DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: MIDDLE EAST
SUBSECTION: IRAN
Revised 8/15/99

 

IRAN

 

Fox News AP 8/5/98 ".State-run Tehran radio, in a commentary reflecting calls in Iranian media for a strike against the Taleban, said Iran had the right under international law to take all necessary action against the ruling purist Islamic militia. Iran accuses the Taleban of holding scores of Iranians, including at least 11 diplomats and a journalist who have not been seen since militia fighters captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, headquarters of the northern opposition alliance, on August 8. Iran last week issued a stern warning to the Taleban after the Islamic militia's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said the diplomats were "probably dead.'' Tehran has also asked the United Nations to investigate the men's fate.."

Secretary of State Albright says that Iran probably has nuclear weapons.

Downplaying of transfer of missile technology to Iran (Russia etc.)

Russia-Iran/Strobe Talbot/Wisner-Koptev/AIG

China (MFN) v Sales of Nerve Gas chemicals to Iran

According the 6/98 reports from Ken Bacon at the Pentagon, North Korea's No Dong missile is operational and has a range of about 1,000 kilometers. Pakistan and the DPRK had ballistic missile contracts, engineers and advisors from both countries worked on Iranian missile programs.

The Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, but Clinton vetoed legislation to implement it because it was attached to a bill he opposed, the sanctions on companies that provide ballistic missile equipment to Iran.

Washington Times 9/1/98 William Bennet, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick ". Several countries will be capable of producing a nuclear missile within five years. A little more that a a month ago, reflecting a clear intelligence breakdown, Iran tested a missile capable of traveling 800 miles - far enough to reach Israel. And during the last two weeks, we've learned of possible nuclear weapons advances in North Korea. "

Charles Aldinger Reuters 9/2/98 "The United States faces staggering costs in developing its lagging defense against missiles such as those tested recently by North Korea and Iran, a top Air Force general said Wednesday. ``We are going to have a huge, huge bill in the future for missile defense,'' Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles said, telling reporters of the tens of billions of dollars needed to perhaps eventually assure U.S. ability to shoot down ballistic missiles in flight..The United States is currently pursuing a number of missile defense options but has virtually no effective defense against medium- or longer-range missiles. ``They are all very worried,'' Lyles said in response to questions about the concerns of U.S. military commanders around the world.."

Washington Post 9/27/98 Bill Miller John Mintz "When the parents of Alisa M. Flatow, a Brandeis University junior killed in a suicide bombing of an Israeli bus in 1995, sued the Iranian government in her death, the United States government was a strong ally that declassified intelligence information that helped win the case. But now that the Flatows are trying to collect a $247.5 million judgment by the court against Iran, they say the U.S. government is on the other side. Officials are working vigorously to block the New Jersey family's efforts to seize the embassy of Iran and three other properties once occupied by its diplomats in Washington. The award in the Flatow case has left the U.S. government in a painful dilemma. At the time that the Clinton administration has publicly declared war on global terrorism after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, federal agencies are rushing into court to preserve the real estate holdings of a regime that the State Department has identified as the prime state sponsor of terrorism.."

Aviation Week & Space Technology ".These startling events all occurred within a month of the Rumsfeld Commission's unanimous assessment of emerging missile threats to the U.S. The findings of this bipartisan panel of experts constituted probably the strongest rebuke to date of the Administration's 1995 National Intelligence Estimate, a fundamentally flawed document that missile defense opponents continue to cite as the basis for continued inaction. The commission, in essence, stated that within as little as five years Iran and North Korea will be capable of developing missiles that can strike American cities, an assessment that even now may be optimistic, considering North Korea's most recent missile test. The panel also criticized the U.S. intelligence community, saying our ability to monitor and predict the threat is eroding and the U.S. may have little or no warning before rogue nations have deployed missiles capable of hitting the country. Despite these ominous developments during the past few months, President Clinton and his allies in the Senate continue to block congressional efforts to move forward with timely deployment of defensive systems to protect Americans. Instead, the Administration, in a vain attempt to deflect congressional and public criticism, points to its so-called "3 Plus 3" program as evidence of its commitment to deploying a national missile defense system.."

