Iran
Israeli intelligence estimates, backed by academic studies, have cast doubt on the widespread assumption that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would set off a catastrophic set of events like a regional conflagration, widespread acts of terrorism and sky-high oil prices. – New York Times
Iran’s president attacked Western powers for sanctions against Iran but offered no clear indication on whether his country would return to negotiations on its nuclear program, in his first public remarks since the European Union agreed to ban Iranian oil imports. – Wall Street Journal
Foreign policy analysts say an escalation of President Obamas hard-line approach toward Iran is heightening anxiety over the prospect of a military clash, as the U.S. and Europe impose tougher sanctions on the Islamic regime to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program. – Washington Times
The current U.S.-led push to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions through steadily increasing economic and diplomatic pressure is beginning to show results and it would be “premature” to resort to military force, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on Thursday. – National Journal
Iran’s foreign ministry says 11 Iranian pilgrims have been kidnapped by an unknown group in Syria, which has been swept by civil unrest. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The risk of conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme is debated every year at Davos, but the assembled experts and politicians now seem to be taking the prospect of war considerably more seriously. – Financial Times
A law to be debated in Iran’s parliament on Sunday could halt exports of oil to the European Union as early as next week, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday. – Reuters
Turkish lender Halkbank will continue to handle customers’ oil payments to Iran as long as they comply with international regulations, the bank’s general manager said in the wake of fresh, unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions. – Reuters
AEI’s Critical Threats Project has produced a capabilities assessment of the time required for Iran to acquire enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon if it proceeds to break out in 2012. It does not assess Iran’s intentions to weaponize or to purse break-out scenarios, but rather focuses entirely on technical feasibility. – AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Syria
Dozens of people were reported killed Thursday as violence raged across Syria, and Arab League officials who are calling on President Bashar Assad to relinquish power prepared to take their case to the United Nations. – Los Angeles Times
In a country roiled by protests and violence, Syria’s capital remains an island of determination to go about life as always. But the country’s 11-month old uprising now is lapping up against Syria’s biggest and most-important city. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Months of unrest, increasing international sanctions and questionable fiscal policies — as Syria lurches toward outright civil warfare — are taking a heavy toll on the nation’s economy. Yet it remains unclear what effect this will have on President Bashar Assad’s grip on power. – Los Angeles Times
A “terrifying massacre” in the restive Syrian city of Homs has killed more than 30 people, including small children, in a barrage of mortar fire and attacks by armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, activists said Friday. – Associated Press
A 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad edged closer to the Syrian capital on Thursday as troops battled rebels in a town just north of Damascus and a provincial governor spoke of negotiating local ceasefires. – Reuters
The Arab League chief and the Qatari prime minister will present an Arab peace plan for Syria to ambassadors in the U.N. Security Council in New York early next week, the council president said on Thursday. – Reuters
Russia will continue to promote its own draft resolution on Syria in the U.N. Security Council, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday. – Reuters
When Arab League observers headed to the suburbs of Damascus Thursday, Syrian security refused to accompany them to most areas, because they are no longer in control there. – Reuters
Shadi Hamid writes: [T]here are a number of reasons why intervention, today, would be premature (Michael Weiss runs through some of them in his excellent article in Foreign Affairs). But it may not be premature in a month or in two. The international community must begin considering a variety of military options — the establishment of “safe zones” seems the most plausible — and determine which enjoys the highest likelihood of causing more good than harm. This is now — after nearly a year of waiting and hoping — the right thing to do. It is also the responsible thing to do. – The Atlantic
Egypt
Egypt banned six American pro-democracy workers from leaving the country, including the son of a U.S. cabinet secretary, as relations between the country’s military leaders and their longtime benefactors in Washington plumbed new lows. – Wall Street Journal
Charles Dunne writes: Whether the United States can succeed in effecting such an important policy shift in Egypt is unclear; whether it will even wish to take on such a task is too. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: the longer the crisis inflicted on civil society in Egypt drags on, the likelier the rollback of democratic transition will become. – Freedom at Issue
Paul Wolfowitz writes: Three years ago, when President Obama spoke at Cairo University, he was applauded for the mere announcement that he would discuss democracy and women’s rights, the only two of seven issues to be so welcomed. Even people who are critical of the United States often aspire to the values that we stand for. At a time when so much is in flux in the Arab world, it is important for the United States to speak up strongly in support of democracy, religious freedom, women’s rights, and the rule of law. – The Enterprise Blog
Libya
Despite repeated pledges by Libya’s transitional government to find jobs for the rebel fighters who forced Moammar Gaddafi from power, tens of thousands of them are still operating in armed militia groups, patrolling streets and guarding buildings in Tripoli and other cities. – Washington Post
