Excerpt
Iran's supreme leader urged Iranians to vote in large numbers as the country held parliamentary elections Friday, saying a high turnout would send a strong message to the enemies of the nation in the nuclear standoff with the West.
The balloting for the 290-member parliament is the first major voting since the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 and the mass protests and crackdowns that followed.
It is unlikely to change Iran's course over major policies — including its controversial nuclear program — regardless of who wins, but it may shape the political landscape for a successor to Ahmadinejad in 2013.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that more than 3,000 candidates are running in the current elections, but all of them are conservatives. The liberal opposition that blossomed so dramatically in 2009 has since been crushed. Its activists are deep underground, and its leaders under house arrest. No matter who wins Friday's election the hardliners will be in charge.
The elections amount to a popularity contest between conservative supporters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and their rivals who back Ahmadinejad.
Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, said it was a "duty and a right" for every eligible Iranian to vote, especially now that the "Iranian nation is at a more sensitive period" amid the confrontation with the West.
"Because of the controversies over Iran and increased verbal threats ... the more people come to the polling stations, the better for the country," Khamenei said after casting his ballot in Tehran early Friday.
"The higher the turnout, the better for the future, prestige and security of our country," he added. "The vote always carries a message for our friends and our enemies."
"Obama on Iran: 'I don't bluff'" by Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times 3/2/2012
President Obama's goal in upcoming talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to persuade him that the United States "has Israel's back" so that Israel has no need to rush toward air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the president said in a newly published interview.
In a meeting at the White House on Monday, the president told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, he will try to persuade the Israeli leader that an attack now would backfire at a time when Iran is under increasing international pressure.
In an interview granted earlier this week and posted on the Atlantic magazine's website Friday morning, Goldberg reported that Obama is dismissive of a strategy of containment as unworkable and called it "unacceptable" for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Obama said he plans to tell Netanyahu that he will order military strikes against Iran's nuclear program if the current international sanctions are not successful in deterring its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The possibility of an American strike against Iran is a serious one, Goldberg reported.
"I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff," Obama said, according to the report. "I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."
Many of the president's supporters are concerned about that commitment, an uneasiness Obama reportedly hopes to allay in a Sunday speech to a pro-Israel lobby. Obama's agenda the next day in his meeting with Netanyahu is to convince Israeli leadership that they can rely on that assurance enough to delay military action of their own.
Obama said in the interview that all options are on the table in the Iranian situation, the final one being what he referred to as the "military component." He said his concerns are not just about Israel's security but about the proliferation of nuclear weapons more generally.
Still, Obama said he has faith that the sanctions coordinated by his administration have hurt Iran and that they may soon force the regime in Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
"Without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested," Obama said. "It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to be the best decision for Israel's security."
No comments:
Post a Comment