Iran
Iran’s top atomic energy official said in an article published Thursday that because of foreign espionage, his government had sometimes provided false information to protect its nuclear program, which Western powers and Israel have called a cloak to develop a nuclear weapons capacity. – New York Times
On the surface, the U.S. Navy’s much-ballyhooed, multinational countermine exercise underway this week in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz might seem like a bit of overcompensation. But, under the bluster, defense analysts believe the Iranian mine threat is incredibly real, lethal, and, to a degree, still murky. – The E-Ring
North Korea and Iran appear to be increasing their dealings in nuclear technology and missiles with each other under a breakthrough agreement reached between the two nations in Tehran three weeks ago. – Christian Science Monitor
Western members of the U.N. Security Council blasted Iran on Thursday for providing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with weapons to help him crush an 18-month-long uprising by rebels determined to topple his government. – Reuters
The admiral in charge of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet on Thursday defended the large American-led naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and other strategic Mideast waterways as a way to ensure stability and security in the region, rebutting Iran’s concerns about what it sees as foreign military meddling. – Associated Press
More than 300 Christians have been arrested since mid-2010 in Iran where churches operate in a climate of fear and Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution, United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday. – Reuters
Syria
A coalition including the United States, the European Union and the Arab League met Thursday to plot new ways of isolating the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as a Syrian opposition leader warned sanctions alone will not bring down the regime. – Associated Press
At least 54 people were killed when a jet fighter blew up a fuel station amid heavy fighting between government and rebel forces in northern Syria on Thursday, a British-based monitoring group said. – Reuters
Editorial: Some administration officials dismiss the Iranian effort as futile support for a lost cause. But Iranian backing for the regime, matched against Western passivity, could keep Mr. Assad in power indefinitely…If it continues its present policy, the United States will go on watching from the sidelines as the future of the Levant is decided. – Washington Post
Libya
The White House is now calling the assault on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, a “terrorist attack.” – New York Times
The deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya on Sept. 11 was preceded by a succession of security lapses and misjudgments, compounded by fog-of-battle decisions, that raise questions about whether the scope of the tragedy could have been contained. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Interviews with Libyan witnesses and American officials provide new details on the assault on American diplomatic facilities and the initial moblike attack, set off by a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad, that transformed into what the Obama administration now, after initial hesitation, describes as a terrorist attack. – New York Times
The State Department is opening a new inquiry into the attack on a diplomatic post in Libya that killed four Americans, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday. – Washington Post
President Obama said on Thursday that extremists in Libya used an anti-Muslim film “as an excuse” to see if they can “also harm” U.S. interests overseas. – The Hill
U.S. authorities are investigating possible collusion between militants who launched a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya and locally hired Libyan personnel guarding the facility, three U.S. officials said. – Reuters
Libya apologized on Thursday to visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. – Reuters
The head of a committee tasked with finding posts for militia fighters in the police in eastern Libya said on Thursday he had quit, becoming the third senior security figure sidelined a week after a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate In Benghazi. – Reuters
Libya’s newly-elected leader will join Egypt’s president and the U.N. secretary-general for the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York City. – Associated Press
A deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi could further delay the already-slow return of expatriate workers to Libya, threatening the OPEC producer’s future plans to boost output. – Reuters
Josh Rogin reports: Several high-level GOP senators emerged from Thursday afternoon’s classified briefing with top administration officials incensed that Obama team had offered them no new information and answered none of their questions about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans. – The Cable
Rogin also reports: Prior to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the State Department and the Marines Corps had been discussing deploying Marines to guard the U.S. Embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli “sometime in the next five years,” according to the Marine Corps. – The Cable
North Africa
Tunisia’s new government, led by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, has pledged to demonstrate that the country’s traditionally tolerant brand of Islam is compatible with Western-style democracy. But it has also struggled to balance the interests of pious Muslims relishing newfound religious freedoms, secular Tunisians who are spooked by Islamists and the United States, which provides crucial economic assistance. – Washington Post
