Author: Eli Clifton

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 20th, 2010:

The National: Mohamad Bazzi, former Middle East bureau chief for Newsday and current adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes while the Obama administration has portrayed Hezbollah as having questionable loyalties to Lebanon, the Shi’a political party plays a valuable role for Shiite community in Lebanon. “There is a long tradition of the Lebanese state leaving Shiites to fend for themselves and waiting for religious or charitable groups to fill the vacuum. […]Hizbollah’s “state within a state” was possible because successive governments left a void in the Shiite-dominated areas of southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut.” He notes that while Hezbollah is reliant on Iran for financial, military and political support, it is mischaracterized as “purely an Iranian proxy” by western and Arab policy makers.

The Hill’s Congress Blog: Mark D. Wallace, President of United Against Nuclear Iran, opines that new U.S. sanctions, which took effect on September 29, “closes a significant loophole found in previous U.S. sanction provisions by covering not only U.S. companies and financial institutions but foreign firms and subsidiaries as well.” Wallace, a former ambassador to the UN and the Bush-Cheney ’04 Deputy Campaign Manager, argues against the criticism that the new sanctions law oversteps “extraterritoriality.” He concludes, “Iran’s flagrant defiance of international norms should be reason enough for corporations to cease their business dealings in Iran. Now the U.S. government is presenting companies with a reasonable choice should they refuse to do so: do business with Uncle Sam or with the mullahs in Tehran.”

The New York Times: Despite some distortions demonizing Iran, such as repeating the mistranslation Ahmadinejad’s statement that Israel should be “wiped off the map,” columnist Tom Friedman explicitly endorses linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other problems that hamper the U.S. in the Middle East. “At a time when the president has made it one of his top priorities to build a global coalition to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon, he took the very logical view that if he could advance the peace process in the Middle East it would give him much greater leverage to get the Europeans and U.N. behind tougher sanctions on Iran,” writes Friedman. In light of this, he declares Israel is behaving like a “spoiled child,” pointing to that nation’s intransigence in the peace process.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 18th, 2010:

New York Post: Disgraced Iranian journalist Amir Taheri writes that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki “seems set to strike a Faustian bargain to cling to power: He is ready to dine with the devil.” Judging from the headline, “Iraq: Letting Iran Call the Shots,” the “devil” here is clearly Iran. Taheri, known to have fabricated stories in the past, makes errors in his Post article as well. He writes, “Tehran helped the deal by ordering its oldest Shiite clients, the so-called Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq [ISCI] (and its armed wing, the Badr Brigades), to back Maliki.” Historian Juan Cole noted that Badr “peeled away from it’s parent,” and that ISCI stayed out of Maliki’s coalition.

The Guardian: Michael Knights, a fellow at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes that “Tehran [has] become the most influential outside power in Iraq.” He says, however, that the issue is not closed: “Iran, like the United States, will have to continue to vie for influence in Iraq.” He assesses Iranian interests in Iraq and concludes, “Tehran seeks to prevent Iraq from recovering as a military threat or as a launchpad for an American attack.” He sees the Islamic Republic accomplishing this through trade, particularly energy, and influencing Iraq’s “ fragmented and unregulated” politics.

The Washington Post: A neoconservative editorial writer at the Post make a thinly-veiled call for regime change in Iran, writing that the Islamic Republic has “no interest in a ‘grand bargain’ with the United States or an accommodation with the Security Council… [A]s long as these rulers are in power, Iran will not give up its ambition to exercise hegemony over the Middle East.” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Southern Lebanon is seen to demonstrate that “Tehran can use its client to trigger a new war in the Middle East at any time; it’s a lesser form of the intimidation that it hopes to exercise around the region with an arsenal of nuclear weapons.” This show of force is viewed as a deterrence against an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran.

