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Top Stories
AP:
"Iran last year boosted its support for global terrorism to levels
not seen for two decades, the Obama administration said Thursday as it
released its annual report on international trends in extremist violence.
The report said the core elements of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan
are headed for defeat but stressed that the network's various affiliates
remain severe threats to the U.S. The State Department's 'Country Reports
on Terrorism' for 2012 left unchanged the U.S. list of 'state sponsors of
terrorism.' Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria remain on that blacklist,
although Iran was singled out as the worst offender and Syria was taken
to task for the ongoing brutal crackdown on opponents of President Bashar
Assad's regime. The report said 2012 was 'notable in demonstrating a
marked resurgence of Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism.' That
sponsorship has been largely carried out through the Quds Force of Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the militant Shiite Hezbollah
movement, Iran's ally and proxy in Lebanon, it said. 'Iran and
Hezbollah's terrorist activity has reached a tempo unseen since the
1990s, with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa,' it
said. Those included an attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in
Bulgaria that killed six, as well as thwarted strikes in India, Thailand,
Georgia and Kenya." http://t.uani.com/137T4lH
WashPost:
"An Iranian American used-car salesman from Texas at the center of a
bizarre plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States was
sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan to 25 years in prison.
Mannsor Arbabsiar, 58, had pleaded guilty in October to a charge of
murder-for-hire and two counts of conspiracy for his role in attempting
to orchestrate the 2011 bombing assassination of Adel al-Jubeir while the
ambassador dined at Cafe Milano, an upscale Georgetown restaurant.
Prosecutors said Arbabsiar was recruited by a cousin who was a senior
official in the Quds Force, which in 2007 the Treasury Department
designated a terrorist supporter, according to court papers. The group is
part of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is closely aligned with
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei." http://t.uani.com/16vD9ST
AP:
"The U.S. issued sanctions Thursday against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's
deputy chief of staff and more than 50 other Iranian government officials
for alleged human rights abuses, while making it easier for Americans to
export advanced communications equipment to Iranian civilians. State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. is trying to help Iranians
exercise freedom of expression, even as they face Internet blockages and
a lack of communications access in the run-up to Iran's June 14
presidential election. The U.S. says it is part of an effort by Tehran to
stifle dissent. Thursday's sanctions target an Iranian intelligence unit
responsible for blocking information and senior Khamenei aide Asghar
Mir-Hejazi. Mir-Hejazi is culpable in violent crackdowns on Iranians,
Psaki said. She said almost 60 other officials involved in abuses also
were added to a U.S. blacklist." http://t.uani.com/19sQjiq
Sanctions
WashPost:
"The Obama administration launched an offensive against Iranian
censorship on Thursday, announcing measures intended to help ordinary
Iranians acquire smartphones and computer software to thwart government
eavesdroppers. The key step, a 'general license' issued by the Treasury
Department, gives private companies permission to sell communications
equipment to Iranians, overriding trade restrictions that had limited
legitimate sales of phones and computer gear to the Islamic Republic.
U.S. officials said the action, coming two weeks before Iran's
presidential elections, would make it easier for ordinary Iranians to
obtain unfiltered news or to talk freely to people outside the country.
'Freedom of speech, assembly and expression are universal human rights,' David
S. Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence, said in announcing the move. 'We will use all the tools at
our disposal... to help the Iranian people exercise these basic
rights.'" http://t.uani.com/11bVvQU
Ars Technica:
"On Thursday, the Obama Administration lifted digital sanctions that
for more than two decades have prevented companies that do business in
the US from also selling or distributing digital goods-including mobile
phones, hosting services, VPNs, and software updates-to Iran. 'It remains
to be seen whether the policy of increasing access to these products and
services will actually lead to enhanced communications by the Iranian
people,' Douglas Jacobson, an international trade lawyer, told Ars.
'There certainly is a large demand for US origin telecommunications
products. However, there are many other practical issues, including the
ability to pay for the products, hardware, and services authorized, since
financial transactions with Iran are very difficult due to the wide array
of financial sanctions imposed on Iran by the US and other countries.
