The election of a moderate Iranian president could help rein in hostility between Tehran and its Arab neighbors, but many Arabs doubt he can end a sectarian confrontation that has been inflamed by war in Syria.

Hassan Rohani, a Shi’ite cleric known for a conciliatory approach and backed by reformists, will have only limited say in policy determined by Iran’s supreme leader; but with the Syrian carnage fuelling rage among Sunni Arabs across the region, any gestures from Tehran may help contain it.

“We hope the new Iranian president will be a believer in a political solution in Syria,” said one ambassador at the Arab League in Cairo. “All that we read about Rohani might be grounds for hope – but there is a great difference between election campaigns and what is said once in office.”

For the United States and Western powers, at odds with Iran for decades and now rallying with arms behind rebels fighting Syria’s Iranian-backed president, fierce religious enmities in the oil-rich Middle East add to fears of wider instability.

In Saudi Arabia, whose U.S.-allied rulers lead opposition to what they see as Iran’s drive to spread its power and religion, well-informed analyst Jamal Khashoggi said: “I’m sure for the Saudi leadership this is the best outcome of the elections.”

He recalled that Iran’s last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, who visited Riyadh while in office from 1997-2005, had mended ties – but at a time of less ferocious disputes. Unlike now, Khashoggi said, “Iran was not meddling heavily in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen … There were no Shi’ites killing Sunnis.”

In Syria, where mainly Sunni rebels are battling Iran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad and his Alawite establishment, who belong to an offshoot of Shi’ism, opposition activists saw little hope for change from Rohani:

“The election is cosmetic,” said Omar al-Hariri from Deraa, where the uprising began during the Arab Spring two years ago.

Muhammed al-Husseini, from the Sunni Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham in Raqaa, noted power in Iran rested with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The powers given to the Iranian president are weak these days,” he said. “They are fake powers.”

In Bahrain, whose Saudi-backed Sunni monarchy accuses Iran of fomenting protests among the Shi’ite majority on the island since 2011, Information Minister Samira Rajab told Reuters: “I think Rohani is one of a team. And anybody who comes from that team will continue the same policy … We have no more trust in the Iranian regime after what happened in Bahrain.”

EGYPTIAN CAUTION

In Egypt, by far the biggest Arab nation, new rulers from the Muslim Brotherhood had lately launched a rapprochement with Iran but have now joined a Sunni call for jihad in Syria after Iran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah sent in its fighters last month.

Traditionally more open than the Saudi clerical hierarchy to conciliation across the sectarian divide, the Brotherhood still hopes for a change of heart in Tehran: “We are looking forward to seeing how the winner is going to act,” said Murad Ali, a spokesman for the Islamist movement’s Freedom and Justice Party.

“Will there be any change to the policies from the Iranians, especially concerning the Syrian crisis? We are in general open to cooperation with Iran … However, we do have our concerns … related to … their interference in Syrian affairs.”

On the streets of Cairo, however, sectarian passions are running high, piling pressure on Egyptian and other Arab rulers.

Outside the Al-Azhar Mosque, built 1,000 years ago by the Shi’ite Fatimid caliphs who founded the city but now a major seat of Sunni learning, construction worker Mohamed Abdelsattar, 35, said: “All Egyptians hate Iran after what has happened in Syria. What’s happening there now is Shi’ites killing Sunnis.”

Limousine driver Abdelaziz Darwish, 57, had low expectations of any change in Tehran: “All Iranians are the same,” he said. “Shi’ites are more dangerous even than the Jews.”

Standing by his fresh-juice stand, Khaled Fathi, 49, twinned his anger at Iranian involvement in Syria with suspicion of the welcome that Islamist President Mohamed Mursi gave earlier this year to Iran’s hardline outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“Iran makes problems for us all over the world,” he said. “Iran is helping Mursi, I’m sure of it.”

A group of Lebanese Sunni clerics, visiting Al-Azhar while attending the Cairo conference that has issued a call for holy war in Syria, voiced some hope for change from Rohani, however:

“Maybe this new president in Iran will be better,” said Sheikh Hassan Abdelrahman from the city of Tripoli, which has seen recent fighting between Lebanese Sunnis and Shi’ites.

Sheikh Malik al-Jdeideh, also from Tripoli, said: “We came to Egypt to tell Mohamed Mursi that we reject Iranian actions in Syria … But we are working for all religions to be at peace.”

Sectarian atrocities in Syria, and the open appearance of Iran’s Lebanese allies on the battlefield, has forged an unusual degree of unity among major Arab governments following the wave of revolt that shook the region and notably replaced U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt with the Islamists of the Brotherhood.

GULF TENSIONS

Iran’s new influence in Iraq – after the 2003 U.S. invasion replaced the Sunni Saddam Hussein with an elected, Shi’ite-led government – had already put Saudi Arabia on the defensive. And Tehran’s nuclear dispute with the West and Israel has alarmed oil-exporting neighbors, who fear a war, with all the upheaval it would bring.