Torture and death in detention have become widespread problems in postwar Libya, international humanitarian groups said Thursday, a troubling indication that some Qaddafi-era abuses continue under the fractured rule of the country’s interim government and regionally organized militias. – New York Times
The Libyan civil war may have given militant groups in Africa’s Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released on Thursday. – Reuters
Yemen
At least 22 people were killed in clashes between Shi’ite Muslim rebels and fighters from a Sunni Islamist group in a province under rebel control in rugged northern Yemen, tribal sources said on Thursday. – Reuters
Bahrain
A spate of deaths in Bahrain is coinciding with the use of increasingly violent tactics by pro-democracy demonstrators, threatening to destabilise the Gulf state ahead of the February 14 anniversary of the uprising. – Financial Times
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday that a man detained by police over “acts of sabotage” died in hospital while in custody, without elaborating on the cause of death. – Reuters
Tunisia
Enrolment at [Tunisian] English-language schools is up considerably, educators say. English-language blogs and news websites, such as Tunisia-live.net, have proliferated. The new foreign minister insists on speaking English or Arabic, not French, in public. – Financial Times
Iraq
A suicide bomber in a car packed with explosives attacked a funeral procession in a Shiite neighborhood on Friday, the latest in a wave of attacks on Shiites across Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops last month. – New York Times
The United States has warned Iraq not to “blow this opportunity” to become a prosperous, unified nation, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday, saying it must start to act like a democracy and embrace compromise. – Reuters
Iraq will take legal action to ensure justice for the families of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in a U.S. raid in Hadithah seven years ago, a government spokesman said Thursday, after the lone Marine convicted in the killings reached a deal to escape jail time. – Associated Press
Israel
Diplomatic efforts were underway Thursday to try to rescue foundering Jordanian-sponsored talks between Israel and the Palestinians on borders and security, a day after a fifth round of discussions this month ended with no movement toward resuming formal negotiations. – Washington Post
Israel has taken another step toward fielding a four-layered missile defense with Boeing joining Israel Aerospace Industries in developing the Arrow-3, an upper-tier anti-ballistic missile system. – Aviation Week
[L]earning the native tongue of the Arabian Peninsula has gained a small boost lately among one group of Israelis as a needed weapon in the latest battleground between their nation and its enemies: the Web. – LA Times’ World Now
Religious zealots living in a rogue settlement on a wind-swept West Bank hilltop are defying the Israeli government’s plans to evict them, setting up a showdown that has threatened to rip the ruling coalition apart. – Associated Press
Israel has presented Palestinians with its ideas for the borders and security arrangements of a future Palestinian state, in a bid to keep exploratory talks alive, Palestinian and Israeli sources said on Friday. – Reuters
Turkey
Turkey’s economy may have made giant leaps forward in 2011, but press freedoms appeared to take a significant step back. Scores of arrests and high-profile firings have fanned a growing international outcry that media freedoms here have been heavily compromised. – WSJ’s Emerging Europe
Sudan
A coalition of human rights groups conceived by actor George Clooney warns that new satellite photos show grave signs that the Sudanese government is gearing up to attack the Nuba people in the country’s South Kordofan state. – LA Times’ World Now
Sudan has sold at least one cargo of crude seized from South Sudan at millions of dollars discount and is offering more, industry sources said, as Khartoum looks to recover oil revenue from its former civil war foe. – Reuters
Sudan will treat South Sudanese as foreigners from April, state media said Thursday, adding to uncertainty over the fate of 700,000 southerners living in the north six months after independence. – Reuters
Senior Afghan peace negotiators believe the Taliban are willing to significantly soften past hardline ideologies, with its leaders already laying the ground for possible peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar. – Reuters
NATO’s chief on Jan. 26 called on allies to remain committed to the security transition in Afghanistan after France threatened to pull out early following last week’s killing of four French soldiers. – AFP
A suicide attacker detonated a car laden with powerful explosives Thursday in southern Afghanistan, killing four Afghan civilians and wounding 31 other people, including three British aid workers, officials said. – Associated Press
Josh Rogin reports: The State Department will soon begin reducing its presence in Afghanistan and consolidating its people into only a few locations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told State Department employees today. – The Cable
Pakistan
Unidentified assailants rained rockets on Pakistan’s elite military academy on Friday morning, in an unusual burst of violence near the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed last May. – New York Times
Two months into Pakistan’s blockade on NATO supplies crossing into Afghanistan, thousands of trucks are crowding the port in Karachi where drivers, fed up with waiting, are starting to desert. – AFP
China
China has jailed two Muslim Uighurs deported from Cambodia for life, Radio Free Asia reported on Friday, showing no sign of loosening its grip on far-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region which holds rich deposits of oil and gas. – Reuters