Also, it remains to be seen whether the government of Iran will even
allow such hardware to be imported.'" http://t.uani.com/19sUISp
Bloomberg:
"Japan's crude imports from Iran slumped 96 percent in April from a
year ago, as sanctions aimed at halting the Middle Eastern country's
atomic program limited insurance for transportation of the cargoes. Oil
purchases from Iran for the month dropped to 36,005 kiloliters, or about
7,550 barrels a day, compared with 902,115 kiloliters in April 2012,
according to data today from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Imports fell 97 percent from 1.39 million kiloliters in March, the data
showed. Japan's total crude purchases shrank 6.2 percent in April to
17.59 million kiloliters, the trade ministry said. Oil-product imports
declined 17 percent to 2.54 million kiloliters, while oil-product exports
rose 16 percent to 2.42 million kiloliters. The Japanese government began
providing sovereign insurance to tanker operators that import Iranian oil
after European Union sanctions were introduced last year as an attempt to
persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. The sanctions barred coverage
for 95 percent of the global fleet because London-based underwriters
arrange most of the insurance. Japan's oil buyers reduced their purchases
in April to ration out the government coverage and avoid using it up
early in the year, according to Akitsugu Takahashi, the executive
director for retail fuel sales at JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp.,
Japan's biggest refiner." http://t.uani.com/Zy9hCr
Terrorism
AP:
"Soldiers in northern Nigeria uncovered a hidden arms cache that
authorities believe belonged to members of the Lebanese political party
and militant movement Hezbollah, the military and secret police said
Thursday... 'The arms and ammunition were targeted at facilities of
Israel and Western interest in Nigeria, however, the security agencies
are making frantic efforts to unveil the true situation,' the military's
statement read. 'At the end of investigation, all those involved will be
prosecuted.' ... Iran, which backs Hezbollah, has recently been
implicated in two incidents in Nigeria. An Iranian and his Nigerian
accomplice were sentenced to five years in prison earlier this month over
trying to smuggle a weapons shipment heading to Gambia through Nigeria.
U.S. authorities and the United Nations have linked the Iranian to his
nation's Quds Force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. In
February, Nigerian authorities broke up what they described as an
Iranian-backed group that was gathering intelligence about locations
frequented by Americans and Israelis, as well as making lists of famous
people for possible attacks. Those arrested in the operation have yet to
face charges." http://t.uani.com/11t7RDf
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Outreach
Coordinator Bob Feferman in Algemeiner: "In October
1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech in Chicago titled
'Quarantine the Aggressor,' in which he challenged Americans and the
world to take action to prevent the outbreak of war. Today, as we face
the challenge of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, it is important to
ask how we can implement Roosevelt's vision of peaceful conflict
resolution. In the speech, Roosevelt warned: 'The peace-loving nations
must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of
treaties... which today are creating a state of international anarchy and
instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or
neutrality'. He identified the key to preserving peace as '... a return
to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty.' In
2002, Iran was found to be in violation of its treaty obligation under
the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), by hiding a uranium
enrichment program from the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). In 2006, the U.N Security Council issued the first of four
resolutions requiring Iran to cease all uranium enrichment activity.
Since 2006, Iran has continued to act in total defiance of the U.N
Security Council and has not only continued to enrich uranium, but
greatly expanded its enrichment facilities. According to the IAEA, Iran
now has more than 12,000 spinning centrifuges. Moreover, Iran not only violates
the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, through its extensive support for
terrorist organizations- including Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iraqi
insurgents and the Taliban in Afghanistan- Iran is in fundamental
violation of it obligations to the Charter of the United Nations...
Clearly, a regime that ignores the '...value of a signed treaty' cannot
be entrusted with the ultimate weapon of terror: the atomic bomb.
Although the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the Security Council
are weak and ineffective (thanks to Russia and China), as Americans we
can be proud that the U.S. government has imposed much tougher ones.
