• Foreign Policy: Josh Rogin, on his Foreign Policy blog The Cable, reports that administration officials are pushing back against a common perception in Congress that China isn’t doing enough to support Iran sanctions. In an update to his post, a senior GOP Senate aide responded to the administration official’s comment, telling Rogin, “These senior Administration officials continue to obfuscate and misdirect. Chinese entities are clearly in violation of the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) and the Comprehensive Iran Sanction, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA).” The aide continued with a thinly veiled threat: “If the administration doesn’t act soon, it faces the loss of its waiver authority and investigatory discretion on these matters.”

• The Jerusalem Post: The Jerusalem Post’s editorial board writes that revelations from outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan, that Iran is unlikely to have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015, will make reducing tensions with Iran and redoubling engagement efforts more appealing. “But while there might be some truth to some these claims, it would be incredibly naïve to expect a nebulous engagement policy to convince Iran to abandon a nuclear program that has earned it popularity domestically and heightened diplomatic influence internationally,” writes the Post. The op-ed concludes, “Iran is bent on obtaining the bomb. That the danger may have been delayed by a year or two does not make it any less of an existential threat.”

• 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.”

Indeed, both of these concerns should be taken seriously as the hawkish Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) takes over as the new Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

A review of her statements from the past year would indicate that the Obama administration’s policy of sanctions, while keeping the door open for negotiations, will be challenged by Ros-Lehtinen.

In a December 14, 2009 op-ed in the LA Times, Ros-Lehtinen wrote:

The regime in Tehran knows only hardball, and nothing less than overwhelming and crippling sanctions could produce a reversal of its threatening programs and policies.

[…]
But these sanctions must be coupled with action on all fronts. The U.S. must also specifically reject Iran’s claim to an inalienable right to produce nuclear fuel.

And, as The Cable’s Josh Rogin cautions, Ros-Lehtinen could cause significant problems for the Obama administration’s foreign policy if, as expected, she pushes the administration to punish Russian and Chinese companies doing business with Iran. She is expected to lead a congressional effort to demand more information about the U.S.-Saudi arms deal, which was widely seen by realists as an Obama administration plan to form a long-term containment and deterrence strategy against a nuclear armed Iran.

In this same article, Rogin quotes from a previously unreported letter obtained by The Cable. In it, Ros-Lehtinen and then House Foreign Affairs chair Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) demanded answers to their questions about the arms deal from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

They wrote:

We are writing to raise concerns and pose a number of strategic questions about the impact such sales would have on the national security interests of the United States and our allies.

It’s fair to ask how Ros-Lehtinen will view the Obama administration’s endorsement of “linkage”—a concept which is accepted at the highest levels of the U.S. military, that resolving the Arab-Palestinian conflict will forward the United States’ broader strategic interests in the region.

So far it appears likely she will oppose the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on settlements, having been a vocal critic of the administration’s strained relationship with Israeli leadership.

Lynch concludes:h

I’m gritting my teeth in anticipation of the next Congress becoming a platform for Iran war hawks, hyping the issue even further in anticipation of the 2012 elections… look for another round of sanctions and some kind of Iranian Liberation Act on the horizon, regardless of how things are actually going for U.S. diplomatic efforts. A GOP-controlled Congress may not go for the big $60 billion arms sale to the Saudis, what with that whole “sharia” thing.

• The Financial Times: Daniel Dombey reports that the White House has warned Turkey that it could lose access to U.S. weapons, including drone aircraft that Ankara wants to acquire for use in their fight with the Kurdish separatist PKK party after the United States pulls out of Iraq next year. Dombey quotes a senior administration official as saying, “The president has said to [Prime Minister] Erdogan that some of the actions that Turkey has taken have caused questions to be raised on the Hill [Congress]…about whether we can have confidence in Turkey as an ally. That means that some of the requests Turkey has made of us, for example in providing some of the weaponry that it would like to fight the PKK, will be harder for us to move through Congress.”  The White House was, reportedly, disappointed with Turkey’s opposition to UN sanctions against Iran.

• The Weekly Standard Blog: Michael Anton suggests that the “endgame” for Iran’s alleged nuclear program might be coming as soon as next week if, as planned, Russia will fuel and start Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr by August 21^st. Anton concludes that, “[a]ny nation prepared to incur all that risk from striking Iran’s HEU sites may as well take out Bushehr as well.” Once the Bushehr facility is fully operational an attack might result in a release of poisonous radioactive materials, “Which means that if the story is true, and if the Israelis judge Bushehr to be a dangerous installation, they will have to move quickly — as in, within the next week.” Anton suggests that the Russians might be fueling Bushehr in order to bring about an Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons facilities. “Certainly Moscow has reasons not to welcome a nuclear armed Iran.  Goading someone else into doing the dirty work has significant advantages.”

• The Cable: Josh Rogin writes that the Obama administration may become more vocal in its criticisms of Iranian human rights violations. Rogin suggests that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement criticizing the sentencing of seven Baha’i leaders was the start of a new trend of speaking more openly about Iranian human rights abuses.

• The Christian Science Monitor: Dan Murphy offers three reasons that Israel will bomb Iran. First, Israelis fear that a nuclear Iran may tip the balance of power in the region and spark an arms race among countries which deny Israel’s right to exist. Second, Israeli leaders may think that Iranian leaders are fundamentally irrational and will use a nuclear weapon even if such a decision will result in the destruction of Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs.”  Third, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denying rhetoric makes Israeli leadership concerned that he might act irrationally, creating an existential threat for Israel. (Murphy also offers his three reasons that Israel won’t bomb Iran in a separate article.)

• The Washington Post: George F. Will argues that criticism of Israel’s Gaza War has left Israeli leadership and Benjamin Netanyahu believing that an international consensus is emerging that, “Israel is not allowed to exercise self-defense.”  Will writes, “Any Israeli self-defense anywhere is automatically judged “disproportionate.” Israel knows this as it watches Iran.”  U.S. willingness to pursue engagement with Iran and, according to Will, exhibiting “fatalism” towards Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, will ultimately push Netanyahu to unilaterally attack Iran.

• The New York Daily News: AEI’s Michael Rubin echoes George F. Will’s concerns that the Obama administration is exhibiting signs that it might tolerate a nuclear weapons possessing Iran. Rubin argues that the acquisition of nuclear weapons will position Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as kingmakers and, in a worst case scenario, “…with regime survival a moot point, true believers might use their last moments to launch the bomb to fulfill objectives of destroying Israel or wounding America.” Rubin concludes, “Denying Iran nuclear capability requires tough choices. The Obama administration appears willing to embrace containment and deterrence in order to avoid them. Avoiding decisions is not leadership, however, and may prove deadly.”