Politics Daily

82nd Airborne Quick-Strike Force Gives Obama New Option in Mideast Crises

David Wood — 2011-03-08T22:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, National Security, Afghanistan, Military, Middle East, Iraq

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As revolution zigzags chaotically across the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. Army is sharpening its readiness to launch rapid-reaction, kick-in-the-door combat forces, adding capabilities and skills that had atrophied during a decade of counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the first time in years, the 82^nd Airborne Division here has stood up its "ready brigade," trained to a razor's edge and poised to move instantly, as one of its paratroopers said, "to the sound of the guns."

This new capability gives President Obama the option to swiftly land powerful military forces anywhere in the world for missions that could include evacuating American citizens, safeguarding fragile new democracies from counterattack, or violently taking down a renegade regime.

At the same time, the Army is considering reinforcing this Global Response Force with heavier combat units that could swiftly reinforce the 82^nd Airborne's lightly armed paratroopers.

With these steps, said the division commander, Maj. Gen. Jim L. Huggins, the United States is regaining the "strategic depth" it lacked during much of the past decade when the Army was struggling to man the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simply lacked the troops to set aside for crisis response. "The resources are flowing, and we are building that capability back," he said.

And it's coming just in time. Few may hope more devoutly for peaceful, democratic change in the Middle East than the division's 20,000 hardened war-fighters, many of whom are facing their fifth or sixth combat deployment.

But hope is not a strategy.

Instead, Huggins' soldiers are honing their skills at "forcible entry" -- the ability to parachute into enemy territory with their armored gun trucks and 155mm howitzers, seize and defend an airfield to enable reinforcements to land, and fight their way to the objective. Safely landing 2,000 paratroopers and equipment at night on a three-mile-long, blacked-out drop zone and then swiftly organizing and moving out, Huggins observed dryly, "takes some practice."

But as political upheaval boils, from nuclear-armed Pakistan to the oilfields of the Persian Gulf fiefdoms and North Africa, sending in paratroopers may not be enough if heavy armed conflict begins to threaten vital U.S. national interests.

With the encouragement of Gen. Martin Dempsey, selected to become the Army's new chief this spring, the Army is considering adding "medium and heavy combat brigades" to the Global Response Force, said Col. Dan Baggio, a spokesman for the Army's Forces Command. The units being evaluated, which could include elements of a Stryker brigade and even heavy armored brigades, are stationed in the United States and would have to be airlifted into combat.

The idea is to provide a heavy force quickly for major combat, Dempsey wrote in a new addition to the Army's operations field manual, to "gain the initiative . . . and set conditions for stability operations" to follow.

All these steps seem in sync with an emerging vision for a leaner, smaller, faster Army after Iraq and Afghanistan. In a widely noted speech last month at West Point, Defense Secretary Robert Gates memorably trashed the idea of sending a massive land force into war in the Middle East or Africa, saying big wars should be the responsibility primarily of naval forces and aviation. But he strongly endorsed the "strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces" as "self-evident" for counterterrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response, stability or security force assistance missions.

The Obama administration also has proposed cutting the size of the Army by 27,000 soldiers beginning in 2015, assuming that by then the Afghan war will be winding down, Gates said last week.

Expanding from the narrow mission of counterinsurgency to quick-reaction missions -- which might demand a full spectrum of skills, from providing disaster relief to fighting the opening battles of World War III -- marks an abrupt change for the 82^nd Airborne Division. For a decade it has fought in small units, squads of nine to 12 soldiers and platoons of 30 or 40, working with local soldiers and villagers in a kind of armed nation-building. These operations required little or no coordination with neighboring units.

But now, with its ready brigade unhooked from this counterinsurgency mission, it can refocus on the skills required for larger company- and battalion-size maneuvers involving hundreds of soldiers in tight coordination with artillery, mortars, helicopter gunships and Air Force strike fighters. And the paratroopers, relieved of counterinsurgency duty, can catch up on the jumping skills they hadn't been able to practice in Iraq or Afghanistan. Before 2001, it was common to see a staff sergeant here with 60 or 70 jumps to his credit; today, a senior enlisted paratrooper may have fewer than 20, said 1^st Sgt. Christian Requejo of the 2^nd Battalion, 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

They are getting the practice. In one exercise last month, the division and the Air Force coordinated an airdrop of 1,600 paratroopers, together with eight armored Humvee gun trucks, two howitzers, a dump truck and a grader (for building airfield defensive fortifications) from an air armada of 27 C-17 and C-130 airlifters.

Doing all that quickly and safely requires an immense amount of preparation. "We were not used to maneuvering as a company or a battalion," said one company commander, Capt. Mike Thompson. "It takes meticulous planning -- or it can be a goat-screw."

Early on a recent, chilly morning, a clutch of captains and lieutenants of the division's ready brigade gathered to rehearse a complex mission: coordinating air strikes from F-16s and attack helicopters with artillery and mortar fire as paratroopers maneuvered through bands of enemy to seize a small village.

A scale model of the terrain was laid out on the grass behind their barracks, with tape marking out routes and plastic blocks representing houses. In what is called an ROC (rehearsal of concept) drill, the lieutenants who lead platoons walked through their actions as they engaged the enemy and made quick decisions on whether calling in artillery strikes would endanger nearby troops or conflict with the Apache helicopter gunships and UAVs orbiting over the battlefield.

Their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Marcus Evans, is a demanding teacher and coach. "If you haven't run through this four or five times with a chalk board before you come out here, you're missing something," he told his young officers. "Drill it, drill it, drill it!" And plan for the unexpected, he added. "We can't war-game all the contingencies -- but we can do the top 10 and rehearse them!"

Brigades training in these skills will get severely tested at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has built extensive facilities for counterinsurgency training, including mock Afghan villages and Pashtun-speaking role players. But starting this August, the NTC will switch from training only for counterinsurgency, and instead will hold six month-long war games over the course of a year, pitting visiting brigades against the battle-hardened 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment in simulated, but grueling, full-spectrum combat.

None of the skills and capabilities the Army is regaining may be applicable as upheaval sweeps across the Middle East and North Africa. As Gates and others have noticed, the Pentagon has a perfect record in predicting where and when future conflict will erupt: It has gotten it wrong every time. But that is one reason for the "full-spectrum" preparation of the 82^nd Airborne Division's ready brigade.

"We've been deficient as a great power in being overly committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without having any additional capacity to do anything else that could come along," said John Nagl, a former West Point armor officer and Rhodes scholar who is president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington, D.C. "The Army was really tapped out."

"Particularly with what's going on in the world, it's not hard to imagine the president needing a brigade of the 82^nd at short notice," Nagl said. "But having that capability doesn't mean we're going to use it."

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Tiananmen Square or Tahrir Square: Why Some Protests End in Bloodshed, Others in Regime Change

Jeffrey Weiss — 2011-02-16T09:01:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Egypt Crisis

Consider the stories of two squares:

Tiananmen Square, 1989. After seven weeks of demonstrations, the Chinese authorities had had enough. The army moved in and cleared the square and the surrounding area of protesters. According to eyewitnesses, the soldiers fired into groups of unarmed people, killing hundreds and maybe thousands.

The merciless violence ended the protests. The regime endured.

Shift to recent history and Cairo's Tahrir Square. As you surely know, 18 days of mostly nonviolent protests eventually moved though the entire country and brought down the regime of 30-year leader Hosni Mubarak. In this case, the Army was deployed but did not fire.

Why did the Chinese protests end in death and failure and the Egyptian protests end with relatively little violence and, at least for the moment, victory?

