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WashPost: "Prospects
for a historic nuclear deal with Iran appeared uncertain Friday as
Iranian diplomats insisted that Western governments formally recognize
the country's right to enrich uranium. Negotiators who emerged from a
third day of marathon talks spoke of 'difficult' discussions on the
details of a proposal that would restrict or scale back key parts of
Iran's nuclear program. But both sides said they were determined to
continue bargaining. 'Little progress,' Iranian deputy foreign minister
Abbas Araqchi posted on Twitter after a fourth meeting with Catherine
Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief. He called the
discussions 'serious.' Another member of the Iranian team, Majid Takht
Ravanchi, said the talks were 'moving on a positive track,' according to
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, and suggested that negotiations
could extend to an unscheduled fourth day. Ravanchi confirmed that the
dispute over Iran's 'right' to enrich had emerged as a major obstacle.
'We have declared that enrichment is our red line,' he said... 'Any
agreement that does not include Iran's enrichment right is not
acceptable,' Araqchi said. 'It must be mentioned in the text of the
agreement, and it has to be respected.'" http://t.uani.com/1e7ZwxC
Reuters:
"U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday he was
committed to moving ahead with a tougher Iran sanctions bill when the
Senate returns from a holiday recess early next month, adding to pressure
on negotiators meeting in Geneva on a deal to curb Iran's nuclear
program. 'I will support a bill that would broaden the scope of our
current petroleum sanctions, place limitations on trade with strategic
sectors of the Iranian economy that support its nuclear ambitions, as
well as pursue those who divert goods to Iran,' Reid said on the Senate
floor. A sanctions bill has been held up in the Senate Banking Committee
for months, after President Barack Obama's administration appealed for a
delay to allow time to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian
nuclear crisis... Making it clear that they want sanctions to go ahead,
14 Democratic and Republican senators issued a statement later on
Thursday saying they would work together 'over the coming weeks' to pass
bipartisan legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran. 'A nuclear
weapons capable Iran presents a grave threat to the national security of
the United States and its allies and we are committed to preventing Iran
from acquiring this capability,' the group said. Among senior senators
signing the statement were Democrats Robert Menendez, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Charles Schumer, one of the
party's Senate leaders, as well as Republicans Bob Corker, the top
Republican on the foreign relations panel and John McCain, the party's
2008 presidential nominee." http://t.uani.com/1bc888t
WSJ:
"Several issues must be settled if the two sides are to clinch a
breakthrough after a decade of nuclear talks, diplomats said. One is how
to word Iran's assurances that it won't continue work on its heavy-water
reactor in the city of Arak, which will be capable of producing plutonium
usable in a nuclear weapon. The second is what should happen to Iran's
stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium. Differences also remain
on the precise sanctions relief to be offered Iran, an important part of
what the Western diplomat called a package of concessions each side could
take. Fundamental to the overall accord is Iran's claim that it has a
right to enrich uranium. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted
in a speech on Wednesday that the West recognize what Iran says is its
right to enrich uranium. Iranian officials in Geneva on Thursday
identified the issue as perhaps the biggest impediment to an agreement
this week. An Iranian diplomat in Geneva said any pact signed this week
must contain the concept of Iran having the right to enrich uranium for
peaceful purposes under the U.N.'s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 'If
the right to enrich isn't acknowledged, there won't be a deal,' said the
diplomat. But Iranian officials also said there was some flexibility in
the language that could be used." http://t.uani.com/17OLgej
 Nuclear Negotiations
JTA:
"Israel's proposal that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear capacity
in exchange for sanctions relief would likely lead to war, a top White
House official said. The official, in a conference call Wednesday with