The Wall Street Journal: Senior Claremont Institute Fellow Mark Halperin writes that Israel’s unique experience as a country “repeatedly subjected to calls for its extinction” and “the steadily improving professionalism of the Arab air forces, their first rate American and European equipment, their surface-to-air-missile shield, and most importantly their mass,” pose a “mortal threat” to Israel’s existence. Halperin observes that “the military strategy of Israel’s enemies is now to alter the conventional balance while either equipping themselves with nuclear weapons or denying them to Israel, or both.” Saving a discussion of Israel’s own nuclear capabilities until the last sentence, Halperin concludes that the only source of security for a Jewish state under “a continual state of siege is the nuclear arsenal devoted solely to preserving its existence.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 14th, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines that the European Union should do more to sanction Iran’s worst human-rights abusers. Such sanctions, he argues, will help lead to “regime change.” “If the opposition were to topple the revolutionary Islamist leaders, Iran’s nuclear project would be instantly less threatening.” Those governments that still have embassies in Tehran, says the op-ed, should downgrade diplomatic relations with Iran by withdrawing ambassadors “if their demands are not met” and visiting Iranian officials should “no longer deserve the red-carpet treatment” when they visit the West. Ottolenghi concludes that a strengthened public diplomacy campaign to speak directly to the people of Iran is necessary to explain the West’s “…policies and condemn the regime’s atrocities.”

The Atlantic: Century Foundation fellow Michael Hanna writes that, despite the howling of some on the left and right, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s support for a new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not mean that Iranian influence in Iraq has reached a high point. “Not only does this misunderstand the fundamental nature of Iran-Iraq relations, it repeats a mistake we have made repeatedly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,” he writes. Hanna demonstrates how even in the most recent election, which gave rise to the current political impasse, Iran has been unable to exert its will on Iraqi politics. The roots of exaggeration of Iran’s influence stem from partisan U.S. domestic politics, he says: “For years, both parties have exaggerated Iran’s role to score political points.”

Fox News: Writing on the Fox News website, Judith Miller does an analysis about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon. She writes that the trip is “shaping up as a potential powder keg and a huge political embarrassment for Lebanon whose reverberations are being felt in many capitals, not just in the Middle East.” She cites a number of right-leaning sources such as MEMRI, an expert from the AIPAC-formed Washington Institute, and neoconservative journalist Lee Smith. Though Miller acknowledges that Hezbollah officials have not yet been indicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (charges are reportedly in the works), she states that Ahmadinejad and Iran, as Hezbollah’s patron, are “indirectly responsible for having killed” him.

Haaretz: Jack Khoury writes that renewed opposition to U.S. military aid to Lebanon appears to be gaining momentum in Congress in the midst of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s high-profile visit to Lebanon. In August, Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Howard Berman (D-CA) held up $100 million in military aid to Lebanon after a deadly border clash between Lebanon and Israel. The two Democrats are now opposing the transfer of military aid to Lebanon, scheduled for next month, in response to Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 12th, 2010:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: An American Jewish Committee poll found that “Jewish approval of President Obama is dropping,” according to JTA. On Iran, the poll found “American Jewish confidence in Obama’s approach to Iran also has fallen” to 43 percent approval. Nearly 60 percent of those American Jews polled approved of military action to prevent an Iranian bomb, and a third disapproved. Seventy percent approved of Israeli military action, which just over a quarter of respondents opposed.

Commentary: Since Obama seems unlikely to strike Iran, Jennifer Rubin, writing at the Contentions blog, cited the responses to questions about Iran in the AJC poll reported by JTA as the central reason for the overall dip in approval. “In answer to the question of whether anything can wean Jews of their ‘sick addiction‘ to the Democratic Party” — referencing Rachel Abrams — “the answer seems to be ‘Obama,’” she writes.

Reuters: Lesley Wroughton reports that on Friday Iran’s Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini accused the World Bank of “discriminatory behavior” in its decision not to authorize new development assistance in Iran. Hosseini said that development and humanitarian assistance were not part of UN sanctions and that the Bank’s refusal to consider a new lending strategy to Iran went against the Bank’s articles of agreement. “The shocking point is that, based on inquiry made from the legal department of the World Bank, the developmental and humanitarian projects are excluded from the imposed sanctions on Iran,” Hosseini said, “in no section of the legal opinion reasons can be found to reduce relations and not financing such new projects.” U.S. lawmakers have pressured the Bank to cut its lending to Iran.

