A Daily Briefing on Iran: Tuesday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 8.29.2006:

The Islamic Republic's new tactic to impose Islamic rules on its population.

Time Magazine reported that for the past few months, Iranians have been subjected to stronger enforcement of Islamic codes using a new tactic. Is this a revival of the dogmatic strictures of the country's revolutionary past? A must read.

Iranian women prepare to challenge the Islamic Republic.

Radio Free Europe reported that activists in Iran have started a petition drive calling for changes to laws that discriminate against women. Organizers hope to attract the signature of 1 million Iranians -- a challenge that they say public officials could not ignore.

Ahmadinejad to Merkel: The holocaust was invented to embarrass Germany.

Yahoo News reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany.

US Administration does not want Khatami to speak around the country... but...

Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that Iran's ex-president is scheduled to address a U.N. conference next week as part of a charm offensive that may extend to Washington — if the White House lets him have a visa. A Bush administration official said: "No one wants him here. The real question is whether we lose more in terms of international leverage by denying him a visit. That's being weighed, not debated."

Iran says the US is insulting the UNSC.

Reuters reported that Iran said a U.S. threat to form an independent coalition to impose sanctions if the U.N. Security Council failed to act over Tehran's nuclear program was an insult to the council's work.

Why, if Iran gets the bomb, the world will change dramatically.

Stanley Kurtz, The National Review Online argued that American politics is about to undergo a sea change. Our lives are going to be transformed on a more personal level as well. Sometime between now and five-to-ten years from now we’re going to be forced to choose between preemptive war with Iran, and living in a post-proliferation world. A must read.
The New York Sun argued that the world, it seems, has passed this way before. The summer's events in south Lebanon, Iraq, London, Afghanistan, North Korea and, above all, Iran, have filled the air with a sense of foreboding that few except the very oldest among us have ever felt. We appear to be teetering on the edge of a catastrophe.

Why Hezbollah and Iran worry Arab leaders.

LA Times in an editorial argued that Hezbollah is not a headache for Israel alone. If unchallenged, the Iran-Hezbollah axis of power will end the millenniums-old Sunni Arab domination of the Middle East.

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

The Washington Post reported that the managing director of an Iranian daily has been acquitted of insulting Iran's Azeri minority, four months after the newspaper was banned for a cartoon that sparked protests. The cartoonist is still awaiting trial.
Ha'aretz reported that AIPAC is urging the United States government to disconnect an Iranian news site, Baztab, from American Internet servers, charging that the site has ties to terrorist organizations.
The Washington Times reported that the Bush administration plans to move rapidly to organize and impose international economic sanctions on Iran, but not until after a Thursday U.N. deadline passes.
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center published part one of a translation of a booklet found in Lebanon among the Hezbollah called: “Al-Jihad” - Exporting the radical ideology of the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Jerry Holbert, Townhall published a cartoon: What the Middle East Sees.