think tanks and advocacy groups sympathetic to the Obama administration's
Iran strategy, outlined the proposal that the major powers will put to
Iran at a third round of negotiations in Geneva beginning Thursday. JTA
obtained a recording of the call on condition that it not name the
participants or fully quote them. A think tank participant on the call
said Israel's posture - demanding a total halt to enrichment and the
dismantling of all of Iran's centrifuges - was a path to war. Agreeing
that such reasoning was 'sound,' the White House official said that given
a choice between 'total capitulation' and advancing toward a nuclear
weapon, Iran would choose the weapon. That posture would 'close the door
on diplomacy' and would 'essentially lead to war,' the official
said." http://t.uani.com/1c9NVgf
AFP:
"A package of sanctions relief being proposed to Iran in return for
reining in its suspect nuclear program is worth around $6 billion, a top
US official confirmed Thursday. US ambassador to the United Nations
Samantha Power was asked by CNN about reports that have estimated the
proposal on the table from global powers as anywhere from $50 billion to
$6 billion. 'I'm not going to get into the specifics, especially while
.... negotiators are at it right now in Geneva,' Power replied. 'But I
will say the larger numbers are wildly exaggerated and your lower number
is closer to what we're talking about.'" http://t.uani.com/1i1C4rx
NYT:
"Adding to the drama was a starkly anti-Zionist speech on Wednesday
by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Politicians in Israel
expressed outrage not only about Ayatollah Khamenei's description of
Israel as 'the rabid dog of the region,' but also about the mild
condemnation that the speech elicited from the United States and much of
Europe. Hilik Bar, the deputy speaker of Israel's Parliament and a member
of the opposition Labor Party, wrote to Mr. Kerry and Ms. Ashton
insisting that they 'stand up against the dark, racist statements and
incitement.' Asked about Ayatollah Khamenei's comments by Senator Marco
Rubio, Republican of Florida, during Mr. Kerry's testimony to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, the secretary of state expressed
his unhappiness with the speech, though he appeared to temper his
response to avoid unsettling the talks. 'It's inflammatory, and
it's unnecessary,' Mr. Kerry said. 'I don't want to exacerbate it now
sitting here, but our good friends in Israel know full well that we
defend their concerns.'" http://t.uani.com/IjVqaD
Reuters:
"The still uncompleted Arak heavy-water reactor, seen by the West as
a potential source of nuclear bomb fuel, has emerged as a big stumbling
block in Iran's talks with six world powers on a deal to rein in its
nuclear programme. Iran denies Western accusations that it is seeking the
capability to make atomic bombs and says the research reactor near the
town of Arak, some 250 km (155 miles) southwest of the capital Tehran,
will produce only radio-isotopes for medicine. But experts say this
reactor type is suitable for making plutonium, thus providing an
alternative pathway to manufacturing fissile material for the core of a
nuclear weapon, in addition to Iran's enrichment of uranium. The plant -
also known as the 'IR-40' reactor as it is designed to produce that many
megawatts of thermal power - has been under construction for years but
apparently delayed by problems in importing specialised equipment due to
trade sanctions imposed on Iran over its disputed nuclear activity. Arak
came under a renewed spotlight in May when the U.N. nuclear watchdog said
Iran had informed it that the plant would start up in the first quarter
of 2014. Iran later withdrew that timetable, without specifying a new
target date." http://t.uani.com/18trGTq
Free Beacon:
"A longtime pro-Iran advocate who has been accused of lobbying on
Tehran's behalf held a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill Wednesday as
nuclear negotiations in Geneva reached a critical tipping point. Trita
Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an
anti-economic sanctions group that has been accused of carrying Tehran's
water in Washington, led a standing-room-only briefing of nearly 100
congressional staffers, according to multiple attendees. Parsi advocated
against the passage of new sanctions on Iran and urged the West to accept
an agreement with Tehran that allows it to continue to enrich uranium,
the key component in a nuclear weapon. The briefing, which was organized
by Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), was held just hours before Israeli
Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer was scheduled to hold his own
closed-door briefing for members of Congress... NIAC's Parsi was joined
at the briefing by Arms Control Association (ASA) executive director
Daryl Kimball. It was sponsored by the Ploughshares Fund, a liberal
anti-nuclear foundation that opposes sanctions on Iran... Some staffers
present in the briefing said that they were surprised by the large
turnout and speculated that most congressional offices are not aware that
many view NIAC as a public relations arm of the Iranian regime." http://t.uani.com/1bIrHjJ
Sanctions
WSJ:
"Iran is courting international energy giants such as Chevron Corp,
Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, eager to attract Western investment
back to the oil industry if it wins sanctions relief in its troubled
nuclear talks with Western countries. Iranian officials involved in the
overtures, who described the talks, said the country is eager to start
re-establishing ties with Western companies to speed more substantial
talks about investment if the world powers negotiating with Iran in
Geneva reach an agreement. The outreach has been low key and in some
cases, unsuccessful... 'They want to determine a framework for
cooperation' with Total, said an official with Pars Oil & Gas Co.,
the state-controlled company overseeing the field. The official said the
proposed efforts wouldn't involve large investments but would ensure
Total a future foothold in Iran's oil-and-gas sector. The French
company's vice president for the Middle East, Arnaud Breuillac, met last
month with the head of NIOC, Roknoddin Javadi, at the state-company's
Tehran headquarters, according to people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Breuillac
has since been promoted to lead the company's overall exploration and
production arm from Jan 1." http://t.uani.com/1h6XQJ1
WSJ:
"Iran expects its crude-oil exports to China will stabilize despite
political pressure from the U.S. and a drop in shipments so far this
year, an executive at Iran's state oil company said. China's October
crude imports from Iran fell 42% to 1.06 million metric tons, or about
250,000 barrels a day, from the same period a year earlier, Chinese
customs data showed Thursday. The steep drop in October brings China's
Iranian crude imports to 17.1 million tons in the January to October
period, down 3% from the same period last year. The drop makes it
increasingly likely that Washington and Beijing will avoid a clash over
imports from Iran. However, the decline may be only temporary, said
Maziar Hojjati, managing director of the China office of National Iranian
Oil Co. He expects imports will recover in December and end the year
almost unchanged compared with last year... October's import numbers are
significant because they will be the last used by the U.S. State
Department in deciding whether Beijing qualifies for a renewal of its
waiver from sanctions, which expires in late December." http://t.uani.com/I7ILbz
Reuters:
"Senior Iranian aviation executives were at the Dubai Airshow in a
discreet campaign to update their ageing passenger jets this week, even
as Iran negotiated with international powers to ease economic sanctions
over its nuclear programme... Iranian airlines are banned from buying new
passenger planes from the world's two manufacturing giants, Airbus and
Boeing, and limp on through purchases from third parties... Dozens of
Iranian executives made private visits to the Middle East's largest
aviation show in Dubai this week, their gaze on everything from Airbus's
$400 million double-decker A380s to smaller essentials such as life
jackets, inflight entertainment systems and coffee-makers for catering
services. But it is mostly a case of window-shopping, as big purchases are
still well beyond the reach of Iranian carriers." http://t.uani.com/1g1SYBV
Syria Conflict
AFP:
"Lebanese President Michel Sleiman warned Thursday that groups
involved in the conflict in neighbouring Syria are endangering the peace
and unity of his country, in a clear reference to Hezbollah. 'We cannot
talk of independence if parties or groups ignore the state... and decide
to cross the border and get involved in an armed conflict on the soil of
a brother country and endanger national unity and civil peace,' Sleiman
said. The powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah says its fight alongside
President Bashar al-Assad's regime is aimed at combatting Sunni
extremists who are targeting Syria's Shiite and Christian minorities.
