JFP News, 5/27: French envoy says West must accept Iranian enrichment
Just Foreign Policy News
May 27, 2009
Jubliee USA Network: Ask Your Rep to Sign the Waters IMF letter
A conference committee will meet soon to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the supplemental appropriations bill. Rep. Waters and others are writing to Reps. Obey and Lowey, asking them to attach real reform conditions to the IMF money. Ask your Rep. to sign.
http://www.jubileeusa.org/get-active/take-action.html
Labor, House Dems Stall Panama Trade Deal
The Administration has tacked hard to the right on international economic policy since coming in to office. Its efforts to ram $100 billion for the International Monetary Fund through Congress via the war supplemental without reform language that would stop the IMF from making recessions worse through demands for budget cuts - as the IMF is now doing in Latvia - are just the most recent example. But if Wall Street thought they were just going to run the table on international economic policy in this administration, they had another think coming.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/labor-house-dems-stall-pa_b_208212.html
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) France’s former Ambassador to Iran says efforts to stop Iran from enriching uranium will fail, Borzou Daragahi reports in the Los Angeles Times. Instead, Francois Nicoullaud says the key to a peaceful resolution is for the West to accept Iranian enrichment in exchange for Iran accepting an intrusive monitoring system. Nicoullaud concedes that Israel might not like such an arrangement, but says the US and Europe should go for it anyway.
2) If Obama allows the Israeli agenda on Iran to become America’s, his outreach is dead, writes Roger Cohen in the New York Times. New thinking is needed, including some acceptance of Iranian enrichment of uranium. Many more young American men and women will die in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years if no Iranian breakthrough is achieved, Cohen says.
3) Army chief of staff Casey said the US could have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade, AP reports, even though a signed agreement requires all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by 2012. As recently as February, Defense Secretary Gates repeated the U.S. commitment to the agreement.
4) Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif can participate in elections despite an earlier ban, the Washington Post reports. Sharif is supporting President Zardari on the military’s operation in the Swat Valley, the Post notes. A military spokesman rebuffed a call from Human Rights Watch for relaxing a curfew so that food, water and medicine could reach civilians trapped by the government offensive.
Lebanon
5) Hezbollah and its allies have a good chance to win a slim edge in the parliamentary election June 7, Reuters reports. But the Hizbollah bloc would likely ask their opponents to join another national unity government in order to avoid international isolation.
Iran
6) Iran’s presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi has a slight lead in 10 major Iranian cities, Xinhua reports, citing PressTV. Iran’s state TV IRIB last week said Mousavi was slightly ahead in Tehran.
Israel/Palestine
7) Palestinian President Abbas is to meet Obama at the White House tomorrow, the Washington Post reports. Analysts say if progress in negotiations is not imminent, Abbas’ shaky hold on power could collapse. Polls show that he lags in popularity behind the leader of the Islamist Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh. The creation of a U.S.-trained Palestinian security force has been credited by Israel with helping reduce militant attacks. But Palestinians say that has not led to an easing of Israeli restrictions in the West Bank, or a curb on Jewish settlements.
Iraq
8) The newly elected speaker of Iraq’s parliament is moving to strengthen parliament’s role in acting as a check on the government, the Washington Post reports. Under Ayad al-Samarraie’s leadership, parliament has become more aggressive in trying to hold the government accountable for ministerial corruption thought to involve billions of dollars.
9) The last of Britain’s combat troops finished military operations in Iraq, Bloomberg reports. About 400 British personnel will stay on, mainly to help train the Iraqi navy.
Bolivia
10) Bolivia denied supplying uranium to Iran, while Venezuela dismissed an Israeli report that the two countries have been aiding Iran’s nuclear program, AP reports. Bolivian Mining Minister Echazu said his country doesn’t even produce the radioactive metallic element. Bolivian Presidential Minister Quintana described Israel’s intelligence agency as a bunch of incompetent "clowns," and Echazu said the Bolivian Foreign Ministry plans to issue a formal response to the report’s assertion.
