 Time and time again, we heard that the U.S. shouldn’t inject itself into Iran’s internal affairs during the post-election unrest, because it might de-legitimize them and make them look like foreign agents and strengthen the regime through nationalism. I argued in a recent article for Pajamas Media that the opposition did not want to formally ask for U.S. help, but was trying to get our attention through actions like apologizing for the 1979 embassy takeover. Now, the spokesperson for Mousavi’s organization has blatantly requested more political support from the U.S. and more aggressive measures to financially strike at the Revolutionary Guards. To Obama’s credit, the opposition does say it supports the decision to use diplomacy to handle the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, but cautioned that the regime’s political survival depends upon its nuclear program and that dialogue would fail. “If they agree not to pursue a nuclear bomb and start negotiations, they will lose their supporters,” Mr. Makhmalbaf said at a lunch hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Definitely dialogue is better than war. … But can you continue your dialogue without any results?” World Threats
 One month after the U.S. launched a great diplomatic experiment by talking directly with Iran, the pressure of the effort is opening up some stress fractures. Some small fractures are showing up in the wall of solidarity the U.S. and its partners have tried to show in confronting Iran over its nuclear program -- specifically over how long to give diplomacy a chance before turning to new economic sanctions. A month after the U.S. began direct diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program, the effort appears to have opened fissures within the Iranian regime. WSJ's Executive Washington Editor Jerry Seib explains. But the more meaningful stress fractures are showing up within Iran itself. There, the unwillingness to follow through on a nuclear deal the country's own negotiators worked out -- or even to offer a straight explanation of why Iran isn't following through -- has laid bare serious fissures within the country's ruling establishment. If that continues to be the case, the U.S. and its partners will be heading in coming weeks toward a fundamental question: Are these splits within Iran more likely to be widened by the pressures generated through continued diplomacy, or by the pressures generated by tough new economic sanctions? That's the picture that emerges from conversations in recent days with both American and European officials familiar with the diplomatic engagement with Iran. None pretend to have perfect knowledge of what is happening within the Byzantine world of Iranian decision-making, which has been made all the more complicated by the divisions opened up amid protests over what is widely seen as a rigged presidential election there during the summer. But the bizarre back and forth from Iran in the aftermath of a nuclear negotiating session in Geneva on Oct. 1 has only confirmed the sense that the regime, always thought to be split by factionalism, is now only more so. "I think what we are seeing here is everything we know about Iranian decision-making" taking hold, says Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and an expert on Iran. The subject on which Iran is incapable of rendering a coherent decision is the deal that was struck -- or seemingly struck -- at that meeting in Geneva. Under that agreement, Iran would ship to Russia and France a large proportion of the low-enriched uranium it has managed to produce, so that the uranium could be refined into fuel for a Tehran research reactor and sent back to Iran. The beauty of the deal for the U.S. and its negotiating partners -- the other members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany -- was that it would take a majority of the Iranian raw material that eventually could be further enriched into nuclear-bomb fuel and allow the international community to turn it into something else, under close supervision. But since Iran's own negotiators seemed to agree to that arrangement, their leaders back in Tehran have pedaled backward, and then sideways, and then in circles, never embracing the deal but never exactly rejecting it either. Read more here,,,, Source: WSJ 
 Israel has recently begun talks with Turkey on the possibility of purchasing water from it, as part of the Water Authority's attempts to ensure sufficient reserves in the face of dwindling local levels. The Foreign Ministry, which is currently conducting the negotiations, had held talks with Ankara on the subject in 2000-2006, but the plans to import water from Turkey were eventually dropped because of high costs, as well as technical issues. The current round of talks might come as something as a surprise amid tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem, which recently peaked after Turkey refused to let Israel participate in a joint NATO drill within its borders last week and a Turkish state-run television station aired anti-Israeli TV drama Ayrilik, which depicts IDF soldiers as murderers. The Foreign Ministry's deputy director-general for Western Europe, Naor Gilon, called Turkey's charge d'affaires Ceylan Ozen to Jerusalem to protest the show. Army Radio reported on Monday that Ankara was sending a new ambassador to Israel, and that both sides hoped that the change of personnel would help improve the atmosphere between the countries.