Sleiman also appealed for 'an immediate withdrawal' from the Syria
conflict, which has killed more than 120,000 people and forced millions
more to flee their homes since it erupted in March 2011." http://t.uani.com/18VQuQx
Terrorism
Reuters:
"An Iranian man arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on the
Israeli embassy in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan denies the
allegation, an Iranian diplomat said on Thursday. Hassan Faraji, 31, is
the latest in a number of Iranians to be accused of criminal plots in
recent years in Azerbaijan, which has tense ties with its larger southern
neighbour. Faraji was detained near the Israeli embassy in the capital
Baku on Oct. 31 but his arrest was made public on Wednesday, when state
TV showed footage of police raiding an apartment... Azerbaijan...has
arrested dozens of people last year on suspicion of connections with
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and of plotting attacks, including on the
Israeli ambassador to Baku. Iranian citizen Phaiz Bakhram Hassan was
sentenced last month to 15 years in prison for an attempt to attack the
Israeli embassy in Baku. He was arrested last year." http://t.uani.com/17yTJ33
Human Rights
AP:
"A prominent Iranian cleric says two opposition leaders placed under
house arrest after the country's divisive 2009 presidential election
deserve to be hanged. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati didn't mention Mir Hossein
Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi by name. Instead, he referred to them as
'leaders of sedition,' a popular phrase used by hard-liners to describe
them. Jannati made the comments in his Friday prayers sermon. State radio
broadcast his remarks live. Jannati said the two are alive because of
'Islamic mercy.'" http://t.uani.com/1emfYeo
Opinion
& Analysis
Charles Krauthammer in WashPost: "A
president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state
desperate to make a name for himself are reportedly on the verge of an
'interim' nuclear agreement with Iran. France called it a 'sucker's
deal.' France was being charitable. The only reason Iran has come to the
table after a decade of contemptuous stonewalling is that economic
sanctions have cut so deeply - its currency has collapsed, inflation is
rampant - that the regime fears a threat to its very survival. Nothing
else could move it to negotiate. Regime survival is the only thing the
mullahs value above nuclear weapons. And yet precisely at the point of
maximum leverage, President Obama is offering relief in a deal that is
absurdly asymmetric: The West would weaken sanctions in exchange for
cosmetic changes that do absolutely nothing to weaken Iran's nuclear
infrastructure. Don't worry, we are assured. This is only an interim
six-month agreement to 'build confidence' until we reach a final one. But
this makes no sense. If at this point of maximum economic pressure we
can't get Iran to accept a final deal that shuts down its nuclear
program, how in God's name do we expect to get such a deal when we have
radically reduced that pressure? A bizarre negotiating tactic. And the
content of the deal is even worse. It's a rescue package for the mullahs.
It widens permissible trade in oil, gold and auto parts. It releases
frozen Iranian assets, increasing Iran's foreign-exchange reserves by 25
percent while doubling its fully accessible foreign-exchange reserves.
Such a massive infusion of cash would be a godsend for its staggering
economy, lowering inflation, reducing shortages and halting the country's
growing demoralization. The prospective deal is already changing economic
expectations. Foreign oil and other interests are reportedly preparing to
reopen negotiations for a resumption of trade in anticipation of the full
lifting of sanctions. And for what? You'd offer such relief in return for
Iran giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Isn't that what the entire
exercise is about? And yet this deal does nothing of the sort. Nothing.
It leaves Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact. Iran keeps every one of
its 19,000 centrifuges - yes, 19,000 - including 3,000 second-generation
machines that produce enriched uranium at five times the rate of the
older ones. Not a single centrifuge is dismantled. Not a single facility
that manufactures centrifuges is touched... Don't worry, we are assured.
The sanctions relief is reversible. Nonsense. It was extraordinarily
difficult to cobble together the current sanctions. It took endless years
of overcoming Russian, Chinese and Indian recalcitrance, together with
foot-dragging from Europeans making a pretty penny from Iran. Once the
relaxation begins, how do you reverse it? How do you reapply sanctions?
There is absolutely no appetite for this among our allies. And adding
back old sanctions will be denounced as a provocation that would drive
Iran to a nuclear breakout - exactly as Obama is today denouncing
congressional moves to increase sanctions as a deal-breaking provocation
that might lead Iran to break off talks. The mullahs are eager for this
interim agreement with its immediate yield of political and economic
relief. Once they get it, we will have removed their one incentive to
conclude the only agreement that is worth anything to us - a verifiable
giving up of their nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/1do64vO
Robert Zarate
& Daniel Blumenthal in FP: "U.S. diplomats have
explained that the United States seeks a deal that "stops Iran's
nuclear program from moving forward," but careful analysis suggests
the pact's reported terms fall alarmingly short of that stated goal.
