Author: Eli Clifton

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 16th, 2010:

Reuters: Louis Charbonneau reports on calls from the U.S., British and French envoys to the UN to expedite the formation a UN panel to monitor Iran’s compliance with sanctions. “We are concerned by the delay in setting up the panel, and we urge a renewed focus to enable this body to become operational as soon as possible,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told the Security Council during a meeting on Iran. The council had agreed in June to set up an expert panel to regularly report on the sanctions. Rice said that Iran has violated that sanctions and has repeatedly tried to export arms and “continues to engage in activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Forbes: Vice President of the hawkish American Foreign Policy Council, Ilan Berman, warns that if the U.S. or Israel is compelled to use force against Iran, “China will shoulder at least part of the blame.” Berman says that while both UN and U.S. unilateral sanctions have made an impact, Chinese oil, gas and railroad deals with Iran threatens to undermine the effects of international sanctions. The solution, argues Berman, might lie in prohibiting U.S. contracts with certain Chinese companies or denying loans from U.S. institutions for companies which engage in trade with Iran. He concludes, “[The U.S.] can have a consolidated international economic front that stands a prayer of derailing Iran’s nuclear drive, or it can have a non-confrontational relationship with China. It cannot, however, have both.”

Los Angeles Times: As hawks continue to focus on countries that have trade and nuclear deals with Iran, John Bolton hones in on Venezuela. “[Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez’s growing closeness with Russia and Iran on nuclear matters should be our greatest concern,” writes the former Bush Administration ambassador to the UN. He points to Venezuela’s sale of refined petroleum products to Iran, helping the latter work around sanctions; unsubstantiated reports of Hezbollah using Venezuela as a base; and Iran’s “helping [Venezuela] develop its uranium reserves.” He says the nuclear cooperation “may signal a dangerous clandestine nuclear weapons effort, perhaps as a surrogate for Iran, as has been true elsewhere, such as in Syria.”

NBC News: In a sometimes contentious interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that recent IAEA pressure on Iran was “part of the hostility of the United States against our people.” Just ahead of his visit to New York next week for the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad held forth on many topics, including Obama’s intention to thaw hostilities with Iran: “We think maybe President Obama wants to do something, but there are pressures– pressure groups in the United States who do not allow him to do so,” he said, later specifically referencing “Zionists.” While Ahmadinejad welcomed warming relations with the U.S., he said that sanctions were useless: “We in Iran are in a position to meet our own requirements.”

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

Reuters: Louis Charbonneau reports Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to attend a UN-meeting next week on moving forward global disarmament talks, which have been stalled for the past 12 years, during the annual General Assembly gathering of global leaders. “The schedule has not been firmly set, but I understand [Ahmadinejad] is going to participate in the high-level meeting on disarmament,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters. It is not clear who will be the U.S. delegate. President Obama, who has identified nuclear disarmament a major foreign policy initiative of his first term, will probably be attending other meetings.

The Washington Post: Thomas Erdbrink reports Iranian authorities released American hiker Sara Shourd on bail who then boarded a plane to meet family in Oman. Shourd and two other American hikers were arrested last year when they reportedly crossed into Iran from northern Iraq. All three of the hikers face espionage related charges but Shourd, who has been reported to be in poor health, has been permitted to leave Iran on $500,000 bail. Iran has indicated Shourd’s two hiking companions will be detained for at least another two months. Shourd is obliged to return to Iran for future legal proceedings.

Foreign Policy: Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an often hawkish spin-off of AIPAC, observes Obama’s biggest test in Middle East peacemaking will how he deals with “the regional challenge that poses the most serious consequences for Middle East security” — Iran’s nuclear program. Only with a clearly articulated policy will the U.S. have enough regional clout to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, he argues. Satloff comments, without evidence, that Obama has abandoned ‘linkage’ and espouses in its place ‘reverse linkage.‘ Experts doubt sanctions will work, he says, which “leaves U.S. military power as the last repository of credibility” for a U.S. commitment to stopping an Iranian bomb. He concludes that “U.S. action to prevent Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapons capability would buoy America’s friends and undermine its adversaries from Morocco through the Persian Gulf.”

New York Times: ‘Politicus’ columnist John Vinocur questions the direction of Obama’s leadership on Iran. Citing some hawks, including neocon Robert Kagan, Vinocur focuses on Obama’s August meeting with journalists where the President touted his record on sanctions (summed up in our August 5th Talking Points). He notes ahead of that briefing, CIA director Leon Panetta, his predecessor Michael Hayden, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen all seemed to hint about the possibility of a U.S. strike against Iran. Only, writes Vinocur, “nothing was reported among the president’s comments to match it in substance or tonality.” Carnegie Endowment official George Perkovich told Vinocur, “it would be desirable for the United States to have credible use of force in relation to Iran, but in my view we do not.” Vinocur cites Tony Blair’s recent blustering and draws the conclusion that “American leadership is difficult to detect.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 13th, 2010:

Wall Street Journal: Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz, respectively a Senior Fellow and Executive Director at the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, point out that while sanctions have led to decreased trade between some American allies (European countries and Japan) and Iran, China and Russia will continue to fill “the void” unless America punishes their “subversiveness.” The authors call on the U.S. to bar domestic business with subsidiaries of Russian and Chinese energy companies involved in Iran, force, block them from receiving U.S. contracts and state pension fund divestment from their businesses. They acknowledge ”any U.S. action will surely infuriate Moscow and Beijing, as well as those in Washington who have worked to ‘reset’ our relations with both countries.” But they see the alternative as “collapsing our Iran policy.” They conclude by raising the specter of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities should the U.S. fail its “test of wills with Russia and China over Iran”, noting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will decide one of these days whether a nuclear-armed Iran is acceptable, or not.”