The new envoy is expected to present his credentials to President Shimon Peres in a matter of weeks. Source: JPost
 Turkey and Armenia have signed a historic accord, agreeing to resume diplomatic ties and re-open borders after a century of hostility.
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, and Edward Nalbandian, his Armenian counterpart signed the Swiss-mediated deal in Zurich on Saturday, after last-minute disagreements delayed the ceremony for three hours.
"It was pulled back from the brink,' a senior US official said. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, helped smooth over the disagreement that arose after Turkey objected to an Armenian statement. The accord is the culmination of more than a year of Swiss-mediated talks.
Besides Clinton, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minster, were among those present at the ceremony. The protocols would still need ratification by their respective parliaments after being signed. That endorsement will have to come as nationalists on both sides protest the accord, particularly an Armenian diaspora which is demanding that Turkey acknowledge the killings of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide. Turkey has disputed the claims of genocide, with support from the US and UK, saying that the real death toll is lower. Many Turks see the fighting as a civil war caused by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during which an unverifiable number of Turks also died - although both sides agree that more Armenians than Turks were killed. Both governments have majorities in parliament but are expected to hold back on immediately ratifying the protocols due to the opposition. Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 BY STEVEN J. ROSEN
Obama's go get-'em diplomacy with Israel and Iran is on a collision course with failure. Eight months into his presidency, Barack Obama is fast approaching his first real moment of truth on the Middle East.
At the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session next week, the U.S. president will host a ceremonial summit between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in hopes of launching talks to achieve a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Then, a week later on Oct. 1, Undersecretary of State William Burns will join representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China for the first talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator to see whether an agreement can be reached to curtail President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuclear weapons program. This is the diplomatic offensive that Obama promised the U.S. public last year -- the investment in "soft power" that the president's supporters deemed lacking during the George W. Bush administration. But the White House is facing tough prospects on both fronts. All that fantastical thinking about the transformative power of diplomacy is now headed straight for the iceberg that is the Middle East. One immovable object is Abbas, who has participated in hundreds of peace negotiations over 15 years with six previous Israeli governments -- all while Israeli settlement construction was proceeding at a brisk pace. Now, Abbas says that he won't accept the partial freeze that Netanyahu has declared; he'll wait to join peace talks until Israel bows to Washington's unprecedented demand for a total freeze on construction, including in Jerusalem. But that is a condition that no Israeli government is going to accept. Even if Abbas softens his stand and agrees to begin talks, negotiations will still be in their throat-clearing phase when the Palestinian president's term ends Jan. 10.
With Hamas controlling Gaza there is no agreed electoral mechanism to empower a successor Palestinian president to make concessions on behalf of the Palestinians. Far from achieving transformative success, Obama will be lucky if he can just keep negotiations alive for more than a few weeks.
Read more here,,,,
Source: Foreign Policy
 The suspects are said to be members of former
President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party The Iraqi government, seeking the handover of two suspects in last week's bombings, has recalled its ambassador to Damascus. Hours later, Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported that Damascus had decided to summon its ambassador from Iraq. On Tuesday, the Iraqi Council of Ministers demanded that Syria hand over two men suspected of involvement in the attacks on Iraqi government buildings that killed at least 95 people. The two suspects are Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed, a senior Baath member living in Syria, and Sattam Farhan, another Syrian-based Baathist leader. The council said the Iraqi authorities believe the two played "direct roles in the execution of the terror attack," Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, said in a statement. The Council of Ministers also demanded that Syria "hand over all those wanted [by the judiciary] for committing crimes of murder and destruction against the Iraqi people". Read more here ... Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 By John Bolton Outrage was the uniform American response to Scotland's release last week of Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of blowing Pan Am 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie in December, 1988. Two hundred and seventy innocent people died in that act of terrorism, of whom 189 were Americans, many of them students on their way home to celebrate Christmas with their families. Outrage also greeted the public celebration of Megrahi's arrival in Libya and his warm reception from Muammar Gaddafi. These manifestations of insensitivity only highlight the shamefulness of Britain's fundamental mistake in letting Megrahi go free, regardless of his condition. "Compassion" has no place here. Releasing him to die at home means that he has spent less than two weeks in jail for each of his 270 victims. They never made it home. The justifiable disgust over Megrahi's release sadly underlines what amounts to a spectacular failure of American diplomacy. "Obamamania" overseas is a dominant theme of the media, endlessly recounting how the US position in the world has improved since President Bush's departure. "Engagement" with friend and adversary alike is the Obama administration's hallmark, with diplomatic advances expected to flow like wine. Read more ...Source: Telegraph
