Author: Ali Gharib

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 7th, 2010:

National Review Online: Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ president Cliff May writes that Iran and Al Qaeda are “two sides of the jihadi coin,” adding that “[s]ometimes they cooperate.” He pronounces the Islamic Republic of Iran “the first modern jihadi state” and calls for “agressive enforcement of sanctions” — something he maintains the Obama administration has failed to do. “Iran’s rulers should be under the guns — metaphorically for the present,” he asserts. Iran’s leaders have the “goals and a strategy to achieve” Al Qaeda’s “mission,” he concludes.

Foreign Policy: On the Middle East Channel blog, Century Foundation Iran program director Geneive Abdo encourages the U.S. to take up Iran’s offer to renew discussions on the Tehran Declaration–a fuel swap deal brokered between Turkey, Brazil and Iran– as a confidence building measure toward resolving the West’s nuclear crisis with Iran. She reports that a Turkish delegation has twice been in Washington, including last week, to jump start the talks. Since it was introduced last May, Washington has spurned idea. “Rather than pursue talks over Iran’s broader nuclear program and risk failure,” she writes, noting little Iranian interest in the broader track, “a wiser move would be to talk with Iran first over the Tehran Declaration as a way of building trust.”

National Review Online: Victor Davis Hanson writes that two years into the Obama administration, it’s becoming clear that Obama’s worldview, based partly on appeasement, has resolved few of the problems facing the U.S. in the international arena. “[F]ailing to support the Iranian freedom protestors, ignoring the abuses of the Cuban and Syrian totalitarian regimes, and keeping silent about the destruction of democracy in Venezuela — has resulted in even more animus, just as appeasement of the unhinged and dictatorial always does,” contends Hanson. While listing the numerous ways that rising powers are becoming more confident in challenging the U.S., Hanson concludes Russia “… weighs the downside of having a nuclear Islamic Iran in its neighborhood against the upside of having such a rogue state, which, at least in the short term, is more a problem for America than for Russia. Chaos in the Middle East, Putin knows well, is always good for the oil business.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 6th, 2010:

Wall Street Journal: John Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami defends the whole of the Iraq War and addresses concerns that the country is subject to undue Iranian influence. He acknowledges that many commentators see evidence of Iran’s influence in the election last March — and the ongoing jockeying for power — in the role of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his exile in Iran. Ajami, who holds positions at the neocon Middle East Quarterly journal and the hawkish United Against a Nuclear Iran, credits Iraqis, especially Shiites, with a “healthy fear of Iran and a desire to keep the Persian power at bay.” He thinks al-Sadr’s defection to PM Muri al-Maliki’s re-election camp is because of the cleric’s desire for “access to state treasure and resources” and that Iraq needs “Pax Americana” to “craft a workable order in the Persian Gulf” in order to flourish.

Commentary: J.E. Dyer, in the Contentions blog, claims to have found evidence that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to lead an invasion of Israel. Or, as Dyer phrased it, “plant the Revolutionary Iranian flag in Jerusalem.” On Ahmadinejad’s visit to Southern Lebanon next week, Ahmadinejad is scheduled to appear before a model of the holy city’s al-Aqsa mosque flying an Iranian flag. Dyer views the move as “a symbolic announcement that the ‘race to Jerusalem’ is on.” Insisting “[t]his is not meaningless symbolism,” he says the “blatant signal is something Ahmadinejad should be prevented from sending,” and wants the United States to pressure Lebanon to do just that.

Foreign Policy: The American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Noriega claims his research reveals Venezuela has been pursuing a nuclear program for the past two years with Iranian assistance. Noriega says, “documents suggest that Venezuela is helping Iran obtain uranium and evade international sanctions, all steps that are apparent violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to forestall Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program.” Even more conspiratorially, he adds that “other documents provided by sources within the Venezuelan government reveal a suspicious network of Iranian-run facilities in that South American country that could contravene Security Council sanctions.” Noriega concludes that Venezuela’s nuclear program and participation in sanctions busting trade with Iran should lead the U.S. and the UN to “challenge Venezuela and Iran to come clean and, if necessary, take steps to hold both regimes accountable.”