AFP 12/25/98 Tehran ".Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the United States on Friday for exercising a world "dictatorship" and ruled out any normalisation of relations with Iran's longtime enemy. "The United States exercise their dictatorship throughout the world and want to be the sole master of the planet," he told several thousand worshippers at weekly Moslem prayers at Tehran University. The United States had shown "persistent hostility towards the Islamic revolution and the foundations it is built on," he said..."As long as the people stay with Islam, they will not find agreement with the United States," he said, adding that Iranians remained faithful to the revolution and its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini..."

The American Spectator 1/99 Kenneth Timmerman ".The commission concluded that among the rogue states, Iran was the furthest along, and could develop an ICBM capable of reaching U.S. targets "in an arc extending northeast of a line from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to St. Paul, Minnesota," within five years of a decision to build such a missile."."

AP 2/7/99 Freeper ohmlaw98 ".Iran's defense minister said Sunday that the long-range Shahab- 4 rocket now in development would be used to carry satellites into space - not for military purposes.....In July, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Martin Indyk called the Shahab-4 a greater threat than its predecessor. He said it could be deployed in two to five years and pledged that the United States would increase its efforts to curb the transfer of technology Iran needs for its development......"

7/15/98 AP Laura Myers "A ballistic missile attack against targets in the United States could be mounted with "little or no warning,'' a bipartisan commission concluded in a report that challenges previous intelligence estimates. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a strong proponent of a national missile defense system, called the assessment released Wednesday "the most important warning about our national security system since the end of the Cold War.''."The major implication of our conclusions is that warning time is reduced,'' said Donald Rumsfeld, former defense secretary and the commission chairman. "Indeed, we see an environment of little or no warning of ballistic missile threats to the U.S. from several emerging powers.'' In 1995, a widely criticized assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that no country other than the five established nuclear powers would be able to threaten U.S. cities with ballistic missiles for another 15 years..The commission said the threat comes from emerging nuclear states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, which can easily gain technology and hide weapons development. China and Russia, also missile threats, were cited as the largest proliferators.In a letter to members of Congress, CIA Director George Tenet called the threat from ballistic missiles "complex, serious and growing'' and agreed with the commission on the "need to focus relentlessly'' on it.."

7/16/98 Washington Post Bradley Graham "Challenging official U.S. intelligence estimates, a congressionally mandated panel reported yesterday that Iran and North Korea could develop weapons capable of striking U.S. territory sooner than government analysts have predicted and with little or no warning. Members of the bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Threat to the United States declined to link their findings to the contentious political debate over whether to deploy a national missile defense system."

7/31/98 The Washington Times Ralph Hallow "The Rumsfeld Commission report found that North Korea, Iran and other countries are hiding their ballistic missile development programs from U.S. satellites. It said these countries are using huge underground laboratories and factories to make and test missiles. Mr. Nicholson, who has been touting a missile shield on radio and in signed opinion columns in newspapers, said Democrats are filibustering a bill that would begin development of such a shield.

Washington Times 12/7/98 Bill Gertz ".China last month delivered a new shipment of missile technology to Iran, prompting an official U.S. protest during a meeting in Beijing, according to U.S. intelligence and national security officials. The transfer included telemetry equipment that could be used in the testing of medium-range missiles, such as Iran's new Shahab-3 missile that was tested for the first time earlier this year. "We raised with the Chinese specific concerns we have about missile cooperation with Iran," a senior administration official told The Washington Times. The official said those specific concerns involved the sale of telemetry equipment...The transfer could violate repeated pledges made by the Beijing government to abide by the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The administration has avoided imposing sanctions on China missile sales to Pakistan that violate U.S. laws aimed at adding teeth to the MTCR agreement. Gen. Xiong, a People's Liberation Army deputy chief of staff, also warned the United States that China would not allow U.S. regional missile-defense systems to provide protection for Taiwan from Chinese missiles, the officials said. He also said that any U.S. sale of missile-defense technology would constitute "missile proliferation" by the United States and would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."