It's a question that can be applied to most of the nations of the former Soviet Union, to South Africa, to dictatorships in South America. Why did some regimes that showed no hesitation for violence and repression over many years not end in bloodbaths?

Conversely, we have China, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Iran this very week, where the tools of violence were publicly employed by the state without apparent hesitation.

While the current protests are more easily monitored, live and on every TV screen or computer monitor, that can't be the only difference. Even in 1989, the protests in China were widely televised. In 2009, the post-election demonstrations in Iran were a YouTube phenomenon. And yet, the regimes killed and survived.

In one way, the explanation for the differences is simple: Where there were no massacres, somebody at some level refused to allow them.

It may have been the dictator who finally discovered a moral line he would not cross. It may have been the military leaders who would not give the commands. It may have been the soldiers themselves who would not fire on their fellow citizens.

But where the blood ran in the streets, there was no circuit breaker. Nobody said "no."

As protests bubble up across the Middle East this week, can we even try to predict whether the results are more likely to be Tiananmen or Tahrir?

Lynn Hunt is a history professor at UCLA, former president of the American Historical Association, and the author of "Inventing Human Rights," which examines the origins of human rights in the 18th century.

"The lesson to be drawn is that it has to do with what a regime is willing to do," she said. "The Egyptian regime styles itself as 'modern' and unwilling to do certain things in the public eye therefore (same with the Shah). Saddam ruled by brutal example -- you crossed him and he mutilated you and your family, didn't just kill them, and he didn't allow anything much to get into the public eye."

Which raises the interesting possibility that we should pay attention to the human rights claims of a dictator because there may come a point where he finally decides there is a limit to his oppression.

Roberta Garner chairs the sociology department at DePaul University and is the author of "Contemporary Movements and Ideologies" and editor of "Social Theory: Continuity and Confrontation." She parsed a few revolution narratives for me, looking at conditions that may have influenced the people holding the guns:

"If the leaders cannot count on the backing of the coercive apparatus, they cannot remain in power. That was a key element in the Portuguese revolution in 1974, for example, and in the current situation in Egypt; maybe also in the Philippines. On the other hand, in China and Iraq the coercive apparatus remained loyal to the incumbent regime and was prepared to use violence against dissenters."

"International pressure is important (again, Egypt, and probably South Africa as examples). Sometimes there is a rational calculation whether violence and bloodshed are 'worth it' --maybe a consideration for Gorbachev [in the Soviet Union] and maybe also for the apartheid regime in South Africa."

She offered three possible ways to analyze the events:

- Perhaps humanity is finally getting its moral act together. "Maybe after the unspeakable horrors of the 20th century (WW I, WW II, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Dresden, Nagasaki, gulags, one war after another, etc.) we have finally learned something. Peaceful transitions to democracy have become more likely after the end of the Cold War (we no longer have two
superpowers meddling in 'their' pawns' affairs) and generally we can see a more enlightened way of managing change and transitions."

- Perhaps there are scientific ways to examine all the data and arrive at some understanding. "If we understand how the army was recruited and trained, how business elites defined their interests, what international pressure was applied (by whom and in what way), how well democratic forces were organized, how strong the Muslim Brotherhood is (or equivalent organizations in whatever country), etc. etc. -- in short, if we understood how all the internal and external forces were aligned, like a gravitational or electro-magnetic force field, then we would understand the outcome."

- Or perhaps it's all chaos, in the way mathematicians use the word: Small changes in initial conditions can have unpredictably huge effects on the results. What if Mubarak had given his minor concessions speech a week or two sooner? What if the crazies on camelback had not stormed the square? What if one frightened soldier had opened fire on the protesters? Would such relatively small changes have altered the outcome? If so, there may be no coherent narrative to understand.

"This is also the position of some quantum theorists -- that at the quantum level we have to accept 'ontological randomness' -- events are simply random (not just appear to be random because we don't know enough to explain them). Some of your readers will like this story," Garner said, "but I would guess that many of them wouldn't."

So which one does she lean toward? Morality, complexity or chaos?

"As a social scientist, I really have to go with number 2," she said. "Let's look at this scientifically, see what conditions produce popular revolts, which ones are likely to be violently suppressed, and which ones succeed -- and to what extent do they succeed?"

Even defining success is a challenge, after all. "Relatively peaceful" still means many people get hurt. The report of the terrible attack on CBS correspondent Lara Logan is particularly dispiriting. It didn't happen during the days when Mubarak's thugs battled for the square. It happened during the celebration.

Which leaves us watching Iran and Syria and Lebanon and Bahrain and so on and wondering: Tiananmen or Tahrir?

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At Risk in Egypt's Turmoil: U.S. Military Access to the Middle East

David Wood — 2011-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, National Security, International, Military, Analysis, Iraq, Egypt Crisis

Three hundred combat-armed paratroopers from the 82^nd Airborne Division plummeted from a cobalt Egyptian sky. U.S. and Egyptian marines swarmed ashore in waves of armored vehicles, and American jets streaked low overhead. It was October 2009, the most recent -- and perhaps the last -- of the massive combat maneuvers staged in Egypt every two years in an assertive demonstration of U.S. power and resolve in the troubled Middle East.

Whatever the outcome of the tumult wracking Egypt, those who eventually consolidate power in Cairo may not welcome back the biannual Bright Star military exercises.
Also suddenly at risk, along with Bright Star, is the access of U.S. military forces to Egypt's sprawling naval facilities at Alexandria and the huge Cairo West air base, as well as over-flight rights and guaranteed transit for U.S. warships through the Suez Canal -- all critical underpinnings of the U.S. ability to project power in the region, to contain Iran, reassure Israel and strengthen stability.

Mobs and Democracy: The Facebook-Twitter-YouTube Revolution

Donna Trussell — 2011-02-01T00:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Woman Up, al Qaeda, Islam, Egypt Crisis

You may think you've seen this movie before. Just two summers ago, in fact, in Iran. Never say never, but I'm saying never. You've never seen anything like what is unfolding today in Egypt.

Just when it seemed humankind was doomed (pick your poison: pandemic, climate change, famine, drought, nuclear war) up pop Tunisia and Egypt. Overnight, it seems, the world has entered a new era. As The New York Times put it:

It was a spectacle that would have been unthinkable less than two decades ago, when Middle Eastern governments strictly censored any subversive images. Now, it seems, all revolutions are televised.

Media love to use the word unprecedented, but for once, it's deserved. Before you start bracing yourself for a massacre of Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square, consider what may be the most game-changing weapon since the atom bomb: The Internet.

Like everyone else over the age of 25, I well remember the Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, Bejing, in 1989. No one knows for sure who he was, or if he's alive or dead. We do know that hundreds - perhaps thousands - of unarmed protesters and innocent bystanders died that night, and in the following weeks, by execution.

We also know that if you live in China and you Google Tiananmen Square, you get pictures and tourist information, but nothing about the momentous events of 1989. When a journalist traveled to China and showed a picture of the Tank Man to college students, they did not recognize it. One woman wondered if the photograph was taken during a military ceremony.

I well remember the protests in the streets of Iran after the disputed 2009 election. What did Iranians want in 2009? A one-minute YouTube video spells it out. This upload is dated June 19, 2009, but the message (subtitled in English) is clearly pre-election:

Defending civil rights... Acting against poverty and deprivation... Nationalizing oil income... Reducing tensions in international affairs... Free access to information... Supporting single mothers... Dealing a blow to violence against women... Education for all... Increasing public safety... Rights for ethnic and religious minorities... Supporting the work of NGOs... Public participation... We are asking for change... Change for Iran.

Doesn't seem like so much to ask, does it? The Iranian regime did not agree.

