Yesterday, Mitt Romney held three fundraisers in the Hamptons, the exclusive beach towns known as a playground to super-rich New York City financiers.According to the Los Angeles Times, one event was co-hosted by Daniel Loeb, a hedge-funder who turned against President Obama and bankrolled a neoconservative pressure group [...]]]>
Yesterday, Mitt Romney held three fundraisers in the Hamptons, the exclusive beach towns known as a playground to super-rich New York City financiers.According to the Los Angeles Times, one event was co-hosted by Daniel Loeb, a hedge-funder who turned against President Obama and bankrolled a neoconservative pressure group that called last month for the U.S. to attack Iran. The Los Angeles Times reported:
At Romney’s luncheon with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor at the Creeks, supporters were asked to contribute or raise $25,000 per person for a VIP photo reception. Among the co-hosts were lobbyist Wayne Berman, a former bundler for George W. Bush, as well as financiers Lew Eisenberg and Daniel Loeb.
Loeb supported Obama’s first run for president, raising $200,000 for him in 2008. But, comparing Obama to an abusive spouse to the hedge-fund industry — “[Obama] really loves us and when he beats us, he doesn’t mean it,” he told friends in an e-mail — he turned away from Obama and began supporting partisan, right-wing causes.
Among the beneficiaries of Loeb’s shifting political allegiances was a right-wing pressure group called the Emergency Committee For Israel (ECI). According to FEC filings, Loeb remains the largest single overall donor to ECI’s PAC.
Led by neoconservative don Bill Kristol, ECI is best known for publishing patently dishonest attackson Obama, smear campaigns against its ideological opponents, and attempting to paint the Occupy Wall Street Protests as anti-Semitic (trying to discredit Occupy seems a natural move for a hedge-funder).
Last month, ECI launched a television ad calling on Obama to bomb Iran. Watch it here:
Kristol quickly followed-up on ECI’s pro-war ad with a long article in the Weekly Standard calling for Congress to authorize war with Iran — only the latest in a long line of such calls from Kristol.
Romney’s Iran policy is more difficult to nail down. The presumptive GOP nominee regularly employs militaristic rhetoric toward the Islamic Republic, and many of his top foreign policy advisers often call for war with Iran. But when asked how Romney’s Iran policy would be a change from Obama’s, his campaign has a hard time trying to differentiate.
One wonders, though, how quickly the divide will be bridged now that Romney and Kristol are feeding from the same trough.
]]>Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to [...]]]>
News media reported last week that Iran had flatly refused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its Parchin military test facility, based on a statement to reporters by IAEA Deputy Director General, Herman Nackaerts, that “We could not get access”.
Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing the modalities of cooperation.
That new and clarifying information confirms what I reported February 23. Based on the history of Iranian negotiations with the IAEA and its agreement to allow two separate IAEA visits to Parchin in 2005, the Parchin access issue is a bargaining chip that Iran is using to get the IAEA to moderate its demands on Iran in forging an agreement on how to resolve the years-long IAEA investigation into the “Possible Military Dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program.
In an email to me and in interviews with Russia Today, Reuters, and the Fars News Agency, the Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Iran told the high-level IAEA mission that it would allow access to Parchin once modalities of Iran-IAEA cooperation had been agreed on.
“We declared that, upon finalization of the modality, we will give access [to Parchin],” Soltanieh wrote in an email to me.
In the Russia Today interview on February 27, reported by Israel’s Haaretz and The Hindu in India but not by western news media, Soltanieh referred to two IAEA inspection visits to Parchin in January and November 2005 and said Iran needs to have “assurances” that it would not “repeat the same bitter experience, when they just come and ask for the access.” There should be a “modality” and a “frame of reference, of what exactly they are looking for, they have to provide the documents and exactly where they want [to go],” he said.
But Soltanieh also indicated that such an inspection visit is conditional on agreement on the broader framework for cooperation on clearing up suspicions of a past nuclear weapons program. “[I]n principle we have already accepted that when this text is concluded we will take these steps,” Soltanieh said.
