Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Iran

  • Europe, United States Cautiously Optimistic About Rouhani’s Win

    The resounding win by Hassan Rouhani, the only relative moderate in this year’s Iranian presidential race, was as dramatic to world powers as it was encouraging to millions of Iranians who waited for the results last Saturday.

    Rouhani, who is a cleric by training and was his country’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005, was not expected to win the election. Nor was he seen as a great challenger to Iran’s conservatives, an establishment that forms the nucleus of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s support base.

    Despite the doubts and his status as a wildcard during the campaign, Rouhani’s victory made clear that many Iranians had become disillusioned with the conservatism of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one that has had detrimental effects on the Iranian economy and its foreign relations.

    Rouhani also managed to pull of a feat that no presidential candidate in Iran has for a long time: win the vote without a runoff election. (more…)

  • “Inflexible” Nuclear Negotiator Frontrunner in Iran’s Election

    With a few days left to go in the campaign, millions of Iranians are preparing to cast their ballots this Friday to determine who will become their next president. While the disqualification of former president and presumed pragmatic Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani dealt a severe blow to the prospect of a moderate or reformist victory, the election season still had its share of excitement.

    It is certainly not uncommon in the world of politics for candidates to accuse one another of being unpatriotic, unfit for the job or inexperienced. It was a frequent ingredient of the last presidential election in the United States. What is unusual about Iran it that such criticisms tend to spiraling into shouting matches while millions are watching. (more…)

  • United States See Rise in Iranian-Sponsored Terrorism

    After a delay of several months, the United States State Department’s annual report on terrorist activities worldwide — a document that was much anticipated in Washington DC — was released last week. If the final report is anything close to the summary, analysts will discover some interesting trends in the data.

    Although the report is long and dense at times, there are a few noteworthy developments that need to be highlighted in order to fully understand how terrorism has adapted in the last year. (more…)

  • Rafsanjani’s Disqualification Highlights Iranian Regime’s Shortcomings

    A mere week after Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had registered his name for next month’s presidential election at the last minute, the body in charge of vetting candidates for the Iranian presidency decided to disqualify him, underlining just how authoritarian the Islamic republic has become.

    For many Iranians, it was ironic that Rafsanjani was defeated by the very political system that he helped create and nurture, both as an original founder of the Islamic republic and as president for eight years.

    All of the excitement that the relatively pragmatic candidate’s registration generated was deflated by the Guardian Council’s collective decision. For Rafsanjani himself, it is a debilitating blow worthy of public condemnation — “”I think it is not possible to run the country worse than this, even if it had been planned in advance,” he was quoted as saying by opposition websites — but for his conservative rivals close to the supreme leader, it was a necessary evil in order to further consolidate their influence. (more…)

  • Congress Seeks More Iran Sanctions, Frustrates Diplomatic Efforts

    With multilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program once again at a standstill, the United States Congress has launched a renewed push to target Iranian financial institutions and cut their access to international markets.

    The House of Representatives and Senate are working on own separate bills that would tighten the economic screws on Tehran for its nuclear noncompliance, a campaign that has the potential to further complicate the Obama Administration’s negotiating strategy.

    On May Wednesday, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs proposed one of the toughest pieces of legislation to date on Iran’s nuclear program. The bill, if enacted, would target any foreign bank, company or individual that knowingly conducts commercial trade with an Iranian institution that is under sanctions. Countries that currently import Iranian crude oil will be mandated to decrease the amount they purchase over the next year. And the legislation would put additional sanctions on Iran’s shipping industry in an attempt to obstruct the country’s ability to ship goods.

    In other words, the House proposal would deny much of Iran’s economy access to markets, creating a small trade embargo. (more…)

  • Rafsanjani’s Candidacy Undermines Supreme Leader’s Election Plan

    Before Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani registered as a contender for the Iranian presidency with only minutes to spare on Saturday, this year’s election was likely to be a largely ceremonial affair.