I remember Twitter avatars from every corner of the world tinted green in a show of support. Computer illiterates stretched their technical muscles and learned how to set up online proxy accounts for besieged Iranians blocked from the Internet.

And I remember the young, unarmed protester named Neda Agha-Soltan dying before our eyes. The video would later win one of the highest honors in journalism - the Polk Award - for "anonymous."

In the days that followed, YouTube percolated with tributes to Neda and the other men and women murdered on the streets and in Iranian prisons. From the roofs of Tehran came cries for help from God, and the Poem for the Rooftops Suite.

The most poignant moment for me was a blog post imploring America to come to the aid of the protesters. The writer assured Americans that Iranians had gotten over the whole Shah thing, and they would not assume Imperialist intentions on the part of the United States.

But no help came. Sympathetic Americans and Iranian ex-pats watched as the Green Movement withered in the face of merciless beatings and sniper fire. The crackdown by the military worked. According to historians, live rounds fired into a crowd as often as necessary always works.

The worldwide protests in support of the Iranian people had no effect. Nor did the Twitter, Facebook and YouTube campaigns. Violence gets the last word.

Or does it?

Pessimists point to the Reign of Terror in France, the purges in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution, and the iron grip of the mullahs in Iran to prove the point that revolutions take more lives than they save.

Enter the Internet. What seemed 20 years ago to be little more than an amusing toy soon became a wrecking ball in the economy (just ask workers replaced by cheaper, online substitutes) but also a potent force for democracy.

Seeing is believing. While we were playing video games, flirting with strangers and laughing at cats, the world was busy reconstituting. No longer could the powers that be control the flow of information. When half the world carries a camera in its pocket and the ability to distribute images within the hour, the power shift is enormous.

On June 23, 2009, Columbia University's Hamid Dashi, professor of Iranian studies, wrote:

It seems to me that these brave young men and women have picked up their hand-held cameras to shoot those shaky shots, looking in their streets and alleys for their Martin Luther King. They are well aware of Mir Hossein Moussavi's flaws, past and present. But like the color of green, the very figure of Moussavi has become, it seems to me, a collective construction of their desires for a peaceful, nonviolent attainment of civil and women's rights. They are facing an army of firearms and fanaticism with chanting poetry and waving their green bandannas. I thought my generation had courage to take up arms against tyranny. Now I tremble with shame in the face of their bravery.

Indeed.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can supply the tools for change, but it's real, live humans with red blood to spill who must supply the courage. Writes one New York Times commenter: "Social media can inform, organize, and report in ways never before possible. [But] ... social media can not convince people to descend to the streets and risk brutality, arrest, death; only determination and belief in change can do that."

They are showing it now. Estimates on the Egyptian casualties have already topped 100.

The protesters are not just brave. They are also savvy. They've supported the call for a secular government. When cries of "Allah Akbar" rang out, they were drowned out by louder chants: "Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian."

Uploaded just three days ago, "The Most AMAZING Video on the internet" has had more than a million views. "It's very bad for my government," says a middle-aged Egyptian to the camera. "I haven't food, I haven't anything." He mentions his sons, and adds, "I will die today."

Another man: "We will not be silenced. Whether you're a Christian, whether you're a Muslim, whether you're an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other! We will never be silenced!"

In the description window appears a warning to the hall monitors of YouTube: If this video "gets flagged or removed, it will be uploaded 10 more times." Sure enough, like the mirror WikiLeaks sites already proliferating, copies of the video were lined up, ready to carry the torch.

Just like the Iran protests in the summer of 2009, women are everywhere.

The solidarity is palpable. Writes one observer on the ground: "Members of the police who strayed away from the back would be treated well and told, 'you are our brothers and fathers, you are from us and we are from you, we are all Egyptians, we are doing this for you too.' They replied, 'we are with you in heart, we are just following orders.'"

I'm not naive. I realize the roots of war go deep. The earth still holds a growing population competing for resources. That hasn't changed. What has changed is education and communication.

How long will Americans turn their backs on the people of Egypt once they read the WikiLeaks document revealing the "routine and pervasive use of torture by Egyptian police? How long can Americans demonize people of a different faith or ethnicity when they can go online and see videos of women in hijabs dancing in flash mobs to the beat of a British rock star?

Likewise, how can young Arabs demonize America when so many people here are asking: What can we do? How can we help? Among the comments online about the events of the last week in Egypt: "beautiful. This is what it looks like when people know they are not free. In countries where people think they are free they watch Oprah."

Another comment: "Every such protest in the Islamic world has turned the respective country into an Islamic republic.. But I have changed my opinion.. Because, I heard a guy scream in front of the camera 'Dimuqratiya.. jamahiriyat..' So, I understood what's happening."

The language is Azerbaijani, and the meaning is: "Democracy; rule by the people."

Finally, in the streets of the Arab world, we are seeing the answer to al-Qaeda for which Westerners have been waiting. Years ago Islamist extremists learned how to leapfrog over geographic boundaries and form a coalition. Well, two can play that game.

The invasion of Iraq was a disaster in many ways, but it did provide us with a lesson. We saw in dollar and body counts the unintended consequences of toppling a dictator. Change has to come from the people.

And, it seems, the people are ready. In a matter of days, we've seen a new Egypt emerge. We've seen Egyptian pride.

I don't know how all this will end. I'm curious as hell. And I'm something else that feels new and strange. I'm optimistic.

If Neda could see all the commotion in the streets of the Arab world now, she'd be smiling. I hope I live long enough to someday visit Iran, and walk down a street that bears her name.

Follow Donna Trussell on Twitter.

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U.S. Spent Billions Arming Egypt; Would Schools and Jobs Have Been Wiser Investments?

David Wood — 2011-01-31T23:59:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, International, Military, Middle East, WikiLeaks, Egypt Crisis

Upheavals in Egypt and across the Middle East are shaking a major foundation of American foreign policy: the conviction that arms sales and military strength ensure stability.

From Algeria to Yemen, throngs of chronically unemployed youth are upending U.S.-backed regimes heavily armed with American military hardware and expertise. In a region where half the population is under the age of 25 and increasingly desperate for jobs and scarce housing, the United States has provided more than $250 billion worth of weaponry since 1950, vastly overshadowing its investments in education, job creation, housing, democracy and other social needs.

In Cairo, the Egyptian army suggested it would not interfere with Tuesday's planned massive demonstrations and general strike. In a statement, the military said it supported "freedom of expression through peaceful means.''

But the United States, for its decades-long effort to avoid trouble by fortifying Egypt's military at the expense of funding for education, jobs and housing, seemed to be on the wrong side of history. As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lamented in a remarkable speech at American University in Cairo in 2005, "For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither.''

As Shadi Hamid, a Middle East scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, wrote this week: "For decades, the United States has prioritized a now clearly illusory stability over American ideals. It appears the administration, slowly, is realizing its mistake -- and that of its predecessors.''

In an opinion essay for Forbes, Hamid added: "Democracy -- with the accountability, popular legitimacy and peaceful resolution of conflict it so often brings -- is the only avenue to long-term stability. Otherwise, authoritarian regimes will appear stable -- until they're not.''
More immediately, there is concern that the massive U.S. investment in Egypt's powerful military may become uncontrollable. A new, more radical civilian regime could abrogate Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and wield its military as a new threat to the region's relative peace. "Somebody in Washington needs to be working seriously on the future security of Israel,'' said John McCreary, former intelligence watch officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "There is no guarantee that an anti-Israel Islamist government will not emerge, in the revolutionary phase of this uprising . . . large scale, conventional warfare with tanks would re-establish itself as the future of warfare'' in the region.