Cuba
11) President Obama is asking Cuba to resume talks on legal immigration of Cubans to the US, AP reports. Obama’s proposal would reopen discussions that had been closed off by Bush since they were last held in 2003. The Cuban American National Foundation welcomed the news, saying resumed migration talks could be "an opportunity to resolve issues of United States national interest," but three Cuban-American members of Congress from Florida denounced the move as "another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship." Cuba’s possible re-entry into the OAS will will be discussed at an OAS meeting June 2 in Honduras; Secretary of State Clinton said the U.S. would not support Cuba’s membership unless President Raul Castro’s government makes democratic reforms and releases political prisoners. [Several Latin American countries, including Brazil, are pushing hard for Cuba to be re-admitted to the OAS. OAS Secretary General Insulza has criticized Cuba’s continued exclusion, noting that the 1962 expulsion was linked to Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union, which no longer exists - JFP.]
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Former diplomat: Iran won’t stop nuclear work
Former French envoy to Tehran offers solution to nuclear crisis
Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-qa27-2009may27,0,7118239.story
Beirut - Short of the tremendous cost and risk of war, what would it take to get Iran to stop producing the nuclear material that one day could be used to build weapons? The short answer, according to an emerging consensus among arms inspectors, diplomats and Iranian officials struggling with the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, is nothing.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no peaceful solution to conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, says Francois Nicoullaud, who served from 2001 to 2005 as Paris’ envoy to Iran and has written a book about the Islamic Republic.
Nicoullaud, now retired from the foreign service and able to speak freely, says the key to a solution is for the international community to accept Iran’s production of enriched uranium and for the Iranians to accept an intrusive monitoring system that would set off alarm bells if they made any move toward weaponizing their avowedly peaceful program.
The key, he said in a recent interview from Paris, is for the West to grant Iran the respect it craves and for the Islamic Republic to begin acting like a responsible member of the international community.
Q. What do you think of the idea of imposing a deadline on talks with Iran?
The basics of the solution could be put together quite fast. In fact, in a few weeks. Two or three months is perfectly possible - if on both sides, especially on the Western side, people dedicated themselves to the task. If the negotiation starts in September, very substantial progress by the end of the year can very well be a realistic goal.
Q. Do you think that Iran will stop its enrichment of uranium?
No, I do not think so. Frankly, nobody in Iran, even under another president, will dare to suspend the production of enriched uranium. But what would be perhaps attainable is that, in some unspoken, unofficial way, the production could slow down and go at a leisurely pace.
Q. Would that be acceptable to Europe?
Europe, which up to now has been quite adamant on suspension, will most probably follow the American administration if it decides to try a short negotiation with no prerequisites like suspension of enrichment.
Q. If there is no suspension, and Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels to maintain nuclear ambiguity indefinitely, is that tolerable?
No, but I believe that with reinforced control and some basic rules, some clear-cut commitments from Iran, it is very possible for this country to continue producing low-enriched uranium without any ambiguity. It would be clear that low-enriched uranium could not be diverted to be further enriched for military use, at least without the international community being aware of it in ample time.
…
For instance, the Iranians have said that they were ready not to enrich uranium beyond 5%. That’s not enough, but it is a start. The goal would be to build around the enrichment activity a safety fence of checks and controls. If one comes close to the fence and touches it, one of its many little alarm bells is bound to ring.
Another guarantee would be not to keep the low-enriched uranium produced in [the nuclear facility near] Natanz in its gaseous or liquid state but to transform it as soon as possible into … fuel rods used in nuclear power plants.
And, of course, there should be some relation between the amount of low-enriched uranium produced by Iran and the actual needs of its nuclear power plants. As long as Iran does not possess at least two or three active nuclear power plants, there is no use having an enrichment unit of 50,000 centrifuges, as announced by the Iranian president.
We have to explain to them that this is the unavoidable entrance fee to the club of legitimate, respectable nuclear nations. Iran is interested in belonging to such a club. So they are not asking Iran to do something that they have not accepted themselves.
Q. Do you think such a deal would be acceptable to Israel?
Perhaps the Israelis won’t be very happy if the negotiation builds up along such a track. But it would be difficult for them to launch a [military] strike [against Iranian nuclear facilities] if the international community - the U.S., Europe, etc. - is on the way toward a compromise with the Iranians. Israel would take an enormous political risk, on top of the practical risks, in such a complex intervention.