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and reiterated Washington's commitment to protect close ally Israel from any threat posed by Tehran. "We are going to do everything we can to prevent you (Iran) from getting a nuclear weapon. Your pursuit is futile," she told NBC's "Meet the Press" program, adding that Iran did not have the right to develop a nuclear weapon. Clinton annoyed ally Israel last week by saying the United States would cope with a nuclear Iran by arming its allies in the Gulf and extending a "defense umbrella" over the region. A senior Israeli official said the United States should focus on preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon rather than talking as if this may be a fait accompli. Asked whether she had been referring to a nuclear umbrella, Clinton told NBC: "We are not talking in specifics, because that would come later if at all. My view is you hope for the best, but plan for the worst," said Clinton. "Clearly, we have a long, durable relationship with Israel. We believe strongly that Israel's security must be protected," she added. Major powers suspect Iran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran maintains its nuclear work is a civilian program to generate much-needed electrical power. Several senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security advisor James Jones, will be in Israel this week, seeking to reassure the Jewish state amid concerns it could strike first against Iran if it believes there is no global resolve to curb Tehran's nuclear plans. "Our message (to Israel) is as it has been. The United States stands with you and the United States believes that Israel has a right to security. We believe, however, that this (diplomatic) approach we are taking, holds out the promise of realizing our common objective," said Clinton. The Obama administration fears an Israeli strike against Iran would further destabilize the region and have dramatic consequences. DIPLOMATIC PUSH Asked for her views on a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran, Clinton reiterated Israel's right to defend itself and said it would not listen to other nations if it believed its survival were threatened. But she stressed that pursuing intensive diplomacy with Iran was the best approach, a shift from the Bush administration which avoided engagement with Tehran and insisted that Tehran give up sensitive nuclear work first. "We will continue to work with all of our allies, and most particularly Israel, to determine the best way forward to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state," she said. The Obama administration and several European allies such as France have threatened a new round of financial sanctions against Iran by the end of the year if it does not agree to give up uranium enrichment. Read more here,,, Source: Reuters
 In Human Events today, I discuss the momentous first hundred days. And I expect that we ain't seen nothin' yet. “To the Muslim world,” said Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” After 100 days, how’s that going? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad summed it up best, responding contemptuously to Obama’s offer to sit down to talk without preconditions and taunting Obama for his impotence: “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength.” Ahmadinejad is also turning Obama’s campaign promise against him. When Obama indicated that he wouldn’t impose preconditions on negotiations with Iran, the Iranian saw an opening. Now, he’s apparently demanding preconditions for the talks by pressuring Obama for concessions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Iran’s Thug-In-Chief spoke like an aggressor who has spotted an appeaser, and is determined to wring from him as many concessions as possible. How has it come to this so quickly? Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seem to have made it a top priority of their administration’s opening act to weaken our position with the Islamic jihadists: • They quietly dropped the term “war on terror.” Napolitano even went so far as to say that she preferred to refer not to acts of “terrorism” but to “man-caused disasters” (NOW had no recorded comment about her sexist language). Meanwhile, a DHS report on “right-wing extremists” had no trouble referring to veterans and conservatives of all kinds as potential “terrorists.” This suggested a disquieting will to silence and demonize the political opposition, all the while regarding the real terror threat with extraordinary myopia.
• Obama named Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks as an advisor to the undersecretary of Defense for policy. Brooks is venomously anti-Israel and once wrote that al Qaeda was “little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs,” and that the Bush Administration had only imagined that it was a “vast global threat.”
• He has tapped Harold Koh to become the legal adviser for the State Department. Koh has said that he had no objection to Sharia’s being applied to “an appropriate case” in the United States.
