Author: Eli Clifton

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 25th, 2011:

The Washington Post: The Post’s editorial board says that “last weekend’s meetings in Istanbul between Iranian representatives and a six-nation coalition can only be seen as a serious setback” for the Obama administration’s sanctions policy. The op-ed asserts, “Iran made no effort to negotiate,” but the lack of progress might make it easier for the administration to find support for more sanctions. Instead of following this approach, the editorial board suggests that the administration shift its focus from “seeking to bargain with the regime” to emphasizing support for the Green movement. Supporting the Green movement “could also send an important message to Iranians: that the international coalition seeks not to punish them but to weaken the government they despise,” they conclude.

The Wall Street Journal: The Journal’s editorial board responds to the terrorist attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, suggesting that perhaps the latest attack in Russia will make the threat of terrorism be taken more seriously. “Mr. Putin tends to view the West as his rival and prefers a softer line toward the world’s main sponsor of terrorism, Iran,” says The Journal. “But the Domodedovo attacks are a reminder of the global nature of this threat, and of Russia’s own stake in defeating terror at home and abroad.”

National Review Online: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal writes on National Review’s The Corner blog that negotiations with Iran have become a “repetitive motion disorder” and “compulsive rituals.” Weinthal urges the P5+1 not to schedule another negotiating session since the West’s willingness to negotiate has “has permitted the tyrants in Tehran to secure much-needed time to develop its nuclear technology and missile program.” “The only cure at this stage is not more negotiations, but sanctions, more sanctions, and even more sanctions,” he argues. But, “[r]epetitive-motion negotiations — without vastly intensified sanctions pressure — are only solidifying the regime’s iron-clad rule.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 24th, 2011:

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin blogs, after the conclusion of the P5+1 talks in Istanbul, that “Instead of talking to an Iranian regime that has shown no interest in negotiations — and, at the same time, derives legitimacy from the negotiations — maybe there are more fruitful actions that we and our allies could be taking.” Such actions include “stressing that the military option remains on the table; making regime change the official policy of the U.S.; working to isolate Iran from international bodies and heightening the focus on Iran’s human rights abuses.” She concludes that the administration “has to stop trying to engage a regime that refuses to be engaged.”

The Wall Street Journal: Amir Taheri opines that sanctions are squeezing the Iranian economy — “much of Iran’s industry depends on imported parts, many of which are now on the U.N.’s forbidden list because of suspected dual use” — and sanctions are slowing the nuclear program. Taheri argues that sanctions are far more effective than typically thought and “the evidence is that [sanctions are] hurting the economy and could weaken a regime that is also facing a tenacious internal opposition for the first time since 1981.”

The Jerusalem Post: Tovah Lazaroff excerpts former British prime minister Tony Blair’s comments before the British investigative panel on the Iraq War. Blair said, “The West has to get out of this – what I think is a wretched policy, or posture of apology, for believing that we are causing what the Iranians are doing, or what these extremists are doing. We are not [causing this].” Lazaroff looks for Israeli responses to Blair’s remarks and reports, “an Israeli official noted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had said on a number of occasions that a military option with respect to Iran should be on the table.” Lazaroff continued, “Netanyahu is of the opinion that for Iran’s nuclear program to be halted, Teheran must believe there is a credible military option, the official told The Jerusalem Post.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 21st, 2011:

Foreign Policy: Josh Rogin, on his Foreign Policy blog The Cable, reports that administration officials are pushing back against a common perception in Congress that China isn’t doing enough to support Iran sanctions. In an update to his post, a senior GOP Senate aide responded to the administration official’s comment, telling Rogin, “These senior Administration officials continue to obfuscate and misdirect. Chinese entities are clearly in violation of the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) and the Comprehensive Iran Sanction, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA).” The aide continued with a thinly veiled threat: “If the administration doesn’t act soon, it faces the loss of its waiver authority and investigatory discretion on these matters.”

The Jerusalem Post: The Jerusalem Post’s editorial board writes that revelations from outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan, that Iran is unlikely to have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015, will make reducing tensions with Iran and redoubling engagement efforts more appealing. “But while there might be some truth to some these claims, it would be incredibly naïve to expect a nebulous engagement policy to convince Iran to abandon a nuclear program that has earned it popularity domestically and heightened diplomatic influence internationally,” writes the Post. The op-ed concludes, “Iran is bent on obtaining the bomb. That the danger may have been delayed by a year or two does not make it any less of an existential threat.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 20th, 2011:

Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal blogs on Commentary’s Contentions blog that Switzerland has finally “relented and announced that it will fall into line with EU sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector,” but only after “touting its ‘active neutrality’ position, whatever that means,” over the past year. Weinthal characterizes the Swiss Foreign Ministry as going “to great lengths to maximize their gas and other economic deals with the mullah regime.” He emphasizes, “The gas revenues from the [Swiss deal] with [National Iranian Gas Export Company], whose parent company, National Iranian Gas Company, was placed on Britain’s Proliferation Concerns List in February 2009, would end up funding Iran’s nuclear-weapons program as well as its wholly owned subsidiaries, Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Council on Foreign Relations: George W. Bush administration Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams blogs his evaluations of the Obama administration’s Middle East Policy thus far. On Iran, he writes, “Diplomatic efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program continue, but any deal is more likely to concede to the Iranian regime some limited right to reprocess and enrich uranium than to stop the Iranian bomb,” and “Sanctions and sabotage have slowed the Iranians down and credit is due to some combination of the EU, the United States, and Israel, but the Iranian centrifuges continue to spin.” He claims that the administration has insufficiently engaged with individuals in authoritarian countries, claiming, “We seek ‘engagement’ with the Asad regime in Syria and the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and with the ayatollahs in Iran, not with the people who live under their thumbs.”