One Arab League ambassador said Gulf states hoped Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator, might help to defuse that tension.

But a Gulf envoy at the League said Rohani would have little power and was unlikely, in any case, to differ in his views: “They all aim to export the Iranian revolution to neighboring states and interfere in the Gulf states and Syria and Lebanon.”

For Shi’ites who live in Sunni-ruled states, and often complain of being unfairly branded as agents of the Persian-speaking power, any reduction in tension would be welcome.

Khalil Ebrahim al-Marzooq of Bahrain’s opposition al-Wefaq party, which speaks for many Shi’ites, said the election might bring warmer ties across the Gulf that would help his community.

“When relations are better,” he said, “it gives the government no excuses to deprive the people of Bahrain of their rights.”

Jafar al-Shayab, a former elected official in the mainly Shi’ite Saudi district of Qatif, said: “If this sectarian war going on in the region can cool down or stabilize, that will help to improve the relations between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites here.”

Khalil al-Anani, a senior fellow at Washington’s Middle East Institute currently in Cairo, said Rohani’s ability to induce the Iranian leadership to take the heat out of its standoff with the Sunni Arab powers was unclear, but of vital importance.

“Mending Iran’s relations with Arabs would require Rohani to secure strong support from other influential power centers in Iran … which is unlikely in the short term,” he said.

“The question of whether Rohani can be another Khatami is important and crucial for both Iran and the Arabs.”

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Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani took a solid lead over conservative rivals on Saturday in preliminary vote counting in Iran’s presidential election in what could be the makings of a surprise victory over favored hardliners.

The outcome is unlikely to transform relations between Iran and the outside world, the Islamic Republic’s disputed policy on developing nuclear power or its support of Syria’s president in the civil war there – all sensitive security matters that are the domain of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But the president does wield important influence in decision-making in the sprawling Shi’ite Muslim nation and major OPEC state of 75 million and could bring a change from the confrontational style of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.

Rohani’s wide early margin revealed a major reservoir of pro-reform sentiment whereby many voters seized a chance to repudiate the dominant hardline elite over Iran’s economic woes, international isolation and crackdowns on personal freedoms despite restrictions on candidate choice and campaigning.

If he wins, Rohani, a moderate who is a former chief nuclear negotiator known for his conciliatory approach, has signaled he will promote a foreign policy based on “constructive interaction with the world” and enact a “civil rights charter” at home.

In an apparent attempt to convey political continuity to both domestic opponents and Western adversaries, Khamenei said that whatever the result of Friday’s election, it would be a vote of confidence in the 34-year-old Islamic Republic.

“A vote for any of these candidates is a vote for the Islamic Republic and a vote of confidence in the system,” the hardline clerical leader’s official Twitter account said.

With some 23 million votes counted from the 50-million-strong electorate, Rohani had tallied 51.07 percent of all ballots cast, Iran’s interior minister said. That would be enough to avoid a second-round run-off on June 21.

Rohani’s nearest rival was conservative Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a long way behind with 16.3 percent. Other hardline candidates close to Khamenei, including current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, scored even lower.

British former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who dealt with Rohani during nuclear negotiations between 2003 and 2005, called him a “very experienced diplomat and politician”.

“This is a remarkable and welcome result so far and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no jiggery-pokery with the final result,” Straw told Reuters, alluding to accusations of widespread rigging in the 2009 election.

“What this huge vote of confidence in Doctor Rohani appears to show is a hunger by the Iranian people to break away from the arid and self-defeating approach of the past and for more constructive relations with the West,” he said.

“On a personal level I found him warm and engaging. He is a strong Iranian patriot and he was tough, but fair to deal with and always on top of his brief.”

Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Iran “appears to be on the verge of shocking the world”.

“With Rohani leading the vote, the regime’s calculation now is whether a run-off campaign … is worth the risk. A second round would entail an additional week of the kind of exhilarated campaigning, replete with young Iranians dancing in the streets and an amplified chorus of demands for social and political reforms, and ultimately pose a greater risk to the system.”

Excitement was rippling through Rohani’s campaign headquarters with workers there preparing for victory, said a source close to the campaign. The Rohani campaign expected an announcement in the coming hours, the source said.

Electoral officials did not say from which districts the votes so far counted had come from. Late on Friday, authorities estimated turnout would top 70 percent – relatively high and likely to benefit Rohani.

Iran’s rial strengthened about 4 percent against the U.S. dollar on Saturday, web sites which track the currency said.

DECISIVE SPLIT

Rohani’s campaign was endorsed by centrist former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani after the latter, a veteran rival of Khamenei, was barred from running by a state vetting body.

“Iran has held the most democratic elections in the world and there are no uncertainties about it,” Rafsanjani was quoted by Fars news agency as saying on Saturday.