The actual text of the IAEA report, dated February 24, provides crucial information about the Iranian position in the talks that is consistent with what Soltanieh is saying.
In its account of the first round of talks in late January on what the IAEA is calling a “structured approach to the clarification of all outstanding issues”, the report states: “The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time [emphasis added].” That wording obviously implies that Iran was willing to grant access to Parchin if certain conditions were met.
On the February 20-21 meetings, the agency said that Iran “stated that it was still not able to grant access to that site.” There was likely a more complex negotiating situation behind the lack of agreement on a Parchin visit than had been suggested by Nackaerts and reported in western news media.
But not a single major news media report has reported the significant difference between initial media coverage on the Parchin access issue and the information now available from the initial IAEA report and Soltanieh. None have reported the language of the report indicating that Iran’s refusal to approve a Parchin visit in January was qualified by “at that time”.
Only AFP and Reuters quoted Soltanieh at all. Reuters, which actually interviewed Soltanieh, quoted him saying, “It was assumed that after we agreed on the modality, then access would be given.” But that quote only appears in the very last sentence of the article, several paragraphs after the reiteration of the charge that Iran “refused to grant [the IAEA] access” to Parchin.
The day after that story was published, Reuters ran another story focusing on the IAEA report without referring either to its language on Parchin or to Soltanieh’s clarification.
The Los Angeles Times ignored the new information and simply repeated the charge that Iran “refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit Parchin military base”. Then it added its own broad interpretation that Iran “has refused to answer key questions about its nuclear development program”. Iran’s repeated assertions that the documents used to pose questions to it are fabricated were thus dismissed as non-qualified answers.
The Parchin access story entered a new phase today with a Reuters story quoting Deputy Director General Nackaerts in a briefing for diplomats as saying that there “may be some ongoing activities at Parchin which add urgency to why we want to go”. Nackaerts attributed that idea to an unnamed “Member State”, which is apparently suggesting that the site in question is being “cleaned up”.
The identity of that “Member State”, which the IAEA continues to go out of its way to conceal, is important, because if it is Israel, it reflects an obvious interest in convincing the world that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. As former IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei recounts on p. 291 of his memoirs, “In the late summer of 2009, the Israelis provided the IAEA with documents of their own, purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapon studies until at least 2007.”
The news media should be including cautionary language any time information from an unnamed “Member State” is cited as the source for allegations of covert Iran nuclear weapons work. It is very likely to be from a State with a political agenda. But the unwritten guidelines for news media coverage of the IAEA and Iran, as we have seen in recent days, are obviously very different.
]]>- The Wall Street Journal: Kenneth M. Pollack, director of the Saban center at the Brookings Institution, opines, “Could al Qaeda Hijack Egypt’s Revolution?” and observes, “the Iranian regime is also gleeful about the collapse of Mr. Mubarak, one of America’s most important Arab allies and one of Tehran’s most passionate enemies.” He continues, “Iran’s mullahs often see opportunity in chaos and violence, believing that anything that disrupts the region’s American-backed status quo works to their advantage,” and concludes, “All of this gives Iran and al Qaeda common interests that may drive them toward tacit cooperation—with the goal of fomenting a modern Bolshevik Revolution.”
- Tablet Magazine: Hudson Institute visiting fellow Lee Smith argues that the Muslim Brotherhood is still a radicalizing force in Egypt and calls Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood preacher who exiled himself from Egypt in 1961, a “prospective Khomeini.” Qaradawi, who hosts the show “Shariah and Life” on Al Jazeera, “has cultivated among some American analysts a reputation for moderation with his fatwas, permitting masturbation and condemning Sept. 11 (while supporting suicide bombers in Israel),” says Smith. Smith goes on to argue, “While the parallels between Iran in 1979 and Egypt in 2011 can be overdrawn, it is foolish to pretend that they are not there,” and warns, “To the Iranians, Qaradawi is perhaps not the ideal voice of Sunni Islamism, but insofar as he rises and the Americans suffer, Tehran will make its accommodations.”