• In a startling breach of protocol, Obama bowed deeply to the King of Saudi Arabia, implying an obeisance that isn’t going to free us from our dependence upon the oil sheikhs any time soon.
• While on a trip to Europe, he refused to visit the American Cemetery at Normandy, but made a point of visiting a mosque in Istanbul. He expressed, in an address to the Turkish Parliament, his “deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world—including in my own country.” It’s unclear how he thinks Islam has shaped the U.S., other than to lead to innovations in airport security. His statement did nothing but embolden the jihadists who have dedicated their efforts to bringing Islamic law to the West.
• Obama said also that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam” -- indicating that he had no intention of addressing the ideological challenge that Islamic jihadists present to the West, or of acknowledging the fact that although the U.S. is not at war with Islam, many Muslims consider Islam to be at war with the U.S.
• Obama invited to the White House the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 56-nation body that has declared its intention to compel the United Nations to criminalize all criticism of Islam.
• He has declared his determination to open negotiations with “moderate elements” of the Taliban, despite the fact that no such people have ever been found.
• He has declared his determination to close Guantanamo, despite the fact that over 60 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the jihad. All this and more in just 100 days. The Obama Administration apparently doesn’t know the difference between appeasement and diplomacy. A diplomat will sell you and your nation for a price. An appeaser will give it away without getting anything in return. Source: JihadWatch
 Sarah Baxter in Washington | January 18, 2009
BARACK OBAMA is planning to reach out to the Islamic world, seeking a rapprochement with Muslim opinion alienated by the Bush administration.
He believes a personal initiative will dramatise his wish to reassure Muslims, and intends to give a speech in an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office as a sign of his engagement.
He has not said where. Egypt and Pakistan are obvious possibilities, but there has been speculation that he could choose Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where he spent part of his childhood.
Obama will be sworn in as president with his full Muslim-sounding name of Barack Hussein Obama, in keeping with White House tradition.
“This Tuesday, we can reaffirm our own veneration and love for our country and our democracy,” he said yesterday in a radio address. “We can once again provide an example to the world.”
His inauguration presents a “unique opportunity to reboot America’s image in the world and also in the Muslim world in particular”, he said in an interview.
Obama intends to prohibit the use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, by the CIA, and to shut the secret “black site” prisons where terrorist suspects have been questioned. In future, interrogations will follow the rules set out in the US army field manual, which conform to the Geneva conventions. However, he is considering retaining a secret loophole, which would allow the CIA to use some methods outside the army rulebook.
One move that has been ruled out is the immediate closure of the Guantanamo detention centre for terrorist suspects, the focus of much Muslim anger.
Although Obama is committed to closing it - and the process has begun - he has hinted it could take as long as four years.
He said in a recent interview that he would consider it a failure if he had not closed the prison by the end of his first term in 2012. There had been speculation it could take a year because of problems in resettling potentially dangerous detainees, but not four years.
Obama was preparing a diplomatic offensive to tackle the problems of the Middle East as Israel last night declared a ceasefire in Gaza. He believes peace is impossible without diplomatic action across the region from Palestine to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We’ve got a regional set of problems,” Obama said. “They’re not going to be solved in isolation, and we’ve got to be active in all these areas in order for us to be successful in any of these areas.
“Very early on in the administration I will announce a team and an approach that allows us to get engaged in the Middle East on day one,” he said.
“The American people and the players in the region are going to know that we are serious about dealing with the Middle East, dealing with Iran, dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan on the diplomatic front and not just on the military front.”
Obama said America’s financial crisis and recession would not deter him from acting in the Middle East.
“I know some people have said, ‘You have this big economic crisis on your hands, and so President Obama is going to put off issues like this until his second term or later in his first term’,” he said. “I don’t think we have that luxury.”
“That doesn’t mean that we close a deal or we have some big, grand, Camp David-type event early in my administration. It does mean that we have a team in place which is hitting the ground and starting to engage constructively.” Source: The Australian
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Time and time again, we heard that the U.S. shouldn’t inject itself into Iran’s internal affairs during the post-election unrest, because it might de-legitimize them and make them look like foreign agents and strengthen the regime through nationalism. 
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