First, the deal's current measures fail to get Iran to completely open up
its nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
While Iran announced this week that it will provide more transparency to
the IAEA on specific declared nuclear sites, the well-timed announcement
elides Iran's ongoing refusal to let the world's nuclear watchdog verify
that the country has not just correctly, but also completely, declared
all its nuclear materials and activities. Indeed, Iran has rejected
nearly a decade's worth of legally binding demands by the IAEA, the
35-country IAEA Board of Governors, and the U.N. Security Council for its
full transparency and cooperation. That's a big problem because Iran has
a long, long, long, long, long history of hiding weapons-relevant nuclear
activities from the world. Second, the proposed deal still fails to fully
freeze the growth of what's known as Iran's 'nuclear weapons-making
capability' -- that is, Iran's ability to rapidly build a nuclear
explosive on increasingly short notice. To be sure, the short-term deal
would stop some discrete elements of Iran's nuclear program from
advancing. Specifically, it would require Iran to halt the production of
'20 percent' enriched uranium that (counterintuitively yet technically)
represents nine-tenths of the effort required to produce '90 percent'
bomb-grade uranium, and to convert at least some of its current inventory
of 20 percent uranium into a form that creates technical -- but far from
impossible -- hurdles to further enrichment. It would oblige Iran not to
use advanced 'second-generation' centrifuges that can enrich uranium much
more efficiently than 'first-generation' units. And it would temporarily
prohibit Iran from bringing online a dangerous heavy-water nuclear
reactor that's ideal for producing plutonium optimized for a nuclear
explosive. That said, the pending interim pact would still allow other
key elements of Iran's nuclear program to move forward and expand. It
would neither shrink Iran's stockpile of '3.5 percent' low-enriched
uranium that represents (again, counterintuitively yet technically)
seven-tenths of the effortrequired to produce bomb-grade uranium. Nor
would it prevent Iran from producing more. Moreover, the deal would not
actually roll back or disassemble Iran's fleet of over 19,000 installed
'first-generation' centrifuges for enriching uranium (more than half of
which are actively enriching), nor apparently prevent Iran from
manufacturing more. And it would only delay, not dismantle, the
plutonium-producing 'heavy water' reactor that Robert Einhorn, a former
nonproliferation official in Bill Clinton's and Obama's administrations,
dubbed a 'plutonium bomb factory.' In other words, the deal would not
require Iran to completely freeze its nuclear program, but rather allow
Iran to keep -- and, in fact, grow -- key elements of its nuclear
weapons-making capability. Under the pact's current terms -- which would
allow Iran to keep most, if not all, of its over 7,000 kilograms of 3.5
percent low-enriched uranium gas and its 19,000 installed centrifuges --
Iran still could overtly 'break out' of international inspections and
build a nuclear bomb in as few as six weeks or less. This assessment is
supported in a recent analysis from R. Scott Kemp, a respected MIT
nuclear physicist and former science advisor in Obama's State Department
-- in particular, by two charts in the analysis from Steve Fetter, former
assistant director at large in the White House's Office of Science and
Technology Policy... So, how would the proposed deal reward Iran's token
concessions? Let's not mince words: with a bribe that would ease the
pressure of U.S.-led international sanctions on Iran." http://t.uani.com/19O3Ayz
Tony Badran in NOW
Lebanon: "It appears that the Iranian Embassy in Bir
Hassan may have narrowly escaped even bigger devastation on Tuesday as
the two suicide bombers failed to penetrate the compound and detonate
their explosives inside it. Nevertheless, the attack on such a hard and
highly symbolic target, as well as Hezbollah's reaction of pointing the
finger at Saudi Arabia, underscore that Lebanon remains, as it was in the
1980s, a primary proxy front in the regional power struggle between Iran
and its adversaries. Thirty years ago, the US was a prime target in that
war. Today, however, is a different story... The blast managed to kill,
alongside the Hezbollah head of security, the Iranian cultural attaché
and, according to some claims, at least two officials from the
Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Hojatoleslam Ebrahim Ansari had only
recently taken up his position as cultural attaché at the embassy. A
longtime official at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ansari
had been cultural attaché in Sudan for five and a half years. That
assignment is noteworthy. Tehran has invested greatly in deepening
