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WSJ:
"Iran's paramount political figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, has responded to overtures from President Barack Obama seeking
better relations by sending secret communications of his own to the White
House. The Iranian cleric wrote to Mr. Obama in recent weeks in response
to an October presidential letter that raised the possibility of
U.S.-Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State if a nuclear deal is
secured, according to an Iranian diplomat. The supreme leader's response
was 'respectful' but noncommittal, the diplomat said. A senior White
House official declined to confirm the existence of that letter. But it
comes as the first details emerge about another letter Mr. Khamenei sent
to the president early in his first term. That letter outlined a string
of abuses that in the supreme leader's view the U.S. had committed
against the Iranian people over the past 60 years, according to current
and former U.S. officials who viewed the correspondence. The White House
official confirmed that the president received that letter in 2009, but
declined to comment on the content of any presidential correspondence.
Neither the White House nor the Iranian government has officially
confirmed any correspondence between the two. Iranian officials, in
recent months, though, have told Tehran's state media that some of Mr.
Obama's letters were answered, without specifying by whom... Despite its
airing of grievances, the first letter in many ways began in earnest the
recent historic thaw after more than 30 years of frozen U.S.-Iranian
ties, because Mr. Khamenei also didn't rule out the possibility of
accommodation with the U.S. That omission-and the sheer fact of the
letter itself-fueled initial White House hopes for some sort of
breakthrough in relations on Mr. Obama's watch... Mr. Obama, meanwhile,
wrote another letter to Mr. Khamenei in October, raising the possibility
of cooperation in fighting Islamic State, according to people briefed on
the exchange. In his latest response, Mr. Khamenei said improved relations
could only be based on mutual trust, said the Iranian diplomat." http://t.uani.com/1DYj9XP
WashPost:
"Shiite militias backed by Iran are increasingly taking the lead in
Iraq's fight against the Islamic State, threatening to undermine U.S.
strategies intended to bolster the central government, rebuild the Iraqi
army and promote reconciliation with the country's embittered Sunni
minority... As they assume a greater role, the militias are sometimes
resorting to tactics that risk further alienating Sunnis and sharpening
the sectarian dimensions of the fight. They are also entrenching Iran's
already substantial hold over Iraq in ways that may prove difficult to
reverse. Backed and in some instances armed and funded by Iran, the
militias openly proclaim allegiance to Tehran. Many of the groups, such
as the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kitaeb Hezbollah, are veterans of
the fight to eject American troops in the years before their 2011
departure... If the fighting continues on its current trajectory, there
is a real risk the United States will defeat the Islamic State but lose
Iraq to Iran in the process, said Michael Knights of the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy... the militias' chain of command runs
through their own leaders, and in many instances directly to Iran. The
man appointed to coordinate their activities is Iraq's deputy national
security adviser, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the nom de guerre of an Iraqi
sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his role as a top Iraqi commander in
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was convicted in absentia by Kuwait
for his part in bombings at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in
1983." http://t.uani.com/1MqqbIo
Fox News:
"As conflicts and civil wars rage across the Middle East and North
Africa, a shadowy covert cell operating under the Iranian government is
fueling the bloodshed. Unit 190, a secret arm of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force made up of about two-dozen employees,
has for years smuggled arms to these conflict zones. After an extensive
investigation tracing the land, air and sea routes used by the Quds Force
to move weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas and now the Houthis in Yemen, Fox
News has also learned from western intelligence sources the name of the
Iranian man who is a key player in Unit 190: Behnam Shahariyari, born in
1968 in Ardabil, northwest Iran. According to western intelligence
sources, Shahariyari runs a network of straw companies -- which skirt
sanctions packing RPG's, night-vision equipment and long-range rockets in
powdered milk, cement and spare vehicle parts." http://t.uani.com/17H55Wy
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AP:
"Iran has denied a report that its supreme leader wrote a letter to
U.S. President Barack Obama, the Islamic Republic's official news agency
reported, as the country negotiates with world powers over its contested
nuclear program. The IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Marzieh Afkham as saying the report Saturday by the Wall Street Journal
was 'an unprofessional media game.' 'The U.S. president has a record of
sending letters and in some cases Iran responded to his letters,' Afkham
said Sunday. Neither she nor the IRNA report elaborated on her comments,
though Afkham said Iran had no immediate plans to write Obama
again." http://t.uani.com/1Bh4Gq5
AFP:
"Iran's ultra-conservative weekly '9-Day' was banned on Monday for
criticising the government over its negotiations with world powers on the
country's controversial nuclear programme, the ISNA news agency reported.
