Wednesday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 3.08.2006:

Russia denies having a new compromise plan.

• The Washington Times reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Washington yesterday hoping to sell a proposed compromise to process small amounts of uranium on its own territory.
• But then The Financial Times reported that Mr Lavrov denied the very existence of a new Russian compromise proposal, “There is no compromise, new Russian proposal.”

Ahmadinejad wants UN compensation.

• Taipei Times reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the UN nuclear agency to compensate Iran for its suspension of nuclear activities.

Cheney warns Iran.

• CNN News reported that Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and warned "the United States is keeping all options on the table.

IRGC Commander calls US threats a bluff.

• Iran Focus reported that a senior Revolutionary Guards commander dismissed threats by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program as a “political bluff.”

Iranians kill an IRGC officer.

• SMCCDI reported that an Intelligence Officer named Rahman Ghaderi (AKA Rahman Griss) was gunned down, this morning, by the residents of the western City of Bookan.

Rumsfeld confirms IRGC smuggling bombs into Iraq.

• SGate.com reported that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

Whitehouse says "no" to Iran's natural gas pipeline to India.

• Reuters reported tht the White House said on Tuesday it still opposes a proposed natural gas pipeline linking energy-rich Iran with India.

Germans confirm Iran purchased missiles from North Korea.

• FOCUS News Agency reported that a German diplomat confirmed that Iran had purchased 18 disassembled BM-25 mobile missiles with a range of around 2,500 km from North Korea.

India opposes regime change in Iran.

• Asian Tribune reported that India has made it abundantly clear that it is opposed to any moves for regime change in Tehran.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• The Wall Street Journal argued that Europe's use of "soft power" has brought us to a point where the free world now has two options left on Iran: disaster or catastrophe.
• Rooz Online reported that Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, the deputy director for economic research at the Center for Strategic Studies belonging to the State Expediency Council of Iran said that the Russian nuclear proposal was “not worth a penny.”
• Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that one of the lawyers representing Iranian opposition leader and journalist Akbar Ganji was released from prison last weekend.
• The Wall Street Journal reported how many Iranians look to the great Persian poem, the Shahnameh because it embodies something that goes unspoken: the struggle of Iranians to maintain their identity, against the best efforts of the regime to replace it with Islamic culture.
• And finally, Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that the Iranian government has published a book that gives an academic’s justification for its anti-Jewish stance.