Washington Times 12/8/98 James Anderson ".Last month's elections contained many surprises, including an eyebrow-raising exit poll by Wirthlin Worldwide that suggests missile-defense hawks have overlooked a potentially powerful ally in their cause: soccer moms. The poll asked: "If you knew that countries such as North Korea, Iraq, and Iran may soon acquire missiles capable of reaching the United States, would you want to start building a missile defense system now?" Seventy-five percent of women with children responded that we should "definitely" or "probably" start.."

Wall Street Journal 12/15/98 Carla Anne Robbins Andrew Higgins ".There was nothing secret about Yevgeny Adamov's visit last month to Iran: The Russian nuclear chief took a 20-member delegation of scientists and politicians for a triumphant inspection of Bushehr, the $800 million nuclear- power plant Russia is building on the Persian Gulf coast.According to U.S. intelligence reports, officials from at least two key Russian nuclear-research institutes are quietly negotiating to sell Iran a 40-megawatt heavy-water research reactor and a uranium-conversion facility. While the talks are in an early stage, the reports suggest Russian nuclear scientists are already secretly advising Iran on how to produce heavy water and nuclear-grade graphite. American officials believe the technology and information are building blocks for a long-range Iranian effort to manufacture plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. Perhaps even more extraordinary, the Russian researchers are selling their knowledge for incredibly little: a few hundred thousand dollars so far, according to U.S. officials. That the Russians would take such chances, and especially for such small amounts of cash, is a measure of both the desperation and the arrogance of Russia's once all-powerful Ministry of Atomic Energy, better known as Minatom."

Washington Times 2/3/99 Harry Summers ". Homeland defense has been much in the news lately, as the Clinton administration announced it will add billions to the fiscal year 2000 defense budget for counterterrorism and national missile defense. As The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer commented, "Better late than never,'' for it is axiomatic that a secure base is the essential foundation for both offensive and defensive military operations.. But what made sense during the Cold War has become a dangerous anachronism today when the threat is no longer a massive nuclear exchange but the threat of nuclear attack by rogue states like North Korea or Iran, both of whom are well on the way to developing the capability to do just that. "Right now if an enemy fired just one nuclear missile at Los Angeles or New York,'' wrote Mr. Krauthammer, "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, the United States could do to stop it.'' Finally that's begun to change, with Defense Secretary William Cohen himself repudiating the obsolete ABM treaty. But, as usual with the Clinton administration, it's one step forward and two steps back. President Clinton himself proposed delaying deployment of missile defenses until 2005, long after he is out of office. And his State Department backtracked as well, saying we would deploy only what Russia would agree to under an amended treaty. As Mr. Krauthammer sarcastically asked, "What standing does Russia, of all nations, have to dictate how and whether the United States will defend itself? Russia is the principal supplier to Iran of precisely the missile and nuclear technology that could one day turn New York into Hiroshima."."

AP 2/11/99 ".Until now, Moscow had adamantly denied U.S. accusations that some private Russian companies are getting around government export restrictions and smuggling weapons technology to Iran. But at a government meeting called to review the problem Thursday, Russian Security Council head and presidential chief of staff, Nikolai Bordyuzha, conceded that ``there are still blank spots in this sphere,'' the Interfax news agency reported. ``A number of firms have been independently going to the international market,'' Bordyuzha said.."

Beijing has long said its condition for cutting exports of missile and other military know-how to Pakistan and Iran is that America scale down its delivery of jet fighters and other weaponry to Taiwan. "Jiang will tell Clinton that if Washington wants Beijing's help in the nuclear stand-off, it should first stop arms sales to Taiwan, which, after all, is 'part of China'," according to a diplomat.

June 23, 1998 - President Clinton vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on Russia for selling missile technology to Iran, even though the Pentagon said the missile trade is continuing.

