{"id":8948,"date":"2011-01-18T11:39:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T19:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8948"},"modified":"2011-01-18T11:39:18","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T19:39:18","slug":"tuesday-iran-talking-points-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/18\/tuesday-iran-talking-points-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 18th, 2011:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: In his weekly column, neoconservative Bret Stephens<\/a> acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus appears to have done serious damage to Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program but, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As of last November, U.N. inspectors reported that Iran continued to enrich uranium in as many as 4,816 centrifuges, and that it had produced more than three tons of reactor-grade uranium.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stephens says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That stockpile already suffices, with further enrichment, for two or possibly three bombs worth of fissile material.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He goes on to suggest that North Korea might export enriched uranium to Iran: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Merely stamp the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Handle With Care\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the crate, and the flight from Pyongyang to Tehran takes maybe 10 hours.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stephens ominously concludes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The next time Israel or the U.S. tries to stop Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear advances, the means aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t likely to be as targeted, or as bloodless,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wars are never won by covert means alone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Benjamin Weinthal writes on Commentary<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Contentions blog that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pariah regime said today that it plans to drop the death-by-stoning penalty against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (The New York Times<\/a><\/em> reported that the head of the Human Rights Committee in Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parliament said the stoning sentence had never been confirmed.) Weinthal theorizes that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Given Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deceptive behavior with respect to its illicit nuclear weapons program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might be flirting with a cooling-off period in order to reimpose the stoning penalty at a later stage,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and partially blames the EU for failing to adequately sanction Iranian human rights abusers. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153While the European Union claims to have cornered the market on advancing human rights, there is an eerie silence and passivity emanating from the E.U. about sanctioning Iran for human rights violations,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes. Weinthal concludes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The tragic case of Ms. Ashtiani shows that if the Western democracies decide to fill its human rights rhetoric with meaning and content, they can influence a change in Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incorrigibly reactionary domestic policies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal Europe<\/a><\/em>: Author Giulio Meotti and FDD<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Benjamin Weinthal opine that Germany and Italy have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153put themselves on the wrong side of history\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by increasing trade with Iran. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As Tehran continues its illicit nuclear program, Berlin and Rome are extending a commercial life line to the regime,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they write. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is serious about his pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, he ought to find ways to help Italians buy oil from other sources\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Without the help of the two European economic powerhouses, Iran would have considerably less money with which to build nuclear weapons, and to finance terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they conclude. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Unfortunately, it appears Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Berlusconi still consider their countries\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 combined \u00e2\u201a\u00ac10 billion trade relationship with Iran to be more important than stopping a nuclear Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 18th, 2011: The Wall Street Journal: In his weekly column, neoconservative Bret Stephens acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus appears to have done serious damage to Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program but, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As of last November, U.N. inspectors reported that Iran continued to enrich uranium in as […]<\/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-8948","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\/8948","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=8948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8949,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions\/8949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8948"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}