2) Obama in Netanyahu’s Web
Roger Cohen, New York Times, May 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen.html
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, won the first round over President Barack Obama. That’s not good for American interests or for Israel’s long-term security. All the overblown reciprocal compliments could not hide evident tensions - over Iran and Israel-Palestine and how the two are linked. In the end, Obama blinked.
The president ceded to Israeli pressure for a timetable on any Iran talks, saying a "reassessment" should be possible by year’s end (Israel had pressed for an October deadline). Obama talked of the possibility of "much stronger international sanctions" against Iran, undermining his groundbreaking earlier overture that included a core truth: "This process will not be advanced by threats."
Obama also allowed Netanyahu to compliment him for "leaving all options on the table" - the standard formula for a possible U.S. military strike against Iran - when he said nothing of the sort. The president did, however, use that tired phrase in a Newsweek interview this month - another mistake given the unthinkable consequences of a third U.S. war front in the Muslim world.
In return, what did Obama get? Not even acknowledgment from Netanyahu that Palestinian statehood, rather than some form of eternal limbo, is the notional goal of negotiations.
…
Three things are clear. The first is that if Obama allows the Israeli agenda on Iran to become America’s, his outreach is dead. I don’t know if Israel is bluffing about bombing Iran - nobody does - but one thing is clear: Netanyahu’s bellicosity is as unrelenting as his desire to distract attention from stillborn Palestine.
Netanyahu, declaring "It is us or no one," said this week that his job was to "eliminate" Iran’s threat. Israel’s shifting "red line" on Iran, now avowedly months away, is at odds with U.S. intelligence, which holds that no Iranian decision on bomb production has been made and capacity is likely two to five years distant.
It’s essential that Obama cleave to an American framework that affords the time to overcome a 30-year impasse. He might remind Netanyahu that if anyone had asked five years ago if an Iran with 6,000 centrifuges, more than a ton of low-enriched uranium and a genie-out-the-bottle level of technical nuclear know-how was over Israel’s "red line," the answer would have been, "Damn right."
But the world has not come to an end, for all Netanyahu’s dangerous, mythologizing attempts to liken Iran to Amalek, the Biblical enemy of the Jews that the Israelites were told to destroy, every "man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
The second imperative is that the sanctions game be revealed for an empty farce. There will be no "crippling sanctions" - Hillary Clinton’s phrase - because China and Russia have their own interests in Iran.
Beijing has paid lip service to mild sanctions while becoming Iran’s largest trading partner in recent years: Tehran is awash in Chinese products. Moscow has trained Iranian engineers while calculating how Iran can serve its aim of a less U.S.-dominated world.
A race is on for Iran, with its vast oil and gas reserves. China and Russia will be front and center.
Only a U.S. blockade would have impact - but that’s an act of war. Tightened sanctions equal a return to the sterile policies of the Bush years. They would prove no more effective than in North Korea.
The third imperative is for Obama to shift from what Nader Mousavizadeh of the International Institute for Strategic Studies recently called a "mix of rhetorical innovation and policy continuation" to new thinking on Iran freed of carrot-and-stick redundancy.
This must begin with Iran’s pride and insecurities - a medium-sized power facing the world’s superpower - and almost certainly envision as an endgame a "non-zero option" where Iran retains an intrusively monitored, limited pilot uranium enrichment program while jettisoning its unacceptable rhetoric and troublemaking to become part of a new regional security arrangement.
Netanyahu talks a lot about the "existential threat" from Iran. The United States faces a prosaic daily threat: Many more young American men and women will die in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years if no Iranian breakthrough is achieved.
Obama must remind Israel of that. He should also tell Bibi that the real existential threat to Israel is not Amalek but hubris: An attack on Iran that would put the Jewish state at war with Persians as well as Arabs, undermine its core U.S. alliance, and set Tehran on a full-throttle course to a nuclear bomb with the support of some 1.2 billion Muslims.
