Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - A conservative Iranian newspaper Tuesday called for the execution of a German businessman condemned to death in Iran for having sexual relations with a Muslim woman.
"There is enough evidence proving the guilt of this German citizen and this criminal should be executed under Iran's laws," said the daily Resalat, which is close to conservative clerics and merchants.
"We hope that...threats by Western officials and
a few so-called human rights circles will not lead to justice being trampled
in Iran," the newspaper said….
Iran Says to Cut Power Projects as Budget Slashed, Reuter, February 3
TEHRAN - Iran's Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf said the ministry's budget for the next year had been cut by 17.5 percent and several projects including dams would be suspended.
The energy ministry, which oversees power supply, was particularly hard hit by last month's budget cuts approved by parliament. The cuts came as Iran lowered its forecast oil export revenues following a fall in world crude oil prices….
In the current year, the government had failed to
pay 30 percent of funds budgeted for energy projects due to financial problems,
Bitaraf was quoted as saying without giving details.
Four Killed In Landmine Explosion, Agence France Presse, February 3
TEHRAN - Four people were killed on Monday in a powerful landmine explosion near the Iraqi border in southwestern Iran, Keyhan newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The mine, which exploded near Dezfoul close to the
border, dates back to the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
U.S. Still Reviewing Companies' Gas Deal With Iran, Reuter, February 3
WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department has not yet made a decision on whether to impose sanctions against France's Total SA and two other foreign energy companies for entering into a multibillion-dollar natural gas deal with Iran, spokesman James Foley said Tuesday.
"At this point, no decisions have been made although the imposition of sanctions remains a real possibility," Foley told reporters at a daily news briefing.
Tocqueville and the Mullah, The New
Republic, February 2
… The president of the Islamic Republic gave a startling interview to CNN…
The rest of the Iranian president's analysis of America was overlooked in the commotion. There were plenty of misunderstandings…. Khatami's fine appreciation of the religious origins of the American order fails to take account of the fact that the American order is a liberal order. There is more paradox in the American philosophy than a theocrat can see. For the God-fearing Founders of the United States elected not to establish an official religion. They religiously devised an unreligious state.
But some of Khatami's misunderstandings were not at all charming. His sympathy for the United States does not seem to extend beyond our early history…
As for Iran's own foreign policy, Khatami had nothing complicated or contrite to say. He condemned terrorism and denied "categorically" that Iran has anything to do with it. He resorted to the old semantics of revolutionary mischief, instructing that "supporting peoples who fight for the liberation of their land is not, in my opinion, supporting terrorism."…
From all this, we come away with two conclusions:
first, that the Clinton administration should calm down, and choose to
be "seized" instead by the incontrovertible facts about Iran's arsenal
and its sponsorship of political violence beyond its borders; and second,
that Tocqueville is not all you need to know.