{"id":9162,"date":"2011-02-07T07:14:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T15:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=9162"},"modified":"2011-02-08T12:21:38","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T20:21:38","slug":"monday-iran-talking-points-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/07\/monday-iran-talking-points-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 7th, 2011:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em>: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Benjamin Weinthal blogs that U.S. senators \u00e2\u20ac\u0153have reached a breaking point\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with Germany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recalcitrant position about shutting down Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main financial conduit in Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Hambug-based European-Iranian Trade Bank (EIH).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Weinthal cites a letter signed by eleven senators which calls on the government of Germany to shut down the bank. Weinthal interprets the letter: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In short, the senators are charging the German government with being an accomplice to busting Iranian sanctions, and in connection with not stopping Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drive to obtain nuclear weapons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em>: Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em> senior editor and Hudson Institute<\/a> visiting fellow Lee Smith<\/a> opines on the Obama administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s continued habit of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153project[ing] weakness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the Middle East. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was the June 2009 uprising following the Iranian elections that first showed Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mettle. While millions of Iranians took to the streets to demonstrate, the administration dithered for two weeks before taking a stand,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Smith, offering an example of the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153weakness and passivity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith goes on to suggest that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153every regional ally\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfrom Jerusalem to Riyadh\u00e2\u20ac\u009d told Obama that engaging Iran was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fool\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s errand\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and denies the widely accepted concept of linkage. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Obama] was a president who kept insisting on the centrality of an Arab-Israeli peace process that everyone else in the region understood was a nonstarter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/em>: Senior Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a> fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht<\/a> writes on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How Democracy Became Halal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and observes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have a chance in Egypt to be lucky. Democratization there, like democratization of Iran, could thwart the ideologies and fear that move poor countries to spend fortunes on nuclear weapons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 7th, 2011: The Weekly Standard: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Benjamin Weinthal blogs that U.S. senators \u00e2\u20ac\u0153have reached a breaking point\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with Germany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recalcitrant position about shutting down Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main financial conduit in Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Hambug-based European-Iranian Trade Bank (EIH).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Weinthal cites a letter […]<\/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-9162","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\/9162","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=9162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9168,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162\/revisions\/9168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}