    The disputed 2009 election, which pitted the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a reformist candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and snowballed into a million man “Green revolution” that rocked the Islamic republic’s political system suggested that this time around, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would do everything he could to tightly control the vote. And for the first few months of this year, it did appear that conservatives favorable to Khamenei were going to be the only candidates in the race.

    Rafsanjani’s candidacy has turned expectations upside down. While the former president is hardly an idealist in the mold of Mohammad Khatami, another former president, he is also far removed from the religious hardliners that surround Ayatollah Khamenei. (more…)

  • Ahmadinejad’s Departure Favors Khamenei Loyalists

    
Next month, Iran may enter its most heated political phase since the 1979 revolution when the country is due to elect a new president.

    Incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is legally barred from pursuing a third term. His successor will have to cope with many economic and foreign policy challenges created or at least aggravated during his eight years in power.

    Adding to the gravity of the situation is a conflict between Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader, the continued inflexibility of Iran’s foreign politics and a deterioration in relations between the fathers of the revolution, former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on the one hand and incumbent supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and Ahmad Jannati Massah, chairman of the Guardian Council, on the other. (more…)

  • Indo-Iranian Cooperation in Afghanistan Faces Challenges

    India reaffirmed on Saturday its willingness to develop Iran’s Port of Chabahar during the seventeenth meeting of the India-Iran Joint Commission in Tehran. With an initial investment pledge of some $100 million, the move further strengthens the emerging partnership between the two countries in Afghanistan.

    The Chabahar port is critical to India’s Afghanistan policy. In the absence of direct physical access to the country and a hostile Pakistan denying Indian goods transit, the Iranian harbor is the most viable access point India has to Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia. (more…)

  • Iran May Decide It’s Better Off Without the Bomb

    It has become the conventional wisdom in Washington and the capitals of Europe that Iran is hellbent on building a nuclear weapon. This may very well be true, despite the nonproliferation efforts by the international community. However, getting its hands on a nuke at all costs may not be the game that Iran is playing. Iran may continue to develop its nuclear weapons capability but stop just short of actually putting together a bomb.

    If we assume that Iran’s primary motivation for its nuclear weapons program is regime security, then this would be the best place, strategically speaking, for Iran to be. It would also put the rest of the world, particularly the United States, in an awkward position.

    Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently stated that “by gaining just the capability to build a nuke, Iran can get 95 percent of the benefit with only 5 percent of the blowback.”

    Indeed, if Iran tested a nuclear weapon tomorrow, what would be the international reaction? Perhaps just a strongly worded condemnation by the Security Council or perhaps Israel or the United States would attack it. Saudi Arabia might buy a few nukes from Pakistan, sparking a regional nuclear arms race. Russia and China may or may not come to Iran’s diplomatic defense. Maybe nothing would happen at all. Or maybe Iran would be pushed into even greater isolation and economic ruin. It’s hard to say.

    It is precisely this uncertainty and unpredictability that gives American foreign policymakers nightmares about a nuclear armed Iran and it is this same uncertainty that may give Iran second thoughts about tightening those last few bolts as well. (more…)

  • Iran Expected to Respond to Powers’ Enrichment Offer

    Hoping to use the positive momentum that was produced during the first round of discussions with Iranian negotiators, representatives of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany initiated fresh talks with Tehran this weekend in Kazakhstan over the country’s nuclear program.

    Friday’s negotiations are the first since February when both sides tried to narrow their differences over what would be an appropriate cap to Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts.

    In contrast to three rounds of dialogue last year, when both sides refused to budge from their respective positions, this year’s diplomacy between Iran and world powers has taken on a more conciliatory tone. The maximalist position that the Security Council members took last year — Tehran was asked to stop all enrichment to 20 percent, ship that uranium out of the country and shut down the Fordow enrichment plant — has been discarded for a much more moderate proposal: Iran would receive a slight relaxation of economic sanctions in exchange for halting uranium enrichment at the 20 percent level. (more…)

  • Obama Plans “Maintenance Trip” to Israel

    Since the White House announced that President Barack Obama will travel to Israel for his first overseas trip since he was reelected in November, commentators have jumped to the newspapers and airwaves to tackle the questions that everyone has been asking: what does he plan to do, what should he do and who will he meet?