Muslims angered by cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad should follow his example of enduring insults without retaliating, Egypt’s highest Islamic legal official said on Thursday. – Reuters
No sooner had Egyptian authorities painted over a wall of revolutionary graffiti near Tahrir Square this week than the street artists were back with spray cans and a new target: President Mohamed Mursi. – Reuters
United Arab Emirates
Islamists detained in the United Arab Emirates have confessed to setting up a secret organization with an armed force whose aim was to take power and establish an Islamic state, local media reported on Thursday. – Reuters
Iraq
Iraq has denied permission to a North Korean plane bound for Syria to pass through Iraqi airspace on Saturday because it suspects it could be carrying weapons, a senior official said on Friday. – Reuters
Editorial: President Obama keeps using his campaign catchphrase that the “tide of war is receding,” but the real receding tide is in U.S. power and influence. Our growing irrelevance to the region comes with costs that are growing and that are likely to draw us back in later at a much higher price. – Wall Street Journal
Israel
One year after the Palestinians’ high-profile failure to win United Nations membership through the Security Council, they are returning to the General Assembly next week seeking largely symbolic “nonmember state” status, with a subdued campaign that many analysts see as a long-shot effort to win back the waning attention of the world. – New York Times
Fueled by Israel’s construction of the separation wall here and a rush of Arabs back to eastern Jerusalem, a population boom in the Muslim Quarter is turning this corner of the Old City into what residents say has become a large slum. – Los Angeles Times
Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has cancelled a September 22-25 trip to the United States where he was due to attend a U.N. General Assembly meeting, a source in his office said, citing an upcoming party congress and heavy work schedule. – Reuters
Afghanistan
More than a week ahead of schedule, the American military says it has completed what it called the “recovery,” meaning withdrawal, of the 33,000 surge troops it had sent to Afghanistan by the fall of 2010. – New York Times
President Obama and the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, had what an American official called a “serious and positive” discussion on Wednesday night that the Afghans confirmed had made progress toward resolving an increasingly acrimonious dispute over detaining terrorism suspects, which had their two governments and their militaries at loggerheads for weeks. – New York Times
Andar’s band of fighters…are hard to distinguish from the Taliban. Until a few months ago, many were Taliban. But now, they may be America’s best hope for a decisive blow to the Taliban, especially as relations with President Hamid Karzai’s administration deteriorate and a spate of insider killings led to an end, this week, to most joint operations between U.S. and Afghan forces. – Wall Street Journal
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday said a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan “would be the wost possible course of action.” – DEFCON Hill
A bipartisan group of lawmakers called anew Thursday for the end of the Afghanistan war, citing the recent rash of incidents in which U.S. forces have been killed by Afghan troops as evidence that the war has no hope of succeeding. – Military Times
A series of “insider attacks” against U.S. and allied troops by Afghan forces are an attempt by the Taliban to drive a wedge between coalition and Afghan troops, a senior officer said Wednesday. But he said that while Western troops are now warier of Afghan partners, they are determined to avoid a full breakdown in trust. – Associated Press
Redrafted mining laws that Afghan officials and Western donors hope will persuade foreign firms to invest in the country’s resource wealth will be submitted to the government for review within a fortnight, a government spokesman said on Thursday. – Reuters
Afghanistan’s foreign minister warned the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that its ties with Pakistan were being threatened by Pakistani shelling across the two countries’ mountainous border that has killed dozens of Afghan civilians. – Reuters
Pakistan
A television station employee was shot dead on Friday in the northwestern city of Peshawar as violent crowds filled the streets of several cities on a day of government-sanctioned protests against an American anti-Islam film. – New York Times
Protesters tried to break into a guarded enclave that houses the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan’s capital, in the largest show of anger against an anti-Islam video during a day that saw smaller demonstrations in Indonesia, Iran and Afghanistan. – Wall Street Journal
The United Nations on Thursday stepped up pressure on Pakistan over the fate of hundreds of people who have disappeared into the illegal custody of the country’s powerful intelligence and law enforcement agencies over the last decade. – New York Times
Trying to blunt street protests surrounding a video that mocks the prophet Muhammad, the Obama administration paid $70,000 to buy ads on Pakistani television disavowing the video, the State Department said Thursday. – Washington Post
Pakistan’s foreign minister revealed Thursday that her country would soon hold confidential talks with the United States and Afghanistan to improve a three-way counterterrorism relationship beset by misunderstandings, including one over the Pakistan-based Haqqani network that Washington considers the greatest threat to Afghan stability. But she refused to say whether her government was ready to take any action against the militants. – Associated Press
