Today's blog notes from international media on events pertaining to the Middle East

Monday, 8 February

Iran’s nuclear clock moves ahead another hour

Thirty-eight days past Washington’s January 1 deadline for Iran to respond to frequent calls for negotiations on its nuclear-weapons program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again thumbed his nose at Barack Obama. Speaking on live TV, the Iranian president told the country’s atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, to “please start 20 percent enrichment” of uranium into nuclear fuel. While both Ahmadinejad and Salehi spoke of the move as part of previously failed negotiations in which the West would accept the continuance of the Iranian program as long as it agreed to exchange its own nuclear material for enriched uranium from another country, the point of the announcement was to force the West to back away from sanctions on Iran. But given the ignominious failure of previous attempts to work out such a deal and, as even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out this weekend, Iran’s clear unwillingness to abide by any such rules, there is no point to talks along these lines.

Iran informs UN of uranium enrichment plan

The move was announced in a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency from the head of Iran's nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Salehi, following an order from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

. . . The letter also said Iran intended to develop ten new uranium enrichment facilities, in addition to one already on stream at Natanz and one under construction near the holy city of Qom.

Iran's president orders production of higher-enriched uranium

If Iran enriched all of its current stock of fuel, Albright said, the nation would need only a small facility of about 500 to 1,000 centrifuges "to produce enough weapon-grade nuclear material in a breakout strategy aimed at getting enough for a weapon in about six months. Such a plant would be extremely hard to find."

Iran FM: Israel is a crazy country run by crazies

"Israel is a crazy nation run by crazy people," Mottaki declares. "Therefore, we must prepare for the chance that Israel will do something crazy against everyone in the region: the Syrians, the Lebanese and the Palestinians."

. . . Mottaki's remarks came after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that Western support of Israel was ineffective, telling a top Palestinian militant leader that its obliteration was imminent according to the will of God.

A search for allies in a hostile world

The reason is not hard to fathom. Iran wants diplomatic support for its nuclear programme in parts of the world where governments are still biddable. In Latin America Iran’s president has already exploited anti-American sentiment in countries such as Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In Africa, by contrast, where most countries have strong ties to the West, Iran has concentrated on strengthening Muslim allegiances with offers of oil and aid.

. . . All the same, Israel is rattled. Its diplomatic links are fewer and frailer than before—and Iran is doing its best to shred even these. Last year Mauritania, one of the few Arab League countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, told it to close its embassy. After Iran’s foreign minister visited the country, Iran said it would take over a hospital that Israel had been building in the capital, Nouakchott, adding that it would provide more doctors and equipment than Israel had promised. In Senegal the Israelis had offered to help the notable Sufi Muslim town of Touba to build a water and sewage system. But negotiations were abruptly broken off at an advanced stage, after Iran promised to carry out the same work—and give a bigger donation to the town as well as the water pumps.

Expect modest US gains from thaw with Syria

The Obama team may get modest benefits from ending a five-year chill with Damascus but will find it hard, if not impossible to peel Syria way from its hardline ally, Iran, and break the Arab-Israeli stalemate, analysts said.

Assad: Syria will stand by Lebanon

Assad’s comments followed equally bellicose comments made earlier in the day by Syrian Minister of Information Mohsen Bilal, who said Israel was harming peace in the region and the world, and that its leaders should be tried in an international court.

Back in the saddle

Syria is back in the Lebanese saddle. The feeling must be good after all these years, because already its politicians are talking about Lebanon as if it were a local province, and using all tools at their disposal, including a high-profile American journalist, to position their country as the voice of moderation in the region.

Hamas leader Meshal: Israel has made Mideast peace impossible

Moscow sees Hamas as an integral part of the peace process despite strong opposition from Israel and the U.S., which list the organization as a terrorist group. Russia has repeatedly called for an end to the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas sends mixed message on apology

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official and close adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, accused Hamas of “playing with words” and “deception.”

Hamas, he charged, “thinks that it’s being very clever when its leaders play with words. They think that this is an element of basic policy, but they don’t know that this method belongs to the Middle Ages and does not earn the movement any respect or recognition.”

PA to present arguments to ICC

Palestinian Authority officials will present more arguments in March urging the International Criminal Court to investigate possible war crimes allegedly committed during Operation Cast Lead, the court's chief prosecutor said in an interview with the Reuters news agency published on Monday.

Analysis: A moral evaluation of the Gaza War

We in Israel are in a key position in the development of the customary international law of war because we are on the front lines in the fight against terrorism. The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law.

Amr Moussa's missed opportunity

Moussa's  “clear thinking” was again on display at last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos when he warned that if Palestine is not established soon, the league would give up on the two-state solution.

In other words, if the Arabs can’t have their way – on boundaries, refugees, Jerusalem, demilitarization and their adamant refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people – they’ll “have to resort – and soon... to a one-state solution.”

A Palestinian state must be secular

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interest, Palestinians should buck the regional trend toward religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

Palestine's 'economic miracle'

The Palestinian economy is the only place in the world where the per capita GDP is less than half the disposable income per capita. This is the result of three factors: