{"id":9343,"date":"2011-02-22T04:10:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T12:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=9343"},"modified":"2011-02-23T14:10:20","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T22:10:20","slug":"tuesday-iran-talking-points-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/22\/tuesday-iran-talking-points-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 22nd, 2011:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: The Journal<\/em>\u2019s editorial board writes that the Obama administration needs a \u201cnew freedom agenda,\u201d and should take notes from George W. Bush\u2019s second inaugural address. They accuse Obama of \u201c[O]ffer[ing] no support for Iranian demonstrators after [the June 2009] fraudulent elections\u201d and calls on him to \u201cmeet publicly with dissidents from places like Libya, Syria and Iran, as Mr. Bush did in Prague in 2007, to lend a Presidential seal of approval to their struggle.\u201d (See Jim Lobe\u2019s blog post<\/a> on the 2007 Prague conference.) The administration could be more supportive of the Green movement by authorizing the CIA to \u201cprovide Iranian workers with a strike fund\u2014hard cash smuggled into the country to allow Iran\u2019s workers to sustain a strike\u2014thereby replicating the conditions that brought down the Shah.\u201d The editorial endorses the administration publicly backing the Green movement\u2019s leaders and suggests, \u201cThe Administration could also assemble prominent exiled leaders of the Green movement to sign a declaration of principles against the regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: American Enterprise Institute<\/a> scholar Michael Rubin<\/a> opines on Iranian claims over Bahrain and warns that Iranian authorities have \u201crepeatedly spoken of Bahrain in the same manner in which Saddam Hussein once spoke about Kuwait,\u201d and, \u201cWhen Iranian officials talk about their desire to transform the Persian Gulf into a Persian lake, they envision sending Bahrain\u2019s Sunni ruling elite packing and returning Iranian dominance to Bahrain in order to rid the region of American influence.\u201d Rubin says that Iran will never gain the upper-hand in Bahrain because \u201cWhenever the Iranians have supported Shiite insurrection and riots, Saudi troops have quietly crossed the causeway to help Bahrain authorities put down the uprising.\u201d He concludes that the U.S. should back constitutional reforms in Bahrain but preserve the monarchy.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/em>: Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, asks, \u201cwill Egypt be a partner in peace?\u201d and warns, \u201cWe have seen what democracy without tolerance and openness can yield \u2014 in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.\u201d Oren reminds readers of the Iranian threat, writing, \u201cPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran hailed the Egyptian revolution as a step toward creating a Middle East \u2018without America and the Zionist regime,\u2019 and celebrated by dispatching warships to the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, Iran continues to spin out enriched uranium \u2014 \u2018producing it steadily, constantly,\u2019 according to Yukiya Amano, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency \u2014 to achieve nuclear military capacities.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Post<\/a><\/em>: Former George W. Bush administration speech writer David Frum<\/a> opines, \u201cThe obvious thing to worry about in Bahrain is that the current unrest could invite meddling by fellow Shiites across the Gulf in Iran. (And in fact Iran has meddled in Bahrain since the days of the shah.)\u201d He observes, \u201cAlways and ever: Iran is the big play in the Middle East. A democratic Iran may not be an entirely congenial presence,\u201d and advocates for democratic reforms in both Iran and Bahrain. \u201cBut a more democratic Iran would be a less dangerous place for everyone, including its own people, than today\u2019s theocratic, terrorism-supporting Iran. Every regional decision has to be measured against the test: Is this moving us closer to \u2014 or further from \u2014 a positive change in the Iranian political system?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 22nd, 2011: The Wall Street Journal: The Journal\u2019s editorial board writes that the Obama administration needs a \u201cnew freedom agenda,\u201d and should take notes from George W. Bush\u2019s second inaugural address. They accuse Obama of \u201c[O]ffer[ing] no support for Iranian demonstrators after [the June […]<\/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-9343","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\/9343","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=9343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9346,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions\/9346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9343"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}