Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [3/05/06 -3/11/06] major news events regarding Iran. (The reports are listed in chronological order, not by importance) READ MORE

Iran's Nuclear Program.

• DW-World.de reported that the Islamic republic's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran will not freeze sensitive nuclear "research" work even if it is hauled before the UN Security Council.
• CNN News reported that Iran will resume large-scale nuclear enrichment if the IAEA board of governors refers the Islamic Republic to the U.N. Security Council.
• Reuters reported that Iran reiterated it had no plans to use its oil exports as a weapon in a dispute over its nuclear program but said it could still do so "if conditions changed".
• Reuters reported that the US administration warned that Iran faced "painful consequences" if it continued sensitive nuclear activities.
• The Times reported that the U.S. Administration is riven by divisions over how it should tackle Iran’s defiance of the international community.
• The Jerusalem Post reported that a senior State Department official said unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the UN Security Council will intervene "quite actively."
• Reuters reported that Iran said it could delay industrial-scale enrichment for up to two years, but the EU countered with a demand for a 10-year moratorium on all enrichment activity.
• BBC News reported that the United States has said it will not accept any deal which allows Iran to enrich uranium.
• Reuters is reporting that a covert Iranian program run by people closely linked to Iran's military includes plans to arm its Shahab-3 missiles with nuclear warheads.
• Telegraph reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have taken the extraordinary step of cutting down thousands of trees in Tehran to prevent United Nations inspectors from finding traces of enriched uranium.
• 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.”
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.”
• BBC News reported that Iran's nuclear program is being forwarded to the UN Security Council for consideration of possible punitive action.
• Reuters reported that the U.N. S.C. is expected to meet on Iran next week.
• Foreign & Commonwealth Office published a Statement on Iran on Behalf of France, Germany and The UK to the IAEA.
• Reuters reported that Iran's UN representatives said if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research: "The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."
• Zee News reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that the world must give in.
• The Financial Times reported that an Iranian official said that the calculations of Iran’s leadership on the nuclear issue were being complicated by a growing concern that the real interest of the Bush administration was not Iran’s nuclear program but in regime change.
• Reuters reported that the White House rejected as provocative Iran's statement's that the United States could feel "harm and pain" if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research.
• The Financial Times reported that the US laid out a step-by-step plan to apply pressure on Iran starting with seeking a binding chapter seven resolution designed to “isolate” the Islamic regime.
• Reuters reported that Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, said if the United Nations Security Council is incapable of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself.
• The Guardian reported that a senior UK Foreign Office official said that Iran might gain the technical knowhow within months to build a serviceable nuclear weapon.
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "We will resist ..." 'If we give in this time, then the Europeans will come up next with new excuses to deprive us from scientific achievements."
• Reuters reported that Britain said it was taking seriously threats from Iran that it could inflict "pain."
• Reuters reported that Iran may have misjudged its recent confrontational tactics in the nuclear standoff.
• Ha'aretz reported that intelligence services in the West are convinced that Iran is taking covert means to develop nuclear weapons and that there is a secondary, smaller covert channel that is making steady progress.
• ABC News reported that the United States and Europe want the United Nations Security Council to give Iran a two-week deadline to halt suspect nuclear work.
• Santa Barbara News Press reported that French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urged Iran to return rapidly to ''reason'' adding: ''We must move quickly.'' He did not elaborate.
• The New York Times reported that the Security Council is considering a statement that says "continued enrichment-related activity would add to the importance and urgency of further action by the Council."
• Reuters reported that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana raised the prospect of sanctions against Iran.
• Foreign & Commonwealth Office published an edited transcript of an interview in which the foreign secretary, Jack Straw said until they [Iran] clarify their intentions we do not believe it is safe for them to have full access to the nuclear cycle. "Until?"
• Reuters reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to pursue Iran's nuclear program through the U.N. Security Council.
• CNN News reported that U.S. President George W. Bush has called Iran an issue of "grave national security concern" but said he wanted a diplomatic solution.
• Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine.com reported that the U.S. envoy to the IAEA said a closed-door meeting: Iran now has the materials to make up to ten nuclear weapons.
• The Times reported that a British official warned the Security Council yesterday that it should move fast as it was “reasonable” as Iran could acquire the technology to make nuclear weapons “within a year”.
• The Australian reported that General Moshe Ya'alon, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, revealed that Israel could neutralize the Iranian threat for several years.
• Canada.com reported that Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.
• The Washington Post reported that the United States, backed by France and Britain, pressed Moscow and Beijing at a meeting of the council's five veto-wielding members to support the swift adoption of a Security Council statement.
• MosNews reported that Russia considers a joint uranium enrichment venture with Iran impossible if the Iranian side fails to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands.
• Arutz Sheva reported that England's Foreign Minister Jack Straw says that the world should worry about disabling Israel's nuclear capabilities as much as it is concerned with preventing Iran from going nuclear.
• New York Times reported that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iranian Leaders On the Offensive.

• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s conference on Holocaust denial will begin on Tuesday.
• Taipei Times reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the UN nuclear agency to compensate Iran for its suspension of nuclear activities.
• Iran Focus reported that a senior Revolutionary Guards commander dismissed threats by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program as a “political bluff.”
• Reuters reported that Iran's UN representatives said if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research: "The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."
• Iran Focus reported that Ayatollah Rafsanjani said that the United States was faced with defeat in the Middle East.
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "We will resist ..." 'If we give in this time, then the Europeans will come up next with new excuses to deprive us from scientific achievements."
• Iran Focus reported that Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said: "Iran’s enemies will not dare launch a military strike on the country’s nuclear installations because of the organized radical Islamists ready to defend the ruling theocracy."
• Rooz Online reported that the head of Iran’s Islamic Propagation Organization announced that the US had launched its plan for the larger Middle East because of its threat from the re-appearance and return of the 12th Shiite Imam.
  

What kind of "democracy" do Iran's new leaders want?

• Iran Press News reported that Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said: "the only way to protect and promote the ascendancy of the Islamic rule is to set their entire world on fire" and "Islamic rule is not in the majority vote of the people; in general people are too stupid." Plus much more.
• Itar-Tass reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “The world will be in the hands of Islam over the next few years.”
  

Power Struggle inside of Iran.

• Rooz Online reported on a recent meeting of the leaders of the Iranian regime where they met to try to forge greater unity as international pressure builds on the regime.
  

Rumors of War.

• Sunday Times reported that NATO Major-General Axel Tüttelman discussing NATO’s possible involvement in any future military strike against Iran, said: “We would be the first to be called up if the NATO council decided we should be.”
• IranMania reported that Iran owns advanced technology in electronic warfare and can combat any such attacks on its military equipment.
  
• The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Special Forces are working in Iran to locate the precise sites at which Iran continues to enrich uranium.
• The Washington Post reported that former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami warned that tensions between the Islamic world and the West are taking the shape of a new Cold War.
• Yahoo News reported that Iran has arrested a nuclear spy who allegedly passed classified information to arch-foe the United States.
• Mehran Riazaty reported on the nuclear sites that would be targeted in an attack on Iran.
• The Telegraph reported that Iran's leaders have built a secret underground emergency command centre in Teheran as they prepare for a confrontation with the West.
  

Iranians and the possible US intervention in Iran.

• Rooz Online reported that not all Iranians are opposed to US intervention in Iran, largely out of desperation and lack of hope.
• The Washington Post reported that Iranians are expressing unease about the international showdown over their country's nuclear program, as broad public support for atomic power is tempered by growing misgivings about the cost.
• Countdown reported on a confidential poll in Iran that claimed, 69% of the Iranians do not recognize the nuclear issue a matter of national aspiration and 86% do not believe that nuclear technology is worth a military conflict.
• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that an Iranian report, almost certainly leaked by the entourage of former President Khatami, that shows Iran’s uranium reserves will cover the needs of the Bushehr power station for fuel for no more than seven years, but could produce some 200 atomic bombs. He added: the domestic popular support for the nuclear issue is fast evaporating since the Iranian people feel that they have not been told the truth.
  

Support for Internal Regime Change in Iran. US gets specific.

• Sunday Times reported that Vice President Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, in charge of spending the $85m allocated to promote democracy in Iran. She is the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
• The Wall Street Journal said that now that Iran's pro-democracy forces have a checking account, the critical next question is how to spend it.
• Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian calls for a European approach to supporting democracy in Iran.
• U.S. Department of State published the congressional testimony of R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, where he outlined the long overdue US policy toward Iran.
• Reuters reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran is probably the No. 1 challenge to the United States.
• U.S. Department of State reported that Secretary Condoleezza Rice said: "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime and these programs are intended to help us reach out to them."
• The International Herald Tribune reported that the State Department is preparing for a "long struggle" against Iran.
• The New York Sun reported that the State Department stressed the importance of plans to station at least 10 diplomats in Dubai to monitor the Tehran regime and support Iran's pro-democracy movement.
• Middle East Newsline reported that the US plans to open a representative office in Iran.
  

