{"id":8959,"date":"2011-01-20T13:42:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T21:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8959"},"modified":"2011-01-20T13:42:03","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T21:42:03","slug":"thursday-iran-talking-points-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/20\/thursday-iran-talking-points-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 20th, 2011:<\/em><\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Benjamin Weinthal blogs on Commentary<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Contentions blog that Switzerland has finally \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relented and announced <\/a>that it will fall into line with EU sanctions targeting Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s energy sector,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but only after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153touting its \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcactive neutrality\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 position, whatever that means,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d over the past year. Weinthal characterizes the Swiss Foreign Ministry as going \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to great lengths to maximize their gas and other economic deals with the mullah regime.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He emphasizes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The gas revenues from the [Swiss deal] with [National Iranian Gas Export Company], whose parent company, National Iranian Gas Company, was placed on Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Proliferation Concerns List in February 2009, would end up funding Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear-weapons program as well as its wholly owned subsidiaries, Hamas and Hezbollah.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Council on Foreign Relations<\/a><\/em>: George W. Bush administration Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams<\/a> blogs his evaluations of the Obama administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Middle East Policy thus far. On Iran, he writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Diplomatic efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program continue, but any deal is more likely to concede to the Iranian regime some limited right to reprocess and enrich uranium than to stop the Iranian bomb,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sanctions and sabotage have slowed the Iranians down and credit is due to some combination of the EU, the United States, and Israel, but the Iranian centrifuges continue to spin.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He claims that the administration has insufficiently engaged with individuals in authoritarian countries, claiming, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We seek \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcengagement\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 with the Asad regime in Syria and the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and with the ayatollahs in Iran, not with the people who live under their thumbs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Jewish Telegraph Agency<\/a><\/em>: Ron Kampeas, JTA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Washington bureau chief, speaks to a number of close followers of U.S. Middle East policy in Washington. On the hawkish side, he speaks with Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), who tells him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran is still enriching uranium. It is absolutely critical we bear down with a comprehensive strategy of which sanctions is a critical part.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Mark Dubowitz takes an even more hawkish tone, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to target a hard-line regime, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to have a military option on the table.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 20th, 2011: Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Benjamin Weinthal blogs on Commentary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Contentions blog that Switzerland has finally \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relented and announced that it will fall into line with EU sanctions targeting Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s energy sector,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but only after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153touting its \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcactive neutrality\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 position, […]<\/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-8959","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\/8959","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=8959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8960,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8959\/revisions\/8960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8959"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}