Rohani received another big lift when reformists led by ex-president Mohammad Khatami swung behind him after their own lackluster candidate Mohammad Reza Aref withdrew in his favor.

In contrast, several high-profile conservatives with close ties to the ruling clerical or Revolutionary Guards elite failed to unite behind a single candidate, suffering what appeared to be a decisive split in their support base as a result.

Voting was extended by several hours at polling stations across the country on Friday as millions turned out to cast their ballot in the first presidential race since the 2009 contest where allegations of fraud led to mass unrest.

Rohani came to prominence as Iran’s nuclear negotiator in talks with Britain, France and Germany between 2003 and 2005 that Tehran Iran agree to suspend uranium enrichment-related activities, easing Western pressure on Tehran.

He left the post when Ahmadinejad came to office in 2005. Enrichment work resumed and there has been virtually no progress in intermittent talks since then. The result has been a punishing expansion of international sanctions against Tehran, seriously damaging its heavily oil-dependent economy.

Rohani would be an important bridge between hardliners around Khamenei who oppose any accommodation with the West and reformers sidelined for the last four years who argue the Islamic Republic needs to be more pragmatic in its relations with the outside world and change at home in order to survive.

Security was tight during the election and campaigning subdued compared to the euphoric rallies that preceded the last presidential vote in 2009, when reformist backers thought they scented victory and the prospect of democratization.

Those hopes were dashed when rapid announcements awarded Ahmadinejad 63 percent of the vote, returning him to office and unleashing a tide of protests that lasted for months and led to dozens of killings and hundreds of arrests.

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World powers and Iran failed again to ease their decade-old dispute over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program in talks that ended on Saturday, prolonging a stand-off that risks spiraling into a new Middle East war.

The lack of a breakthrough in the two-day meeting in Kazakhstan aimed at easing international concern over Iran’s contested nuclear activity marked a further setback for diplomatic efforts to resolve the row peacefully.

It is also likely to strengthen suspicions in Israel – which threatens air strikes, if necessary, to stop its arch-enemy from getting the bomb – that Iran is using diplomacy as a stalling tactic.

“Over two days of talks, we had long and intensive discussions,” European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

“It became clear that our positions remain far apart,” Ashton, who represents the six powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – in dealings with Iran, told a news conference.

Underlining the lack of substantial progress during the negotiations in the Kazakh commercial center of Almaty – the second meeting there this year – no new talks between the two sides were scheduled.

But a senior U.S. official said there had been no breakdown in the negotiations with Iran.

“There was no breakthrough but also no breakdown,” the official, who declined to be identified, said. “Our intention is to proceed,” he said, referring to a U.S. commitment to further diplomatic efforts.

Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili acknowledged differences between the two sides.

“We proposed our plan of action and the other party was not ready and they asked for some time to study the idea,” he told a separate news conference.

Russia’s negotiator sounded more upbeat, saying the talks were a “step forward” although no compromise had been reached.

“Certainly, these talks were a step forward,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. But he added that it was premature to name a date and venue for further talks.

Iran’s critics accuse it of covertly seeking the means to produce nuclear bombs. Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, sees Iran’s nuclear program as a potential threat to its existence.

Iran says its nuclear energy program is entirely peaceful but U.N. inspectors suspect it has worked illicitly on designing a nuclear weapon.

KEEP DIPLOMACY ALIVE

With all sides aware that a breakdown in diplomacy could shunt the protracted stalemate a step closer to war, no one in Almaty was talking about abandoning diplomatic efforts.

Ashton said that for the first time there had been a “real back and forth between us when were able to discuss details, to pose questions, and to get answers directly … To that extent, that has been a very important element”

But, she added: “What matters in the end is substance.”

With a presidential election due in Iran in June, scope for a breakthrough was slim in Almaty. Iran declined to accept or reject an offer of modest relief from economic sanctions in exchange for curbing its most sensitive nuclear activity.

“I do not think the risk of war has substantially increased,” said Shashank Joshi, a senior fellow and Middle East specialist at the Royal United Services Institute,

“The priority for both sides is to keep the diplomatic track alive until after the Iranian presidential elections.”

But without substantial progress in coming months, Western governments are likely to increase economic sanctions on Iran.

The talks were held against a backdrop of flaring tension between big powers and North Korea, which like Iran is defying international demands to curb its nuclear program. [ID:nL3N0CT022] But unlike North Korea, which has carried out three nuclear tests since 2006, Iran says its nuclear energy activity is entirely peaceful.

The six powers tried to persuade Iran to abandon its higher-grade uranium enrichment, as a first step to a broader deal. Refined uranium can be used to power atomic reactors, Iran’s stated aim, or provide material for weapons if processed more.

Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, wants major economic sanctions – including on its oil exports and banks – lifted and its right to enrich uranium publicly recognized.

“We regard enrichment as an inalienable right of the Iranian nation,” Jalili said.

