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Israeli defense minister calls for sanctions against Iran
To watch the full-length edition with Ehud Barak, click here to get our podcast.
By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR
(CNN) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called Saturday for new sanctions against Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions, encouraging the financial pressure to continue "until it becomes effective."
But he warned that sanctions won't be successful unless Russia and China back them, adding "we recommend to all players not to remove any option from the table."
Barak made the comments to CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview to be aired Sunday.
Speaking after extensive talks with top U.S. officials and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Barak declined to be specific about what might happen if sanctions do not deter Iran. But he said he wanted to see results within months not years.
Israel, the United States, and many other countries say Iran is moving closer to building a nuclear weapon, a charge that Iran denies. Tehran says its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes.
// Barak said Tehran is clearly headed toward nuclear missile capability.
"They're trying to defeat and defy the whole world," he said.
"They have two examples in mind," he said of Iran's nuclear ambitions. "One is Pakistan, which they feel somewhat similar (to). And the other is North Korea. And in those two cases they were successful against sanctions."
Barak predicted a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if Iran successfully builds nuclear weapons, saying Saudi Arabia will "turn nuclear in a few months," and Turkey and Egypt will probably follow shortly thereafter.
He praised the Obama administration for addressing the issue and pushing for sanctions against Iran, despite a heavy burden of domestic and international commitments.
"I think we (Israel and the U.S.) both agree (sanctions) should be effective," he said. "We recommend to all players not to remove any option from the table. And we live by what we recommend to others."
Asked if Israel fears an attack by Hezbollah, an organization supported by Iran and Syria, Barak said: "I'm not sure whether we are going to face a pre-emptive attack, but anyhow, we are not interested in conflict in the north or in the east. But if it is imposed on us, we know how to respond."
Asked whether the U.N.-sponsored Goldstone Report accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes in their war a year ago could make Israel "think twice" about how to conduct a future war, Barak said "no."
"We always try to improve ourselves, but we don't need the Goldstone report for this. We started an investigation into the details of what happened (in Gaza) long before Goldstone wrote his report."
He added, "I would like to say something about Goldstone. I see that after seven years of suffering thousands of rockets, terrorizing our civilian population around the Gaza Strip, Israel had the right and the duty to respond. ... Goldstone's report is biased, distorted, and totally unexplainable in my judgment, and it even encourages terror."
Barak declined to comment on the assassination of a top Hamas official in Dubai last month that many are blaming on Israel's external intelligence service, Mossad.
But he did talk about an undercover mission he took part in back in 1973 when he dressed up as a woman. That mission ended with the killing of three high-ranking Palestinian Liberation Organization men in Beirut.
"I never killed Palestinians per se," he said. "I killed terrorists who were directly responsible for the killing - indiscriminate killing - of civilians."
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
Christiane is on the set right now and just about to start her interviewing of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak:
Israeli leader says Iran won't bomb Israel but will disrupt Middle East
By Senior Producer Charley Keyes
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that Iran's nuclear program is not just a danger not just for Israel.
"Iran is not just a challenge for Israel. I believe it is a challenge for the whole world," Barak said in a Washington speech. "I can hardly think of a stable world order with a nuclear Iran."
Barak said he doubted whether Iran was crazy enough – he used the Yiddish word "meshugah" which means crazy – to launch a nuclear attack against Israel but warned the impact of a nuclear-armed Iran could endanger the region, disrupt oil supplies and empower Iran's terrorist allies.
Iran official: Clinton 'inconsistent'
By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.
(CNN) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's policy on Iran is "dubious, inconsistent, and naive," one of Iran's most influential officials declared Tuesday.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a member of a powerful political clan in Iran, rejected an assertion by Clinton on Monday that the Revolutionary Guard is supplanting the Iranian government, and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. One of Larijani's brothers is speaker of the Iranian parliament and another is head of Iran's judiciary.
"On the one hand she (Clinton) is worried about democracy in Iran, on the other hand she's offering the most generous military help to states which don't run a single election," Larijani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour just after Clinton had completed a three-day tour of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf.
Larijani said the Revolutionary Guard, which has extensive business interests in Iran, is answerable to legal structures of the state.
Defector: Violence threatens Iran unity
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/15/irandef.jpg caption="Iran's former consul-general, Mohammed Reza Heydari, in Oslo, Norway, has applied for asylum there."]
By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.
As Iran marked the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, a high-ranking Iranian defector warned that the national unity of Iran could be threatened if the government steps up its campaign of violence against opposition groups.
"If they (Iranian officials) move in the direction of violence, they will not be able to control the system and we might move in the direction in which Iran's unity then might be compromised all together," Mohammed Reza Heydari, Iran's former consul-general in Oslo, Norway, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
Heydari, who defected after violent confrontations in Iran on the Shiite Muslim holy day of Ashura in late December, has applied for political asylum in Norway. He said that he hopes the strikes, civil disobedience, and non-violent protests in his homeland will "break the back" of the government and force it to listen to what the people say.