The state body charged with monitoring the media ruled that the paper had
published articles 'insulting towards the Imam (Islamic republic founder
Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini and against the regime's nuclear policy',
the agency said. 'Each step (Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad) Zarif took
destroyed 100 kilos of reserves of enriched uranium,' the weekly
wrote." http://t.uani.com/1FSDyMT
AFP:
"China is against another extension of the deadline for Iran to
reach a deal with world powers in talks on its nuclear programme, Foreign
Minister Wang Yi said in Tehran Sunday. 'They have been extended twice,
we hope that they will not be for a third time,' Wang said at a joint
news conference with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif." http://t.uani.com/1v5crNu
Terrorism
Bloomberg:
"Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's last 10 months
in office were thrown into turmoil Friday when a prosecutor formally
accused her of trying to cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 bombing
of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people. The accusation could
lead to a trial and calls for the impeachment of the president, who under
Argentine law has immunity from criminal prosecution while in office...
The charges came one month after Alberto Nisman, the former prosecutor in
the case, was found dead with a bullet to the head. Nisman had been due
to provide evidence for the accusations to lawmakers the following day...
In a document filed to a federal court, prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita said
Fernandez, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, lawmaker Andres Larroque and
other government supporters tried to remove international search warrants
out on Iranian officials, in exchange for trade preferences on grains and
oil. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2013 to
set up a joint probe into the bombing, enabling the Iranian officials to
give evidence in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1zHDAS7
Human Rights
AFP:
"The Berlin film festival wrapped up Sunday after awarding its
Golden Bear top prize to Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi, in a
move hailed as a triumph for freedom of expression. 'Taxi' is Panahi's
third picture smuggled out of Iran in defiance of an official 20-year
filmmaking ban, imposed for a documentary he tried to make on the unrest
following Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election. Panahi, who is also
barred from travelling abroad and could not attend the festival, said
Sunday he was pleased about the award but wished cinemagoers in Iran
could watch his films. 'No prize is worth as much as my compatriots being
able to see my films,' he said in a rare interview with Iranian media.
'The people in power accuse us of making films for foreign festivals,' he
told the semi-official Ilna news agency on behalf of Iranian directors.
'They hide behind political walls and don't say that our films are never
authorised for screening in Iranian cinemas.'" http://t.uani.com/1zHBba6
WashPost:
"An arch-conservative member of the Iranian parliament and outspoken
critic of the country's centrist president has claimed that there is an
'espionage case' against imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason
Rezaian and his wife. In remarks published Saturday by the Fars News
Agency, Hamid Rasaei said the reporter and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, have
been accused of working with someone in the office of President Hassan
Rouhani. He said that they had masqueraded as journalists while
'penetrating into the most sensitive sections at the president's office.'
'Who - through his correspondence - facilitated Jason Rezaian in carrying
out his espionage-related activities by allowing him to circumvent
important security checks?' Rasaei said." http://t.uani.com/1Ae2iNJ
WashPost:
"The family of a Washington Post reporter imprisoned in Iran for
more than half a year has engaged a prominent defense attorney known for
taking sensitive cases involving Americans ensnared in legal issues in
the country. The brother and mother of ¬Jason Rezaian contacted Masoud
Shafii, according to Ali Rezaian, the reporter's brother. Reached by
phone, Shafii confirmed that he had agreed to seek the court's
¬permission to take the case. Shafii represented three American hikers
detained in Iran from 2009 to 2011 on accusations of spying. After his
clients were released, Iranian security forces searched Shafii's home and
interrogated him for several hours, according to the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1JmhiAC
Domestic
Politics
AFP:
"Iranian lawmakers wore medical face masks in parliament on Sunday
in a show of solidarity with residents of their areas battling pollution
from strong sandstorms. Sixteen MPs from the western provinces of
Khuzestan, Ilam and Kermanshah donned the masks to draw awareness to the
plight of their constituents, said official news agency IRNA. Media
reports said many Khuzestan residents have been hospitalised suffering
respiratory problems, while schools have been closed for the past week.