U.S. largesse has made Egypt's military a force to contend with. Last year the United States provided Egypt with $2.6 billion in military hardware and services, including sophisticated anti-ship and anti-tank missiles, fast missile boats and upgrades to Sparrow air-to-air missiles that the Pentagon said would contribute to "political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.'' Of that amount, $1.3 billion was written off as U.S. military aid.

Commercial military sales to Egypt, supervised by the State Department, were expected to reach at least tens of millions of dollars more. In the most recent year reported, 2008, commercial sales of weapons to Egypt came to $121 million.

Last year the United States also gave Egypt $1.5 billion in non-military assistance - of which $1.3 billion was earmarked for "peace, security and stability'' programs including counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and "stabilization'' initiatives. There was also money for "democracy, human rights and governance'' ($25 million) and for education and social and economic development ($210 million).

That ratio of U.S. support -- $2.6 billion in direct military sales and $235 million for democracy, human rights, education and economic development - faithfully reflects long-standing and continuing U.S. strategy.

Law Allows U.S. Firms to Skirt Sanctions, Do Business in Iran, Other Rogue Nations

Politics Daily Staff — 2010-12-24T10:29:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Terror, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Economy

Sanctions and embargoes have not stopped some U.S. companies from doing billions of dollars of business with Iran and other countries singled out as state sponsors of terrorism, the New York Times reported Friday.

The companies, including Pepsi, Kraft Foods and lesser known firms, operate under a 10-year-old federal law that exempts some agriculture and medical products from the sanctions, the newspaper said. The obscure Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control has granted 10,000 licenses to companies that provide humanitarian products, but also sell goods ranging from popcorn and cigarettes to body-building supplements in the blacklisted lands.

All of the exports have to pass a litmus test confirming that the sales are somehow in line with American foreign policy goals, the Times' Jo Becker reported.

"Because the U.S. has the toughest and most comprehensive sanctions against Iran, allowing for the exportation of food, medicine and medical devices is consistent with our objective of not hurting the Iranian people," a Treasury official told the Washington Post.

In a separate statement, Stuart Levey, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at Treasury, said permitting the "export to Iran of food items like hot sauce or salad dressing from the U.S. is required by statute and, in any event, is trivial in the context of our Iran policy."

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Celebrities Call on Iran to Free Ashtiani, Who Faces Death by Stoning

Delia Lloyd — 2010-12-13T21:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Woman Up, International, Human Rights

LONDON -- The ongoing saga of the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for adultery has taken yet another turn. On Monday, more than 80 celebrities wrote an open letter to the Times of London calling for the release of 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani,

The letter was published on the front page of the Times of London newspaper. It was signed by actors, writers and musicians including Sting, V. S. Naipaul and Robert Redford, as well as prominent politicians like British opposition leader Ed Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Together, they called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release Ashtiani, along with her son and lawyer, who are also imprisoned.

The campaign follows on the heels of a 25-minute program which aired on Friday on Iranian state television in which Ashtiani confesses to -- and then re-enacts -- her alleged part in the murder of her husband, who died in 2005. In the film, she is shown with a needle, indicating where she gave him an injection to knock him unconscious, so that her alleged lover could then electrocute him. The entire film takes place inside Ashtiani's home, which led to early, misguided reports that she had been freed.

In the film, a voiceover describes Ashtiani as a "prostitute" and "adulterous woman." Her jailed son also appears in the program, in which he plays the role of his father in the reconstruction of the alleged crime. So does her lawyer, who claims that he and her son had been taking orders from Mina Ahadi, an Iranian human rights activist who has publicized the case internationally.

This is the third time that Ashtiani has been brought before the cameras to "confess" to a crime and in all three cases, human rights groups have dismissed the confessions as coerced.

Ashtiani was initially convicted in May 2006 of conducting an "illicit relationship outside marriage." She was given a sentence of 99 lashes, but her case was re-opened when a court in Tabriz suspected her of murdering her husband. She was acquitted on the murder charges, but the adultery charge was reviewed and a death penalty handed down on the basis of "judge's knowledge" - a loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where no conclusive evidence is present. She has been in prison ever since.

Iran is the only country in the world in which stoning is both legal and is still carried out. At least 20 Iranians, mostly women, are currently believed to be under sentence of stoning to death. About one or two cases are thought to be carried out each year.

In July, and under severe international pressure, the Iranian government backed down from carrying out a death sentence by stoning against Ashtiani. Instead, the stoning sentence was put on hold for review by the country's supreme court.

Since then -- and in an apparent bid to defray the bad publicity the regime has gotten on this case -- the focus of Ashtiani's "confession" has moved from the issue of adultery to that of murder. It seems the strategy is to portray her as a common criminal, sentenced for a crime that also carries the death penalty in the United States and many other countries. This would certainly be consistent with Friday's video re-enactment of her husband's murder.

But if that's the message that's being sold by the Iranian government, not too many people appear to be buying it. According to Amnesty International, international standards for a fair trial guarantee the right not to be forced to incriminate oneself or to confess guilt. "To organize a televised 'confession' midway through a judicial review of a serious case - where a woman's life hangs in the balance - makes a mockery of Iran's legal system," said Clare Bracey of Amnesty International.

It's as yet unclear what will happen with this case. Friday's documentary includes previously reported comments by an adviser to the Iranian supreme leader that that there is a "good chance" that Ashtiani's life could yet be spared. To this end, the message of the video, at least, would appear to be that her stoning sentence is merely "symbolic."

But she could still be sentenced to death by hanging for murder or spend the rest of her life in prison.

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights said on Monday that the West takes advantage of stoning for propaganda.

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Hillary Clinton Says Iran's Foreign Minister Snubbed Her at Meeting

Tom Kavanagh — 2010-12-09T11:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Iran, Obama Administration, National Security, Nuclear Proliferation

In the normally decorous realm of high-level diplomacy, Hillary Rodham Clinton says she was treated in a most undiplomatic fashion last week. The secretary of state was snubbed twice when she tried to speak with her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, during a dinner in Bahrain, the Washington Post reports.

"He doesn't talk to me," Clinton said of the foreign minister.

Clinton and Mottaki were seated near each other at the gala marking the start of the 2010 International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Security Dialogue. "He was sitting several seats down from me and he was shaking people's hands, and he saw me and he stopped and began to turn away," Clinton said. "And I said, 'Hello, minister!' And he just turned away."

Mottaki told reporters that he did not ignore Clinton but was greeting the king of Jordan at the time and that it would have been impolite to respond to another person.

Clinton's next attempt came outside the conference as she and Mottaki were waiting for their motorcades. The secretary of state called out another greeting, and Mottaki again did not answer, she said.

The U.S. and Iran have been at odds over the so-called rogue nation's nuclear program, which is believed to be developing atomic weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists his country has only peaceful intentions.

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WikiLeaks Case: Lawbreakers 'Will Be Held Accountable,' Eric Holder Vows

Politics Daily Staff — 2010-11-29T14:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Obama Administration, National Security, International, Arms Control, Nuclear Proliferation, Middle East, WikiLeaks

Sunday's release of thousands of classified U.S. State Department cables by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks was condemned by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday, with Holder promising to prosecute any individual who broke the law.

"To the extent that we can find anybody involved in breaking American law who has put at risk the assets and the people that I have described . . . they will be held responsible," Holder said at a press conference in Washington, ABC News reported. "They will be held accountable."

Wikileaks Coverage

Clinton called the release of some 250,000 pieces of correspondence "not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests (but) an attack on the international community." She said anyone who applauds the release of the documents is badly mistaken. "There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people . . . nothing brave about sabotaging peaceful relations between nations," Clinton said.