India
Protests against India’s pro-business overhauls intensified Thursday with a nationwide strike, but the Congress party-led government appeared to gather sufficient political support to avoid being forced from office. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Editorial: Officials are bound to abuse their power when given the responsibility to shield society from dangerous speech. India still has checks to reverse the most egregious cases, but the lesson is that speech restrictions always mean someone—either a religious mob or an unscrupulous politician—is hijacking the democratic conversation. The U.S. and other democracies should consider India’s failures a warning before they, too, sacrifice freedoms for the goal of harmony. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Sadanand Dhume writes: Under the circumstances, instead of backing off the Prime Minister should double down by pushing bigger reforms and making a case that he’s doing this to revive growth and unleash Indians’ entrepreneurial energies. His party’s best bet of bucking defeat lies in returning the economy to the near double-digit growth it saw over the last decade. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Richard Fontaine and Daniel Twining write: The short-run challenges to Indian power and progress in the relationship are daunting, and realism about the pace of both is in order. But the pursuit of a closer partnership with India has always represented a rarity in U.S. foreign policy: a long-term calculation of strategic interest, rooted in a foundation of shared values. The logic underlying U.S.-India relations remains sound. – Washington Post
China
The tense exchange [between Presidents Obama and Hu in Seoul], Mr. Bader and other officials said, was a turning point in the president’s complex relationship with China, a journey that began with hope and accommodation but fell into disillusionment after Beijing started flexing its muscles on trade and military questions and proved to be a truculent partner on a variety of global issues. – New York Times
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said on Thursday that China would continue to help the European Union recover from its economic crisis even as he sternly criticized the bloc for maintaining an embargo on weapons sales to his country. – New York Times
The next iteration of the biannual Rim of the Pacific military exercises could include China’s navy, a move the top U.S. commander in the Pacific said Wednesday is “the right thing to do.” – Military Times
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had a rare first-hand look inside a Chinese naval base Sept. 20, as Washington pushes security dialogue with a country that could rival its power in the Pacific. – AFP
One of China’s most celebrated experiments in grass-roots democracy showed signs of faltering on Friday, as frustrations with elected officials in the southern fishing village of Wukan triggered a small and angry protest. – Reuters
A Chinese court will announce its verdict on a former police chief at the centre of the country’s biggest political scandal in decades on Monday, an official said, with observers in little doubt that he will be found guilty. – Reuters
Mao, widely revered by the Chinese and praised by Communist Party leaders, is supposed to serve as a unifying symbol, but often it isn’t so. To some he represents a condemnation of corruption and inequality under a government that long ago abandoned his radical policies. More frequently this week, his image was a subtle slap by nationalists who accuse leaders of being too weak in the territorial dispute. – Associated Press
Jillian Kay Melchior writes: The 2008 Sichuan earthquake and recovery suggests that natural disasters in China have a strong spiritual impact. Four years afterward, the cities at the epicenter are undergoing a religious revival. Pastors in the worst-hit areas have reported a prolonged spike in Christian conversions—in a country where proselytizing is still illegal. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
East Asia
Japan is in the midst of a gradual but significant shift to the right, acting more confrontationally in the region than at any time since World War II. – Washington Post
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda easily defeated three challengers in a ruling-party election Friday, earning him the right to keep his job at least a little bit longer as Japan contends with a controversial new energy policy and an escalating territorial spat with China. – Washington Post
Neither nation can afford to appear to back down over territorial claims that speak volumes about the countries’ often tortured history since Japan’s brutal invasion of China. But they also cannot ignore their more modern history, in which businesses have brushed past political wariness to build a web of ties in trade and investment that are critical to both economies’ well-being. – New York Times
In the aftermath of nationwide protests, in which mobs trashed Japanese-owned businesses and set fire to Japanese model cars, critics are questioning the degree to which the Chinese government fanned the flames as part of its dispute with Japan over an island chain both nations claim. – Los Angeles Times
The uninhabited islets in the East China Sea at the center of a bitter dispute between China and Japan are “clearly” covered by a 1960 security treaty obliging the United States to come to Japan’s aid if attacked, a top U.S. diplomat said on Thursday. – Reuters
Paul Bonicelli writes: It is the job of the United States to do all it can to prevent any kind of war, whether it be a trade war or an actual military conflict. This is our problem because the consequences of this conflict will impact us greatly, but also because we are party to the myriad territorial settlements and vague understandings of the disposition of the islands in the region after WWII. – Shadow Government
