Analysis: Iran Jails Journalist Saberi for 8 Years on Espionage Charges

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Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has been convicted on charges of espionage and jailed for eight years by an Iranian Revolutionary Court.

Ms Saberi's lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi and her father confirmed that the sentence would be appealed. The sentence was confirmed inside Iran by the Iranian Students News Agency, and there is a short item on the English-language website of Press TV.

The quick sentencing surprises me, as a judiciary spokesman indicated on Tuesday that it would be two to three weeks before the verdict was announced. It could be that judicial forces wanted to show "independence" from political pressure (ironic given that this is a politicised case) and moved quickly.

Alternatively, Iranian political elements --- reacting to perceived US pressure or raising the stakes, both in internal Iranian political manoeuvring and in US-Iranian relations --- pushed for a lengthy jail sentence.

No evidence was presented publicly to support Saberi's conviction. Thus it remains unclear why her initial crime --- the purchase of a bottle of wine --- escalted into charges of reporting without a license (especially as she had been filing stories over the last two years without that license) and then spying.

The reaction of the US Government should be watched very carefully. My suspicion is that American officials have been trying behind the scenes to strike a deal for Saberi's release (probably after conviction and deportation).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's response reinforces that suspicion, as she maintained the measured tone that she was "deeply disappointed". Her statement was limited to the case rather than the wider significance for US-Iranian relations: "We are working closely with the Swiss Protecting Presence to obtain details about the court's decision, and to ensure her well-being....[We will] continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government."

So far, Washington has not publicly linked the Saberi case to its "engagement" with Tehran, apart from the letter handed to the Iranians at the end of March. Does the Obama Administration continue with this strategy or does it threaten a suspension of engagement because of today's news?

Somalia: From Pirate War to Land War?

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Amidst general statements about the response to piracy off the Somalian coast, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's four-point plan announced earlier this week, Teri Schultz of Global Post assesses the possibility of the fight being taken into Somalia:

Leaders to discuss taking pirate fight to land

BRUSSELS — The dramatic tale of the Capt. Richard Phillips’ rescue in the Gulf of Aden earlier this week captured the attention of the world and trained unprecedented attention on the increasing problem of Somali piracy.

Now U.S. and European officials are increasingly discussing the possibility of bringing the fight on land to address the roots of the problem in Somalia.

A high-level meeting here next week, officially billed as a Somalia donors’ conference, now will focus on the piracy problem.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is hosting the meeting and the guest list is packed with VIPs, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and stakeholders as crucial as Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. The United States will be represented by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Philip Carter and an official from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“We are going to look at what can be done on land,” Solana’s spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said bluntly.

Read rest of article....

Crisis in Guatemala?

As the Summit of the Americas opens and after attention to drug-related violence and its political effects in Mexico, Mark Schneider of Global Post looks at another Latin American country where crime and drugs are unsettling the system.

Guatemala: the next to fall?

While U.S. attention has rightly been focused on Mexico's drug wars — with high-profile trips by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before this weekend's Summit of the Americas — Mexico's southern neighbor is in far more serious danger of becoming a failed state. Reeling from gangs, corruption and pervasive poverty, Guatemala now faces well-armed, well-financed drug cartels.

Narco traffickers and organized criminals dominate an estimated 40 percent of the country, from the Mexican border to the Caribbean coast, as well as in the little-populated Mayan jungle and forest preserves of the Peten. Opium poppy fields grow freely. The major threat, though, comes from more than $10 billion in cocaine passing through Guatemala each year, with a tenth of the money laundered in the country and used to bribe officials.

The drug lords and their friends have become the self-ordained local governments and police, either directly or by buying off others. The Sinaloa Cartel, which has run cocaine trafficking in Guatemala for the past several years, is pitted against the Gulf Cartel newcomers. Their "Zetas" (paid assassins) are ratcheting up violence that inevitably hits "civilians." Last year there were more than 6,200 homicides reported in Guatemala.