The New York Times reported that Clinton questioned the motives of those behind the leaks, without naming WikiLeaks. Such disclosures "tear at the fabric" of the proper function of government, she said.

She also stressed that the viewpoints represented in any diplomatic communications were not necessarily those of the U.S. government. "Our official foreign policy is not set through these messages, but here in Washington," she said.

Iran has accused the United States of purposefully allowing the cables to become public. The leaked information reportedly shows that several countries are uneasy about Iran's nuclear program, and many are discussing how to contain it.

Earlier, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) urged Clinton to investigate whether WikiLeaks could be designated a terrorist organization.

In Britain, diplomats were reportedly shocked to learn that as many as 2.5 million U.S. government workers, many of them junior diplomats and soldiers, had access to classified information.

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WikiLeaks Reaction in Europe: Dismay, Concern but Not Much Alarm

Delia Lloyd — 2010-11-29T11:04:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, International, United Kingdom, Middle East, European Union, WikiLeaks

LONDON -- As news of the massive leak of secret U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks spreads like wildfire around the world, American politicians have reacted with outrage. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) wants to shut down Wikileaks, the brainchild of Julian Assange. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) wants it declared a terrorist organization. Over in Europe, however, where some of the leaked documents have the ability to do some real damage, reactions have been considerably more varied.

There is, understandably, some shock and concern that the information was so widely available within the various echelons of the U.S. government in the first place. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian newspaper -- which has published many of the Wikileaks revelations -- said Monday that numerous British diplomats he'd consulted with were "astonished" to learn that more than 2.5 million U.S. government personnel and soldiers, many of them extremely junior, were cleared to access such highly sensitive material. As he put it, the diplomats "had no sense that what the King of Saudi Arabia says in private could be read by a 22-year-old soldier in Baghdad."

Whether this free flow of diplomatic information within the U.S. government permanently damages U.S. relations with Europe is debatable. But Ruprecht Polenz, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union Party and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German federal parliament, thinks that it will. As he put it, "The U.S. must now move to reassure allies that they can be trusted. Otherwise, partners might not continue being open with them."

Wikileaks Coverage

There is also the question of the image that these leaked documents project about American power and resolve abroad. According to staff writers at the German daily Der Spiegel -- which, along with The Guardian, France's Le Monde and The New York Times, is also releasing the documents this week -- the image that emerges from them is not one of an America that has "the world on a leash."

Rather, you see a "superpower that can no longer be certain of its allies." (This is a reference to countries such as Pakistan.) "Often enough, the lesson . . . is that the Arab leaders use their friends in Washington to expand their own positions of power." Or, as a Guardian columnist put it somewhat starkly: "The impression is of the world's superpower roaming helpless in a world in which nobody behaves as bidden."

The leaked cables may also have some potentially significant policy implications. Take Israel. Alastair Campbell, a senior adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, argues that the cables could open the way for a tougher stance against Tehran among Western governments. As he posts on his blog: "I was left with the impression that anyone in the US system pushing for a hardening of the policy position vis-a-vis Iran would be able to build a lot of support for such a move."

And, indeed, Israel, is said to be quite delighted with the content of the leaks. These disclosures "don't hurt Israel at all -- perhaps the opposite," Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser to ex-prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, told Israeli radio. "If there is something on the Iranian issue that, in my opinion, happens to help Israel, it is that these leaks show that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia are far more interested in Iran than they are in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Pakistan, on the other hand, is decidedly less delighted with the content of the cables. Former Pakistani spy chief Hameed Gul has seized on cables indicating a U.S. desire to block Pakistan's nuclear program. Speaking to the Guardian, he said: "This confirms that the Americans haven't given up their pursuit, to try to snatch Pakistan's nuclear capability." (Already, Washington's new ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, offered a semi-apology for the cables in a newspaper.)

But the reactions to the document dump in Europe and elsewhere were not uniformly alarmist. Silvio Berlusconi, for example, apparently came in for some of the harshest criticisms from American diplomats stationed in Italy, who described him as "feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader." But upon reading these descriptions about himself, the Italian leader reportedly had "a good laugh."

Nor did the Brits appear to take the blunt disclosures about their government -- often negative -- terribly personally. There were secret cables covering everything ranging from Gordon Brown's perceived weakness and the coalition government's likely short-lived nature to "inappropriate behavior" by a member of the royal family and the sex life of one current government minister. But speaking to BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on Monday, former British Ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer called the leaks were far more embarrassing than damaging, as most of the facts were already widely known.

In this regard, perhaps the most trenchant commentary on the leaks so far came from the British Daily Telegraph's deputy editor, Benedict Brogan. For Brogan, the great lesson of all of this is that "occasional embarrassment is an occupational hazard in a 21st century marked by vast quantities of information circulating in all too accessible digital form." In other words, diplomacy in an information age is inherently prone to embarrassment.

You can say that again.

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In War With Iran, B-1s Would Be Vital

David Wood — 2010-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Military

A U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities might look just like this: a B-1bomber lancing along just above the desert floor at 900 feet per second, ducking behind mountains and beneath ridgelines to hide from enemy radar, carrying a bellyful of 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs.

Guided by radar linked to auto-pilot, the bomber is yanked up and down as it thunders over the rugged terrain at a precise altitude - 1,000 feet, for this training run over West Texas, but it can be set to a mere 200 feet above the ground. Even at 1,000 feet, impact with the ground is three seconds away if something goes wrong.

At this low level and high speed (see video at right), the bomber is less vulnerable to the kind of air defense missile systems that Iran is now building - and other countries like China have been deploying extremely sophisticated versions of their own. Down low, the bomber can hide in the "ground clutter'' where radar reflects off trees, boulders and hills.

Politics Daily's B-1 Series

Part One: B-1 Bomber Emerges as Effective Weapon in Afghanistan
Part Two: In War With Iran, B-1s Would Be Vital
Part Three: Politics Daily Rides the B-1 Bomber

In military action against Iran, which President Barack Obama has kept as an option to prevent the Islamic republic from building a nuclear weapons arsenal, the fleet of 66 B-1 bombers might also be used in a stand-off role. The bombers' intercontinental range would enable them to swarm on Iran from all directions, firing precision satellite-guided air-to-surface missiles from as much as 500 miles away from Iranian targets while cruise missiles and stealthy B-2 bombers penetrate Iran's air defenses to strike targets directly.

The Air Force is gambling that the Cold War-era B-1, flying now for a quarter century, can continue to be the mainstay of the U.S. long-range strike capability, a decision it took this summer when it decided not to scrap the bombers. The Air Force had pinned its hopes on development an entirely new "next-generation bomber.'' But Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled that effort last year, amid rising projected costs, technical problems and new questions about whether cheaper unmanned drones should replace manned bombers.

Now, the B-1 is expected to remain fully engaged in air operations through the year 2040, according to Lt. Gen. Philip Breedlove, Air Force chief of operations and plans. Breedlove said in an interview that the B-1, armed with new sensors, is heavily engaged over Afghanistan, and is being used in maritime surveillance in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Work is being done to fit the bomber with a "death ray'' laser to use against ground targets. "It's a premier weapon even in a high-tech fight,'' Breedlove said.

Escape From the Junkyard

It's yet another narrow escape from the junkyard for the "Bone,'' as it's affectionately known. The B-1 took shape in the late 1960s to replace the B-70 Valkyrie, a huge titanium bomber meant to evade Soviet defense missiles by attacking at 70,000 feet at three times the speed of sound. That billion-dollar program was canceled in 1961, when intercontinental ballistic missiles were being developed, which seemed to make bombers obsolete. And, the Russians had demonstrated they could shoot down high-flying jets like the U-2.