- Los Angeles Times: Jonah Goldberg writes a column on “The real realism in Israel” in which he argues against linkage and supports the view that the current unrest in Egypt has nothing to do with Israel. Goldberg, who is at the Herzliya Conference, on a trip underwritten by the Emergency Committee for Israel, says that proponents who see an Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a key U.S. foreign policy goal, such as Gen. James Jones, are detached from reality. “Such thinking falls somewhere between wild exaggeration and dangerous nonsense,” says Goldberg. He goes on to argue, “As we’ve recently been reminded, Israel is the only truly democratic regime in the region, and therefore the most stable. But, we are told, if we were only more conciliatory to corrupt dictatorial regimes and more sympathetic to the ‘Arab street,’ the region would be more stable. (Ironically, this is very close to Israel’s own position, no doubt because it will take any peace it can get.)”
The New York Times: Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor at The New Republic, writes, “Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” Hezbollah’s [...]]]>
The New York Times: Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor at The New Republic, writes, “Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” Hezbollah’s increasingly strong role in Lebanon, Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, and the downturn in Israel-Turkey relations leads Halevi to comment, “[A]n Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran’s allies or proxies.” While the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has forsworn violence, “it is small comfort to Israelis, who fear that the Brotherhood’s nonviolence has been a tactical maneuver and know that its worldview is rooted in crude anti-Semitism.”
National Review Online: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin opines on the developing situation in Egypt and suggests that the Muslim Brotherhood and “anti-Western forces will look to blame Egypt’s problems on the U.S.” “What worries me is this: Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Khomeini’s return to Iran. Most people making dark allusions to Iran forget that more than nine months passed between Khomeini’s return and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy,” says Rubin. “The question then becomes, what grievances can the Muslim Brotherhood or other anti-Western forces manufacture in those nine months to try to appeal beyond their natural constituency of perhaps 25 percent?” Rubin concludes that Obama should avoid making George W. Bush’s mistake of supporting elections in Gaza and “enabl[ing] political groups which maintain militias to claim the mantle of electoral legitimacy.”
Los Angeles Times: Jonah Goldberg, also based at The American Enterprise Institute, warns that the democracy movement in Egypt could turn into “a replay of the Iranian revolution, in which justified popular discontent with an authoritarian ruler was exploited by Islamists who ultimately imposed an even crueler brand of tyranny.” Goldberg goes on to compare political participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to a “contagion.”
]]>- Politico: Former Amb. Stuart Eizenstat and Mark Brzezinski, a former Clinton NSC official and Obama campaign adviser, write an opinion piece raising the curtain on the upcoming National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. They call the 2007 NIE, which said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program, “a severe setback for U.S. efforts to isolate Iran,” and hope this year’s incarnation “answer the right questions and get the analysis straight.” They then launch into a series of those “right questions,” such as wondering just how big Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material is, what advances it makes toward potential weaponization, what Iran’s nuclear time frame is, and whether the IAEA would “be able to even detect a rapid push by Iran for a weapon” (the Arms Control Assoc.’s Peter Crail answered the last question with a definitive ‘yes’ a week ago). They also wonder if there is a consensus in Iran about acquiring nuclear weapons and ask if a “democratic Iran” would still pursue the alleged weapons program. They also ask questions about the sanctions-busting of Turkey and China; wonder about the prospects for the opposition Green Movement; and what type of regional role Iran seeks.
- Los Angeles Times: Paul Richter writes from New York that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that there is a “good chance” that Iran will come back to the negotiating table with the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. The talks are “bound to happen,” Ahmadinejad told a group of reporters who ate breakfast with him Tuesday morning. “What is left is talks…. There’s no other way,” he added, also saying, “there is no alternative.” Ray Takeyh, a former Obama administration and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Ahmadinejad has been a booster of engagement, Iran’s real head-of-state, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, remains opposed. Richter also reported other statements from Ahmadinejad where he warned that war “has no limits” — a reference to a potential U.S. or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites. An Iranian political scientist traveling with the Iranian delegation to the UN General Assembly told Richter that “there had been behind-the-scenes diplomatic conversations and that a resumption of U.S.-Iran talks might be announced soon.”