3) Army chief: Troops could be in Iraq after 2012
Tom Curley, Associated Press, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/26/national/w141859D58.DTL
The United States could have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade, the top Army officer said, even though a signed agreement requires all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by 2012.
Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, said Tuesday his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.
…
He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks.
…
Casey would not specify how combat units would be divided between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective. Casey said his comments about the long war in Iraq were not meant to conflict with administration policies.
President Barack Obama plans to bring U.S. combat forces home from Iraq in 2010, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that all U.S. forces would leave by 2012. Although several senior U.S. officials have suggested Iraq could request an extension, the legal agreement the two countries signed last year would have to be amended for any significant U.S. presence to remain.
As recently as February, Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated U.S. commitment to the agreement worked out with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011," Gates said during an address at Camp Lejeune.
4) Popular Former Prime Minister Is Back In Pakistani Politics
Griff Witte, Washington Post, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052600554.html
Islamabad - Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the nation’s most popular politician, can participate in elections despite an earlier ban.
The ruling is likely to ease political tensions in the short term but could ultimately pose a challenge for President Asif Ali Zardari, who is Sharif’s main rival and whose popularity has plummeted. Although elections are not due until 2013, Sharif is now in position to reclaim the office he held twice in the 1990s.
…
Sharif and his brother Shahbaz had been banned from electoral politics because of previous criminal convictions that they say were politically motivated. The brothers’ reinstatement had been widely expected. This year, Nawaz Sharif led a successful movement to restore the chief justice of the Supreme Court, whom then-President Pervez Musharraf fired in late 2007.
In a statement Tuesday, Zardari congratulated Sharif and welcomed him back to electoral politics. But Sharif’s branch of the Pakistan Muslim League represents the main opposition to Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, and the enmity between the men is well known. For now, though, Sharif is supporting Zardari on several issues, most crucially the military’s operation in the Swat Valley, which continued Tuesday.
Since early May, the army has been battling to oust Taliban militants who had taken control of the northwestern region. About 2.3 million people have fled since fighting began, according to provincial government statistics, but about 200,000 civilians remain trapped.
Human Rights Watch warned Tuesday that unless the government relaxes a curfew and allows food, water and medicine into the valley, there will be a "humanitarian catastrophe."
But Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, said it would not be possible to pause the offensive. "Lifting the curfew would mean letting the operational situation slip out of hand," he said. Instead, the government said it was planning to air-drop supplies to trapped residents.
Lebanon
5) Close Lebanon election could favour Hezbollah
Alistair Lyon, Reuters, Thu May 21, 2009
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39780220090521
Beirut - Lebanon’s parliamentary election looks tight, but Hezbollah and its allies have a good chance to win a slim edge over their Saudi- and Western-backed rivals. Many local analysts predict a small swing in that direction in the June 7 vote, but there is no reliable opinion polling.
Iran and Syria would certainly applaud such a result, which would be seen as a setback for the United States, four years after the anti-Syrian "March 14" coalition took power in Beirut.
Yet the Shi’ite Hezbollah and Amal factions, which, along with Christian leader Michel Aoun, form the core of the "March 8" alliance, would likely ask their opponents to join another unwieldy national unity government, limiting the chances of any radical shift in Lebanon’s political or economic orientation.
"It has been clear for some time that Hezbollah has a very strong interest in ensuring a national unity framework," said Karim Makdissi, who teaches international relations at the American University of Beirut.
"It has absolutely no intention of a hostile takeover of the state, so it is in its strategic interest to ensure it has a measure of legitimacy and credibility within official channels."
…
"The election swing will be very narrow," said Shafiq Masri, law professor at the Lebanese University. "So it’s not a choice, it’s a necessity to come back to a national unity government."
…
Nasrallah is unlikely to favour an overtly partisan cabinet that Western and some Arab countries might cold-shoulder, as they have the Palestinian government led by Hamas, which lies with Hezbollah on the U.S. terrorist list. "The (Hezbollah-led) opposition cannot deal with the outside world if it insists on ruling alone," Masri said.
A detente in Syrian-Saudi ties has already defused tensions in Lebanon in recent months. Continued regional calm as U.S. President Barack Obama explores dialogue with Iran and Syria could allow expediency to triumph over confrontation in Lebanon.
