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August 21, 2007 * Volume 1, Issue 11
Legislative & Policy Update
Congress is in recess. We will provide updates as soon as it resumes its activities.
Iran News
U.S. Chides Allies For Trade Deals With Tehran. America’s allies must do more to cut commercial and energy ties with Iran if the international campaign to halt Tehran’s nuclear-weapons programs is to succeed, said R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs. He said the U.S.-led drive to sanction Iran’s economy through the United Nations is being undercut when allies in Europe, Turkey, India, Japan and South Korea continue to make lucrative trade deals and even offer credits to businesses trading with the Islamic Republic of Iran. “If countries around the world want diplomacy to be the way to resolve problems with Iran, then there has to be a harder-edged diplomacy. There has to be some teeth,” he said. But the lure of Iran’s vast oil and gas reserves remains potent. To read this article from the Washington Times click here.
Iranian Unit to Be Labeled ‘Terrorist.’ The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,” according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances. The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard’s vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. Click here to read this article from the Washington Post.
Nicaragua Building Ties With Iran. Nicaragua’s new left-wing president has begun building a strategic alliance with Iran. The president, Daniel Ortega, headed the Sandinista junta that ruled Nicaragua with the support of Castro’s Cuba and the Soviet Union back in the 1970s and 1980s. “An Iranian embassy in [Nicaraguan capital] Managua is worrisome for Nicaragua’s neighbors because Iran doesn’t travel alone: It comes with terror and terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah,” warns Jaime Daremblum, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute. Iran and Hezbollah have been charged as the intellectual and material culprits behind the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. “I think a relatively quiet policy is best,” says William Ratliff, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Nicaragua today is not a threat to U.S. national security the way it was during Ortega’s previous administration, when the U.S. and the Soviets fought over Nicaragua as part of the Cold War, he points out. However, that could change if Iran’s diplomatic presence turns out to be more than just that. To read the rest of this article visit NewsMax.com.
Iranian Court Orders Five Former Argentine Officials to Iran on Security Charges. An Iranian court has summoned five former Argentine government officials to journey to Iran and answer charges of working against the country’s security. The five were all involved in an investigation that implicated Iran in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, that killed 85 people and wounded 200. In Buenos Aires, the foreign ministry rejected Tehran’s request, saying it was difficult not to see it as a “political reprisal” to Argentine efforts to get hold of the Iranians involved in the community center bombing. In December, Argentine federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral declared that former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight other officials were “fugitives from justice” for not responding to Argentina’s arrest warrants for them. Click here to read this AP article in the International Herald Tribune.
Recommended Readings
Emboldened By Impunity: The History and Consequences of Failure to Enforce Iranian Violations of International Law
By Orde Kittrie
This paper is part of a Syracuse Law Review symposium issue entitled “A Nuclear Iran: The Legal Implications of a Preemptive National Security Strategy.” Many have focused their papers on the international laws directly applicable to a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program. A preemptive strike has many downsides. This paper will focus on how we have arrived at this point of a looming terrible choice between an Iranian nuclear arsenal and a preemptive strike on Iran. Part I of this paper reviews the history of violent violations of international law by the current Iranian regime, beginning with the seizure of American diplomats in 1979, the year Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power and founded the regime. The paper analyzes these violations and the international reactions to them and concludes that Iran has yet to be meaningfully sanctioned for any of them. Part II examines the Iranian regime’s ideology. Due to its ideology, the value to the Iranian regime of terrorism and nuclear proliferation is particularly high. As a result, sanctions imposed on the regime must be particularly strong if they are to be effective. Part III examines the international community’s hesitant and tepid response to Iran’s violations of the nuclear nonproliferation legal regime. To download this Syracuse Law Review paper click here.
Bankrolling Iran
By Mark Kirk
Both the U.N. Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency have found Iran in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization moves toward its announced goal of operating 50,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in Natanz, the World Bank is funding nine government projects in Iran totaling $1.35 billion – one of which operates in Isfahan, where Iran’s nuclear program is headquartered. While the World Bank is part of the U.N. family, the bank’s board is disconnected from the policies of key U.N. agencies – especially the Security Council and the IAEA. The World Bank’s board is also at odds with the Iran policies of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As the Treasury acts to dry up funding for Tehran, the World Bank is providing support to the Iranian government through 2010. Multilateral organizations represent the best and greatest potential for U.S. and allied diplomacy. The success of this diplomacy will be enhanced if the United Nations and World Bank work together, particularly on Iran. Click here to read this article from the Washington Post
Why Europe Has Leverage With Iran
By Roger Stern
European resistance to American triumphalism has its uses. But with respect to Iran, Europe’s behavior is downright dangerous. Our welcome guest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy – who just visited President Bush in Maine after vacationing in New Hampshire – could change this. Here’s the problem: The U.S. stopped investing in Iran’s energy industry in the 1990s thanks to sanctions imposed during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Unfortunately, Europe stepped in to fill the void, with state-owned oil firms providing capital and energy technology. Today 80% of the Iranian government’s revenue comes from oil exports and sales. Without Europe’s support, the theocracy’s fiscal lifeline would be a very thin thread. Credit and technology flow to Iran from the state-owned or -controlled oil firms of France (Total), Norway (Statoil), Italy (ENI) and Spain (Repsol). Clearly, standalone European sanctions could do a lot. To read this article from the Wall Street Journal click here.
Bankrupting Iran Is Not Enough
By Caroline Glick
The probability that in the foreseeable future Iran’s economic problems will cause the regime to moderate its policies or bring regime opponents to power in Iran’s parliament is not high. While it is possible that Ahmadinejad’s economic mismanagement may at the end of the day capsize his regime by bankrupting the country, there is no reason to believe that this will occur before Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Today Iran is enriching uranium in some 3,000 centrifuges at its nuclear installation in Natanz. Last month, an Iranian official stated that this is sufficient make a nuclear bomb. It is clear that while Iran’s economic failure is a positive development which should be capitalized and built upon, it alone is no indication that Iran’s threat to global security is weakening. To prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and threatening the world in the long run, the promotion of its economic failure must be accompanied by military policies aimed at destroying its nuclear facilities, and political policies aimed at ensuring that Iran’s next regime will be better than the current one. Visit the Jerusalem Post to read the rest of this article.
Children of Iranian Revolution Need Change
By David Blair
The first stirrings are now visible of political change which could hasten Ahmadinejad’s departure and dramatically change Iran’s direction. The president is best known abroad for denying the Holocaust and threatening to wipe Israel “from the pages of history.” Iranians, however, associate him with hardship and repression. At a time when high oil prices should be causing an economic boom, inflation has risen to about 40%, hitting the living standards of millions. A country with 130 billion barrels of proven oil reserves has imposed petrol rationing. “Ahmadinejad is the first president in the history of the Islamic Republic to lose his popularity so quickly,” said Mohammed Atrianfar, a leading reformist politician. Ahmadinejad’s bellicose foreign policy has bolstered his popularity across the Muslim world – but not inside Iran. At home, he stands accused of playing into America’s hands by making it easier for Washington to marshal a coalition against Iran. To read the rest of this article from the Telegraph click here.
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