Source: THE HILL
By: Raymond Tanter
Key senators in the incoming Republican majority and like-minded Democrats have a vision of Iran as a revolutionary state. It is risky to conduct business as usual with revolutionary Iran. If “regime change from within” were an implicit part of U.S. policy, emergence of a free Iran that does not become a nuclear-armed state is likely. President Barack Obama, however, treats Iran as if it were a normal state to engage in give-and-take bargaining.
Source: defenceone.com
By: Oubai Shahbandar & Michael Pregent
President Barack Obama rightly has proclaimed that strengthening Syrian opposition forces will form an important component of the wider campaign against the Islamic State. But the Defense Department’s train and equip plan for the Syrian opposition falls far short from balancing the score card against ISIS, or ISIL, and its implementation timeline simply is not fast enough to deny ISIS and al-Qaeda key terrain in Syria.
Why the delay? One answer from U.S. policymakers: Iran.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly human rights committee approved a resolution Tuesday expressing deep concern about rights violations in Iran, including the “alarmingly high frequency” of the use of the death penalty.
Support came from 78 member countries, with 35 voting no and 69 abstaining. Several countries have objected to the targeting of a specific nation.
The Canada-drafted resolution was approved less than a week before a Nov. 24 deadline for Iran and six world powers to reach a deal on its nuclear program, but the word “nuclear” isn’t mentioned in the text.
Source: Newsmax
by:James Morrison
A prominent Iranian religious leader threatened the United States and Israel with missile attacks just as U.S. officials and other diplomats were preparing for last-minute talks with Iran over its suspected nuclear-weapons program.
The bombastic Friday sermon by Ayatollah Ali Movahedi-Kermani further inflamed tensions surrounding the talks aimed at meeting a Nov. 24 deadline for a deal to stop Iran from enriching uranium in exchange of the removal of crippling economic sanctions.
(Reuters) – The United States is disappointed with Iran’s failure to engage with a U.N. nuclear agency investigation into suspected atomic bomb research, a U.S. envoy said on Monday.
Western officials say Iran must improve cooperation with the long-running International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inquiry as part of a broader diplomatic settlement which Tehran and six world powers aim to reach by a self-imposed Nov. 24 deadline.
Source: The Washington Post
By Carol Morelo
For the six global powers in talks with Iran, the goals have always been clear — blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb while eventually lifting sanctions that have hobbled its economy and caused hardship for the Iranian people.
But as negotiators gather in Vienna this week in one last push for a deal, decades of mutual mistrust and years of Iranian obfuscation on its nuclear program may be proving too much to surmount.
Source: Fox News
On Friday, the Center for Security Policy released a letter signed by 17 prominent security policy practitioners and other national leaders denouncing the Obama administration’s conduct of thenuclear talks with Iran and the seriously defective deal and any agreements that are likely to emerge from them, the Center for Security Policy reported via email communications.he letter addressed to U.S. House Speaker Boehner, U.S. Senators Reid and McConnell, and Congresswoman Pelosi and the rest ofCongress to repudiate this year’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran and dissects the terms of the agreement it is reportedly producing. The authors believe the United States and its Western allies have already given away too much to Iran and still more concessions appear to be in the offing.
Source: Reuters
By: BABAK DEHGHANPISHED
BAGHDAD – Among the thousands of militia fighters who flocked to northern Iraq to battle the extremist Islamic State group over the summer was Qais al-Khazali.
Like the fighters, al-Khazali wore green camouflage. But he also sported a shoulder-strapped pistol and sunglasses and was flanked by armed bodyguards. When he was not on the battlefield, the 40-year-old Iraqi donned the robes and white turban of a cleric.
Source: The Washington Times
By: John Solomon
Even as it pursues an 11th hour deal to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Obama administration is doing a poor job policing U.S. nuclear technology exports to ensure they don’t fall into the hands of foreign enemies looking to make weapons, investigators have found.
Source: The Los Angeles Times
By: PAUL RICHTER
the latest obstacle to the U.S. and five other nations finalizing a nuclear deal with Iran by this month’s deadline is an unexpected new demand from Tehran for quick relief from United Nations sanctions.
For most of the last nine months of negotiations, Iran and a diplomatic bloc of six world powers have focused on first easing unilateral economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European nations. Under the talks, if Iran accepts restrictions intended to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and other countries would begin lifting sanctions designed to cripple Iran’s oil and financial industries.