Los Angeles Times: The L.A. Times has a piece by Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daraghi, accompanied online by an AP video, on the possible release of Sarah Shroud. Shroud is one of the three American hikers arrested on espionage charges near the Iraq-Iran border more than a year ago. Her release that was scheduled for last Saturday, initially portrayed by Iran as an act of clemency to mark the end of Ramadan, has been delayed. Bail is now set at $500,000, according to both a lawyer for the hikers and the prosecutor. The U.S. government and their families have denied that the hikers are spies. Daraghi and Mostaghim note the prosecutor “told reporters that Iran had enough evidence to prove the three were spies and the ‘Americans have responded too,’ hinting at possible behind-the-scenes diplomatic communications between Iran and the U.S. over the hikers.”

Reuters: IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said on Monday that, “Iran’s repeated objection to the designation of inspectors with experience in Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle and facilities hampers the inspection process.” Iran insists the two inspectors were banned from entering the country in June because they have provided false information about the Iranian nuclear program. The IAEA and the US argue that Iran’s actions are an attempt to limit the monitoring capabilities of the UN’s nuclear watchdog. Tehran has cited its right to refuse access for specific inspectors under the non-proliferation accord with the IAEA.

Reuters: William Maclean reports that according to Mikhail Marelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Federation Council of Russia, his country’s support of Iran’s nuclear energy program is intended to encourage Iranian compliance with the IAEA. “That is why, if we cooperate with Iran in the field of nuclear energy when we do Bushehr, this is how we try to keep these guys playing by the rules of the IAEA,” Maretov told the International Institute of International Studies think tank. Moscow is finding it difficult to balance trade with Iran and improved relations with the US. Iran continues to express anger over Russia’s refusal to veto the sanctions while the US and European Union are calling on Russia to put more pressure on Iran to abandon its alleged nuclear weapons program.

The Daily Beast: Philip Shenon reports that the 9/11 Commission overlooked “explosive material” suggesting connections between the 9/11 attacks and the Iranian government. The 9/11 Commission, says Shenon, concentrated its research on CIA and FBI terrorism files and mostly ignored the NSA archives. Not until the end of the investigation did the Commission search NSA. Its belatedly acquired findings on Iran resulted in “the Iran material was forced into the commission’s final report with limited context and without any chance for followup by the commission; the panel was about to shut down.” An anonymous “former commission staff member” told Shenon, “”It’s kind of shocking to me that no one has tried to get back in there since. We certainly didn’t see everything at NSA.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 10th, 2010:

The Washington Post: The Post’s editorial board writes that while sanctions have constricted the Iranian economy, the White House “has yet to produce tangible results” in bringing Iran into compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The editorial cites the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report which says that there has been no change in Iran’s accumulation of low-enriched uranium. If Iran is diverting weapon-grade uranium to a secret facility, then “economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it,” warns the Post.

The National: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the U.S.’s encouragement of democratic forces in Iran, saying that support from Washington does not undermine or endanger them. Clinton told a group of policy experts that Iran was becoming a “military dictatorship.” “There is a very… sad confluence of events occurring inside Iran that I think eventually — but I can’t put a time frame on it — the Iranian people themselves will respond to,” Clinton reportedly told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week.

The National: Jason Shams complains of a “lack of understanding that persists about Iran” in Washington, noting the absence of a U.S. embassy in Tehran that forces reliance on severely limited sources of information. The result is a U.S. policy on Iran that has been “a total blunder”: “The drums of war in Washington have helped the Iranian government crush the civil rights movement; the U.S. hawkish policies are used by hardliners in Iran to rally political forces to their cause.” Shams adds that sanctions have allowed the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to consolidate its power over industry. “With its ineffective policies, the U.S. government has been the main obstacle for moderates in the Middle East,” he writes. He concludes that U.S. diplomats on the ground, in a U.S. interests section that mirrors the Iranian office in Washington, would gain a granular knowledge of both street level and elite politics and Iran.

Foreign Policy: William Tobey, who served in the National Nuclear Security Administration under George W. Bush, writes on FP’s Shadow Government blog that the latest IAEA report exemplifies Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate with the international community and highlights the failure of sanctions to make any meaningful headway in slowing Iran’s nuclear program. Tobey argues that sanctions targeting the IRGC and others seen as responsible for the nuclear program are counter-intuitive because such elite groups are well insulated from sanctions and are “committed militants.” The solution, he suggests, is to expand sanctions to broaden the portion of Iranian society which will “feel the costs” of the nuclear program. “As Iran marches towards nuclear capability, further delay will only narrow our options to a choice between the unacceptable and the unthinkable,” he concludes.