Mike McConnell, Michael Chertoff, and William Lynn write: China has a massive, inexpensive work force ravenous for economic growth. It is much more efficient for the Chinese to steal innovations and intellectual property—the source code of advanced economies—than to incur the cost and time of creating their own. They turn those stolen ideas directly into production, creating products faster and cheaper than the U.S. and others. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Minxin Pei writes: As China gains on the world’s most advanced economies, the country excites fascination as well as fear — particularly in the United States, where many worry that China will supplant America as the 21st century’s superpower. Many ask how China has grown so much so fast, whether the Communist Party can stay in power and what Beijing’s expanding global influence means for the rest of us. But to understand China’s new role on the world stage, it helps to rethink several misconceptions that dominate Western thinking. – Washington Post
India
India has unveiled its latest nuclear-capable strategic missile in front of the country’s leadership and thousands of civilians at the annual Republic Day parade. – Financial Times
Southeast Asia
The United States and the Philippines are exploring increased joint military exercises and other military cooperation that would not entail a major buildup or a reopening of permanent bases, officials in both capitals said Thursday. – New York Times
The Philippines is considering a U.S. proposal to deploy surveillance aircraft on a temporary, rotating basis to enhance its ability to guard disputed areas in the South China Sea, the Philippine defense minister said on Friday. – Reuters
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said he isn’t worried about state prosecutors’ move to appeal a court decision acquitting him of sodomy earlier this month, and said he remains confident it won’t derail his campaign to lead a new government to power in elections expected later this year. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Myanmar must liberalise its foreign exchange controls or it will struggle to carry through economic reforms, one of the country’s central bank directors has warned. – Financial Times
Derided as a well-choreographed sham in one of the world’s most authoritarian countries when it opened a year ago, Myanmar’s parliament began a third session on Thursday with feisty stirrings of democracy, under pressure to accelerate economic and political reforms that could soon convince the West to lift decades-old sanctions. – Reuters
New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue. Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. Its Chinese owner regards it as a “second homeland”; others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost. – Reuters
Central Asia
The mystery over why the brother of a prominent Uzbek opposition figure was not released from prison as scheduled has been solved — he is serving an additional five-year term. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Yerzhan Kazykhanov, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister, writes: Kazakhstan has the will and the wherewithal to make places like Zhanaozen into model cities. What we need is a world community that understands that change does not happen overnight. – Foreign Policy
Russia/Europe
Russian election authorities have formally disqualified Grigory Yavlinsky from running in the March 4 presidential election. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Russia continues to increase its defense expenditures to modernize military capabilities. Money in the growing budget is being spent to reshape the national military, which is being transformed into a smaller but more effective and better-equipped force. – Aviation Week
Leon Aron writes: At a time when deep and widening cracks are becoming visible in the icy carapace in which Putinism has enveloped Russian politics, the citizenship ethos spread by the movements we studied, and dozens like them throughout Russia, could provide the moral foundation for Russia’s second breakthrough into democratic modernity in the past twenty years. It is far from a coincidence, then, that one of the most passionate advocates of democratic citizenship among our respondents, the thirty-four year old Evgenia Chirikova, has emerged as a leader of the unfolding protest movement, which deserves to be called Russian Spring even if it was born in December. – American Enterprise Institute
Americas
If you are a United Nations diplomat missing 30 pounds of cocaine, it is now in the hands of the New York Police Department. – New York Times
Strange bedfellows on Capitol Hill, ranging from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.), are joining forces to change controversial detainee language that was signed into law by President Obama last month. – DEFCON Hill
Mexico
With the Iraq war over and the American presence waning in Afghanistan, U.S. security contractors are looking for new prospects in Mexico, where spreading criminal violence has created a growing demand for battle-ready professionals. – Washington Post
Eight men were executed and left on the street early Thursday in downtown Monterrey, in the latest outburst of violence to buffet the industrial northern city. – LA Times’ World Now
Guatemala
Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemala’s former military dictator, was ordered by a Guatemalan judge on Thursday to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity leveled at him. He is accused of orchestrating the razing of Indian villages decades ago during the country’s long civil war. – New York Times
Africa
Somalia
A group holding an American hostage in Somalia moved him at least three times in the day since Navy SEALs rescued an American and a Dane and killed their nine kidnappers, pirates said Thursday. The abductors said they would kill the hostage if they are attacked. – Associated Press
Nigeria
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan challenged the violent Islamist Boko Haram sect on Thursday to identify themselves and state clearly their demands as a basis for talks, while acknowledging that military confrontation alone will not end their insurgency. – Reuters
Kenya
Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s richest man and a presidential aspirant, resigned Thursday as finance minister of East Africa’s largest economy, four days after the International Criminal Court charged him with inciting political violence following the country’s 2007 elections. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