"The cause (of) bringing the message, bringing different groups together, is starting a referendum to have free elections in Iran so all these groups can stand together and bring about a democratic government to meet the demands of all religious and ethnic minorities as well," he said.
Heydari's comments came as the Iranian government deployed thousands of police and Basij militiamen in Tehran and other cities to prevent anti-government protests during anniversary celebrations of the Islamic Revolution.
Eyewitnesses said Iranian security forces quickly broke up any opposition protests, though CNN could not independently confirm the reports.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people attended a pro-government rally in Tehran and heard President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declare that Iran is now a "nuclear nation" and has already produced its first batch of 20-percent enriched uranium.
Heydari told Amanpour that the divisions in Iran are reflected in his country's embassy in Oslo. "There's chaos ... The diplomatic corps and the intelligence corps are split at our embassies right now," he said.
He insisted the anti-government protests are not influenced by foreign governments, a charge that Tehran frequently levels at countries including the United States and the United Kingdom.
"The government is saying these things as a way to sort of scatter the thoughts to create an imaginary enemy, to connect what is happening to the West - whereas this is an in-born Iranian issue and has to do with the way the Iranian government has treated its people," he said.
Heydari said he defected because of the government's crackdown on protesters during Ashura - one of Islam's holiest days.
He said a government delegation had tried to persuade him to return to Tehran. "They contacted me and made some proposals so that I would return to Iran - and when I returned ... to have an interview and deny my resignation." He added the delegation also wanted him to condemn the West, but he refused to go back.
Meanwhile, Former White House national security aide Gary Sick, who was the Carter administration's point man on Iran during the revolution, told Amanpour the Iranian regime is getting better at cracking down on the opposition.
"Repression does work. And they are much more organized in terms of keeping things quiet and keeping the opposition down than they were before," he said.
"As they've done that, however, the price that they pay for it is that the demands of the opposition go up."
Sick said the government's short-term success in beating down the opposition may not work in the long term.
"The short-term goals of repression and holding things down oppose the long-term goals, which would be really long-term legitimacy and support - and basically they're losing that all the time," he said.
Sick noted that many of the people who were closest to Iran's former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, have now joined the reform movement.
"They are all on the side of change, and they all believe that the revolution has not, in fact, met its goals, that it has cheated the people in terms of what it promised and what it actually delivered," he added.
Sick said the best way the West can help reformists in Iran is to make it much easier for Iranians to keep the Internet open and functioning.
"If they had a way of getting news out and to actually say what they wanted to say freely on the Internet anonymously, you would have a flood of information coming out of Iran that would be really valuable," he said.
Iranian official: Window for nuclear negotiations still open
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/08/iraniaea.jpg caption="Iran's Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh."]
By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.
(CNN) - Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Monday that the window for nuclear negotiations is still open - even as tensions rise over Iran's decision to defy the world on uranium enrichment.
Referring to the possibility of new international sanctions against his country, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh told CNN's Christiane Amanpour, "If they (other countries) come to the conclusion that they had better have a cooperative environment or approach rather than the language of threat, and they are ready to come to the negotiating table, our proposal is still on the table."
But he said the new enrichment program, at the Natanz plant, would begin Tuesday.
"As (of) tomorrow, the steps will start in fact under the full scope,
safeguards, and the supervision of the (IAEA) inspectors." Soltanieh's interview with CNN came hours after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent, compared to 3.5 percent now - a step the U.S. National Research Council says is the threshold for uranium capable of setting off a nuclear reaction. The U.S. and other countries immediately condemned Iran's announcement, saying it means sanctions against Tehran are much more likely.
Many world powers say Iran is on a path towards making nuclear weapons. Iran, though, insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran has defied repeated United Nations resolutions and three rounds of previous sanctions designed to persuade it to freeze uranium enrichment.
Iran Jail Deaths:
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/17/irandr.jpg caption=""]
In Iran there has been a major development stemming from allegations of torture and death at a notorious prison.
In the protests that followed June’s disputed election. Iranian security forces detained thousands of people.
Now the Iranian parliament has issued a scathing report on the Kahrizak detention center.
An Iranian parliamentary committee has publicly blamed Tehran’s reviled prosecutor general Saeed Mortazavi – an ally of President Ahmadinejad – for the deaths of several men there.
And there are calls by conservative members of parliament for more such investigations – CNN's Ivan Watson has the details and after his video be sure to scroll down and watch a discussion about the deaths with Iranian professor Mohammad Marandi:
We asked anyone from the Iranian government to come on this program. We also asked prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and Abdol-Hussein Ruholomeini - father of the protestor killed at Kahrizak. They all declined.
But we did speak to Mohammad Marandi, professor of North American studies at the University of Tehran about the significance of parliament censuring Mortezavi, the Prosecutor General:
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