Iran is among the worst polluted countries in the world, and a 2011
report by the World Health Organisation listed Khuzestan city of Ahvaz as
the most polluted in the world... On Sunday, authorities urged children
and the elderly not to venture outdoors as pollution levels peaked in
Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1DxKOye
AP:
"Iran's former first vice president has been taken to jail to serve
his prison term for corruption, the official IRNA news agency reported
Sunday. Mohammad Reza Rahimi, a top aide to former President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, was convicted by Iran's supreme court last month and
sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a 10 billion rial
($300,000) fine. The court also ordered Rahimi to pay compensation
equivalent to some $800,000. IRNA said police agents took Rahimi from his
residence Sunday and brought him to Evin prison, north of the capital
Tehran. The semiofficial Fars news agency said Rahimi was convicted of
'acquiring wealth through illicit methods.' A local court had initially
sentenced Rahimi to 15 years but the supreme court reduced the term to
five years and three months." http://t.uani.com/1DYfoSe
Opinion &
Analysis
Eli Lake in
Bloomberg: "In case you haven't heard, peace is
about to break out in the Middle East. I realize it doesn't look like
that from the headlines: The government just fell in Yemen; Islamic State
forces are threatening U.S. Marines in Iraq's Anbar Province; Hezbollah
is vowing revenge against Israel for killing the son of one of their
beloved mass murderers. But then there is Iran. Thirty-six years after
the Islamic Revolution, the mullahs may finally be warming up to the
Great Satan. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent a letter recently to
President Barack Obama saying he was open to a more direct alliance
against the Islamic State, if negotiators could iron out a deal on
Tehran's nuclear program. Khamenei has even said publicly he was open to
a deal. Secretary of State John Kerry has been meeting with his
counterpart, Javad Zarif. The meetings! The channels! The back channels!
Diplomacy! It's the kind of thing that gets the hearts of our
Iran-watchers palpitating. Over the years, Iran has sent a string of
envoys to meet with Westerners to explain that their country's war
against the U.S., Israel, Sunni monarchies, ethnic minorities, gays,
journalists and dissidents is all a big misunderstanding. Deep down, many
of Iran's leaders just want peace, these emissaries say, but they always
end up getting undermined by the hardliners. Now, the hardliner of all
hardliners, the supreme leader himself, is talking about peace too. And
he's even suggesting an alliance against a common foe. Any day now, he
will lead the crowd in chants of 'Life to America!' All of this is
tempting. The U.S. has little to show for its on-again-off-again war
against Iran, and the two nations' interests should be aligned in the war
on terrorism that began after Sept. 11, 2001. The Sunni Islamists of
al-Qaeda and the Islamic State consider the Shiites who run Iran to be
apostates of the true faith. Iran has been fighting them in Syria and now
is fighting them in Iraq. Why can't bygones be bygones? But before
declaring Iran's president his generation's Gorbachev, it's worth considering
some bad news. To start, Iran has had an opportunistic relationship with
al-Qaeda over the years, despite the whole apostasy problem. A year ago,
the Treasury Department laid a lot of this out in a designation about
al-Qaeda's network in Iran. Terrorist operatives based in Mashhad, near
Iran's border with Afghanistan, were allowed to facilitate the transfer
of al-Qaeda fighters from Pakistan to Syria through Iranian territory.
After 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, cut a deal
with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps to allow family members to live in
Iran while they moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Iran was also a key
base in the last decade for al-Qaeda operatives such as Saif al-Adel, who
was kept under a house arrest so loose he was able to write a
semi-regular Internet column and help plan al-Qaeda's war against the
Iraqi government. OK, opportunistic relationships can change. FDR and
Stalin were allies against the Nazis, but after the Third Reich
collapsed, the U.S. and the Soviet Union fought a cold war. Why can't
Iran and America be new allies in a war against the Islamic State? In
many ways they already are. The problem is: Iran really loves terrorism.
Since 1979, it has used terrorism as a tool of statecraft like no other
nation. In his testimony Thursday before the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, Nick Rasmussen, the head of the National Counterterrorism
Center, said Iran and Hezbollah 'remain committed to conducting terrorist
activities worldwide and we are concerned their activities could either
endanger or target U.S. and other Western interests.' Iran's leaders have
been implicated in terrorist attacks in South America, Europe and the
Middle East. The Justice Department in 2011 accused Iran of attempting to
kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington at a popular Georgetown
restaurant, Cafe Milano. For the Islamic Republic to give up its
predilection for terror would require a cultural revolution inside its
defense establishment. What would the Quds Force be without car bombers
and kidnapping? Some might argue that the 2013 election of President
Hassan Rouhani, a supposed reformer, signifies just this kind of change.