- The Washington Post: In an interview with Lally Weymouth, Turkish president Abdullah Gul defended his country’s enforcement of sanctions against Iran and Ankarah’s relations with Israel and the U.S. Gul said that Turkey abides by binding sanctions against Iran and will not allow a controversial Iranian bank to operate within Turkey, called on Iran to be more transparent with its nuclear program and denounced Israel’s raid on the Gaza flotilla. Defending his willingness to meet with Ahmadinejad, Gul said, “We tell them to be more conciliatory,” and called on the U.S. to better understand the constructive role that Turkey plays in diplomatic negotiations with Iran. “[W]e have the capacity to help and I believe the U.S. administration has understood that, and they want us to continue to go that route,” he said.
- Foreign Policy: Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar writes about the Iranian perception of U.S. sanctions and warns that while “these ongoing pressures might bite, but they can also empower the IRGC and other institutions that are able to do an end run around the sanctions and get the country what it needs from the black market.” More importantly, says Tabaar, the sanctions reaffirm Ayatollah Khamenei’s strategy of portraying his country’s domestic policies through an ant-U.S. prism. With a sanctions regime, “Khamenei remains content with the status quo: more sanctions and isolation. It conforms to his worldview, his experience and his vocabulary,” but “if Khamenei sees a possible scenario that ensures his (and I emphasize his, not the moderates’, not the conservatives’, not the clerics’, not even Ahmadinejad’s, but his) grip on power, he may very well take it into consideration.” Tabaar reports that news sources traditionally aligned with Khamanei have indicated the Turkish-Brazilian mediated agreement on nuclear fuel shipment could offer a real opportunity for meaningful progress to be made towards a mutually acceptable negotiated agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
The article at Javan, published briefly Sunday, said that Iran had [...]]]>
The article at Javan, published briefly Sunday, said that Iran had captured seven U.S. soldiers along its border with Pakistan. Though the story was taken down, with an apology to readers, the action wasn’t swift enough to prevent the story from quickly zipping around the world — and into several international news sources.
Once the story was proven to be false, Daragahi offered a take on the rumor/misinformation in his piece, on which the headline blared: “In false report of captured American soldiers, a warning to Ahmadinejad?”
Daragahi’s theory relies on the reported ties of Javan to the Revolutionary Guard Core (IRGC), Iran’s powerful ideological militia — Javad is “linked to the intelligence branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard,” Daragahi put it — and the timing, with the story coming as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad steps onto the world stage at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The version Daragahi offers:
]]>Iran watchers suspect hard-line elements within the Revolutionary Guard may have been trying to further damage an already battered and politically weakened President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his ongoing trip to New York, where he is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly and give a bunch of interviews to international media, as he does to improve his domestic and international standing every year.
“The system’s enemies and ill-wishers are trying to create an adverse atmosphere against the president and to overshadow his speech at the United Nations,” Sistan-Baluchestan Governor-General Ali Mohammad Azad, an appointee of Ahmadinejad, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
But the publication of the report may also have served as a menacing reminder to Ahmadinejad of how boxed in he is on foreign policy.
Perhaps those powerful figures hiding in the shadows of the security apparatus want to remind Ahmadinejad that any deal he tries to cut over Iran’s nuclear program, any attempt he makes to improve ties or even reduce tensions with the U.S., and any gambit he makes to soften Iran’s image can be easily undermined with one grand stunt, such as capturing a platoon of U.S. soldiers along the Iranian border.