As I walked the streets of Guatemala City a few weeks ago, the fear of local citizens boarding the city's buses was palpable, and it's no wonder. Bus drivers are a prime target as gang members tied to organized crime extort protection money from bus company owners and the bus drivers union. In the past year, more than 135 bus drivers in Guatemala City were assassinated, and in one case a grenade was exploded on a bus.

Marauding gang members rule entire urban neighborhoods, routinely abusing women and children. Kidnapping doubled last year to 438 cases, and there have been dozens more victims this year. Most suspect "dirty" or former police are behind the snatchings.

Read rest of article....

Iran's Pride: Ahmadinejad Speech on Nuclear Programme

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A day after the Obama Administration announced that its officials would join Iran and other countries in direct talks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke on National Nuclear Technology Day. Would this stop the American approach before it really started?

No.



Ahmadinejad, speaking from the historic city of Isfahan, highlighted the progress at the Bushehr plant with "the packaging of fuel and making the fuel ready to be put inside the reactor". The second achievement was the testing of two new types of centrifuges with a capacity "several times greater" than Iran's existing equipment.

The statement didn't announce, as some expected, that Bushehr was already operational. Ahmadinejad's reference on new centrifuges was too vague to prompt any shift in current intellligence estimates. Most importantly, there was nothing in the speech to indicate a move in Iran's programme toward military, rather than civilian, uses of nuclear energy.

So US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the new American position was unaltered, ""We do not attribute any particular meaning with respect to the range of issues that we are looking to address with the Iranians from this particular statement." Translation? Those issues, from Afghanistan to Iraq to other Middle Eastern discussions, are too important to be set aside for confrontation over Iran's nuclear plans. Instead, Clinton continued:

It would benefit the Iranians, in our view, if they cooperated with the international community, if they abided by a set of obligations and expectations that effect them and by which we believe they are bound -- and we are going continue to insist on that.

So the US-Iran engagement, while not exactly love and bliss, continues.

The Engagement is Official: US, Iran in Nuclear Talks

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The  initial news last night was that Undersecretary of State William Burns was in London in  "5+1" talks with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China on Iran's nuclear programme. Then came the revelation. Iran will soon be there as well: Washington is dropping its policy of no direct discussions with Tehran. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the brief announcement, "There's nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon." You can choose the political spin on this from different newspapers. For both The New York Times and The Washington Post, "U.S. to Join Iran Talks Over Nuclear Program". For The Daily Telegraph, desperate to prove Tehran is giving way, "Iran Offered New Nuclear Talks". So let's leave it to a State Department official to make the concise summary, "It was kind of silly that we had to walk out of the room" whenever Iranians were nearby.

While Iranian media have highlighted the US change in position, there has been no official Iranian reaction to the news. However, the 5+1 meeting and Clinton's statement follow contact between US and the Iran at The Hague conference on Afghanistan. Ensuing signals indicated that Iran was happy to take up engagement: last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran will shake an "honest hand".

This American decision confirms a significant break from the Bush Administration's attempt to isolate Iran. First, Bush officials broke off direct contact with Tehran in May 2003, rejecting an Iranian letter which offered detailed talks. A double game followed: Washington would push for more economic sanctions against Iran while European countries persisted in negotations. When those negotiations were close to a breakthrough, the US Government would pull back from any agreement, and the finger-wagging --- from both the US and Iran --- would resume.

Perhaps more importantly, the offer of direct talks may put Obama's military commanders in their place. Last week both Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, pointedly warned that Israel would be attacking an operating Iranian nuclear facility. Vice President Joe Biden finally stepped in publicly, telling CNN that Israel "would be ill-advised" to carry out an airstrike.

The Obama Administration has also made this move despite (possibly because of) reports that President Ahmadinejad will today announce that the nuclear plant at Bushehr is now active. And it has done so despite yesterday's news that Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, detained in Iran since January, has been charged with espionage.

This is the clearest signal that Obama, in contrast to his predecessor, has decided that it is better to live with an Iran with a nuclear programme rather than to pursue confrontation. Doing so, Washington hopes to reap the benefit of Iranian assistance --- or non-interference --- with American initiatives from Afghanistan to the Middle East.