Month: December 2010

It may not be as noteworthy as Time’s Person of the Year, but CNN appears to have actually stuck to the results of its voting in selecting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange their “Most Intriguing Person of the Year.”

Though the article spends much of its time carping about whether Assange is a hero or a villain, and went on about his Saturday Night Live character, it at least acknowledges what is truly the big story of the year, the leaks.

Assange beat out President Obama and several others in the poll. The only person seemingly deserving comparable levels of attention, Pfc Bradley Manning, was once again snubbed by not even being on the list.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 30th, 2010:

Commentary: J.E. Dyer, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, says that Iran has sought to weaken the U.S. military’s capabilities in the region by exploring bilateral defense agreements with Oman and Qatar and by exploiting the domestic political tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Bahrain. All three countries host U.S. forces. These developments limit “Washington’s latitude to “calibrate” force,” sayd Dyer, and make our allies question whether siding with the U.S. could lead to retaltions from Iran. Dyer concludes, “We may validly perceive benefits in waiting to take action [against Iran], but doing so always carries costs. This is one of them.”

Commentary: Rick Richman, also blogging on Contentions, critiques the Obama administration’s Middle East policy. Among other observations, he asserts that “the attempted dialogue with Iran and Syria produced predictable failures.” “American allies will gravitate toward Iran (they already are), unless they soon hear a public commitment from the U.S. president to deal with the problem by whatever means necessary,” writes Richman. “Talks with Iran cannot succeed absent its belief such means will, if necessary, be used.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 28th, 2010:

The Weekly Standard: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz write that the Obama administration’s sanctions against Iran have “assiduously avoided punishing any major European, Russian, or Chinese transgressor of U.S.-mandated sanctions,” and that they must now “ratchet up significantly the pain in Tehran while encouraging our allies to continue to do more than they’d originally thought possible.” They advocate that the administration expose the role played by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps in the crude oil exporting supply chain and then sanction foreign companies which participate in this trade. “Current sanctions and the regime’s atrocious economic management have brought hard times. For the United States and its allies to be successful, the times need to be made a good deal harder still,” they conclude.

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, picks up on the Weekly Standard’s report on NATO forces capturing a member of Iran’s Qods Force who was serving as a Taliban commander. “Iranian citizens may be pinched by sanctions, but the regime continues to support terrorism, attack U.S. troops and pursue its nuclear program,” writes Rubin. Her post, published on December 27th, noticeably overlooks a retraction of the claim, issued by NATO, on December 24th, which read, “The International Security Assistance Force has determined a cross-border weapons facilitator detained Dec. 18 is not a member of the Iranian Qods force, as was originally reported.” (emphasis added)

The Washington Examiner: American Enterprise Institute Fellow and former UN Ambassador John Bolton opines that Obama’s Iran policy has hinged on a “naive belief” that Iran will engage in negotiations about its nuclear program and has, “…continued to make progress toward obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons, and suffered only minimal economic sanctions as a result.” Bolton suggests that the administration is pursuing a path of containing a nuclear Iran but, “This is almost certainly wrong, since Iran’s leaders do not see human life the same way that Moscow’s atheists did.” He concludes, “Weakness inspires our adversaries, and dispirits our friends, invariably to our collective disadvantage. And in that sense, Barack Obama is truly one of the most provocative presidents in American history.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 27th, 2010:

The Weekly Standard: Stephen F. Hayes blogs on a report that a member of Iran’s Qods Force, serving as a Taliban commander, has been arrested in Afghanistan. Hayes writes that this capture disproves the commonly held belief that Iran and the Taliban are adversaries and provides further evidence that Iran has been providing “increasingly lethal support” to the Taliban. “And yet senior Obama administration officials have either downplayed the seriousness of Iran’s support or ignored it altogether, despite a never-ending series of reports from the U.S. military that such coordination is happening,” he concludes, adding that NATO forces in Afghanistan (as ISAF) have retracted their claim that the man was part of the Qods Force.

Commentary: Jonathan S. Tobin, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, offers his take on The New York Times’s exposé on the limited number of U.S. companies who have received exemptions from the trade sanctions against Iran. (See our coverage of the article here.) “While the purpose of the statute that allows for exemptions was to provide humanitarian aid, the Obama administration has let things like chewing gum, sports equipment and even hot sauce be sold to Iran,” writes Tobin. “In light of these revelations, it’s clear that sanctions will never work to halt the march of this terror sponsor toward nuclear capability,” he warns. “After reading this shocking story, there’s little doubt that Ahmadinejad and his tyrannical Islamist confederates are laughing at us.”

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, interviews Israeli ambassador Michael Oren who warns that sanctions “…have not impacted Iran’s nuclear behavior. Now [the Obama administration is] talking about ‘ratcheting up’ the sanctions. That’s good but the ultimate test is whether Iran will cease enrichment on its soil.” Oren emphasized that for both the United States and Israel “all options remain on the table.” But when pushed for specifics ways of indicating to the Iranians that the threat of force was real, he responded “There are ways to communicate that [a military option is real] to the Iranians.”

I have a friend who sends a note every year in December, pleading with me to pen one upbeat, hopeful piece before the next year rolls around. Mind you, I consider myself an upbeat guy in a downbeat world and, for me, when it comes to pure upbeatness, you couldn’t have beaten this week if you tried. This was when my Oscar came in—or the equivalent on the political Internet anyway. On December 7th, the State Department announced its brave decision to host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day in 2011. (“[W]e are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information…”) Less than two weeks later, I learned that if you try to go to TomDispatch.com from a State Department computer, you can’t get there. The following message appears instead:

“Access Denied for Security Risk (policy_wikileaks)

“Your requested URL has been blocked to prevent classified information from being downloaded to OpenNet.”

OpenNet is what the State Department calls its unclassified Web system. Maybe it should now consider changing that name as it prepares for World Press Freedom Day. (Small tip to State Department officials: remember that TomDispatch is just as good a read at home as at work!) I’m sure this is all part of the Obama administration’s fabulous sunshine policy, that “new standard of openness” the president embraced on his first day in the Oval Office. It’s certainly part of the U.S. government’s ridiculous attempt to bar its officials, contractors, and anyone else it can reach from the once-secret State Department documents that WikiLeaks is slowly releasing and that everyone else on Earth has access to.

As for me in this holiday season, I couldn’t be happier. Among those sites banned by the State Department, I’m sure in good company and, of course, you’re not likely to be banned if no one’s reading you in the first place. And here’s the holiday miracle: somehow TomDispatch made it onto The List without revealing a single secret document or even hosting one at the site, evidently on the basis of having commented in passing on the WikiLeaks affair.