- Reuters: Louis Charbonneau reports on calls from the U.S., British and French envoys to the UN to expedite the formation a UN panel to monitor Iran’s compliance with sanctions. “We are concerned by the delay in setting up the panel, and we urge a renewed focus to enable this body to become operational as soon as possible,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told the Security Council during a meeting on Iran. The council had agreed in June to set up an expert panel to regularly report on the sanctions. Rice said that Iran has violated that sanctions and has repeatedly tried to export arms and “continues to engage in activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”
- Forbes: Vice President of the hawkish American Foreign Policy Council, Ilan Berman, warns that if the U.S. or Israel is compelled to use force against Iran, “China will shoulder at least part of the blame.” Berman says that while both UN and U.S. unilateral sanctions have made an impact, Chinese oil, gas and railroad deals with Iran threatens to undermine the effects of international sanctions. The solution, argues Berman, might lie in prohibiting U.S. contracts with certain Chinese companies or denying loans from U.S. institutions for companies which engage in trade with Iran. He concludes, “[The U.S.] can have a consolidated international economic front that stands a prayer of derailing Iran’s nuclear drive, or it can have a non-confrontational relationship with China. It cannot, however, have both.”
- Los Angeles Times: As hawks continue to focus on countries that have trade and nuclear deals with Iran, John Bolton hones in on Venezuela. “[Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez’s growing closeness with Russia and Iran on nuclear matters should be our greatest concern,” writes the former Bush Administration ambassador to the UN. He points to Venezuela’s sale of refined petroleum products to Iran, helping the latter work around sanctions; unsubstantiated reports of Hezbollah using Venezuela as a base; and Iran’s “helping [Venezuela] develop its uranium reserves.” He says the nuclear cooperation “may signal a dangerous clandestine nuclear weapons effort, perhaps as a surrogate for Iran, as has been true elsewhere, such as in Syria.”
- NBC News: In a sometimes contentious interview with NBC‘s Andrea Mitchell, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that recent IAEA pressure on Iran was “part of the hostility of the United States against our people.” Just ahead of his visit to New York next week for the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad held forth on many topics, including Obama’s intention to thaw hostilities with Iran: “We think maybe President Obama wants to do something, but there are pressures– pressure groups in the United States who do not allow him to do so,” he said, later specifically referencing “Zionists.” While Ahmadinejad welcomed warming relations with the U.S., he said that sanctions were useless: “We in Iran are in a position to meet our own requirements.”
- The Atlantic: Marc Lynch responds to Jeffrey Goldberg’s cover story on the likelihood of an Israeli air strike on Iran. Lynch disagrees with Goldberg’s assertion that a failure for the Obama administration to act militarily will result in an Israeli strike on Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities. “Instead, I see an attempt on the part of Goldberg’s Israeli sources to prepare a policy climate in which such an attack seems increasingly plausible and other options are foreclosed …” writes Lynch. He concludes that both Israelis and people in the United States are aware of the disastrous consequences of a military strike and are not nearly as fixated on the “never ending series” of deadlines as Israeli and U.S. hawks would like to suggest.
- The Wall Street Journal: Gerald F. Seib suggests that as the costs imposed by sanctions on Iran go up, Tehran is looking for a face-saving “exit ramp” to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program. Seib disagrees with hawks, such as John Bolton, that Russia’s assistance in fueling the Bushehr nuclear power plant pushes Iran closer to having a nuclear weapons program. “By providing the fuel, and taking away spent fuel, the Russians have undercut Iran’s argument that it has to do its own enrichment,” said Seib. He continues, “Beyond calling Iran’s bluff, there’s a genuine need to find out whether Iran’s leaders—at least some of them—might actually be interested in a way out.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Michael Ledeen argues that internal conflict and sabotage are becoming more widespread within Iran and, “[e]ven the government’s campaign of repression seems increasingly sloppy.” Ledeen has been one of the more vocal neoconservative supporters of the Green Movement, even when Iranian pro-democracy reformists have said that explicit U.S. support of the movement could damage its legitimacy within Iran.
