Major foreign policy blow for Bush
The newly released National Intelligence Estimate compiled by 16 American intelligence agencies has jolted the Bush administration's hawkish position on Iran. Contradicting its 2005 iteration, this year's NIE claims that Iran froze its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and that current uranium enrichment is not geared towards the eventual production of nuclear weapons. The estimate also insists that the Iranian government is not an irrational actor hell-bent on a nuclear arsenal, but instead, is proceeding on the basis of a calculated "cost-benefits approach" susceptible to international scrutiny and pressure.
The report has deeply undermined the alarmist strand of Bush administration foreign policy that depicted Iran and its nuclear program as potential instigators of "World War III". While analysts had predicted that the next year would be defined in large part by Washington's confrontation with Tehran, the administration's Iran policy may have been dealt a severe blow.
European diplomats are exceedingly frustrated with the timing of the release of the report, just days after the major powers involved in confronting Iran agreed to push ahead with new UN Security Council legislation. Diplomats admitted that momentum for new efforts in the UNSC has been dashed. Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.
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Israel, which has always warned of Tehran's nuclear ambitions to join Tel Aviv as the other nuclear armed-capital in west Asia, was critical of the intelligence estimate.
The intelligence estimate, however, supports the position of the International Atomic Energy Association, which is seeking a path separate from the Europeans and Americans in tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions. That path should be supported, says Kanishk Tharoor, on terrorism.openDemocracy.
In the wake of the release of the intelligence estimate, Iran's top nuclear negotiator is on his way to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. The Kremlin has long been sceptical the American case against Iran.
Praise for Ankara
The Turkish newspaper Aksiyon commends the way the Justice and Development party government has handled Kurdish militants. It urges further measures to normalise relations with the Iraqi Kurd regional government and an amnesty law that will isolate Kurdish guerrillas and terrorists in Turkey.
In further attacks across the border into northern Iraq, the Turkish military claims to have dealt significant losses to the Kurdish rebels.
Sharif in hot water
Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been barred from running in upcoming Pakistani elections because of hijacking and terrorism charges related to his attempt to prevent 1999 coup against him. Sharif's party called the electoral official's decision a "mockery" of free and fair elections.
The Frontier Post bemoans the decline of Pashtun political elites in the rugged, lawless frontier regions of Pakistan.
"Human terrain" uproar
At a recent meeting of the American Association of Anthropology, Zenia Helbig, a former participant in the American army's controversial "human terrain teams" project - which has anthropologists and social scientists accompany soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to improve "cultural IQ" - was jeered and heckled by her peers for defending the goals of the project. Anthropologists in the US have denounced the project as an unethical misuse of their discipline.
Somali president in hospital
President Abdullahi Yusuf of Somalia has been flown to hospital in Nairobi, Kenya with what has been described as a "serious" condition.
