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Top Stories
Free Beacon:
"Facebook has not responded to calls for it to remove the official
account of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who critics say
uses the social networking site to disseminate radical propaganda. United
Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a grassroots advocacy group, sent a letter
to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday urging him to immediately
delete Khamenei's account on the basis that it is used to promote the
regime's anti-American ideology... UANI also has started a petition aimed
at pressuring Facebook to eliminate the account. It has already garnered
hundreds of signatures, as well as the support of high-profile media
personalities such as former Bush administration spokeswoman Dana Perino.
However, Facebook had not yet responded to UANI's request. It also did
not respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment on the status
of Khamenei's account, which currently has more than 43,400 'likes.' 'We
are still awaiting a response from Facebook about this issue,' said UANI
spokesman Nathan Carleton. Wallace also said that it is hypocritical to
give Khamenei free use to the site while Iranian authorities block access
for ordinary citizens. 'UANI believes that Facebook should not allow the
Iranian regime access to its platform, especially given the fact that the
regime severely restricts its own citizens' use of Facebook and when
freedom of expression is so severely repressed in Iran,' Wallace
wrote." http://t.uani.com/10pgu6i
WSJ:
"Iranian-backed hackers have escalated a campaign of cyberassaults
against U.S. corporations by launching infiltration and surveillance
missions against the computer networks running energy companies,
according to current and former U.S. officials. In the latest operations,
the Iranian hackers were able to gain access to control-system software
that could allow them to manipulate oil or gas pipelines. They proceeded
'far enough to worry people,' one former official said. The developments
show that while Chinese hackers pose widespread
intellectual-property-theft and espionage concerns, the Iranian assaults
have emerged as far more worrisome because of their apparent hostile
intent and potential for damage or sabotage. U.S. officials consider this
set of Iranian infiltrations to be more alarming than another continuing
campaign, also believed to be backed by Tehran, that disrupts bank
websites by 'denial of service' strikes. Unlike those, the more recent
campaigns actually have broken into computer systems to gain information
on the controls running company operations and, through reconnaissance,
acquired the means to disrupt or destroy them in the future, the U.S.
officials said. In response, U.S. officials warn that Iran is edging
closer to provoking U.S. retaliation." http://t.uani.com/11fi1Hn
WSJ:
"The disqualification of two influential politicians from Iran's
presidential race has sparked an outpouring of criticism by some
prominent Iranians who said the decision would hurt the credibility of
the election and tighten the circle of power around Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei... 'The supreme leader is supposed to stop the
descent toward dictatorship,' wrote Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini, the
daughter of the revolution's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, in an open letter to Mr. Khamenei. 'Please show us that you can
fulfill this role as it is the wish of many people worried about Iran.'
Tehran's parliament representative Ali Mottahari, the son of a prominent
cleric, said that if Ayatollah Khomeini were to run for office in Iran
today he would be disqualified, in comments carried by Iranian media on
Wednesday. In another open letter, Ayatollah Mohamad Sadegh Haeri
Shirazi, a senior cleric that serves on one of the country's most
influential supervising committees, said even a soccer match is exciting
only when two rival teams are playing. 'Disqualifying a prominent figure
from the election process is in contradiction to the essence of the
political legacy we want to create,' he wrote." http://t.uani.com/10XVqQJ
Nuclear Program
AP:
"The U.N. nuclear agency responsible for probing whether Iran has
worked on a nuclear bomb depends on the United States and its allies for
most of its intelligence, complicating the agency's efforts to produce
findings that can be widely accepted by the international community. Much
of the world looks at U.S. intelligence on weapons development with a
suspicious eye, given American claims a decade ago that Iraq had
developed weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. used those claims to
justify a war; Iraq, it turned out, had no such weapons. The
International Atomic Energy Agency insists that it is objective in
evaluating Iran's nuclear program and that its information comes from a
wide range of sources and is carefully vetted. But about 80 percent of
the intelligence comes from the United States and its allies, The
Associated Press has been told. Two IAEA officials, who gave the 80
percent figure, told The AP that the agency has been forced to rely more
and more on information from Iran's harshest critics - the U.S., Israel,
Britain, France and Germany - because Tehran refuses to cooperate with
international inspectors." http://t.uani.com/13PRWUK
Sanctions
AFP:
"The US Treasury on Thursday added 20 companies and individuals to
its Iran sanctions blacklist, accusing them of supporting Tehran's
nuclear efforts and helping the country avoid international sanctions.
The 20 include Iran-based transport and freight companies Aban Air, DFS
Worldwide and Everex, as well as officials of the three, which the
Treasury said work to get around bans on doing business with
already-blacklisted Iran Air. Malaysia-based Petro Green and a top
company official, Hossein Vaziri, were placed on the US blacklist for
their work with firms linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Naftiran
Intertrade Company, both primary targets of US sanctions." http://t.uani.com/10Rdlrx
AP:
"A senior American official on Friday praised India for reducing oil
imports from Iran and said the U.S. government will decide soon on New
Delhi's request to renew a waiver from sanctions on Tehran. U.S. Under
Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said that India's reduction
of oil imports was supporting U.S. and European Union sanctions against
Iran, which are aimed at deterring the country from developing nuclear
weapons. India slashed imports of Iranian crude by nearly 27 percent in
the financial year that ended March 31, according to the Press Trust of
India news agency." http://t.uani.com/13PSoSM
Reuters:
"Swiss-based commodities giant Glencore Xstrata said on Thursday
that it had done nothing wrong when it engaged in metal swaps with Iran,
rejecting a suggestion by U.N. experts that such bartering could have
been a way of evading sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
A confidential U.N. Panel of Experts report seen by Reuters on Wednesday
said alumina-for-aluminum swap deals with Iran by Switzerland-based
commodities giants Glencore and Trafigura TRAFG.UL could have been a way
to bypass international sanctions. A Glencore spokesman said the company
broke no regulations and did not violate the sanctions. Trafigura said in
a statement to Reuters that it could not comment specifically on the
experts' report, which the company said it has not seen." http://t.uani.com/123ZTbf
June 14 Elections
AFP:
"US Secretary of State John Kerry slammed Iran on Friday for its
barring of would-be candidates for a presidential election next month. 'I
cannot think of anyone in the world... who would not be amazed by a
process in which an unelected Guardian Council, which is unaccountable to
the Iranian people, has disqualified... hundreds of potential candidates
according to vague criteria,' he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv.