The six nations, however, say this right only applies when nuclear work is carried out under extensive oversight by U.N. inspectors, something Iran has refused to grant. Since 2006, the U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend the work.

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While we here in the United States gawked at Michelle Obama’s well-sculpted biceps while she presented the award for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, news agencies in Iran were busy Photoshopping her.

Fars, a news agency in Iran, Photoshopped pictures of the First Lady by adding sleeves and a higher neckline to her dress, in order to confirm with Iranian restrictions on images of females in the media.

Michelle Obama presented the Oscar to “Argo” a film about American hostages in Iran.

In Iran, rules dictate that Iranian women shown on state television should wear a hijab that covers their hair, arms and legs. The rules vary for foreign women, allowing them to not wear a hijab, but still comply with conservative dress code.

This is not the first time a dignitary or celebrity has been censored. Many films are edited frame by frame in order to cover up actors or even delete certain scenes.

Iranians were also unhappy with “Argo” winning best picture. Many believe the movie exaggerated Iranian stereotypes and portrayed the country in a negative way, often times not showing a difference between ordinary citizens and revolutionaries in the hostage crisis.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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Days before resuming talks over its disputed atomic program, Iran said on Saturday it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

State news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which said the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had trebled the amount outlined in previous estimates.

There was no independent confirmation. With few uranium mines of its own, Western experts had previously thought that Iran might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium.

“We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country and we will put them to use in the near future,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the AEOI, was quoted as saying at Iran’s annual nuclear industry conference.

The timing of the announcement suggested Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Diplomats say the six powers, known as the P5+1, are set to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

The West says Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons capability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies.

FROM MINE TO CENTRIFUGE

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived from yellow cake, a concentrate from uranium ore discovered in mines.

Iran’s reserves of raw uranium now stood at around 4,400 tonnes, taking into account discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying.

In another sign that Iran is intent on pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, the report also said 16 sites had been identified for the construction of nuclear power stations.

It did not specify the exact locations but said they included coastal areas of the Gulf, Sea ofOman, Khuzestan province and the Caspian Sea.

Iranian authorities have long announced their desire to build more nuclear power plants for electricity production. Only one currently exists, in the southern city of Bushehr, and that has suffered several shutdowns in recent months.

The announcements could further complicate the search for a breakthrough in Kazakhstan, after three unsuccessful rounds of talks between the two sides in 2012.

“We are meeting all of our obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and we should be able to benefit from our rights. We don’t accept more responsibilities and less rights,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as telling Saturday’s conference.

In what Washington has called a provocative move, Iran is also installing new-generation centrifuges, capable of producing enriched uranium much faster, at a site in Natanz in the centre of the country.

Western diplomats say the P5+1 will reiterate demands for the suspension of uranium enrichment to a purity of 20 percent, the closure of Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant, increased access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and agreement to address concerns on existing uranium stockpiles.

In return, the latest embargoes on gold and metals trading with Iran would be lifted. Iran has criticized the offer and says its rights need to be fully recognized.

“If the P5+1 group wants to start constructive talks with Tehran it needs to present a valid proposal,” said Jalili. “It needs to put its past errors to one side … to win the trust of the Iranian nation.”

In a statement issued before the Iranian announcement, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the six-power group wanted to enter a ‘substantial negotiation process’ over Tehran’s nuclear program.

“The talks in Almaty are a chance which I hope Iran takes,” he said.

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Another member of Obama’s second-term national security team, Senator John Kerry, sailed through his confirmation before being receiving the Senate’s overwhelming support on Tuesday.

But Hagel, a former Republican senator and decorated Vietnam War veteran who broke with his party over the Iraq War, can expect a much more confrontational hearing when he is grilled on a range of issues by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Although most observers expect Hagel will eventually be confirmed – barring unexpected fireworks at the hearing – Thursday’s testimony will be contentious.

At least three Republican panel members, including James Inhofe, the party’s leader on the committee, have said they did not support Hagel’s nomination.

“We are simply too philosophically opposed on the issues for me to support his nomination,” Inhofe said in a January 15 statement. Such comments have angered Hagel supporters, who say two-term senator, who would be the first former enlisted soldier to lead the Pentagon, deserves at least a hearing.

Hagel’s confirmation hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT) on Thursday.

In the entire Senate, which would vote on Hagel if he is cleared by the committee, only one of the 45 Republicans – Mississippi’s Thad Cochran – has come out in Hagel’s favor.

He is expected to face tough questioning on Israel and Iran, his view of the Pentagon budget – Hagel is known as an advocate for tighter spending controls – and relations with China.

The Middle East, which has been the most intense focus of the anti-Hagel campaign, is likely to be the toughest issue.