Today, U.S companies and their foreign subsidiaries are prohibited from
doing any business in Iran except for humanitarian reasons. In addition,
over 20 states have adopted laws divesting their public pension funds
from companies working in Iran's energy sector. Seven states have adopted
contracting legislation that prohibits companies working in Iran's energy
sector from signing government contracts. Opinion polls also show that a
majority of American people understand that a nuclear-armed Iran that
sponsors terrorism would pose a clear threat to American national
security and world peace. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of America's
foreign friends and allies. Beyond the effective embargo of
European Union on Iranian oil, hundreds of major multinational companies,
like Ericsson, LG, and Lufthansa, continue business as usual in Iran.
Ending this corporate support is critical to pressuring the regime to
consider halting its nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/115cMub
Con Coughlin in
The Daily Telegraph: "The other factor that weighs
greatly in Assad's favour in his bid for survival is the support he is
receiving from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Much is being made of the
recent shipment of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft batteries to Syria to
protect the regime from possible Nato air strikes. But the real
game-changer on the ground has been the training and equipment provided by
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who have helped to train thousands of
Syrians to fight on the regime's behalf. As I revealed last September, an
estimated 150 Revolutionary Guards were sent to Syria by Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after Iran decided it could not let its
most important regional ally succumb to the rebel forces which, backed by
al-Qaeda sympathisers, were at that time threatening to overrun the
regime. Now the Iranians' efforts are starting to pay dividends, and the
latest military assessments suggest that the thousands of Syrian fighters
who have undergone training at the hands of the Revolutionary Guards are
now having a profound effect on the course of the fighting. As I reported
earlier this week, these troops, having recently graduated from secret
training camps staffed by 150 Iranian military advisers, are now taking a
lead role in attacking the rebels. The Assad regime is also receiving
support from the Iranian-controlled Hizbollah militia based in southern
Lebanon, particularly in the current battle for the town of Qusayr. As a
result pro-Assad forces have notched up a number of recent successes,
which include driving the rebels from the previously held positions on
the outskirts of Damascus and Aleppo. As one senior military official has
commented, 'Iran's contribution to the conflict could ultimately be a
game-changer for the Assad regime.'" http://t.uani.com/ZyarxC
Muhammad Sahimi in
The National Interest: "Iran's Guardian Council, the
constitutional body that vets the candidates for almost all elections in
the country, recently barred Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running in the
presidential elections of June 14. Rafsanjani, an architect of Iran's
1979 Revolution, is a former two-term president and speaker of the
'Majles' (parliament). Currently he is chairman of the Expediency
Discernment Council, which arbitrates disputes between the Majles and the
Guardian Council and acts as adviser to the country's Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In 1989, Rafsanjani played a key role in
elevating Khamenei, then a low-rank cleric, to his Supreme Leader
position, and Khamenei repeatedly has referred to Rafsanjani as the
'pillar of the revolution.' Rafsanjani's elimination from the
presidential campaign has shocked the nation. Calling it 'unbelievable,'
Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the revolutionary leader Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, publicly expressed his anger and said that he had
conveyed Qom's major clerics' disapproval to Khamenei. Khomeini's
daughter, Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, wrote a letter to Khamenei in which she
reminded him of her father's complete trust in Rafsanjani. In another
letter to Khamenei, Ali Motahhari, a Majles deputy and son of Ayatollah
Morteza Motahhari, an ideologue of the Revolution, said that if Khomeini
himself were to run today, the Guardian Council would bar him. Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who lives in Iraq and is the most important
'Marja,' or source of emulation for the masses, had supported
Rafsanjani's bid for presidency. But Rafsanjani's candidacy had also
created a huge wave of support among the common people. This terrifies
hardliners afraid that the Green Movement may come out on the
streets again. Repression and crackdown on the reformist activists and
supporters of the Green Movement have already increased. Rafsanjani's
elimination also represents a significant new development in Iranian
politics-namely, the end of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Although
Khamenei is still referred to in Iran as the 'leader of the Islamic
revolution,' he now has achieved his long-term goal of transforming Iran
into a religio-military dictatorship. To do this, he had to win a fierce
power struggle with the moderates, reformists and supporters of the Green
Movements, as well as many among the clergy who oppose him, albeit
quietly. Before being appointed Supreme Leader, Khamenei had no
significant base of support, either in the society or among the grand
ayatollahs. When the revolution was gathering steam in the fall of 1978,
he did not even belong to Khomeini's inner circle. It was Rafsanjani, a
trusted Khomeini disciple, who brought Khamenei into the revolution's
high echelons. Due to his low-rank clerical position, Khamenei has never
trusted the clerics, except those who have been willing to be absolutely
obedient to him. Thus, he has devoted much of his time as Supreme Leader
to efforts to consolidate a power base consisting of the security and
intelligence forces and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC)." http://t.uani.com/17DEaZu
Sam Nunberg in
Breitbart: "Last September, Seid Hassan Daioleslam,
an American of Iranian origins, won a major court victory against the
informal Iranian U.S. lobby in Washington. The decision legitimated Mr.
Daioleslam's investigative research that exposed the National Iranian
American Council (NIAC) and its president, Trita Parsi, as lobbyists for
the Iranian regime. But on May 5 M.J. Rosenberg wrote an article that
turns upside down the trial outcome and even the facts established in the
case. This article points out Rosenberg's many errors. The drama began in
2007 when Mr. Daioleslam, editor of the Iranian American Forum, began to
expose NIAC and Parsi's lobbying campaign on behalf of the Iranian
Regime, the world's leading sponsor of Islamist terrorism. Seeking to
'hit him hard,' NIAC and Parsi filed their defamation complaint against
Mr. Daioleslam in 2008. The Legal Project, an activity of the Middle East
Forum, which seeks to protect the right of independent investigative
journalists to report freely on Islamist terrorism, coordinated Mr.
Daioleslam's pro bono representation by Sidley Austin LLP (Sidley).
Senior Litigation Partner Mr. Timothy Kapshandy served as the lead
attorney in Mr. Daioleslam's defense. After over five years of
litigation, the United States District Court for D.C. not only dismissed
the suit against Seid Hassan Daioleslam but also ordered over $183,000 in
sanction penalties against NIAC and Parsi for their 'discovery abuses.'
Rosenberg works hard to portray this outcome as favorable to NIAC and
Parsi, but he fails. Rosenberg claims that '(a)t the end of this
five-year process, no evidence was found to substantiate the accusation
that NIAC was lobbying for the Iranian regime.' No: the documents
produced during discovery, the pre-trial process where parties exchange
information in preparation for trial, not only suggest that NIAC was
created with the mission to lobby on behalf of the regime, but also
suggest that Parsi had arguably been serving the Mullahs' interest in the
U.S. since as early as 1997. Rosenberg bemoans the 'tall order' NIAC and
Parsi faced in proving their defamation claim in court. Hardly:
Defamation, for public figures, is proven when a false statement is
intentionally published with reckless disregard to its truth. NIAC and
Parsi's complaint in fact claimed that Mr. Daioleslam 'knew' that his
writings were false. However, the complaint 'failed to identify which
statements they perceive as defamatory and to put forth specific evidence
of actual malice relating to those statements.' NIAC and Parsi even
'implied at the motions hearing that the summary judgment record did not
contain all articles, videos, or other documents that might support their
case.' Not only could they not provide any evidence of Mr.
Daioleslam defaming but they also could not prove that any of Mr.
Daioleslam's articles were false... Rosenberg's biggest falsehood is the
incredulous characterization of the infamous substantial sanction penalty
ordered against NIAC and Parsi, describing the $183,000 order as simply
'shifting some of the legal discovery costs.' In reality, NIAC and Parsi
were sanctioned by a federal court for malfeasance because it was
'necessary to punish past discovery abuses or deter future abuses.' These
abuses included withholding 4,159 calendar appointments from production,
concealing 5500 emails with the 'untrue' claim that they did not include
agreed upon search terms and attempting to hide office computers and
servers. Rosenberg's characterization of the events being that 'NIAC
complied' with its discovery requests is a blatant distortion of what
actually transpired." http://t.uani.com/11bUCry
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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