But there is little evidence he is opening up Iranian society... If Iran
is unwilling to stop terrorizing its own people, why should anyone think
it will stop terrorizing the citizens of its historic enemies? And this
gets to the most important argument as to why an alliance with Iran is a
recipe for more war. Iran has been a partner of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad as his troops continue to massacre his own people, causing a
death toll conservatively estimated to be north of 129,000. In Yemen,
Iran-supported Houthi rebels drove the Obama administration this week to
shutter its embassy and CIA station in Sana'a, setting back a crucial war
against al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate. Iran-supported militias in Iraq
threaten the Sunni Arab population, driving many potential Sunni allies
into the arms of the terrorists. Iran's participation in a coalition
against Islamic State forces, while seemingly helpful, threatens to turn
a fight against a terrorist group into a bloody, regional sectarian
war." http://t.uani.com/1FSKHNe
Mortimer Zuckerman
in U.S. News & World Report: "Iran is the
gravest threat to world peace. It is tricky enough dealing with Vladimir
Putin's land grabs, and the monsters in Iraq-Syria, but at least the West
is more or less agreed on the need to resist. What is most alarming about
Iran is that the United States, in the person of President Barack Obama,
seems to have lost its nerve to stop Iran's final dash to be a nuclear
military power, with appalling consequences for the Middle East sooner -
and later with missiles that could reach the United States. Iran has got
where it is, close to a window of a few months for a bomb, by a pattern
of defiance and deceit. It signed the non-proliferation treaty but
cheated on it. It resumed the enrichment of uranium it had been ordered
never to start. Six times it has ignored resolutions of the United
Nations Security Council. It has regularly evaded and lied to the
International Atomic Energy Agency. Everyone knows one thing about
Iranian leaders: smiling or frowning you can't trust them. It took some
time for the Western countries to realize they'd been taken for suckers.
When they did, they were more or less obliged to act with force - or
acquiesce in Iran's 'right' to enrich uranium. Acquiesce they did until
finally provoked to impose sanctions. They worked. Iran came to the
negotiating table but failed to meet a deadline and last November got a
reward for its intransigence - a seven month extension. And what more
could we do to show goodwill? We relax the sanctions that underlay
negotiations, having unwisely rejected a congressional vote to tighten
them in the face of obduracy. We also give the Iranian theocracy access
to $7 billion hard currency they will be able to use for their criminal
purposes. Why do that when sanctions were demoralizing the country?
Relaxation was a godsend for Iran's staggering economy. It was the one
pressure we had to force Iran to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons
and we have given it away. Obama, who has more than once pledged we would
do 'what we must' to stop them, is now repositioned to doing what we must
to keep them talking while they continue with their nuclear effort. Since
Obama led the 5+1 negotiating countries to the recent agreement in
Geneva, nobody is very sure even what the U.S. wants. The president
ignored the region's alarm, leading to the strange new relationship
between Israel and the Saudi and Gulf governments who are all threatened
by Iran's growing military force. Why does Obama want a detente with
Tehran that risks upending America's entire stance in the Middle East?
His apparent belief in Iranian bona fides is astonishing, for he must
recognize that once the matrix of sanctions starts to unravel, it will be
hard, maybe impossible, to get it reinstated. The only thing the Geneva
agreement accomplished is to provide Iran with another six months to perfect
its nuclear weapons program. In effect the U.S. military option has been
taken off the table, leaving the sole burden for eliminating Iran's
nuclear capability to Israel. A great power should not behave this way,
especially after a three-decade-long war that has injured countless and
cost thousands of American lives... What we had to do was work toward a
broad coalition including Russia, the European Union, the Sunni Arab
countries and Israel, which along with the United States would have
forced the Iranians to abandon their nuclear project just as Libya did in
2003. Instead what we have is the Geneva agreement, which is an illusion.
All the options now left on the table are dire. The Iranians can run out
the clock until their nuclear project is completed." http://t.uani.com/17GZU8V
Mary Rezaian in
CNN: "My son Jason Rezaian and his wife were taken
at gunpoint from their apartment in Iran more than 200 days ago. Since
then, he has been languishing in a jail with no firm trial date in sight.
Our patience has been exhausted. It is time to release my son or let him
face a fair trial... There are rumblings that Jason's case will not be
heard until after Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which is on the first day
of spring, March 21. Anyone with knowledge of Iran knows that nothing
happens during the two weeks following Nowruz, a period when even
newspapers don't publish, so it can only be assumed his trial date might
not be set before April 6... Our family has been exceedingly patient
during these seven months. We have been respectful of Iran, of its laws
and its procedures. But our patience ran out some time ago, and it is
difficult, nearly impossible, to maintain respect for a system under
which someone who was born and raised American is being detained 'as an
Iranian' even as his rights under Iran's own laws are being so flagrantly
violated." http://t.uani.com/1zipWGb
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
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discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please
email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a
commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
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