{"id":8337,"date":"2010-10-14T11:32:14","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T19:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8337"},"modified":"2010-10-14T11:32:14","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T19:32:14","slug":"thursday-iran-talking-points-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/14\/thursday-iran-talking-points-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 14th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>, opines that the European Union should do more to sanction Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worst human-rights abusers. Such sanctions, he argues, will help lead to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153regime change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the opposition were to topple the revolutionary Islamist leaders, Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear project would be instantly less threatening.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Those governments that still have embassies in Tehran, says the op-ed, should downgrade diplomatic relations with Iran by withdrawing ambassadors \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if their demands are not met\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and visiting Iranian officials should \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no longer deserve the red-carpet treatment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when they visit the West. Ottolenghi concludes that a strengthened public diplomacy campaign to speak directly to the people of Iran is necessary to explain the West\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6policies and condemn the regime\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s atrocities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/a><\/em>: Century Foundation fellow Michael Hanna<\/a> writes that, despite the howling of some on the left and right, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s support for a new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not mean that Iranian influence in Iraq has reached a high point. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not only does this misunderstand the fundamental nature of Iran-Iraq relations, it repeats a mistake we have made repeatedly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes. Hanna demonstrates how even in the most recent election, which gave rise to the current political impasse, Iran has been unable to exert its will on Iraqi politics. The roots of exaggeration of Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s influence stem from partisan U.S. domestic politics, he says: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For years, both parties have exaggerated Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role to score political points.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Fox News<\/a><\/em>: Writing on the Fox News<\/em> website, Judith Miller does an analysis about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trip to Lebanon. She writes that the trip is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shaping up as a potential powder keg and a huge political embarrassment for Lebanon whose reverberations are being felt in many capitals, not just in the Middle East.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She cites a number of right-leaning sources such as MEMRI<\/a>, an expert from the AIPAC<\/a>-formed Washington Institute<\/a>, and neoconservative journalist Lee Smith<\/a>. Though Miller acknowledges that Hezbollah officials have not yet been indicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (charges are reportedly in the works), she states that Ahmadinejad and Iran, as Hezbollah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s patron, are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indirectly responsible for having killed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d him.<\/p>\n

Haaretz<\/a><\/em>: Jack Khoury writes that renewed opposition to U.S. military aid to Lebanon appears to be gaining momentum in Congress in the midst of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s high-profile visit to Lebanon. In August, Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Howard Berman (D-CA) held up $100 million in military aid to Lebanon after a deadly border clash between Lebanon and Israel. The two Democrats are now opposing the transfer of military aid to Lebanon, scheduled for next month, in response to Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit to Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 14th, 2010: The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines that the European Union should do more to sanction Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worst human-rights abusers. Such sanctions, he argues, will help lead to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153regime change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the […]<\/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-8337","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\/8337","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=8337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8338,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337\/revisions\/8338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8337"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}