relations with Khartoum, which, among other things, became integral to
Iran's network of smuggling strategic weapons, as well as to its broader
operations in east Africa. It's unclear whether Ansari had an additional
intelligence role for which the position of cultural attaché was mere
cover. This is standard practice at Iranian missions abroad. Take the
case of Hojatoleslam Mohsen Rabbani, the former cultural attaché at the
embassy in Buenos Aires. Rabbani not only worked to set up an
intelligence network, but also was charged in the 1994 bombing of the
AMIA Jewish community center in the Argentinian capital... However, it is
clear that Hezbollah understood this attack in the context of the
regional struggle between the Iranian camp and its adversaries, playing
out most visibly in Syria. Yet, Hezbollah curiously avoided accusing the
US of complicity in the attack, as has been the norm in the past. The
reason is that the Iranians and their Lebanese arm sense an opportunity
in the White House. Aside from the Obama administration's determination
to reach a deal with Iran, Hezbollah and its patrons have seen that
Washington has clearly parted ways with its Sunni allies, objecting to
their 'tactics' in Syria, and determining that Sunni Islamist groups
operating there constitute the biggest problem. Hezbollah and Iran want
to capitalize on the White House's rift with its traditional allies by
painting the Saudis as the problem and presenting themselves as a natural
ally in combating Sunni terrorism. The State Department's statement
condemning the attack on the Iranian embassy surely has reinforced
Tehran's reading: surreally, it painted Iran and the US as victims of
terror attacks, glossing over the fact that it was Iran who was
responsible for those attacks in Lebanon. The thirty-year memorial of
Hezbollah's murder of 241 US servicemen in Beirut marked last month seems
to belong to another world." http://t.uani.com/1bXFmqu
Tony Badran in The
Weekly Standard: Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah
blew up the barracks of the U.S Marines and French paratroopers stationed
at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It
wasn't Hezbollah's first terrorist operation, but this attack, the most
memorable in Lebanon's vicious and chaotic 15-year-long civil war, marked
the Party of God's entry onto the world stage. Three decades later,
thanks to the efforts of Israeli Hezbollah expert Shimon Shapira, we now
know that one of the men responsible for the attack was an Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander named Hossein Dehghan-the man
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani recently tapped to be his defense
minister. In other words, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have
been joined at the hip from the very beginning, even before the 1979
Iranian revolution. Of course, that's not the standard account of Hezbollah,
the historical narrative jointly constructed and largely agreed upon by
Middle East experts, journalists, some Western and Arab intelligence
officials, and even Hezbollah figures themselves. This account holds that
Hezbollah was founded in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in 1982 to fight, or
'resist,' the Israeli invasion of that year. On this reading, the
belief-held by the organization's many critics, targets, and enemies-that
Hezbollah is little more than an IRGC battalion on the eastern
Mediterranean is simply part of a U.S.-Israeli disinformation campaign
meant to smear a national resistance movement fighting for the liberation
of Lebanese lands. Sure, Hezbollah was founded with some help from
Iranian officials, and still receives financial assistance from Tehran,
but the organization is strictly a Lebanese affair. It was engendered by
Israel's 1982 invasion and subsequent occupation of Lebanon. The
occupation, as one author sympathetic to the group put it, is Hezbollah's
'raison d'être.' ... The big bang theory of Hezbollah that puts the
Israeli occupation at the alpha point is based not in fact but in
legend-it's an Israel-centric myth that makes the Jewish state
Hezbollah's motivation and prime mover. In reality, the story of
Hezbollah's origins is a story about Iran, featuring the anti-shah
revolutionaries active in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Israel's
intervention. Thus, to uncover Hezbollah's roots, it is necessary to mine
the accounts of Iranian cadres operating in Lebanon a decade before Israel
invaded. There we find that, contrary to the common wisdom, Hezbollah
didn't arise as a resistance movement to the Israeli occupation. Rather,
it was born from the struggle between Iranian revolutionary factions
opposed to the shah. Lebanon was a critical front for this rivalry
between Hezbollah's Iranian progenitors and their domestic adversaries.