Iran
6) Poll: Iran’s Mousavi takes lead in presidential campaign
Xinhua, May 27, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/27/content_11446054.htm
Tehran - Iran’s presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi takes the lead in 10 major Iranian cities, the local Press TV reported Wednesday, citing a recent poll. The poll conducted in Iran’s 10 big cities showed that Mousavi is surpassing the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by 4 percent, the report said.
Some 38 percent of the people expressed their support for Mousavi while 34 percent others supported Ahmadinejad. Similarly, in an opinion poll conducted by Iran’s state TV IRIB last week, Mousavi also enjoyed the lead in the capital city of Tehran with 47 percent of the votes, while 43 percent of the votes went to Ahmadinejad.
Israel/Palestine
7) Abbas’s Credibility Problem
U.S. Sees Bolstering Palestinian Leader as Key to Mideast Peace
Howard Schneider, Washington Post, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602993.html
Ramallah - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas heads a fractured government and a fractured political party. His term expired four months ago. His handpicked prime minister, trusted to manage billions of dollars in foreign aid, is reviled by some Palestinians as a U.S. proxy.
Whatever peace initiative President Obama envisions for the region, it involves a gamble that Abbas can overcome a long list of liabilities, put Palestinian politics back into one piece and hold up his side of any bargain. Abbas is to meet Obama at the White House tomorrow in a session that may be as much about ways to bolster the Palestinian leader as about Obama’s broader strategy.
"When he is talking to the American administration, and the areas under his rule are divided, it does not bode well," said Rafiq Husseini, Abbas’s chief of staff. "Despite the difficulties and despite the disunity within the Palestinian debate, he is still the president and he is still ready to reach a deal" with the Israelis, Husseini added.
Obama has made progress on Middle East peace a priority, and has met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top Arab leaders. The president travels to Cairo next week for a speech outlining what is expected to be a new U.S. approach toward the region.
Abbas, 74, a longtime aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, took over after Arafat’s death in 2004 and won election on his own the following year. Trained as a lawyer and historian, Abbas came to power from a career spent burrowing into the fine points of peace talks.
Abbas’s credibility, supporters and critics say, is wholly tied to those negotiations. If progress is not imminent - whether in the shape of a final agreement or at least something tangibly felt among Palestinians - his shaky hold on power could collapse, a setback for those who favor a moderate course.
"He is not a man of resistance. He is not a man of fighting. He is a man of negotiation," said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst and founder of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. And at this point, "he is not in good shape," Khatib said, with polls showing that he lags in popularity behind the leader of the Islamist Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh.
…
The creation of a U.S.-trained Palestinian security force has curbed crime in West Bank cities and has been credited by Israel with helping reduce militant attacks. But Palestinians say that has not led to an easing of Israeli restrictions in the West Bank, a curb on Jewish settlements in the area or other steps. "Abbas wants to make sure he does everything so nobody can create pretexts or excuses" for not advancing the peace talks, Husseini said. "We are waiting to reap the benefits."
Iraq
8) In Iraq, Assertive Parliament Emerges Under New Speaker
Nada Bakri, Washington Post, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052603226.html
Baghdad - In a test of wills that could shape Iraq’s turbulent politics for years to come, the country’s parliament has moved decisively against a minister accused of corruption and has threatened to summon Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to answer lawmakers’ questions.
The struggle over Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudani in recent days is more than just the typical debate between legislative and executive powers. The newly elected speaker of parliament, Ayad al-Samarraie, a Sunni Arab, is attempting to reshape the institution ahead of crucial elections scheduled for January, eight months before the Obama administration has pledged to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq.
"The government kept parliament weak for the past three years," Wael Abdel Latif, an independent lawmaker, said Monday. "But now, with Samarraie in power, it’s becoming stronger, and it’s assuming its rightful place."
The conflict involves two of the dominant forces in today’s Iraq. An increasingly powerful Maliki is attempting to centralize authority in the hands of a coterie of advisers his opponents have nicknamed "the impenetrable circle." Opposing Maliki, a Shiite, are politicians who say they are trying to build institutions in a state still susceptible to the appeal of a strongman.