Tablet Magazine: In looking at the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah, visiting Hudson Institute fellow Lee Smith backs up his belief that the formation of Hezbollah had nothing to do with Israel’s 18-year occupation of Southern Lebanon. For him,”Hezbollah is a projection of Iranian military power on the Eastern Mediterranean.” He adds, “There is nothing Lebanese about Hezbollah except the corporal host; its mind belongs to the Revolutionary Guard.” As proof, Smith points to captured Hezbollah documents show telltale signs of having been translated from Farsi into Arabic. This runs counter to other perspectives, including Ehud Barak’s understanding of Hezbollah: “It was our presence [in southern Lebanon] that created Hizbullah.” Smith’s account of history removes all Israeli responsibility for the growth of Hezbollah and shifts the focus to Iran – a variation on the “reverse linkage” argument.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 4th, 2010:

New York Times: Though details are not available, William Yong writes that Iranian authorities have arrested an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” in connection with the Stuxnet virus infecting computers at Iran’s nuclear operations. In his announcement, Iranian intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said: “The intelligence Ministry is aware of a range of activities being carried out against the Islamic Republic by enemy spy services.” Separately, the head of Iran’s state-run information technology company hopes to clear the virus out of Iranian systems in the next “one to two months.”

Washington Post: Former peace process negotiator and State Department advisor Aaron David Miller lays out “Five Myths about Middle East Peace.” The Wilson Center public policy scholar attempts to debunk the myth that Arab-Israel peace is critical to securing U.S. interests in the Middle East with an anti-linkage argument: White “[i]t would help [regional issues… Arab-Israeli peace] will not stop Iran from acquiring enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon.” Writing on her Commentary blog, neocon and reverse-linkage crusader Jennifer Rubin gets Miller’s name wrong and gives him a back-handed complement in her select reading of his analysis. But Think Progress’s Matt Duss dissents, writing that “no one has ever claimed that Arab-Israeli peace would do any of these things,” but rather peace will “make addressing those problems easier, by sealing up a well of resentment from which demagogues and violent extremists have for decades drawn freely and profitably.”

National Journal: At the magazine’s National Security blog, editor Richard Sia poses a question: “Will Saber Rattling And Sanctions Work Against Iran?” Steven Metz of the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, responds, “No, of course not.” But of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, he writes: “It is hard to imagine a greater strategic folly.” Metz lists a myriad of disastrous likely consequences of such a strike, and argues for Soviet-style containment of a nuclear Iran. “There is absolutely no evidence that a nuclear armed Iran would undertake conventional aggression,” he writes. “However repulsive the Iranian regime, there is no evidence that it is suicidal.” He writes that in a cost-benefit analysis, the costs of attacking Iran are too high for the U.S.: [A]s the United States develops its approach, the the focus must remain on AMERICAN national interests (Are you listening, Senator Lieberman?).”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 1st, 2010:

Weekly Standard: On the Standard’s blog, Jamie Fly, the foreign policy programs director of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, warns that Russia’s decision to deny Iran S-300 anti-aircraft missiles could change at any time. Fly picks up on a post from Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog and another from Max Boot at Commentary, and writes: “The problem is, this “bold” decision is not a final decision. Nothing in Medvedev’s announcement cancels the 2007 contract and, as [FP blogger Josh] Rogin notes, the ban could be lifted at any time.” Fly adds that if the deal goes through, Israel might be tempted to bomb Iranian nuclear sites before the hardware is in place, “given that nuclear facilities protected by the S-300 system would be much more difficult to attack.”

Reuters: Olli Heinonen, former chief inspector at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and current Harvard senior fellow, says in an interview that Iranian nuclear progress is “slow but steady.” While ”the clock is ticking…there is still time for a negotiated solution.” He believes only the Iranians themselves know why they are developing this capacity, but attribute it to “complex” Iranian desires for ”prestige,” “security” and to be a “regional player.” As for the Stuxnet virus attacking computers in Iran, he’s not convinced it was directly targeted to sabotage that country’s nuclear program.

Politico: Laura Rozen blogs about the Symantec computer security firm’s report (.pdf) on the Stuxnet worm and two markers that may, or may not, point the virus’s code to Israeli origins. One refers to an Old Testament story (see yesterday’s Daily Talking Points); the other comes from the Symantec report: a “‘do not infect’ marker” in the code that reads “19790509.” The report suggests that the date of May, 9, 1979 might be significant since it was just after Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the date of the execution of a prominent Iranian Jewish figure. While Israeli intelligence expert Yossi Melman thinks Israel, the U.S., or both are behind the attack, he believes “Israeli intelligence would not leave such clumsy clues.” Rozen herself wonders if the code is a “false flag” to mislead about the source of the attack or “a meaningful tea leaf as to the possible origin of the worm.”

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

The Washington Post: Thomas Erdbrink reports that sanctions imposed against Iran by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have resulted in the Iranian rial dropping in value against the U.S. dollar (by 15 percent) and the Euro since Sunday. With hard currency scarce and exchange rates on the rise, the government will receive more rials for its petrodollars to boost its income. This in turn may lead to inflation. The UAE is one of the largest finance and trading hubs in the Middle East and has been under pressure from the U.S. to impose sanctions on Iran.