Iran's Dissidents.

• Rooz Online reported that a senior Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps commander revealed plans to detain and extract fake confessions from reformers.
• Iran Press News provided an update on Iranian blogger and political prisoner, Mojtaba Samii-nejad who is being detained at Ghezel-hesor prison.
• Iran Press News reported that a 14 year old boy arrested, flogged and imprisoned for "demonstrating."
• Rooz Online reported that Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji's Attorney was finally released from prison on a $1 million bail.
• 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.
• Iran Watch Canada is counting down the release of Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji from prison, with just 8 days to go (March 17th).
  

Iranian regime leaders are worried about the threat from within.

• Iran Press News reported that the regime has banned the March 15th celebration of the hugely popular "Festival of Fire." The edict saying: "The use of fireworks, sparklers and fire crackers which will lead to fun, conviviality and frolic is haraam and any further references to all Persian traditions and culture before Islam is directly anti-Islamic and immoral."
• Rooz Online reported that Ahmadinejad has announced a state of emergency in eight government ministries.
• SOSIran in a press statement on the Festival of Light Celebrations in Iran - March 14th, said they expect the regime to attempt to suppress the celebration and asked us in the west to let the world know what happens that night. Photo.
• SMCCDI reported that hundreds of Iranians used the occasion offered by a soccer match to protest against the Islamic republic regime.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s State Security Forces have arrested ten people in Tehran for distribution of fireworks days before Iranians celebrate a traditional “fire” festival.
  

The Unrest inside of Iran.

• 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.
• Radio Free Europe reported that Iran arrested more than 50 people involved in recent bombings in the Southwestern province of Khuzestan.
• Iran Focus reported that hundreds of disenchanted youth damaged more than a dozen buses in the Iranian capital Friday after a football match.
  

The March 8th "Women's Day" Demonstrations in Iran.

• Early reports indicated there were three demonstrations in Tehran and more were reported around the nation and they were met with violence and force.
• Iran Focus reported that hundreds of women gathered Wednesday afternoon in Tehran’s Laleh Park and took part in a demonstration against the Iranian government.
• SMCCDI reported that tens of female demonstrators and a well known poet, Simin Behbahani, were injured due to the brutality used against the demonstrators.
• Samii Shahla reported that a group of about 130 women’s rights activists who gathered in Deneshjoo Park in central Tehran to celebrate International Women’s Day were brutally beaten by the police. Photos.
• Reuters reported that Iranian police and plainclothes agents yesterday beat hundreds of women and men who had gathered to commemorate International Women's Day. Plus 4 videos.
• Women’s Rights Association of Iran published a detailed report on International Women’s Day Protest in Laleh Park in Tehran. Videos.
• Azarmehr Weblog reported that the elderly Simin Behbehani, one of Iran's greatest contemporary poets and writers was amongst those women who were beaten up in yesterday's rally in Tehran.
• Rooz Online reported on the gathering of Iranian women on International Women’s Day turned violence when Iran’s prominent poetess, Simin Behbahani who has been losing her eye sight, was beaten up.
  

Human Rights/Religious and Press Freedom inside of Iran.

• Iran Press News reported that the Organization of The Defense of Women's Rights released a report on the condition of Iranian women.
• Iran Press News reported that the automobile racing federation of the Islamic Republic invalidated the scores for the speed competition in which Leila Sadigh was the frontrunner and completely banned all sports that included mixed competition.
• ABCNet reported that the US Government has singled out Iran as among the world's worst human rights abusers.
  

Iran's Military.

• Mehran Riazaty reported that Iranian General Safavi, recently boasted: "Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps is strongest military power in the Middle East."
• Iran Focus reported that a senior Revolutionary Guards commander dismissed threats by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program as a “political bluff.”
• Defence Talk reported that Iran's armed forces have deployed a new locally-built submarine in Persian Gulf waters.
• Iran Focus reported that Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said: "Iran’s enemies will not dare launch a military strike on the country’s nuclear installations because of the organized radical Islamists ready to defend the ruling theocracy."
  