Politicians on both sides have made the stakes clear. Under Samarraie’s leadership, parliament has become more aggressive in trying to hold the government accountable for ministerial corruption thought to involve billions of dollars. Maliki, in turn, has threatened to quell opponents by compiling evidence against them that could lead to criminal charges, his foes say.
…
In asserting parliament’s new role, Samarraie has transformed the institution from an arena for seemingly endless debate and hour-long speeches into an organized forum that starts with the ring of a bell at 10:00 a.m. Under the former speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, discussions often drifted into minutiae, prompting many lawmakers to start side chats, talk on cellphones or read newspapers.
9) U.K. Finishes Withdrawal of Its Last Combat Troops in Iraq
Gonzalo Vina, Bloomberg, May 27
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aslB2LAf_hWs
The last of Britain’s combat troops finished military operations in Iraq today, ending a six-year deployment at their base near Basra in the south of the country.
…
Prime Minister Gordon Brown started winding down Britain’s occupation in Iraq shortly after he took over from Tony Blair in 2007. Voters objected to the war when it started in 2003 and increasingly associated Blair’s efforts with exacerbating tensions in the region. The war cost 179 British lives.
…
The U.K. deployed up to 46,000 soldiers to help the U.S. oust Saddam Hussein and has scaled back its force steadily since then. About 400 British personnel will stay on after today, mainly to help train the Iraqi navy.
Bolivia
10) Bolivia denies supplying Iran with uranium
Carlos Valdez, Associated Press, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:19 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052601453.html
La Paz - Bolivia on Tuesday denied supplying uranium to Iran, while Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dismissed Israeli allegations that the two countries have been aiding Tehran’s nuclear program.
Bolivian Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu said his country doesn’t even produce the radioactive metallic element, though he acknowledged that officials believe the country has some untapped uranium deposits. "There isn’t even a precise geological study of uranium deposits, and much less can there be talk of export" to another country, he said.
A secret Israeli Foreign Ministry report, obtained by The Associated Press on Monday, cites previous Israeli intelligence assessments saying "there are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program" and that "Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran."
…
Bolivian Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana described Israel’s intelligence agency as a bunch of incompetent "clowns," and Echazu said the Bolivian Foreign Ministry plans to issue a formal response to the report’s assertion.
Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales have built close ties with Iran and have fiercely opposed Israeli and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Both Venezuela and Bolivia broke off ties with Israel in January to protest its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
…
Some analysts doubt that Iran currently is receiving uranium from other countries. "Iran does not need to import uranium from abroad" at this time, said Farideh Farhi, a researcher at the University of Hawaii who is an expert on Iran’s foreign policy. "Iran has uranium deposits itself. There is a real issue about Iran’s deposits being large enough to sustain the ambitious enrichment program Iran is envisioning in the future, but at this point this is not an issue."
Cuba
11) Obama in fresh overture to Cuba on immigration
Matthew Lee, AP, May 23, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5isn-A6X47PLC4dRexapk4yFMmbyQD98C289G0
In a fresh overture to Cuba, President Barack Obama is asking the communist government to resume talks on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States.
Obama’s proposal would reopen discussions that had been closed off by former President George W. Bush since they were last held in mid-2003. His move comes ahead of the United States’ attendance at a high-level meeting early next month of the Organization of American States, where Cuba’s possible re-entry into the regional bloc will be discussed.
The State Department said Friday it had proposed restarting the talks to "reaffirm both sides’ commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration, to review trends in illegal Cuban migration to the United States and to improve operational relations with Cuba on migration issues."
…
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will attend the June 2 meeting in Honduras, told lawmakers this past week that the U.S. would not support Cuba’s membership in the organization until and unless President Raul Castro’s government makes democratic reforms and releases political prisoners.
She and Obama have also said that broader engagement with Cuba, including the possible lifting of the U.S. embargo on the island, is dependent on such steps.
…
In Miami on Friday, the influential Cuban American National Foundation welcomed the news, saying resumed migration talks could be "an opportunity to resolve issues of United States national interest."
However, three Cuban-American members of Congress from Florida denounced the move as "another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship."
-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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