final agreement on those sanctions by a Nov. 24 deadline". http://t.uani.com/1wFFbJS Bloomberg: "Iran's revenue from crude sales, the OPEC member's biggest export, dropped 30 percent because of the recent decline in global oil prices, according to President Hassan Rouhani. "International conditions are such that the country's main source of income, i.e. oil revenues, has been cut by some 30 percent," Rouhani said in remarks to parliament published yesterday on Shana, the Oil Ministry's news website. "We have to deal with the new conditions and the global economic conditions." Brent crude, a benchmark for more than half of the world's oil, has plunged more than 20 percent since peaking in June at about $115 a barrel as supply, boosted by U.S. shale production, outpaced demand. Iran needs to achieve a break-even sales price of $143 a barrel this year to maintain its fiscal balance, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "The government probably will face a budget deficit; that's why growth will be the victim," Kevan Harris, associate director at Princeton University's Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, said by phone yesterday". http://t.uani.com/1tk6Fn5     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Iran wants all Western sanctions to be lifted before striking a deal on its contested nuclear programme by a November deadline, a top official said Wednesday. The announcement came amid intensifying efforts to conclude a definitive pact. The six powers in the talks with Iran -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany, known as the P5+1 -- have set November 24 as the deadline. The chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the US proposal of a gradual lifting of sanctions was 'unacceptable'. 'If we want a definitive accord on November 24, there must be an immediate lifting of sanctions,' he told a news conference in Paris". http://t.uani.com/1yIB93S AP: "Iranian authorities have foiled a sabotage attempt involving tanks used for the transportation of heavy water, a key component in nuclear reactors, an Iranian newspaper reported on Thursday. The independent Arman daily quoted Asghar Zarean, deputy head of Iran's nuclear department, as saying that Iranian nuclear experts thwarted the sabotage attempt 'in recent weeks' but did not provide a more specific timing. 'Thanks to the full alertness of our colleagues, we were able to detect and defuse the sabotage attempt,' said Zarean, who is also in charge of security at Iran's nuclear agency. An unidentified foreign country was behind the attempt, Zarean added without elaborating. He did not indicate what kind of result the sabotage meant to achieve." http://t.uani.com/1u9zFkN Trend: "A senior advisor to the Supreme Leader of the Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says that he has full trust in Iranian government's nuclear delegation team. Ali Akbar Velayati, advisor to Khamenei on international affairs, who is also head of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council says that Iran's nuclear negotiation delegation is on the right route and they haven't retreated from "regime's nuclear redlines", Fars News Agency reported on Oct. 30. The nuclear redline refers to Iranian authorities insistence on having a full nuclear program, including scientific researches, uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel production, etc. The West is suspicious about Iran's hidden efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, but Iran rejects the claims, arguing that the country's nuclear activities are aimed at totally peaceful goals. Some of Iran's hardliners, including some members of parliament have raised their dissatisfaction about Iran's nuclear delegation team's talks with P5+1, saying that the Iranian delegation gave up the country's rights and withdrew from the regime's redlines". http://t.uani.com/1tTknQA Human Rights Washington Post: "The family of a Washington Post reporter held without charge in Iran for more than three months called Wednesday on the authorities in Tehran to free him. An open letter signed by Jason Rezaian's brother, Ali, and his mother, Mary Breme Rezaian, was released 100 days after Rezaian was arrested under still-vague circumstances, along with his wife and another couple. Rezaian's family said he is being held in solitary confinement in the notorious Evin prison, which houses common criminals as well as dissidents, intellectuals and journalists. Because no charges have been brought against him, Rezaian has been prohibited from hiring a lawyer, his family said". http://t.uani.com/1nRIblD Fin. Times: "The failure of Iranian authorities to identify those responsible for a spate of acid attacks against women has raised fears of further attacks and prompted questions about the adequacy of the government's response. Up to eight women in the central city of Isfahan have been injured in acid attacks this month, according to local media. While no new incidents have been reported in Isfahan this week, rumours are rife on social media of similar incidents in other Iranian cities, fanning concerns among women that they could be doused with a chemical agent by attackers on motorcycles". http://t.uani.com/1wIlbVX Foreign Affairs Al- Monitor: "The Middle East is going through many developments, most notably the fluctuations of Saudi-Iranian ties, which affect the future of the countries in the region including that of Lebanon. Over the past few months, positive developments have emerged including the visit to Jeddah in August by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein-Amir Abdollahian. Progress in Saudi-Iranian relations was further emphasized by a meeting between Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Saud Al-Faisal and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif at the UN General Assembly in New York in September, which culminated in discussions on the importance of cooperation to combat terrorism and resolve the region's qualms." http://t.uani.com/13jUGO1 Opinion & Analysis Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post: "The Wall Street Journal reports the trend we have remarked on for some time : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani after a press conference in Tehran in June. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) The Obama administration and Iran, engaged in direct nuclear negotiations and facing a common threat from Islamic State militants, have moved into an effective state of détente over the past year, according to senior U.S. and Arab officials. The shift could drastically alter the balance of power in the region, and risks alienating key U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates who are central to the coalition fighting Islamic State. Sunni Arab leaders view the threat posed by Shiite Iran as equal to or greater than that posed by the Sunni radical group Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL .Israel contends the U.S. has weakened the terms of its negotiations with Iran and played down Tehran's destabilizing role in the region. This, strictly speaking, is not detente, which involves mutual restraint, but appeasement in which friends are sacrificed to keep enemies at bay. Of course, soon we will have no friends and the enemy will be unrestrained. We do seem to be moving in that direction. The untenable positions resulting from this - heckling Israel about its conduct of the war in Gaza, allowing Bashar al-Assad to continue his mass murder, and refusing to contemplate more sanctions as Iran remains the world's leading sponsor of terror and abuses its own people - seem not to bother the president. Refusing to support the Green Revolution, then, was not an error, but a feature, of this wonderful new world in which we ally with one of the most heinous regimes on the planet. Are we to give Iran its own sphere of influence and let our allies be damned? Let Iran become a nuclear threshold state and try to bully Israel into accepting the new status quo? If so, we are most of the way there." http://t.uani.com/1wGsDkD Tzvi Kahn in Foreign Policy Initiative: "President Hassan Rouhani has failed to fulfill his pledges to promote 'equal civil rights' in Iran and advance a 'constructive approach to diplomacy.' Instead, he has presided over a regime that continues to support wide-ranging political repression, religious persecution, and global terrorism. In the most recent high-profile abuse, Tehran on Saturday executed a 26-year-old woman for killing the man she said attempted to rape her, defying sustained international pressure for her release and spurning charges that the regime had elicited her confession by force. This fact sheet highlights some of the regime's ongoing human rights abuses and support for terrorism under Rouhani, who assumed Iran's presidency in August 2013 amid Western optimism that his conciliatory rhetoric would herald improved relations". http://t.uani.com/1wHQzEZ      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.