The B-1 was conceived as an aircraft that could sneak past Russian radars at low level, and billions of dollars were spent on its design. But in 1977 President Jimmy Carter, after numerous delays and cost overruns, canceled development of the B-1 - knowing that the stealthy B-2, said to be nearly invisible to Soviet radar, was in development. President Ronald Reagan revived the B-1 production line shortly after taking office in 1981, in part to show Moscow he was serious about winning the arms race.

Barely four years later, Reagan's portrayal of the Soviet Union as a threatening military monolith came into doubt when a 19-year-old German flew a single-engine Cessna deep into Soviet air space - unnoticed by supposedly airtight Soviet air defense radar -- and landed in Red Square, smack beside the Kremlin.

B-1s demonstrated their capabilities in 1999 during the 78-day air war in Kosovo, in which NATO fought to halt ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by Serb forces under Slobodan Milosevic. U.S. and NATO planes flew against more than a thousand Serb surface-to-air missiles and MiG fighters.

"We were going against triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery) and SAMs; an F-16 was shot down behind us as we went in,'' recalls Air Force Col. David B. Been, a B-1 weapons systems officer (WSO, or "whizzo'') who commands the 7^th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.

B-1s went into action again in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with four B-1s assigned 96 targets on the opening night of the war and the first daylight bombing of Baghdad a few days later.

"It was heavily defended,'' said Lt. Col. Ty Newman, a B-1 pilot and squadron commander. "We'd get a list of 24 targets and a map of downtown Baghdad and we'd quickly figure out how to get where, which weapons to use, the tactical routing, how to get the weapons [bombs] off in the shortest amount of time. Sometimes we'd be on our way home and we'd get a new list of targets and have to get a [refueling] tanker. It was pretty intense.''

Apart from the B-1, the Air Force carries in its inventory 94 subsonic B-52 bombers, built before 1962, and 20 B-2 "stealth'' bombers, which are too costly to fly in a conflict like Afghanistan where there are no enemy radars to evade. Because of their relatively slow speed, B-52s are not typically used for low-level penetration missions.

Sticking With the B-1

And a new bomber? The Air Force has been scalded by its recent experience with buying long-range manned bombers. After the disaster of the Valkyrie (of the two that were built, one crashed; the other sits in a museum in Dayton, Ohio) its most recent effort, the B-2, was so costly ($2 billion each) that only 20 were built, out of a fleet that was supposed to number 132.

The Air Force definitely wants a new "strike platform,'' Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said this fall. He was careful to avoid using the word "bomber,'' implicitly acknowledging that the next "bomber'' might be a missile or a robot drone.

"But we are also cautious,'' he went on to say, "not to repeat the painful experience of previous Air Force bomber programs: narrowly focused capabilities, high-risk technologies and high costs ... leading to program cancellations or low inventories.''

Given the budget-cutting mood in Congress and the uncertainty even within the Pentagon about the wisdom of a heavy new investment in a manned bomber, the "Bone'' will be the weapon that presidents turn to in crises.

It's hard work keeping up even with current B-1 requirements. Six-month combat deployments to Afghanistan are hard on the jets - each flight hour requires 47.5 man-hours of repair time - and exhausting for the crews. The bombers' mission capable rates - which measure how often they are ready to fly -- have plummeted from about 70 percent to about 55 percent since 2002, a consequence of their heavy use in southwest Asia and cuts in Air Force personnel, resulting in fewer and less experienced technicians to work on the bombers, according to Maj. Shawnn Martin, maintenance chief at Dyess Air Force Base.

And with wartime deployments, there's scant time left to practice for "big-war'' missions in which the bombers' role is to punch through enemy air defenses and attack his forces, and then provide air support if U.S. ground troops are deployed.

"Anyone can shoot these things straight in,'' Capt. David Grasso, a B-1 pilot, said about the bombs carried by the B-1.

But there's a maddening complexity to a "big-war'' mission like Kosovo, and often little time to plan. The missions would typically be flown by B-1s working in pairs, integrated into an attack "package'' with airborne jammers, escort fighters and other bombers.

"There are mountains, other aircraft flying with you, threats from the ground ... the mission planning is pretty complicated, and getting the refueling plan right, getting the right weapon to the release point on time, deconflicting with the other jet so our bombs don't run into each other. It's complicated, and there's always Murphy's Law at work,'' Grasso said.

That takes constant practice, and there is growing worry within the Air Force that B-1 crews aren't getting enough of it.

"We are gone so much it's hard to find the time to train,'' said Been, who has logged 1,200 combat hours over Iraq and Afghanistan. "My biggest concern is that we lose that ability to knock down the door and have to fight our way in to the target.''

But will that capability really be needed in the decades ahead?

China, for one, already has the ability to target the air bases that U.S. forces would use in Asia - and can hold at risk any aircraft carrier than comes within range. For that reason, many analysts expect a conflict with China would prominently feature cyber warfare, and submarines that are more difficult to detect.

Unmanned drone aircraft and cruise missiles might take the place of costly manned bombers like the B-1. And given the potential cost, a fleet of new manned bombers may never be built.

Given all that, does it really make sense to maintain the B-1 fleet?

"We keep thinking each war is going to be the last,'' Been said, when I asked him about this. "Kosovo - who'd have thought? Definitely for the foreseeable future there's reason to continue. With more and more advanced weaponry being proliferated, fighters and very, very long-range SAMs - I think it'd be naïve to say there's no need for kinetic (shooting) operations in the future.''

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White House Ups the Ante With Iran to Save Woman From Hanging

Eleanor Clift — 2010-11-03T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Woman Up, Analysis

I'm sure the Obama administration will insist that the fuel deal they are attempting to revive with Iran has nothing to do with the White House's strongly worded rebuke of the government of Iran's intention to move forward with the execution by hanging of a 43-year-old woman charged with adultery.

The favored diplomatic term is "two-tracking," but it's pretty clear that Iran's treatment of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has made her a pawn in the much bigger geopolitical fight between Iran and the West. The White House press release went out on Election Day amidst fears by human rights groups that the execution was set to take place the following day. Instead, Ashtiani is reported in "perfect health" and being held at the Tabiz prison, according to a justice official quoted by the official Irna news agency.

Iranian officials have their own version of two-tracking. They claim to not pay attention to critics of the severe sentence, saying the execution has been delayed, not cancelled. Yet they condemn the West for "trying to use this ordinary case as a pressure against our nation" in the words of foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast. If that's what the West is doing, so far it's succeeding if success is defined by every day that Ashtiani remains alive.

She first came to the attention of human rights groups when her stoning sentence for adultery was upheld by Iran's Supreme Court in 2007. Since then, in an apparent concession to modernity, the Iranians have altered the sentence to death by hanging, which in their culture is a gesture to show mercy.

The White House statement points to "the lack of transparency and due process" in the case, euphemisms that hardly convey the extent of the Iranian government's actions, which include arresting Ashtiani's lawyer and her adult son, who has been working to try to free his mother.

In the meantime, the Obama administration together with its European allies is trying to entice Tehran into an arrangement where it would send a portion of its nuclear fuel out of the country for processing in exchange for lifting economic sanctions imposed by the West to hinder Iran's development of a nuclear bomb. A similar deal was proposed last year and rejected by Iran's supreme leader, but the administration thinks Tehran might now be ready to accept the restrictions because the latest round of sanctions are having a stronger impact than before on the Iranian economy.