“There’s a lot of misleading information out there about the senator’s views on Middle East policy. Senators are going to want to hear from Chuck Hagel directly on what his view is and what is the administration’s view,” said Mark Jacobson, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a former staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

CHARM OFFENSIVE

Hagel, backed by the White House and Pentagon, has been on a charm offensive to win over recalcitrant senators since Obama nominated him this month to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Facing a public campaign against his appointment by critics seeking to portray him as soft on Iran, anti-Israel and uncommitted to equal rights for women and gays, Hagel has been pounding the halls of the Capitol to hold one-on-one meetings with 53 senators before his hearing.

Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, said on Tuesday she had spoken with Hagel for 90 minutes and been satisfied on several issues, but stopped short of endorsing him.

“We had a good discussion, but it’s obvious that we have very different views on some fundamental issues,” she said.

Hagel also detailed his views in 112 pages of written responses to wide-ranging questions submitted by lawmakers.

In them, he said that if confirmed as the next defense secretary, he would ensure that the military is prepared to strike Iran if necessary but stressed the need to be “cautious and certain” when contemplating the use of force.

Hagel also voiced support for a steady U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan, pledged to ensure equal treatment for women and homosexuals in the military and assured the committee that the United States would maintain an “unshakeable” commitment to Israel’s security.

Most observers expect Hagel will be confirmed by the committee, even if he is approved only 14-12, along party lines.

“I do think he’ll be voted out of committee tomorrow and then it will be interesting to see where things go on the Senate floor,” said Maren Leed, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the face of intense lobbying by both Hagel supporters and opponents, many Republicans have said they will withhold judgment until after the hearing.

Democrats control 55 seats in the Senate and can approve Hagel with no Republican support, but they will need some backing from Hagel’s party to overcome procedural hurdles that could stop the nomination.

One has already emerged. Senator Lindsey Graham, a committee member, has threatened to keep the nomination from going to the Senate floor if Panetta does not testify about a September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the committee’s chairman, said Panetta is already due to testify, and that would take place before the full Senate voted on Hagel.

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The gathering comes in the midst of global turmoil, including unrest in Syria and Muslim anger of inflammatory videos and cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. The U.N. is also expected to take on Iran’s nuclear program.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently called Israel a “disturbance” to Iran.

“They (Israel) have no roots there in history,” Ahmadinejad told reporters in New York, according to Reuters. “They do not even enter the equation for Iran.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has spoken out against Iran’s “inflammatory rhetoric” following Ahmadinejad’s comments.

Ahead of today’s meeting, Ban Ki-moon asked the Iranian president to “take the measures necessary to build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”

President Barack Obama will arrive in NYC this afternoon on Air Force One at 2 p.m. Numerous street closures around the U.N. at 42nd St. and First Avenue will slow traffic in the area for the day.

According to the NYPD, First Avenue from 42nd Street to 48th Street is open only to emergency vehicles, as well as 44th, 45th and 46th streets from First Avenue to Second Avenue. 49th and 50th streets between Lexington and Park Avenue are closed until Tuesday at 5 p.m.

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But whether this trend will continue depends on the moderator, CNN’s John King. Will he allow the debate to be framed by the dangerous propaganda that has pervaded much of the reporting on Iran, or can he force the candidates to confront surprising new intelligence on Iran that vindicates Ron Paul’s pleas for restraint?

Sadly, the former scenario is far more likely. Even as the military-industrial complex continues to point its apocalyptic priapism at Iran, many in the media are sharing in the fluffing duties.

ABC’s Diane Sawyer and  Brian Ross claim to have evidence that Iran is waging “a kind of shadow war” around the world, and that “Jewish places of worship in at least 10 U.S. cities have been told they could be targets.” Not only do they neglect to mention who exactly is issuing these warnings, turns out that the “evidence” they claim to have is nothing more than the speculative accusations of Israeli officials, who have blamed three recent bombings in Georgia, Thailand and India on Iran. Sawyer and Ross also fail to mention that, according to official investigators of the India bombing, the evidence appears to implicate a Sunni group within India that is completely unconnected to Iran.

Similarly, NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski boldly proclaims that the U.S. will be “the world’s first line of defense,” now that “Iran has already threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz,” and “Iranian leaders have threatened all-out war!” To his credit, Miklaszewski at least mentions in passing that Iran has “threatened all-out war” only if Israel were to drop bombs on its nuclear facilities, and that Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz only in response to U.S. economic sanctions. What Miklaszewski doesn’t bother explaining is that these economic sanctions would involve cutting Iran off from the international banking system, through which it receives payment for its oil exports — a devastating blow to its economy.

But most importantly — he fails to mention that the U.S. military does not actually know whether Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

That’s right — on Feb. 5, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told Congress that Iran has not yet made the decision to “go ahead with a nuclear weapon.” And this weekend, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN that “a military strike against Iran would be premature, because it is unclear that Tehran will actually use its nuclear capabilities to build an atomic bomb.”