The Jewish Telegraph Agency: Ron Kampeas, JTA’s Washington bureau chief, speaks to a number of close followers of U.S. Middle East policy in Washington. On the hawkish side, he speaks with Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), who tells him, “Iran is still enriching uranium. It is absolutely critical we bear down with a comprehensive strategy of which sanctions is a critical part.” The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Dubowitz takes an even more hawkish tone, saying, “If you’re going to target a hard-line regime, you’ve got to have a military option on the table.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 19th, 2011:

The Wall Street Journal: Johns Hopkins Professor and Hoover Institution fellow Fouad Ajami opines, “The Bush diplomacy had declared an open ideological assault against the Iranian theocracy. Mr. Obama would offer that regime an olive branch and a promise of engagement.” Ajami declares this swing toward diplomacy a message to “the despots in the region that the American campaign on behalf of liberty that Mr. Bush had launched in 2003 has been called off.” The op-ed describes Obama’s slowness to speak publicly about the 2009 Iranian election as a “break of faith with democracy” and “deference of the pre-eminent liberal power to men who had unleashed the vigilantes on their own people.” Ajami praises Clinton’s speech last week in Qatar, in which she criticized Arab leaders: “For a fleeting moment in Qatar, George W. Bush seemed to make a furtive return to the diplomatic arena.” He concludes, “He was there, reincarnated in the person of Hillary Clinton, bearing that quintessential American message that our country cannot be indifferent to the internal arrangements of foreign lands.”

The Wall Street Journal: Joshua Muravchik reviews Abbas Milani’s book “The Shah” and highlights “The shah’s tolerance of religious minorities—notably Bahai and Jews—and his advancement of women’s rights brought him to daggers with Iran’s clergy, led by Khomeini… The paradox of the fall of the Shah,’ Mr. Milani says, ‘lies in the strange reality that nearly all advocates of modernity formed an alliance against the Shah and chose as their leader the biggest foe of modernity,’” quotes Muravchik. He concludes, “The Iranians have already paid dearly for this folly. What price the rest of the world will pay remains an open question.”

Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, responds to the Der Spiegel magazine cover story about Israeli involvement in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Weinthal mentions that “…the magazine, like most German media, has a peculiar obsession with Jews and Israel,” and goes on to accuse the magazine of helping to propagate “anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment.” “Take as an example the headline of the article in the current issue documenting a chronology of the planned hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his posh Dubai hotel,” writes Weinthal. “It screams out ‘An eye for an eye, a murder for a murder.’” He concludes, “The cheap wordplay on a section from the Hebrew Bible further reinforces widespread European prejudices against Jews.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 18th, 2011:

The Wall Street Journal: In his weekly column, neoconservative Bret Stephens acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus appears to have done serious damage to Iran’s nuclear program but, “As of last November, U.N. inspectors reported that Iran continued to enrich uranium in as many as 4,816 centrifuges, and that it had produced more than three tons of reactor-grade uranium.” Stephens says, “That stockpile already suffices, with further enrichment, for two or possibly three bombs worth of fissile material.” He goes on to suggest that North Korea might export enriched uranium to Iran: “Merely stamp the words “Handle With Care” on the crate, and the flight from Pyongyang to Tehran takes maybe 10 hours.” Stephens ominously concludes, “The next time Israel or the U.S. tries to stop Iran’s nuclear advances, the means aren’t likely to be as targeted, or as bloodless,” and, “Wars are never won by covert means alone.”

Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal writes on Commentary’s Contentions blog that “Iran’s pariah regime said today that it plans to drop the death-by-stoning penalty against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.” (The New York Times reported that the head of the Human Rights Committee in Iran’s parliament said the stoning sentence had never been confirmed.) Weinthal theorizes that, “Given Iran’s deceptive behavior with respect to its illicit nuclear weapons program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might be flirting with a cooling-off period in order to reimpose the stoning penalty at a later stage,” and partially blames the EU for failing to adequately sanction Iranian human rights abusers. “While the European Union claims to have cornered the market on advancing human rights, there is an eerie silence and passivity emanating from the E.U. about sanctioning Iran for human rights violations,” he writes. Weinthal concludes, “The tragic case of Ms. Ashtiani shows that if the Western democracies decide to fill its human rights rhetoric with meaning and content, they can influence a change in Iran’s incorrigibly reactionary domestic policies.”

The Wall Street Journal Europe: Author Giulio Meotti and FDD’s Benjamin Weinthal opine that Germany and Italy have “put themselves on the wrong side of history” by increasing trade with Iran. “As Tehran continues its illicit nuclear program, Berlin and Rome are extending a commercial life line to the regime,” they write. “If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is serious about his pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, he ought to find ways to help Italians buy oil from other sources… Without the help of the two European economic powerhouses, Iran would have considerably less money with which to build nuclear weapons, and to finance terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas,” they conclude. “Unfortunately, it appears Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Berlusconi still consider their countries’ combined €10 billion trade relationship with Iran to be more important than stopping a nuclear Iran.”