Foreign Policy: Our IPS colleague Omid Memarian interviews Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of Iran’s powerful opposition figure Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. She speaks of a hopelessness in Iranian politics and, asked about a potential meeting between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama, she says, “I don’t think anyone is waiting for any positive change in Iran’s internal or foreign politics or putting too much hope on it.” She says Iran’s leaders need a “wake-up call” and, in her next thought, positively cites the Iraqi experience: “Didn’t the people of Iraq join with foreigners who attacked their country in order to free themselves from injustice and to save themselves and their country? Was this their initial demand, or did their deteriorating conditions lead them to this? It won’t be a bad idea to review history from time to time.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 9th, 2010:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Golnaz Esfandiari reports for RFE/RL, a U.S. Congress-funded international broadcaster, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are increasingly at odds. Ahmadinejad has expanded his purview into foreign policy an area typically under the control of Khamenei, says Esfandiari. In recent weeks, Ahmadinejad has made unilateral appointments for special envoys to the Middle East, Asia Affairs, Caspian Affairs, and Afghanistan. “The appointments have been criticized as a blow to Iran’s Foreign Ministry and Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, who believed [sic] to owe his appointment to Khamenei and is considered one of the few remaining so-called pragmatists in the Iranian government,” writes Esfandiari. Ahmadinejad is expected to unilaterally appoint special envoys for African Affairs and South America in the near future.

Washington Post: The Post picks up on an AP report that one of the three American hikers detained by Iran since July 2009 will be released on Saturday, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, the feast to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “It is common in the Islamic world,” notes the AP article, “to mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday by showing clemency and releasing prisoners.” The American hikers, all in the their mid-twenties, have been caught up in the tense relations between the U.S. and Iran. They were accused of spying by the Islamic Republic, while their families insist that they were hiking in Iraq and accidentally crossed the border into Iran.

Commentary: Jennifer Rubin finds it “troubling” that discussion of Iran came late in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Council on Foreign Relations speech, “suggesting that it really is not at the top of her to-do list.” She notes that Clinton omitted entirely the bellicose catchphrases that “all options are on the table” and that a nuclear Iran is “unacceptable.” The fact that Clinton is not solely focused on Iran is, for Rubin, an indication that the Israelis will have to go it alone and attack Iran: “[Israelis] must surely be coming to terms with the fact that their military is all that stands between the West and a nuclear-armed Iran.”

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

Wall Street Journal: The neoconservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is ready to declare International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions against Iran a failure. Riffing about the latest IAEA report that Iran is limiting the agency’s access to and information about its nuclear program — using such phrases as “Ho-hum” and “Groundhog Day, the Persian movie classic”– the editors are ready for more bold action. They conclude the IAEA report “ought to rally our leaders to explain the grave stakes here, in particular that military force might be needed as diplomacy and sanctions seem to be failing, and rally the world to stop Iran from acquiring a bomb.”

openDemocracy: Iranian journalist and blogger Omid Memarian checks in to give a cogent analysis of Iranian internal politics and how they could be potentially effected by external pressure. Memarian notes Iranian leadership is used to dealing with such pressure and then exploiting it to shore up its power. He points out there are many “positives” for Iran’s hard-line leaders among the list of “disastrous effects” of a military assault on Iran, and that such a scenario “would lead to more human-rights violations, worsen the situation for Iran’s middle class, push Iran further towards dictatorship and end any prospect of a more democratic country in the near future.” He adds “by removing the threat of a military attack, Washington would make the job of Tehran’s hardliners more difficult.”

The Daily Telegraph: Malcolm Moore reports on China’s plans to sign a $2 billion deal to build a 360 mile railway line from Tehran to the Khosravi, an Iranian town bordering Iraq. The Iranian government says the project could eventually link Iran, Iraq and possibly Syria. The project might be the first step for China in constructing rail link to Iran, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and eventually Kashgar in China. This modern day Silk Route would give China access to Iran’s port of Chahbahar on the Persian Gulf and on overland route to Europe. “Iran is determined to forge tighter links with its neighbours, and rebuild itself as a trade hub, in order to build a regional alliance that would support it against NATO countries,” writes Moore.

Council on Foreign Relations: In remarks delivered as part of a conversation with CFR president Richard Haass, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed Iran sanctions as “an example of American leadership in action.” Clinton said that American willingness to engage in diplomatic efforts regarding Iran has “re-energized the conversation” with allies, strengthened the global non-proliferation regime, and “through shoe-leather diplomacy” built a consensus of countries who will hold Iran accountable to meet its obligations under the NPT. Clinton called on Iran’s leadership to “meet the responsibilities incumbent upon all nations and enjoy the benefits of integration into the international community, or continue to flout your obligations and accept increasing isolation and costs.”