Accordingly, an accurate understanding of this history gives us not only
the true story of Hezbollah's beginnings, but also an insight into the
origins of Iran's Islamic Revolution. Those early internal conflicts and
impulses, played out in Lebanon as well as Iran, also provide a roadmap
for reading the nature of the current regime in Tehran, its motivations
and concerns, its strategies and gambits as it moves toward acquiring a
nuclear weapon and challenging the American order in the Middle
East." http://t.uani.com/1fqZNzx
Michael Oren in
LAT: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
been labeled a warmonger, a wolf-crier and an opponent of peace at any
price because of his policies on Iran. Here's what Netanyahu's critics
say: His warnings of a bad deal are designed to undermine measures to
slow Iran's nuclear program and test its openness to long-term solutions.
His insistence on strengthening, rather than easing, sanctions will
weaken Iranian moderates and drive them from the negotiating table -
precisely what Netanyahu allegedly wants. Similarly, his demands for
dismantling Iran's uranium enrichment facilities and removing its nuclear
stockpile are intended to replace diplomatic options with military ones.
The critics claim that he is again playing the doomsayer, the spoiler of
efforts to avoid conflict and restore Iran to the community of nations.
Why would any leader subject himself to such obloquy? Why would he risk
international isolation and friction with crucial allies? And why, as
some commentators assert, would Netanyahu jeopardize a peaceful
resolution of the Iranian nuclear threat and drag his country - and
perhaps not only his - into war? The answers to these questions are
simple. Netanyahu is acting out of a deep sense of duty to defend Israel
against an existential threat. Such dangers are rare in most countries'
experience but are traumatically common in Israel's, and they render the
price of ridicule irrelevant. Moreover, when formulating policies vital
to Israel's survival, the prime minister consults with Israel's renowned
intelligence community, a robust national security council and highly
specialized units of the Israel Defense Forces. Netanyahu may at times
appear to stand alone on Iran, but he is backed by a world-class body of
experts. In 2011, these same analysts predicted that the Arab Spring,
which was widely hailed as the dawn of Middle Eastern democracy, would be
hijacked by Islamic radicals. They foresaw years of brutal civil strife.
Netanyahu publicly expressed these conclusions and was denounced as a
naysayer by many of the same columnists who are now lambasting him on
Iran. Yet it is precisely on Iran that Israeli specialists have proved
most prescient. They were the first, more than 20 years ago, to reveal
Iran's clandestine nuclear activities. They continued to scrutinize the
program, emphasizing its military goals, even after 2003, when
weaponization was purportedly halted... Iranian leaders know - and
Israel's analysts agree - that lessening the economic pressure on Iran
will send an incontrovertible message to foreign companies, many of which
are already seeking contracts with Tehran, that the sanctions that took
years to build are ending. Iran could drag out any confidence-building
period indefinitely while producing fissile materiel for multiple bombs.
Top-flight intelligence helped Israel grapple with the challenges posed
by the Arab Spring, but the stakes regarding Iran - the lives of 8
million Israelis - are vastly greater. Pundits may posit that Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani is a moderate, but Israelis cannot indulge in
speculation. Our margin for error is nil. Knowing that, Netanyahu is
duty-bound to warn of Iranian subterfuge, to insist that Iran cede its
centrifuges, cease enrichment, close its heavy-water plant and transfer
its nuclear stockpiles abroad. He has a responsibility to explain that
although Israel has the most to gain from diplomacy, it also has the most
to lose from its failure. He is obliged to stress that the choice is not
between sanctions and war but between a bad deal and stronger sanctions.