If this news surprises you, you aren’t alone. According to a CNN poll from 2010, 71 percent of Americans mistakenly believe that Iran already has nuclear weapons. But instead of seeing this as a rallying cry to correct the dangerous misperceptions of ill-informed Americans, many in the media instead choose to push the false narrative that war with Iran is becoming ever more inevitable.
One can only hope that John King will do his best to prevent Romney, Santorum and Gingrich from perpetuating that false sense inevitability in tomorrow’s debate.

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages. 

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Shortly before the man was wounded, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting in the Ekamai area of central Bangkok. Soon after that, there was a third blast on a nearby road, Thai police and officials said.

“The police have control of the situation. It is thought that the suspect might be storing more explosives inside his house,” Thai government spokeswoman Thitima Chaisaeng told reporters.

Police later said they had apprehended another suspect at Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi airport, one of two men they were looking for who had been living at the house where the initial blast took place.

“We discovered the injured man’s passport. It’s an Iranian passport and he entered the country through Phuket and arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport on the 8th of this month,” Police General Bansiri Prapapat told Reuters.

The three explosions in Bangkok came a day after bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia. Israel accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind those attacks. Iran denied involvement.

Hezbollah is a Shi’ite Islamist group backed by Syria and Iran that is on the official U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations.

Thai officials declined to speculate on whether the two men they had detained were involved with any militant group, but Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak blamed Iran.

“The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror,” Barak said on a visit to Singapore.

“Iran and Hezbollah are unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region, and endangering the stability of the world,” said Barak, who spent a few hours in Bangkok Sunday.

Thai police said they were working to make safe an unspecified amount of explosives found in the house where the initial blast took place.

TAXI A TARGET

Police declined to make any link between Tuesday’s incident and the arrest last month of a Lebanese man in Bangkok who, according to the Thai authorities, had links to Hezbollah.

The police discovered a large amount of explosive material in an area southwest of Bangkok at around the time of that arrest. The United States, Israel and other countries issued warnings, subsequently lifted, of possible terrorist attacks in areas frequented by foreigners.

The Lebanese man has been charged with possession of explosive material and prosecutors said further charges could follow next week.

Tuesday’s blasts in the sprawling Thai capital were not near Israel’s embassy nor the main area for embassies.

A taxi driver told Thai television the wounded suspect had thrown a bomb in front of his car when he refused to pick him up near the site of the first blast. He was wounded slightly.

Government spokeswoman Thitima said police had then tried to move in and arrest the man but he attempted to throw another bomb at them. It went off before he was able to do so, blowing one of his legs off. A doctor at Chulalongkorn Hospital told reporters the other leg had had to be amputated.

Another doctor was quoted on television as saying three Thai people had suffered minor injuries in the incident, in addition to the taxi driver.

There have been no major attacks blamed on Islamist militants in Bangkok even though Muslim rebels are battling government security forces in Muslim-dominated southern provinces of the Buddhist kingdom.

In 1994, suspected Islamist militants tried to set off a big truck bomb outside the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, but they abandoned the bid and fled after the truck was involved in a minor traffic accident as it approached the mission.

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The moves come at a time when new U.S. sanctions are causing real economic pain, Iran has spooked oil markets with threats to international shipping, and an election in two months is widening political divisions at home.

The United States denies Arizona-born 28-year-old Amir Mirza Hekmati is a spy, and has demanded his immediate release.

Iran has aired a televised confession, denounced by Washington, in which Hekmati said he worked for a New York-based video game company designing games to manipulate public opinion in the Middle East on behalf of U.S. intelligence.

“Amir Mirza Hekmati was sentenced to death … for cooperating with the hostile country America and spying for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency),” ISNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei as saying.

“The court found him Corrupt on the Earth and Mohareb (one who wages war on God). Hekmati can appeal to the Supreme Court.”

Separately, two diplomats in Vienna, where the U.N. nuclear watchdog is based, said Iran had finally carried out a long-planned step to begin enrichment of uranium at a site deep under a mountain near the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom.

Uranium enrichment in the Fordow bunker is probably the single most controversial part of Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West says is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

The long-simmering nuclear dispute has come to a boil in recent weeks, with the West imposing new sanctions that are having a real impact on Iran’s economy, and Tehran responding with threats to international shipping that rattled oil markets.

After years of Western sanctions that had little effect, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a new measure into law on New Year’s Eve that, if fully implemented, would prevent most countries from buying Iranian oil.

The European Union, which still buys about a fifth of Iran’s oil, is poised to announce an embargo at the end of this month, and other countries may have to cut purchases of Iranian crude to receive waivers from the U.S. sanctions.

Buyers are demanding deep discounts to trade with Tehran, cutting the revenue that it needs to feed its 74 million people.

DEFIANT

Iran has remained defiant. In a televised speech on Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: “Sanctions imposed on Iran by our enemies will not have any impact on our nation.”

