{"id":8295,"date":"2010-10-08T06:24:25","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T14:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8295"},"modified":"2010-10-09T19:44:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T03:44:18","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/08\/friday-iran-talking-points-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 8th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: Dow Jones Newswire reporter Benoit Faucon writes that oil companies Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell contacted Iranian authorities last week to reassure Tehran that their long-term business interests in Iran will remain. The messages to Iranian authorities appear to have been intended to assuage concerns over the Obama administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement that the two companies had no further investment plans in the Islamic Republic. European nations have historically had a different take on sanctions. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Given the size and global importance of Iranian hydrocarbon resources, Shell finds it hard to see a future in which production of these resources would not, at some point, play an important role in the global energy supply and demand balance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Shell said in its 2009 annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Faucon.<\/p>\n

The Washington Times<\/a><\/em>: Ben Birnbaum reports that Bahrain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ambassador to the U.S., Houda Nonoo, told the paper she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fears her country\u00e2\u20ac\u009d would be a target for a nuclear-armed Iran, given its proximity to Iran and past Iranian claims on its territory. Bahrain is also home to the U.S. Navy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 5th Fleet. While Nonoo only expressed concern about Bahrain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s security, Birnbaum interviews hawks from both the Washington Institute for Near East Policy<\/a> and the Israel-based Institute for Policy and Strategy Studies, and Senator John McCain<\/a> (R-AZ), who expressed their positions that the U.S. has not gone far enough to remove the Iranian nuclear threat.<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a><\/em>: Iranian-born Israeli Meir Javedanfar does a round up of views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s upcoming trip to Lebanon. He cites the Israeli and U.S. governments, as well as a bloc in Lebanon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parliment, who describe the trip as possibly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153provocative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. He says the trip could confirm some Israeli fears \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that the Iranian regime has truly arrived on its doorstep.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But ultimately, he writes, the trip is about Iranian domestic concerns with Israel and the US \u00e2\u20ac\u0153further down his list of priorities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: \u00e2\u20ac\u009dThe Iranian president is visiting Lebanon mainly because of his growing unpopularity at home.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He says another goal of the trip is to help solidify a somewhat weak anti-Israeli sentiment within Iran; the opposition has been explicit that they are more concerned with their own fates than those of the Palestinians. Javendanfar concludes that the trip may cause \u00e2\u20ac\u009dmore trouble and headache for Hezbollah, both at home, and in the Arab world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 8th, 2010: The Wall Street Journal: Dow Jones Newswire reporter Benoit Faucon writes that oil companies Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell contacted Iranian authorities last week to reassure Tehran that their long-term business interests in Iran will remain. The messages to Iranian authorities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"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-8295","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\/8295","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8302,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8295\/revisions\/8302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8295"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}