And as the prime minister of the Jewish state, Netanyahu must assert
Israel's right to defend itself against any existential threat. Critics
can call him militant or intransigent, but Netanyahu is merely doing his
job. Any Israeli leader who did less would be strategically and morally
negligent." http://t.uani.com/1aCt0ne
Daniel Byman in
Brookings: "Iran is a major sponsor of terrorism,
striking Israel, U.S. Arab allies, and at times Americans. The twin
blasts on Tuesday that destroyed the Iranian embassy in Lebanon and
killed at least twenty people, however, should remind us that Iran faces
a serious terrorism problem of its own. It is tempting to enjoy Iran
getting a taste of its own medicine, but the growing violence risks
further destabilizing the Middle East and harming U.S. interests there.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has backed an array of terrorist
groups. These groups have fostered unrest in Iraq and the oil-rich Gulf
Kingdoms, killed Iran's enemies in Europe, and struck at enemies like
Israel and the United States. Most infamously for Americans, Iran has
backed the Lebanese Hizballah, providing it with hundreds of millions of
dollars, sophisticated arms, and advanced training. Among its many
operations, Hizballah in 1983 bombed the U.S. embassy and the Marine
barracks hosting U.S. peacekeepers in Beirut, killing 17 embassy
officials and 241 Marines. Iran has also backed Hizballah in its numerous
operations against Israel, including a 2012 bus bombing in Bulgaria that
killed five Israeli tourists and the bus driver, and has given money and
weapons to Hamas, which has used these to attack Israel in repeated
clashes. Tehran has also quietly maintained links to Al Qaeda itself,
hosting several important figures though also restricting their
activities.For Iran, ties to terrorists served multiple purposes.
Ideologically, Tehran often believed that the terrorists' goals - to
spread an Iranian-style Islamic state, to overthrow an apostate regime,
to battle Israel, and so on - were the right ones, and thus it was
supporting the 'good guys.' But strategic considerations also proved
vital. Ties to terrorist groups enabled Iran to extend its influence
around the world, something its weak military and struggle economy could
not accomplish. With ties to groups like Hamas, Iran was also able to
establish itself as an important actor against Israel - always a popular
cause in the Middle East - and, in so doing, live up to its self-image of
being an Islamic revolutionary power, not a champion of the Shi'a
community, which is a minority in most Arab countries... The Syrian
conflict, however, has shattered Iran's careful plans and raised the risk
from Sunni jihadist terrorist groups. In the eyes of Al Qaeda and local
Sunni jihadist groups, Iran is very much on the wrong side of this war.
They tie Iran, correctly, to Bashar al-Asad's regime in Syria and the
Nuri al-Maliki regime next door in Iraq. Iran is blamed for the Syrian
regime's atrocities in particular, and as the conflict has morphed from
largely peaceful protest to sectarian civil war, Tehran, a Shi'a power,
is lumped in with Asad's regime, which is dominated by the Alawite
community, which has similarities to Shiism. As such, Iran and Hizballah
have become high on the list, at times at the very top, of the broader
Sunni jihadist movement, with funders, suicide bombers, recruiters, and
ideologues all decrying the apostates. Throughout the Arab world, Iran's
malevolent role is decried - a painful reversal for a regime that has
long tried to lead this region. Israel, and even the United States, are
still hated but are seen as less immediate threats. The Abdullah Azzam
Brigades, which has links to Al Qaeda, claimed credit for the bombing of
the embassy in Lebanon. Indeed, that the bombing occurred in Lebanon is a
symbol of Iran's dangerous position. Lebanon is often portrayed as Iran's
playground, where its minion Hizballah holds sway. But Lebanon is also
home to Sunni jihadists and an array of more secular and anti-Iran
Lebanese groups. As Syria dominates the regional consciousness, Iran's
status in Lebanon has fallen." http://t.uani.com/1bInL2p
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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