“The Iranian nation believes in its rulers.”

The rial currency has plunged and Iranians have scrambled to withdraw savings from banks to buy dollars. The hardship comes just two months before a parliamentary election, Iran’s first since a 2009 presidential vote that triggered eight months of angry street demonstrations.

Iran’s rulers put those protests down by force but, in the two years since, the Arab Spring has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to uprisings fuelled by public anger over economic hardship.

Iran has responded to the new sanctions by threatening to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet for ships carrying oil from the Gulf, guarded by a huge U.S.-led international fleet.

Brent Crude was trading at around $113 a barrel on Monday, up by about $6 in the nine days since Obama signed the new sanctions into law. Iran’s military threats and sanctions news have caused spikes in the price throughout recent weeks.

ENRICHMENT

Iran disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2009 that it was building the nuclear facility beneath a mountain at Fordow, but only after learning that it had been detected by Western intelligence.

Tehran says it intends to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity with centrifuges there. The West says uranium that pure is not necessary for power plants and is a step towards a bomb.

“All of Iran’s enrichment activity is in violation of (United Nations) Security Council resolutions and any expansion of its capacity at Fordow just compounds those violations,” said a Western diplomat in Vienna.

Locating the enrichment facility inside a mountain makes it harder for Israel or the United States to destroy it. Both countries say a military option remains on the table.

On Sunday an Iranian newspaper had quoted the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation as saying enrichment in the bunker would begin in the “near future.”

Nuclear talks between Iran and global powers collapsed a year ago. Iran has said it wants to restart them, but the West says Tehran must first make clear it is willing to discuss a halt to uranium enrichment. Starting enrichment at the bunker could make it harder to revive talks and lift sanctions.

Diplomacy was made more difficult late last year when European countries withdrew their ambassadors after protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran in November. France said on Monday its ambassador had returned.

“SPY NETWORK”

In an apparently separate case from that of Hekmati, Iran also said on Monday it had broken up a U.S.-linked spy network that planned to “fuel unrest” ahead of the March election.

“The detained spies were in contact with foreign countries through cyberspace,” Intelligence Minister Haydar Moslehi was quoted by state television as saying. He gave no information about the nationalities and the number of those detained.

Hekmati’s execution could still be blocked by Iran’s highest court, which must confirm all death sentences.

His family says he was visiting grandparents in Iran when he was held in December. His family was unable to hire a lawyer, and he was defended by a state-appointed advocate whom he met for the first time at the trial.

Washington says he has been denied access to Swiss diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in a country where it has had no mission since its embassy was stormed in 1979.

Hekmati previously worked as a U.S. military translator. Iran’s Farsi language is one of the two main tongues spoken in Afghanistan, and the U.S. military often deploys Americans of Iranian origin there as translators.

Iran could “hold on to Hekmati and use him – as they have with previous foreign detainees – as a pawn in their rivalry with the United States, rather than execute him immediately and thereby raise tensions with the U.S. even more,” said Gala Riani, an analyst at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight.

Tehran, which imposes the death penalty frequently for crimes such as drug dealing and murder, is not known to have executed any U.S. citizen as a spy.

Three U.S. backpackers jailed in Iran as spies in 2009 were freed in 2010 and 2011 in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a humanitarian gesture. An Iranian-American sentenced to eight years for spying in 2009, was freed after 100 days.

In May Iran said it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States. It later announced that 15 people had been indicted for spying for Washington and Israel.

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EU foreign ministers are aiming to announce harsher sanctions on Iran’s energy and banking industries at their next meeting on Jan. 30 after Greece lifted its objections to an oil embargo.

“We want to tighten sanctions on Iran — the things that have been mentioned are the oil sector and the financial sector,” EU spokesman Michael Mann said by telephone in Brussels yesterday.

Oil fluctuated near an eight-month high after the European Union said it’s working to sanction oil imports from Iran and its banks and on concern that Europe’s debt crisis will affect consumption market. Crude for February delivery rose 29 cents to settle at $103.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.    

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Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer — who were arrested with their friend Sarah Shourd while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in July 2009 — were freed Wednesday after Oman paid $1 million bail. Shourd was released on $500,000 bail a year ago.

Fattal and Bauer were sentenced to eight years in prison last month after a trial held behind closed doors. Washington denied that the group were spies.

Bauer and Fattal said the case against them had been a “total sham” and made up of “ridiculous lies that depicted us as being involved in an elaborate American-Israeli conspiracy to undermine Iran.”
“The only explanation for our prolonged detention is the 32 years of mutual hostility between America and Iran,” Bauer said. “We were convicted of espionage because we are American. It’s that simple. No evidence was ever presented against us.”

“Sarah, Josh and I have experienced a taste of the Iranian regime’s brutality. We have been held in almost total isolation from the world and everything we love, stripped of our rights and freedom,” said Bauer.