Iran's Troublemaking in Iraq.

• Pittsburg Online reported that US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in Iraq said: "The struggle for Iraq is the struggle for the future of the world."
• ABC News reported that U.S. military and intelligence officials reported that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border and Richard Clarke added: "the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."
• SGate.com reported that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.
• World Tribune.com reported that in a major escalation Iran has deployed elite forces to confront the U.S. military in Iraq.
• The Washington Times, in an editorial, said it sees Iranian ties to the recent bloodshed in Iraq.
• The Times reported that a senior Iranian intelligence official claimed to have a letter in Persian purportedly signed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad, inviting Iranian representatives to Iraq for talks. Khalilzad denied the report.
• FOX News reported that President Bush denounced any moves by Iran or Syria to interfere in Iraq's effort to build a democracy.
  

Iran and the International community.

• Iran Press News reported on the signing of an accord between Lebanese Hezbollah and the Syrian Baath party.
• Iran Press News reported that Dutch immigration officials plan to send Iranian homosexual asylum-seekers back to Iran.
• Mehran Riazaty produced a report on recent statements by Hamas and Hezbollah regarding their support for the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini.
• Ynet News reported that Iran has opened an "ideological embassy" in the Palestinian territories to espouse Shia Muslim beliefs.
• Reuters reported tht the White House said on Tuesday it still opposes a proposed natural gas pipeline linking energy-rich Iran with India.
• Asian Tribune reported that India has made it abundantly clear that it is opposed to any moves for regime change in Tehran.
• The New York Times reported that train services linking Pakistan with neighboring Iran were suspended indefinitely following bombings and rocket attacks on the rail.
• Knight Ridder reported why the US shouldn't expect any bold initiatives from Arab rulers in the escalating nuclear standoff with Iran: They're paralyzed by fear of the United States, fear of Iran and fear of their own citizens.
• Deutsche Welle reported that German newspapers are divided on the issue of Iran's nuclear activities now that it has been passed on to the United Nations Security Council.
  

Insight into the Iranian people.

• 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.
  

Interviews.

• FrontPageMagazine.com published an interview with Houchang Nahavandi, former Minister of the last Shah of Iran.
  

Must Read reports.

• Natan Sharansky, Los Angeles Times responded to his critics, who point to recent elections of hard-liners in the Middle East as evidence of the failure of efforts to bring democracy there. A must read.
• Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that the Iranian government has published a book that gives an academic’s justification for its anti-Jewish stance.
• The Weekly Standard reported that Iran secretly agreed to assist the Taliban in its war against U.S. forces in October 2001.
• ABC News examined the U.S. military options against Iran.
• Iran Democracy Monitor debunked Iran's need for nuclear energy and more.
• Ian Bremmer, The Daily Star asked: Is Myanmar the next Iran?
• Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard reported how Bush wants to release the Saddam files but his intelligence chief stalls.
  

The Experts.

• Amir Taheri, Arab News explained why Iraq is not on the verge of a civil war.
• The New York Sun published the full text of Michael Ledeen's testimony on Iran before House Committee on International Relations. A must read.
• Michael Rubin, Amercian Enterprise Institute reviewed Bill Beeman's book, In The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs."
• Amir Taheri, The New York Post warned of the danger of a Jihad war in Thailand.
• Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine.com reported that the U.S. envoy to the IAEA said a closed-door meeting: Iran now has the materials to make up to ten nuclear weapons.
• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported that an Iranian report, almost certainly leaked by the entourage of former President Khatami, that shows Iran’s uranium reserves will cover the needs of the Bushehr power station for fuel for no more than seven years, but could produce some 200 atomic bombs. He added: the domestic popular support for the nuclear issue is fast evaporating since the Iranian people feel that they have not been told the truth.
  

Photos, cartoons and videos.

• Samii Shahla reported that a group of about 130 women’s rights activists who gathered in Deneshjoo Park in central Tehran to celebrate International Women’s Day were brutally beaten by the police. Photos.
• Cox & Forkum published a cartoon: Made in Iran.
• Reuters reported that Iranian police and plainclothes agents yesterday beat hundreds of women and men who had gathered to commemorate International Women's Day. Plus 4 videos.
  

And finally, The Quote of the Week.

Reuters reported that Iran's UN representatives said if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research:

"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."