'The council narrowed a list of almost 700 candidates down to...
officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime's
interests, rather than who might represent some different point of view
among the Iranian people,' Kerry said. 'The lack of transparency makes it
highly unlikely that that slate of candidates is either going to
represent the broad will of the Iranian people or represent a change,'
the top US diplomat added." http://t.uani.com/13PSt9l
AFP:
"Iran's ruling establishment has moved to prevent infighting by
allowing only a handful of conservatives loyal to the all-powerful
supreme leader to contest next month's presidential election, analysts
say. This paves the way for the most powerful political institutions to
be completely run by individuals hand-picked by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
the country's ultimate decision maker, or by those obedient to him. The
attempt to consolidate more power comes at a time when Iran, at
loggerheads with world powers over its nuclear ambitions, is struggling
to cope with harsh economic sanctions targeting its vital oil income.
'All candidates with a chance of winning are either related to the leader
or to the security apparatus,' one Western diplomat, speaking not for
attribution, told AFP." http://t.uani.com/13PSuda
Syrian Civil
War
WSJ:
"Shiite fighters, primarily from Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, are now
flowing into Syria in greater numbers to bolster government forces, say
Syrians familiar with them. They are arriving to defend Mr. Assad's
regime, but more fundamentally to protect the Shiite faith from what they
see as a regional Sunni onslaught, say people in Seyda Zeinab and the
fighters' hometowns... In Qusayr, Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah fighters
from Lebanon have battled openly alongside forces loyal to Mr. Assad,
whose regime is dominated by the Shiite-linked Alawites. On Thursday,
Hezbollah's media arm said regime forces were in control of roughly the
southern half of Qusayr and were pressing ahead with an air and ground
offensive to take the whole town. But Shiite militants are increasingly
involved in combat elsewhere in the country as well. These include
fighters from Hezbollah, from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and from
Iraq's Asaib Ahl al-Haq-an Iran-backed group that was responsible for
some of the most sophisticated and lethal attacks against U.S. troops in
Iraq-according to militia members and Syrians familiar with the
fighters." http://t.uani.com/Z55Twg
Reuters:
"Iran denied on Friday it had forces in Syria supporting President
Bashar al-Assad's army, one day after foreign backers of his rebel foes
demanded Tehran withdraw its fighters from Syrian territory. 'The true
enemies of Syria make up these accusations to provoke the people of this
country,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said, quoted by
Iranian state television. At a meeting in Jordan on Thursday, the Friends
of Syria grouping of Western and Arab governments called for the
immediate withdrawal from Syria of Iranian fighters and Lebanese
Hezbollah guerrillas." http://t.uani.com/16edo9N
Bloomberg:
"A dispute over whether to include Iran in proposed negotiations to
end the fighting in Syria is complicating the effort by the U.S. and
allies to present a unified front against President Bashar al-Assad's
regime. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry emerged without an agreed
position on Iran from May 22 talks in Jordan with representatives from 10
nations including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, the U.K., France
and Germany, according to a U.S. official who briefed reporters on the
condition of anonymity... U.S. agreement to include Iran would be seen in
the region as 'American backsliding,' according to Michael Doran, a
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East
Policy, where he specializes in security issues." http://t.uani.com/12B9EIX
Human Rights
Rooz:
"According to figures released by officials or official agencies of
the Islamic republic, at least 58 people, including two women, were
hanged in Iran in the past month. Human rights activists tell Rooz that
while the announced reasons for executions in Iran are criminal offences,
they in fact take place with political goals. In an interview with Rooz,
Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for the Iran Human Rights
Organization, a group that tracks and documents executions and death
sentences in Iran predicted that executions would rise in Iran until
about two weeks prior to the presidential election day, currently set for
June 14." http://t.uani.com/12B7NDR
Opinion &
Analysis
Dwight Bashir in
CNN: "As the United States and other Western powers
seek to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions, they would do well
to raise publicly the regime's thwarting of true electoral democracy and
its abuse of pivotal rights, including religious freedom. Indeed, the two
are connected - the government's lack of accountability to its people
fuels unaccountability on the nuclear front. By pressing the government
publicly on democracy and human rights, the West can embolden reformists
in Iran to rise further to the surface and demand genuine reform. If the
thrust for reform were to reach genuine critical mass, the government
would have little choice but to accept reform over repression as a means
for survival. A good start would be for the United States to pursue a
dual-track effort of identifying additional officials responsible for
severe human rights and religious freedom violations and impose sanctions
as delineated under CISADA, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions,
Accountability, and Divestment Act. To date, the United States has only
named about a dozen mid-to-high-level officials while the European Union
has named several dozen more. The U.S. and EU would send an unequivocal
and unified message if it identified Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the
top official responsible for severe abuses. Not only would it be the
right thing to do, but it would also send an unmistakable signal that the
West cares as much about the Iranian people - including dissidents - and
their future as it does about preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon. At the very least, a dual-track initiative would tease out the
regime's true motives. At most, it would create a greater impetus for
authentic change, compelling Iran to act more responsibly in the world as
it becomes more responsive to its people." http://t.uani.com/11fhDsv
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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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