While one expert after another has concluded that military action against Iran’s nuclear program would only embolden hardliners in Tehran and strengthen domestic Iranian support for an Iranian nuclear weapon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s remarks today made it crystal clear that the administration shares the experts’ viewpoint.
Gates, as reported [...]
News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 16, 2010.
The Wall Street Journal: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) fellow Benjamin Weinthal categorized a trip by five German parliament members to Iran last month to meet with their Iranian counterparts as that nation’s “bizarre way of working through its history” and“court[ing] Tehran’s Holocaust [...]
Our colleague Jim Lobe, the long-time D.C. bureau chief of Inter Press Service, has a piece up at IPS that goes over many of the latest developments on U.S.-Iran relations from this weekend and today. Included are the outburst of hawkish rhetoric coming from Republicans on the heels of their electoral victory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin [...]
Here are three articles from Reuters and one from CNN about the back and forth between Israeli and U.S. officials and politicians over this last weekend:
First, via CNN, Sen. Lindsey Graham said the U.S. should “neuter the regime’s ability to wage war” instead of targeting strictly nuclear sites. It seems he already foresees that war [...]
The new American Jewish Committee poll of 800 self-identified American Jews shows a marked decline in support for President Barack Obama (Ali Gharib and Jim Lobe have discussed this finding), but the most interesting part of the poll might lie in the increasing support for a United States or Israeli military strike [...]
In his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. Joe Lieberman made a small concession. “[T]he use of military force is not the ‘ideal way’ to stop the Iranian nuclear program,” he said.
The truth is, while hawks portray airstrikes as a kind of magic bullet that can end the Iranian nuclear [...]
The State Department’s announcement on Thursday that the U.S. would impose sanctions against only one firm for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran has raised heckles from both right wing pundits and members of Congress who have called for the United States to take highly punitive measures against Russian, Chinese, Swiss and German companies who [...]
To briefly follow up on Matt Duss’s post about how Joe Lieberman’s hawkish take on Iran is at odds with most of the thought coming out of the Pentagon (which we covered already), the National Security Network (NSN) has lined up and linked to several statements by Pentagon figures — both in uniform [...]
Buried deep in the New York Times article about the Stuxnet virus apparently infecting computers at Iranian nuclear facilities was a peek at Israel’s assessment of Iran’s alleged drive towards a nuclear weapon. In the piece, mentioned in today’s Talking Points, John Markoff and David Sanger wrote:
Yossi Melman, who covers [...]
En Español
The Latest
From IPS News
- Portable Ginnery Could Revive Kenya’s Ailing Cotton Industry
- Who Should be the Next UN Leader?PART 5
- Who Should be the Next UN Leader?PART 4
- ‘Living in Fear’: Landowners in Uganda’s Oil Field on Brink of Eviction
- Better Incentives Needed to Expand Solar Energy in Cuba
- Africa Pushing Limits To Boost Renewable Energy Supply Chain, Security
- Who Should be the Next UN Leader?PART 3
- Trade Deception Returns in Pan-Africanist Guise
- Solar Power and Biogas Empower Women Farmers in Brazil
- Migration in the Americas: A Dream That Can Turn Deadly
- Online fundraising for IPS Inter Press Service at Razoo
The Daily Talking Points
News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 2 – 4, 2010.
New York Times: Though details are not available, William Yong writes that Iranian authorities have arrested an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” in connection with the Stuxnet virus infecting computers at Iran’s nuclear operations. In his announcement, Iranian intelligence minister Heydar [...]