{"id":8247,"date":"2010-10-01T13:52:46","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T21:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8247"},"modified":"2010-10-04T13:16:27","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T21:16:27","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/01\/friday-iran-talking-points-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 1st, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em>: On the Standard<\/em><\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog, Jamie Fly, the foreign policy programs director of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative<\/a>, warns that Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to deny Iran S-300 anti-aircraft missiles could change at any time. Fly picks up on a post <\/a>from Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Cable blog and another <\/a>from Max Boot<\/a> at Commentary<\/em>, and writes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The problem is, this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bold\u00e2\u20ac\u009d decision is not a final decision. Nothing in Medvedev\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement cancels the 2007 contract and, as [FP blogger Josh] Rogin notes, the ban could be lifted at any time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fly adds that if the deal goes through, Israel might be tempted to bomb Iranian nuclear sites before the hardware is in place, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153given that nuclear facilities protected by the S-300 system would be much more difficult to attack.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/a><\/em>: Olli Heinonen<\/a>, former chief inspector at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and current Harvard senior fellow, says in an interview that Iranian nuclear progress is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slow but steady.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d While \u00e2\u20ac\u009dthe clock is ticking\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6there is still time for a negotiated solution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He believes only the Iranians themselves know why they are developing this capacity, but attribute it to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153complex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Iranian desires for \u00e2\u20ac\u009dprestige,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153security\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and to be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153regional player.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As for the Stuxnet virus attacking computers in Iran, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not convinced it was directly targeted to sabotage that country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Politico<\/a><\/em>: Laura Rozen blogs about the Symantec computer security firm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report <\/a>(.pdf) on the Stuxnet worm and two markers that may, or may not, point the virus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s code to Israeli origins. One refers to an Old Testament story<\/a> (see yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daily Talking Points<\/a>); the other comes from the Symantec report: a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdo not infect\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 marker\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the code that reads \u00e2\u20ac\u015319790509.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The report suggests that the date of May, 9, 1979 might be significant since it was just after Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Israeli intelligence would not leave such clumsy clues.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rozen herself wonders if the code is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153false flag\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to mislead about the source of the attack or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a meaningful tea leaf as to the possible origin of the worm.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 1st, 2010: Weekly Standard: On the Standard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog, Jamie Fly, the foreign policy programs director of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, warns that Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to deny Iran S-300 anti-aircraft missiles could change at any time. Fly picks up on a post from Foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8247"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8254,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions\/8254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8247"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}