Foreign Policy: Iranian analysts tend to use Red China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to contextualize and predict Iran’s behavior. Carnegie Endowment Associate Karim Sadjadpour looks at those examples, rejects two and chooses one. Using former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan’s 1947 essay on the Soviet Union, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” as a template, Sadjadpour substitutes references to the former USSR with words related to the Islamic Republic and offers a guide to how the U.S. should manage its Iran policy. Sadjadpour rejects the China comparison, and the ensuing strategy of rapprochement. He concludes anti-Americanism is too deeply ingrained in the identity of the Islamic Republic. Instead, the U.S. should put aside fears that Iran is expansionist or genocidal—there is little evidence to support these fears—and accept that U.S. policies might not bring immediate change in Iran. Instead, the parallels to the Soviet Union’s “siege mentality” should help form a new U.S. policy based on Iran’s longterm strategic weaknesses and, ultimately, unsustainable security policies and revolutionary ideology.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 11th, 2010:

The Washington Post: In an editorial, WaPo’s Jackson Diehl writes the Obama administration’s foreign policy strategy is marked by public and highly choreographed “process” and timelines. On Iran, Diehl points to the administration’s statement last spring that Iran was two to five years away from producing a bomb. Whether the sanctions approach will be successful is still unclear, says Diehl, but it has set a clock ticking. The scheduled drawdown of troops in Afghanistan by July 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ goal of creating a “framework agreement” by next September, and the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, all are on timelines and will be put to a test before the 2012 presidential election. He concludes, “Process is always important to good policy — and yes, the Bush administration sometimes demonstrated what can go wrong when there are no deadlines. Yet in the Obama administration, the timetable is becoming an end in itself. It reflects a president who is fixed on disposing of foreign policy problems — and not so much on solving them.”

The New York Times: In his oped, Roger Cohen reflects on his breakfast with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and concludes that he is ultimately, “odious” but not dangerous. Cohen points out that hyping the threat of Ahmadinejad has become a U.S. and Israeli pastime, with estimates for when Iran will acquire an atomic bomb ranging from 1999 to 2014. “There is a dangerous pattern here of Israeli and U.S. alarmism,” he writes. Iran is a “paper tiger,” says Cohen. “One of the things there’s time for, if you’re not playing games with the Iran specter, is a serious push for an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough that would further undermine the Iranian president.”

The Daily Beast: Reza Aslan writes that Farsi1, a Farsi-language satellite station broadcasting in Iran, is among the most popular in the banned-but-tolerated Iranian satellite TV market. But Farsi1 is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewCorp, which operates a slew of right wing American outlets like the New York Post and Fox News Network. Several officials in the Islamic Republic have denounced it as a tool of the West’s war with Iran, as they have done with BBC Persian and Voice Of America (which are operated by the British and U.S. governments, respectively). “Part of why the government is so wary about these satellite programs is that they are usually filled with overt political propaganda against the Iranian regime (this includes BBC and Voice of America),” writes Aslan. “But what controversy exists about Farsi1 is focused on the main man behind the project, Rupert Murdoch,”whose Fox News has fed “anti-Islam hysteria.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 8th, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal: Dow Jones Newswire reporter Benoit Faucon writes that oil companies Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell contacted Iranian authorities last week to reassure Tehran that their long-term business interests in Iran will remain. The messages to Iranian authorities appear to have been intended to assuage concerns over the Obama administration’s announcement that the two companies had no further investment plans in the Islamic Republic. European nations have historically had a different take on sanctions. “Given the size and global importance of Iranian hydrocarbon resources, Shell finds it hard to see a future in which production of these resources would not, at some point, play an important role in the global energy supply and demand balance,” Shell said in its 2009 annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Faucon.

The Washington Times: Ben Birnbaum reports that Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S., Houda Nonoo, told the paper she “fears her country” would be a target for a nuclear-armed Iran, given its proximity to Iran and past Iranian claims on its territory. Bahrain is also home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. While Nonoo only expressed concern about Bahrain’s security, Birnbaum interviews hawks from both the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Israel-based Institute for Policy and Strategy Studies, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who expressed their positions that the U.S. has not gone far enough to remove the Iranian nuclear threat.

The Guardian: Iranian-born Israeli Meir Javedanfar does a round up of views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming trip to Lebanon. He cites the Israeli and U.S. governments, as well as a bloc in Lebanon’s parliment, who describe the trip as possibly “provocative”. He says the trip could confirm some Israeli fears “that the Iranian regime has truly arrived on its doorstep.” But ultimately, he writes, the trip is about Iranian domestic concerns with Israel and the US “further down his list of priorities”: ”The Iranian president is visiting Lebanon mainly because of his growing unpopularity at home.” He says another goal of the trip is to help solidify a somewhat weak anti-Israeli sentiment within Iran; the opposition has been explicit that they are more concerned with their own fates than those of the Palestinians. Javendanfar concludes that the trip may cause ”more trouble and headache for Hezbollah, both at home, and in the Arab world.”