The Wall Street Journal: The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Mark Dubowitz and Benjamin Weinthal repeat their warnings that European firms, specifically in Germany and Switzerland, continue to do business with Iran. They say that a Swiss firm continues to provide equipment to an Iranian engineering firm and that Swiss and German companies continue to sign energy deals with the Islamic Republic. “Neither [the Swiss firm that signed a gas contract with Iran] nor any other company has been sanctioned by the U.S. Senior Obama Administration officials have told us that they are ‘very, very close’ to a decision on which firms will face penalties under U.S. law,” say Dubowitz and Weinthal. They conclude with a warning that, “The German Chancellor Angela Merkel should be held to the promises she made, including to the U.S Congress and Israeli Knesset, to stop Iran’s nuclear drive. The same goes for the rest of Europe.”

The New York Times: John Markoff and David Sanger write there may be a Biblical reference built into the code of the Stuxnet virus, which appears to have been designed to infect computers related to Iran’s nuclear program. The reference is to “the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.” Neither the Israelis nor the U.S., which both have robust cyber-warfare programs, have claimed involvement. No matter the origins, the virus serves Western interests by “ramp[ing] up psychological pressure,” observes one unnamed former U.S. intelligence official. The reporters cite a slew of troubles Iran has encountered with its nuclear program: “[S]omething — perhaps the worm or some other form of sabotage, bad parts or a dearth of skilled technicians — is indeed slowing Iran’s advance.”

Foreign Policy: Barbara Slavin interviews former Congressman and elder statesman Lee Hamilton, who is stepping down from his role as director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton will continue to advise President Obama on foreign policy and intelligence matters. He noted the President ignored his pleas to pursue the Turkish-Brazilian-brokered fuel swap agreement, which Hamilton said “wasn’t too different from what we had suggested” to Iran the previous fall. He added the U.S. “should have tried to build on the positive aspects of it” and thought the deal would come back up in future negotiations. Though currently favoring engagement and opposed to military strikes, Hamilton told Slavin: “A year from now I don’t know how I’ll feel.”

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

Washington Post: The Post picks up a report from the Associated Press about the upcoming arrival in Tehran of an Omani delegation to secure the release of the two remaining American hikers, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, detained by Iran under suspicion of espionage. Oman was also involved in the release of third hiker, Sarah Shourd, two weeks ago. The timeline for the arrival of the Omani delegation is at odds with an article in the Iranian newspaper Jomhuri-e Eslami, as reported over the weekend by the New York Times. The detention of the three — now two — Americans has been a point of tension between the U.S. and Iran for more than a year since their arrest in the mountains along the Iraqi-Iranian border.

Washington Times: In an op-ed subtitled “passive response to Iran’s proxy wars needs to end,” American Foreign Policy Council vice president and neocon pundit Ilan Berman urges the U.S. to actively and militarily engage Iran’s alleged proxies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Berman says the U.S. needs to publicly lay out their opposition to Iranian involvement in those countries and secure their borders with Iran. He adds: “A range of other irregular warfare initiatives can be harnessed as needed to help dismantle, disrupt and deter Iranian activities in both theaters.” Berman thinks this will restore U.S. credibility and “convince Iran that a military option, while not desirable, is both viable and inescapable if Tehran does not change course.”

National Review Online: Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Benjamin Weinthal writes that the Obama administration’s “intense preoccupation” with ending Israeli settlement construction resembles “the meaningless rituals of obsessive-compulsive disorder.” Weinthal echoes the discredited reverse linkage argument that a more assertive strategy towards Iran would halt Iran’s nuclear program and its support of Hamas and Hezbollah: “the key impediments to meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.” For him, “In short, it’s the Iranian regime — and not the construction of housing projects — that is the be-all and end-all of obstacles to peace in the region.”

Foreign Policy: Raja Karthikeya looks at where India stands on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, concluding it is not a simple answer. India believes a nuclear weapons possessing Iran would be destabilizing, but sees Iran’s impetus focused on Arab and Sunni threats rather than Israel. India has chosen to align itself with Arab calls for a denuclearized Middle East in an attempt to address terrorism and energy interests. India will continue to support the UN sanctions and oppose U.S. sanctions because: they would be detrimental to the population of Iran; they would impede Indian companies doing business outside Iran; and India has a tradition of opposing sanctions-based diplomacy. “The majority of Indian strategists see unilateral sanctions as a path to war,” Karthikeya concludes.