The fact that the White House waded into the controversy over Ashtiani and the government's imposition of Sharia law at a sensitive time in the ongoing negotiations suggests a bigger agenda at play in both capitals. Tehran, by backing off from what the U.S. and its European allies consider unacceptable behavior, could gain a measure of trust as it proceeds with talks that would allow it to continue its nuclear program for peaceful purposes without the burden of economic sanctions that have begun to cripple the government. If Ashtiani is a pawn in this global game, it at least keeps her alive, although in what conditions one can only imagine.

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Obama to BBC Persia: Ahmadinejad Speech Was 'Offensive and Hateful'

Alex Wagner — 2010-09-24T12:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, International, White House

Following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial remarks at Thursday's meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama on Friday called the statements "offensive and hateful" and "inexcusable" in an interview with the BBC's Persian network.

Ahmadinejad questioned the 9/11 attacks, suggesting they might have been the result of a conspiracy to "reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime." In response, the U.S. delegation walked out during Ahmadinejad's address -- a show of defiance and displeasure.

Obama told BBC interviewer Bahman Kalbasi that "Particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero -- where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation -- for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."

The interview, which was broadcast on both television and radio in Iran, was also an effort by the commander in chief to speak directly to the Iranian people, making clear that his administration remains open to dialogue with the country's government and explaining the objectives behind recently passed sanctions, White House officials said.

"We are willing to reach out with an open hand to the Iranian government and the Iranian people, because we believe that there's nothing inevitable that should cause Iran and the United States to be enemies." But Obama used strong language to denounce statements made by the Iranian leader the day before, calling Ahmadinejad's remarks "offensive and hateful."

The president's stern language echoed that of a short statement released by the U.S. delegation to the U.N. following Ahmadinejad's speech: "Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable."

Obama noted that "obviously outrageous, disgusting statements of the sort that Mr. Ahmadinejad just made makes the American people understandably wary of any dealings with the Iranian government." Despite the tenor of these responses, the White House confirmed that it was still open to dialogue with the Iranian government regarding its nuclear program and the sanctions imposed both multilaterally by the U.N. and unilaterally by the American government. But the administration remained firm that it was looking for concrete action by Iran ensure that it would not seek to develop a nuclear weapons program.

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Ahmadinejad Says Death-by-Stoning Story Was 'News That Was Made Up"

Bruce Drake — 2010-09-19T13:18:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Iran, International

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in New York this week for a United Nations disarmament conference, said Sunday that his country's decision to release one of three American hikers who had been held in prison for 13 months was "a huge humanitarian gesture" and brushed aside questions about the death-by-stoning sentence for an Iranian woman as "news that was made up."

Ahmadinejad was dismissive when Christiane Amanpour, host of ABC's This Week, raised the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani who had been sentenced to death by stoning on adultery charges, but whose sentence was lifted by the government after an international outcry.

Amanpour asked Ahmadinejad if he thought death by stoning was "an appropriate sentence for anybody in today's modern Iran."

Ahmadinejad responded initially with a counter-question: "Why do you think that the issue of one lady in a village in Iran called Ms. Mohammadi should suddenly become such a big issue for American officials?"

He went on to say that "Ms. Mohammadi was never sentenced to stoning. This was news that was produced and incorrect ... this was a news that was made up."

When Amanpour pointed out that Ahmadinejad's own government had lifted the sentence, he responded, "Allow me. Allow me. When I represent the Iranian government, how come is it that I am unaware of what you are telling me and that you should be aware of it? This is an issue that is being considered. It's still being processed."

However, Ahmadinejad also called stoning "an ancient method that needs to change."

Ahmadinejad said Iran had made a "huge humanitarian gesture" in releasing Sarah Shourd, who had been held with two others on espionage charges since 2009 when they were hiking in the Kurdish area in the northern part of the country. Shourd, who was reported to be suffering from medical problems, was freed Tuesday although the two other Americans remain in custody.

Ahmadinejad said on ABC that eight Iranians are being "illegally" detained in the U.S. and "that it would not be misplaced to ask that the U.S. government should take a humanitarian gesture to release" them.

Iran had reportedly linked the release of the Americans last December to a list of 11 Iranians it said were believed being held by the U.S., according to the Politico. The newspaper/website said eight of those had been charged with illegally exporting military aircraft parts, software and other sensitive products.

One of the 11 was believed to be nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri who returned to Iran in July after claiming to have been abducted by the CIA in an effort to get information on Iran's nuclear program. U.S. officials said he had been paid more than $5 million to cooperate, according to the Washington Post.

Shourd's release reportedly followed intervention by judicial leaders in Iran who are rivals of Ahmadinejad, but at the same time, may help the Iranian leader avoid questions and protests about it during his current visit to New York for a United Nations conference on disarmament, the Washington Post said.

Earlier on the program, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern that Iran was "a country morphing into a military dictatorship." She said that there was "increasing power exercised by the military, by the Revolutionary Guard, and by other militia and military entities. And I know that that's a concern of people inside Iran, as we read reports coming out of Iran. And it is something that would be even more distressing for the Iranian people."

When asked about Clinton's statement, Ahmadinejad responded, "Don't you think that Ms. Clinton should think a little bit before she makes statements of such nature? I think Ms. Clinton is a very respected woman, but she should really gather more correct information to base her statements on accurate information."

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Iran Frees American Hiker Sarah Shourd

Tom Diemer — 2010-09-14T09:02:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Iran, Foreign Policy, International, Law

A lawyer for imprisoned American Sarah Shourd said Tuesday she has been released after more than a year in captivity in Iran.

"She is free," Masoud Shafiei said, according to the Washington Post. "She is coming out of prison right now."

The release of Shourd, one of three Americans held for more than 13 months after they strayed into Iran while hiking in neighboring Iraq, was initially announced last week, but was delayed after judicial authorities in Tehran objected and set bail at $500,000. Her family pleaded for her freedom, saying she has serious health issues and has not received proper medical attention.
The famiiy had trouble raising the bail money. But the Associated Press reported that Tehran's chief prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, said the bail had been paid to an Iranian bank in Muscat, Oman. "The judge issued the release order and Ms. Shourd was simply set free and she can leave Iran if she want to," Dowlatabadi told Press TV. Shourd didn't delay. She left on Tuesday and rejoined her waiting mother in Oman.

Shourd, 32, is a native of Illinois who grew up in Los Angeles. She and Shane Bauer, one of the other detainees who is also her fiance, had been living in Damascus, Syria, where she taught English.

President Obama, in a statement, said he was "very pleased" by Shourd's release. But the president said "Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal (the third detainee) remain prisoners in Iran who have committed no crime. We remain hopeful that Iran will demonstrate renewed compassion by ensuring the return of Shane, Josh and all the other missing or detained Americans in Iran."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thanked the Swiss Embassy in Tehran and the government of Oman for their help in securing Shourd's freedom. "We urge Iranian authorities to extend the same consideration to them (the other two Americans) by resolving their cases without delay and allowing them to immediately return to their families," Clinton said.

Iranian officials indicted the three Americans on charges related to spying after they were detained on July 31, 2009. Iran's judiciary said Bauer and Fattal would remain in "pretrial detention" for another two months, the AP said.

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Iran Postpones Release of Hiker Sarah Shourd

Politics Daily Staff — 2010-09-10T20:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran

Iran has postponed the planned release Saturday of Sarah Shourd, one of the three American hikers held for over a year on spying charges, the New York Daily News reports.

A spokesman for the president's office told the country's state news agency that Shourd's release has been suspended, the newspaper said. No dates for her release or additional details were given to the news agency.

The Associated Press reported that Tehran's chief prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said that "judicial procedures have not been done," according to the semiofficial ILNA news agency.

The release was to have coincided with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Iranian officials said.

The fate of the other two hikers, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, both 28, was unknown.

