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Turning the World Downside UpTue, 26 May 2020 22:12:16 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1The Daily Talking Points
http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/the-daily-talking-points-109/
http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/the-daily-talking-points-109/#commentsTue, 18 Jan 2011 18:39:14 +0000Eli Cliftonhttp://www.lobelog.com/?p=7680News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for January 15-18: The Wall Street Journal: In his weekly column, neoconservative Bret Stephens acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus appears to have done serious damage to Iran’s nuclear program but, “As of last November, U.N. inspectors reported that Iran continued to enrich uranium in as many as [...]]]>News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for January 15-18:
The Wall Street Journal: In his weekly column, neoconservative Bret Stephens acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus appears to have done serious damage to Iran’s nuclear program but, “As 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.” Stephens says, “That stockpile already suffices, with further enrichment, for two or possibly three bombs worth of fissile material.” He goes on to suggest that North Korea might export enriched uranium to Iran: “Merely stamp the words “Handle With Care” on the crate, and the flight from Pyongyang to Tehran takes maybe 10 hours.” Stephens ominously concludes, “The next time Israel or the U.S. tries to stop Iran’s nuclear advances, the means aren’t likely to be as targeted, or as bloodless,” and, “Wars are never won by covert means alone.”
Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal writes on Commentary’s Contentions blog that “Iran’s pariah regime said today that it plans to drop the death-by-stoning penalty against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.” (The New York Timesreported that the head of the Human Rights Committee in Iran’s parliament said the stoning sentence had never been confirmed.) Weinthal theorizes that, “Given Iran’s 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,” and partially blames the EU for failing to adequately sanction Iranian human rights abusers. “While 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,” he writes. Weinthal concludes, “The 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’s incorrigibly reactionary domestic policies.”
The Wall Street Journal Europe: Author Giulio Meotti and FDD’s Benjamin Weinthal opine that Germany and Italy have “put themselves on the wrong side of history” by increasing trade with Iran. “As Tehran continues its illicit nuclear program, Berlin and Rome are extending a commercial life line to the regime,” they write. “If 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… 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,” they conclude. “Unfortunately, it appears Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Berlusconi still consider their countries’ combined €10 billion trade relationship with Iran to be more important than stopping a nuclear Iran.”
]]>http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/the-daily-talking-points-109/feed/1The Daily Talking Points
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http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/the-daily-talking-points-67/#commentsFri, 05 Nov 2010 15:35:33 +0000Eli Cliftonhttp://www.lobelog.com/?p=5487News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 5, 2010. Foreign Policy: Josh Rogin, writing on Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog, reports that Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arms of the conservative Heritage Foundation, is sending out mailers to Republican senators, urging them to vote against the New START treaty with [...]]]>News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 5, 2010.
Foreign Policy: Josh Rogin, writing on Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog, reports that Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arms of the conservative Heritage Foundation, is sending out mailers to Republican senators, urging them to vote against the New START treaty with Russia. One of the mailings raised the question: “’Why did Senator Bob Corker vote in committee to put Russia’s military interests ahead of our own?” This referred to Corker’s vote approving the treaty in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 16. Rogin adds, “With a picture juxtaposing the images of Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the mailer alleges that President Obama and lawmakers are using the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress to ram through the New START treaty, which it argues ‘severely weakens our national security.’” The mailer alleges that the treaty, which would primarily reduce the number of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, would put nuclear weapons in the hands of “countries that want to destroy us,” like North Korea and Iran. Corker’s Chief of Staff told The Cable that much in the flier wasn’t accurate.
National Review Online: American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Ali Alfoneh writes that Sobh-e Sadegh’s—an Iranian newspaper with close ties to the IRGC—calls November 4th, the 31st anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. embassy, as “the day of humiliation of world imperialism.” The newspaper’s statements, say Alfoneh, show that “the political alliances which defeated the Shah’s regime required foreign enemies like the United States for internal unification, an essential component of the regime’s survival.” Alfoneh concludes, “[Some of the hostage takers] have themselves become victims of this ruthless political system, which constantly looks for and finds fifth columnists. It is this side of the Atlantic where some are still unwilling to accept reality.”
The Weekly Standard: Michael Weiss writes that uproar over the sentencing to death of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, for the crimes of murder and adultery, and Iran’s unclear plans regarding her execution offer an insight into “the theocracy’s preferred method of psychological torture: Will we or won’t we.” Weiss concludes that despite outcry from various Western human rights groups and the U.S. State Department, “Whatever happens to Ashtiani, one can only guess at the psychological torture she and her family have endured because their government takes sadistic joy in treating capriciously the matter of whether she lives or dies.”
American Enterprise Institute: Charlie Szrom, a senior analyst and program manager at AEI’s Critical Threats Project, writes that the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation is flawed because it is used for political purposes. “Two weeks from now, officials from the P5+1 group, consisting of the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, hope to meet with Iranian officials for a new round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Did this announcement of Jundallah’s FTO designation occur now as a bargaining chip to encourage Iran to engage in talks over its nuclear program?” asks Szrom. He argues that the FTO designation should be used regardless of the diplomatic and political environment and “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda and its affiliates, threaten American interests and should trigger FTO designation as soon as credible evidence of their status emerges.” Szrom warns that fixing the FTO designation process and the recent designation of Jundallah as a terrorist group, “does not encourage Iran to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, which will continue without serious considerations by the United States of all its options regarding Iran.”