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Sunday is not only the anniversary, it’s also the biggest day of their imprisonment because Fattal and Bauer are expected to finally have their day in court, Fattal’s brother Alex told Metro on Thursday. The trial has been delayed several times already.

“We’re on the edge of our seats,” Alex Fattal said. “I think it’ll go ahead and that gives us hope. If the court is independent and impartial as they’ve been saying all along, they’ll definitely find them innocent — because they are.”

Go to facebook.com/ FreetheHikers for more details.

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Seeking to avoid a revival of mass anti-government rallies that erupted after a disputed 2009 presidential election, the authorities had warned against any “illegal” gatherings after some opposition websites posted calls for a rally. 

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The general director of the Norwegian Police Security Service said Iran had approached small Norwegian companies that sell “special components that can … be used in weapons of mass destruction.”

Iranian efforts the past year, she said, targeted technology suitable for civilian products as well as advanced missiles.

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State television showed thousands of government supporters at Tehran University for the funeral of Sanee Zhaleh, one of two people shot dead on Monday during the first opposition rally for more than a year.

Monday’s rally was the first major unrest since a wave of arrests, trials and at least two executions in response to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election.

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The rallies amounted to a test of strength for the reformist opposition, which had not taken to the streets since December 2009, when eight people were killed.

“Witnesses say in some parts of Tehran security forces arrested dozens of protesters,” opposition lead­er Mirhossein Mou­savi’s Kaleme website reported.

Security forces fired teargas to scatter thousands of people marching toward a Tehran square, a witness said. There were also clashes between police and demonstrators, and dozens of arrests, in the city of Isfahan, another witness told Reuters.

“Death to the dictator,” some of the Tehran protesters chanted, though other demonstrators marched in silence. Some chants drew comparisons between the Iranian leadership and the autocrats deposed in recent weeks in Tunis and Cairo.

Amnesty International condemned the authorities’ reaction: “Iranians have a right to gather to peacefully express their support for the people of Egypt and Tunisia,” it said.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia against secular, Western-allied rulers an “Islamic awakening,” akin to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah in Iran.

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Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009, near Iran’s border with Iraq, along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was released on $500,000 bail in September and returned home.

The trio say they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and, if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran, it was by mistake. Under Iranian law, espionage can carry the death penalty.

State-run English language Press TV said the two men had appeared in court but that Shourd did not. All three pleaded not guilty of espionage and illegal entry.

No date has been set for the trial to resume. The proceedings were closed to the public and press.

The affair has compounded tension between Tehran and Washington, which have had no diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A trial date set for last November was postponed at the last minute due to the absence of Shourd.

Press TV quoted the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying “it has ‘compelling evidence’ that three were cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies.”

The defense lawyer, who was barred from seeing his clients for four months before the trial, said he was confident the spying charge and even charges of illegal entry into Iran could be beaten. 

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Western intelligence summaries said Russian scientists, trying to help Iran with its nuclear program, warned Tehran to slow down its attempts to reactivate its nuclear power plants.

The Russian warning came after Iran’s nuclear program’s computer network was severely damaged by the Stuxnet computer virus — alleged to have been the work of joint Israeli and U.S. operatives.

Iran first attempted to commission a nuclear plant in the 1970s and delays prompted officials to insist that the Bushehr nuclear power plant be up and running by this summer.

But after the virus attack, Iran was warned of the consequences of sticking to that deadline.
Russian scientists urged the Kremlin to pressure Tehran to delay commissioning by at least a year while the full effects of the Stuxnet virus were examined, according to various reports.

They warned of a possible “Chernobyl” meltdown.

Media outlets reports that the virus caused computer malfunctions that destroyed at least one Iranian nuclear centrifuge — critical in producing nuclear weapons. 

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“The most recent analysis is that the sanctions have been working. They have made it much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambition,” Clinton said.

“The real question is: How do we convince Iran that pursuing nuclear weapons will not make it safer and stronger but just the opposite? … We have time, but not a lot of time.” 

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The semi-official Fars news agency published a list of universities around Iran that were given a note outlining the code, but did not say on what basis they were selected.

The new rules ban women from “wearing caps or hats without scarves, tight and short jeans and body piercings [except earrings],” Fars said.

They said tattoos, long nails, tooth gems, tight overcoats and bright clothes were also banned.

Iran has been waging a  campaign against Western cultural influences. Under Islamic law imposed after the 1979 revolution, women have to cover their hair in public and wear loose-fitting clothes.

The new code also bans male students from dyeing their hair, plucking eyebrows or wearing shirts with “very short sleeves,” Fars said.

The authorities usually intensify efforts ahead of hot summer months when women tend to wear lighter clothes and brightly colored scarves, often pushed back to expose hair.

In recent years, crackdowns have extended into winter fashion as well — including a push against women’s trousers seen as too tight as well as men with spiky “Western-style” hairstyles.

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