    The second question, courtesy of the White House press team, is now answered. President Obama will fly into Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The right-wing leader won reelection himself in January and formed a coalition with centrist parties last week.

    As he did during his presidential campaign five years ago, Obama will make a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum. He would also like to make a stop at the Church of the Nativity, one of the most holy places for Christians worldwide.

    After speaking with Netanyahu and giving a speech to thousands of Israelis in Jerusalem, the president will make a brief appearance in the West Bank to discuss the Middle East peace process with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas before dining with King Abdullah II of Jordan on the last leg of his trip.

    For Israelis, Obama’s visit will be historic. It will be the first time that he has set foot on Israeli soil as president. (more…)

  • Biden Reiterates Uncompromising Iran Policy

    One year ago, President Barack Obama received a standing ovation from the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when he sternly committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Containment of Iran, the president said, is not an option, adding that on his watch, Tehran would never be allowed to construct a nuclear device without dealing with the threat of military force first.

    Twelve months later, Vice President Joe Biden laid out the same policy to an AIPAC conference. As if to underscore just how serious the United States consider a nuclear armed Iran, Biden framed his remarks in a blunt but strong tone: American policy is, and will continue to be, “to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Period. Period. End of discussion.” (more…)

  • Iranian Foreign Minister Signals Support for Assad

    =Iran’s foreign minister put to rest on Sunday any suggestion that his government might be reconsidering its financial and military support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

    Standing next to his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem at a news conference in Tehran, Iran’s Ali Akbar Salehi reiterated strongly to reporters that the Islamic republic was wholeheartedly behind the Syrian president as he attempts to suppress a two year-old uprising in his country.

    “Assad is Syria’s legal president until the next elections. Individuals have the freedom to run as candidates,” said Salehi. “Until that time, Assad is Syria’s president.” (more…)

  • Major Powers Give Iranian Nuclear Talks Another Go

    After an eight month hiatus, Iranian representatives and diplomats from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany came together on Monday in Kazakhstan to begin another round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

    As in previous talks, Iran was expected to hold true to its belief that it is entitled to a peaceful uranium enrichment program like every other nation that has signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. Absent serious concessions from especially the Europeans and the United States, the Iranians could very well cut the negotiations short altogether.

    The latest discussions could hardly have come at a more difficult time. Despite the drumbeat of pressure that the Iranian government is feeling economically due to a tough global sanctions regime, the population remains generally supportive of the government’s negotiating strategy. A solid 63 percent of Iranians surveyed by Gallup wants the government to continue to build up the nuclear program, even if it results in a greater amount of economic distress. Those numbers give the leaders of the Islamic republic an incentive to stick with their present approach, absent a comprehensive offer from the great powers they can’t refuse. (more…)

  • Iranian Foreign Policy as Realist Security Dilemma

    Last year saw the spiral of debate over the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions gain continuous coverage in the international media. In September, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that a “clear red line” must be articulated by the international community to avoid conflict. This conveyed a firm statement of intent from Israel, which reaffirmed its unequivocal opposition to Iran attaining a breakout nuclear capability. It also served to outline the clear military repercussions that Israel would take if Iran breached the conditions of such a red line by continuing the enrichment of nuclear materials.

    In light of this Israeli posturing, it is important to contextualize perceived Iranian belligerence in the region and consequently, Tehran’s relationship with the West. When dealing with the “Iran problem,” it is imperative that international stakeholders consider the reasons for Iran’s self inflicted international isolation, in order to better understand why it would continue to defy the wishes of foreign powers. (more…)