Their families insist Bauer, Fattal and Shourd accidentally crossed into Iran while hiking along the Iraqi border July 31, 2009. Iran has accused them of espionage and of entering the country illegally. But authorities have never charged the trio with any offense.

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Iran to Release One of Three U.S. Hikers Held for Over a Year

Christopher Weber — 2010-09-09T20:27:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran

Iran plans to release Sarah Shourd, one of the three American hikers held for over a year on spying charges, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The release, planned for 9 a.m. Saturday, will coincide with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Iranian officials said.

Reporters were invited to watch as Shourd, 32, walks out of a Tehran hotel after 13 months in prison.

The fate of the other two hikers, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, both 28, was unknown.

"They are not spies. They have been held for over a year without a trial and, according to the law, should all be released. I will be very happy if Sarah will be freed," the hikers' lawyer, Masoud Shafii, told the Post.

Over the weekend, Iranian Intelligence Minister Haidar Moslehi said investigations were continuing.

"We do not know what the Iranians are contemplating," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told the Post. "The release of the hikers is long overdue. It will be welcome news if they are released."

Shourd's mother, Nora Shourd of Oakland, Calif., said her daughter has been held in solitary confinement and is sick and depressed. Nora Shourd said her daughter called her on Aug. 2 and said she had discovered a lump in one of her breasts.

Their families insist Bauer, Fattal and Shourd (pictured) accidentally crossed into Iran while hiking along the Iraqi border July 31, 2009.

Iran has accused them of espionage and of entering the country illegally. But authorities have never charged the trio with any offense.

Earlier this year, Moslehi claimed the three Americans were acting on behalf of U.S. intelligence officers when they were captured, saying their "status as spies is a clear and obvious case."

Their mothers were able to visit their children at Tehran's Evin Prison just once, in May. They reported the three were being treated well and in reasonable health.

Shortly after the mothers' May visit, Moslehi suggested that Tehran might be willing to return the hikers if the United States would free Iranian prisoners. He said on state television that because Iran let family members of the hikers visit them in prison, it's now up to the United States to make a similar gesture, The Associated Press reported. He did not elaborate.

Bauer and Shourd got engaged in captivity and plan to get married after their release, their mothers told CNN. Fattal plans to be best man at the wedding.

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Hillary Clinton, in Foreign Policy Speech, Calls for 'New American Moment'

Alex Wagner — 2010-09-08T13:08:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Iran, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, National Security, International, White House

Seeking to reassure -- and issue a rejoinder to -- skeptics who have questioned the success of the Obama administration's foreign policy doctrine, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday did not hold back in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. It was a broad, far-reaching speech that ranged from the Middle East peace process and Iranian and North Korean sanctions to relations with Mexico and China. But the crux of Clinton's argument was this: America still holds unparalleled power to end conflict, establish peace and repair broken states, and now is the time for what she termed "a new American Moment."

Clinton was clear that, unlike the previous administration, this one would not and cannot "go it alone" in its global efforts, saying that it had "repaired old alliances and forged new partnerships." She stressed that domestic issues, including "rising debt and crumbling infrastructure," would "pose very real long-term national security threats," and she underscored her confidence in President Obama's plan to rehabilitate both, highlighted this week in the economic proposals he is outlining.

The bulk of Clinton's remarks, however, focused on the administration's foreign policy successes. "We are advancing America's interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges," she stated. Highlighting increased cooperation with the country's "closest allies," Clinton cited a robust U.S.-E.U. relationship and a successful NATO alliance in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Drawing the focus to developing nations, Clinton said America was helping to "build the capacity" of these nations to "obtain the tools and support they need to solve their own problems and help solve our common problems." She cited examples of U.S. investment in Palestine, Bangladesh and Ghana as being not for "development's sake" but because the United States has a "strategic interest" in helping to drive social progress in those countries, which will "benefit us all."

As for what she termed "emerging centers of influence" -- including China, Mexico, India and Russia -- Clinton said that the U.S. was "deepening its engagement." She cited Obama's upcoming trip to India in November, the newly "reset" relationship between America and Russia, and cooperation with China at the United Nations Security Council regarding sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

On the prickly subject of human rights, the secretary of state essentially said that the U.S. and certain countries had agreed to disagree, but that the cooperation of these same nations was often necessary to solve greater global concerns. To that end, Clinton said that engaging "directly" with people of these countries -- via technology or local media -- remained key, drawing attention to U.S. efforts in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

She further highlighted America's participation in regional bodies such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with global bodies (the U.N. Security Council and the G-20) as evidence of the administration's belief that they are "crucial" to global prosperity and stability, as well as to resolving conflict and delivering aid.

To critics who have questioned the feasibility of an aggressive foreign policy agenda at a time of global uncertainty and diminished American resources, Clinton offered: "Are we going to tell our grandchildren that we failed to stop climate change because our plate was just too full? Or nuclear proliferation? That we gave up on democracy and human rights? That is not what Americans do." But she made clear that this proclamation should not be mistaken for wide-eyed idealism, noting that "all of this requires what we call strategic patience." Solving these complex global concerns, Clinton said, is "the work of generations."

After the speech, Clinton was asked what the U.S. intended to do regarding North Korea, where international sanctions have not had the desired effect and the country's dictatorial regime continues to pursue development of a nuclear weapon. "We are sending a very clear message," said Clinton, apparently underscoring her comment about patience. "We are in intense discussion" with regional players, and, she added, "we are watching the leadership process."

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Iran Will Build Ten Uranium-Enrichment Sites, Nuclear Official Says

Christopher Weber — 2010-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Nuclear Proliferation

Iran's nuclear chief said his country will build ten uranium-enrichment centers by next year, but Tehran insists the sites will be used not for weapons but only to provide energy to its citizens.

Ali Akbar Salehi told a state-run television network that construction on one of the centers will begin in March, with nine more to follow throughout 2011, CNN reported.

Earlier this year, Iran announced it had started enriching uranium to 20 percent, a level analysts said could be easily converted to weapons-grade within months, according to Reuters.

Tehran said it was forced to raise the levels of enrichment after talks about swapping nuclear fuel with the West broke down. Those negotiations, governed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are expected to resume later this year.

In June, the U.S. Congress voted to impose its toughest-ever sanctions against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. The United Nations has also passed similar sanctions.

Earlier this month, Adm. Mike Mullen said the United States has a plan in place to attack Iran if it became necessary to stop the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.

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Adm. Mike Mullen: U.S. Has Plan to Attack Iran if Necessary

Christopher Weber — 2010-08-02T16:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Obama Administration

Adm. Mike Mullen said the United States would attack Iran if it became necessary to stop the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether the Pentagon had a strategy for military action against Tehran, the chairman of the joint chiefs replied, "We do." He did not elaborate.

Mullen went on to say that while such a military option is undesirable, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran is simply unacceptable.

He said he hoped the West's current approach of imposing increasingly strict sanctions on Tehran would be enough of a deterrent.

Striking Iran could have "unintended consequences that are difficult to predict in what is an incredibly unstable part of the world," Mullen said.

Mullen's admission is the bluntest statement yet on Iran by an official of the Obama administration. The usual White House line is that "all options remain on the table," according to The Guardian.

Yadollah Javani, deputy chief of the the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the country's military conglomerate, responded to Mullen by saying that security in the Persian Gulf would be jeopardized "if Americans commit the slightest mistake,'' The Associated Press reported.

"The Persian Gulf is a strategic region,'' Javani said. "If the security of this region is endangered, they will suffer losses, too, and our response will be firm.''

Tehran has denied that it wants to produce weapons, insisting that its nuclear program is for energy purposes only.

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