- Los Angeles Times: Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim report on how international sanctions designed to punish Iran for its nuclear program are benefiting Iran’s most hard-line elite and the Revolutionary Guard. The sanctions are succeeding in increasing the cost on items of importance to ordinary citizens but, “key businesses and government operations controlled by the Revolutionary Guard have found ways to skirt the sanctions, which ban trade with state-run firms connected to the nuclear program, by enlisting private-sector firms as fronts.” Well-connected firms are reported to be benefiting from a “sanctions-breaking” industry.
- Reuters: Ramin Mostafavi reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a Japanese newspaper on Friday that Iran might be willing to stop higher-grade Uranium enrichment. “We promise to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if we are ensured fuel supply,” he was quoted as saying.
- Los Angeles Times: Borzou Daragahi reports that fuel rods were loaded into the Bushehr nuclear reactor on Saturday. The move puts the plant within “a few weeks” of being operational. U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed concern that Iran could theoretically make a weapon by extracting plutonium from the spent fuel rods, but Russia has committed to keeping a close watch on the activities at the Bushehr reactor.
- The Atlantic: Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Reuel Marc Gerecht, argues in favor of an Israeli preventive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Gerecht advocates not just bombing facilities but targeting Iranian personnel involved in Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. “If Tehran were to lose several of its key nuclear scientists and technicians in such a blow, the Iranian program might sustain a crippling hit from which it would be extremely difficult to recover,” writes Gerecht. He concludes, “Although President Obama may become (privately) furious with the Israelis, any Israeli strike will make the United States, and probably even the reluctant Europeans, more determined to shut down Iran’s program.” Gerecht advocated for an Israeli preventive strike in a July 26th cover story in the The Weekly Standard.
- The Weekly Standard Blog: Lee Smith repeats Anne Bayefsky’s warnings (Eli discussed Bayefsky on Friday) that the Park 51 Islamic community center has dangerous ties to Iran. Smith suggests that Imam Feisal Rauf’s unwillingness to denounce Hamas, and his ties to Iran are a threat to national security. He concludes, “… [I]t would be a bad idea to allow an asset controlled by American adversaries to be built anywhere in the United States, including lower Manhattan.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Former UN Ambassador and current AEI fellow John Bolton offers his views on Chinese “hostilities” to the United States and its allies. Bolton says that reports of Chinese cooperation with U.S. and European efforts to pass multilateral sanctions in the UN Security Council were “unrealistic spin” from the Obama administration. “But the truth is that China was never serious about tough sanctions. If anything, it is now likely to double down on its relationship with Iran, particularly with regard to oil and natural gas, in order to help Iran meet its domestic need for refined petroleum products,” writes Bolton.
- The Los Angeles Times: Paul Richter reports that China, Russia, India and Turkey are resisting pressure from the EU and the United States to toughen UN sanctions with their own unilateral sanctions. All four countries have moved forward with trade and investment deals with Iran.
- The New Yorker: Jon Lee Anderson interviews Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, opposition leaders, and former congressman and co-chair of the Iraq Study Group Lee Hamilton. Anderson calls attention to Iran’s willingness to resume talks on the Brazil-Turkey deal to provide Iran with highly enriched uranium in exchange for half of its stock of low-enriched uranium. Hamilton warns that, “Since about three months ago, there is a discernible mood for military action,” and, “Obama is confronted with a very strong, very committed, very heartfelt opposition to Iran in Congress.”
- Reuters: Yara Bayoumy reports that Iran has offered support to Lebanon’s army after last week’s clash on the Israeli-Lebanon border. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to visit Beirut next month.
- The New York Times: Yeganeh June Torbati reports that more Iranians are studying in the United States than at any other time since 1994. Young Iranians are attracted to the superior schools and research financing available in the United States. Despite the high numbers of Iranian students attending U.S. universities, Iranians seeking to attend U.S. universities must go through some of the strictest visa procedures and are treated with suspicion when they return home. (Ali Gharib blogged last week on the challenges faced by young Iranians wishing to take English-language tests administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).)