Burma
Discreet talks have been held between US and Myanmar defence officials about prospects for re-establishing training programmes and exchanges with Myanmar’s military. – Financial Times
After months of negotiations and failed promises, a proposed multi-billion dollar Myanmar port and special economic zone that could transform Southeast Asian trade appears back on track. – Reuters
Mary Kissel writes: Throughout his term, President Obama has been reluctant to offer the same kind of vigorous, public support to human-rights champions and democracy advocates. Which raises an important question: What is he so afraid of? – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Southeast Asia
A political outsider defeated the incumbent governor in an election to run Indonesia’s sprawling capital on Thursday, exit polls showed—and the victor now faces an electorate tired of waiting for Jakarta’s problems to be fixed. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping sought to reassure Southeast Asian leaders on Friday that his country wanted only peaceful relations with them, following months of growing tensions over the strategically located South China Sea. – Reuters
The United States is to sell eight Apache helicopters to Indonesia in a sign of strengthening ties aimed at boosting regional security, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sept. 20. – AFP
New Zealand
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta arrived in this South Pacific island nation Friday, becoming the first Pentagon chief to visit here in three decades, an absence prompted by a breakdown in ties after New Zealand prohibited American nuclear warships from its territorial waters. – New York Times
Kyrgyzstan
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Sept. 20 to a deal with Kyrgyzstan that will allow Russia to keep a military base in the country until 2032 as Moscow and Washington jostle for influence in the region. – AFP
Russia
[T[he four and a half months since left the presidency have brought a pointed departure from the course he set. The words “reset” or “modernization” are seldom mentioned, privatization of state-owned companies is in doubt and the direct gubernatorial elections Mr. Medvedev reinstated as a parting gesture have been weakened by the insertion of a Kremlin-controlled screening process for the candidates. – New York Times
Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Thursday called for the release of three female members of a Russian punk rock band jailed for interrupting a ceremony inside a Moscow cathedral to protest President Vladimir Putin. – Washington Times
The expulsion of firebrand opposition lawmaker Gennady Gudkov from the State Duma was supposed to set an example for other potential troublemakers. But instead, it appears to have set a precedent that could spell trouble for the ruling United Russia party. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Dmitry Medvedev has launched an attack on the power base of his main rival, energy tsar Igor Sechin, as the prime minister moved to defend his government against a hail of criticism from Russia’s president. – Financial Times
The United States said on Thursday it has asked Russia for more time to end the U.S. Agency for International Development’s work in the country after Russian authorities gave them until October 1 to close the operation. – Reuters
Europe
A slow-moving effort to hold an inquest into the poisoning death of a Russian whistle-blower, Alexander V. Litvinenko, moved ahead on Thursday in London, with the British authorities insisting in a preliminary hearing that possible contacts between him and the British secret intelligence service MI6 should not be disclosed. – New York Times
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski warned Ukraine on Thursday that its European integration depended on the transparency of October’s parliamentary election and the fate of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. – Reuters
Poland has many reasons for wanting Belarus to embrace democracy, but it largely comes down to this: When Poland looks east, it sees its own past. – Associated Press
NATO
Last year’s Libya campaign revealed painful shortfalls in NATO, including intelligence sharing so molasses-slow that French pilots gave up on waiting for target data from US Predator drones. That’s something the allies are anxious to correct. – AOL Defense
United States of America
Josh Rogin reports: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was all set to get his full Senate vote today on his bill to cut all U.S. aid to Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan; and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was set to get a vote on his resolution to establish the sense of the Senate that containment of a nuclear Iran is not an option for U.S. policy. But the entire deal was derailed by a last-minute effort by Senate leaders to add a new bill to the agreement, a “Sportsman Act” sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who is up for re-election. – The Cable
East Africa
Suicide bombers set off at least two explosions at a popular restaurant in Mogadishu late Thursday, killing about 15 people including journalists and two police officers, authorities said. – LA Times’ World Now
Sudan hopes to reach a broad agreement with South Sudan to end all hostilities at a presidents’ summit in Ethiopia at the weekend, officials said on Thursday, despite new fighting between the army and rebels in Sudan’s borderlands. – Reuters
Josh Rogin reports: Lawmakers and Africa hands rallied Thursday behind President Barack Obama’s decision to nominate Robert Godec to be the next U.S. ambassador to Kenya. – The Cable