Washington Times via Drudge 11/18/98 Bill Gertz ".Russian missile and nuclear technology is continuing to flow to Iran despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt the trade, according to special U.S. envoy Robert Gallucci. "The dialogue on the ballistic missile issue is a familiar one," Mr. Gallucci said after recent meetings with government officials in Moscow. "We are still concerned about contacts, cooperation and assistance between Russia and Iran, and we are discussing that with them. It is still an issue." Mr. Gallucci said in an interview that during his visit to Moscow two weeks ago he discussed the ongoing missile trade and again tried to dissuade Russia from helping Iran's nuclear program... U.S. intelligence officials said the Russians' high-level visit to Iran is a signal of a new harder line against the United States in Moscow, since it will take place a few weeks after Congress funded the $525 million for the nuclear material program.. U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran is working on nuclear weapons and could develop warheads and bombs in about 10 years. Some administration officials said Iranian missile technicians are still being trained in Russia and that equipment and materials used in building missiles are being shipped from Russia. In July, Iran test- fired its first medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which U.S. intelligence agencies estimate was developed rapidly with Russian help. China also provided missile technology to Iran, they said.."

The Jerusalem Post 1/21/99 Arieh O'Sullivan Douglas Davis "..The Mossad estimates that up to 10,000 Russian experts are assisting Iran's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, according to the newsletter Foreign Report, to be published in London today. The government's dissatisfaction with Moscow's unreadiness to block leaks of weapons technologies to Iran has led to a chill in defense relations between Israel and Russia, defense sources said.."

The Hindu 7/8/98 "The United States has given Chinese companies the green light to sell missile technology to countries like Pakistan and Iran, Mr. Gary Milhollin, a nuclear expert, has testified before a U.S. parliamentary committee.Officials here said the American nuclear expert's testimony confirmed India's concerns of Washington pursuing a policy of duplicity on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.."

Newsday 11/12/98 Charles Hutzler AP ".Washington suspects China may have transferred missile technology to Iran and Pakistan despite Chinese pledges to strengthen missile export controls, a U.S. official said today. U.S. concerns about possible transfers were aired during a day and a half of meetings between senior Chinese and American arms-control negotiators, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Undersecretary of State John Holum, who led the U.S. team, said he and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and senior military commander Gen. Zhang Wannian also discussed North Korea's threatening launch of a rocket over Japan in late August. Suspicions of Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation have been a constant irritant in U.S.-China relations. The potential dangers crystallized this spring with South Asia's nuclear arms race. Within two months, Pakistan, China's staunch ally, tested a ballistic missile and exploded a nuclear bomb.Washington also determined that Pakistan received North Korean, not Chinese, help in developing the Ghauri missile launched in April, he said.."

7/13/98 DAWN "Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said Israel would not dare attack Iran's nuclear installations because it would be made to pay a heavy price, in an interview published here on Sunday.."Israel represents a danger for our national security," Shamkhani told Al-Ittihad newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. "If they want to (attack), let them try because we will retaliate ... and make the aggressor suffer a severe setback," he said .."

The Pioneer 12/20/98 Shubha Singh ".Among the hundreds of cruise missiles that were fired at Iraq on Wednesday night, a couple of them fell in Khorramshahr town in Iran's Khuzestan province. There was some damage to property, but fortunately no resultant casualties in Iran. That is one of the problems of these high-tech weapons, fired from afar, they are not as accurate as their users would want them to be. Fired at Iraq, they land in Iran. Aimed at Afghanistan, they drop down in Pakistan. And then there is what the Americans term collateral damage. The ugly phrase meaning civilian deaths.Bombing Iraq is an abuse of power, in the belief that there can be no retribution. This is the first time that the Security Council has been sidetracked so blatantly. Washington was so quick o send out its missiles that it did not even make the effort of getting support from anyone other than its closest ally, Britain, at the time of the attack. Even the other permanent members of the Security Council, which forms the elite core group, were not consulted.."

The Indian Express 12/22/98 ".TEHRAN: Another stray cruise missile from the U.S.-British strikes against Iraq has been found in Iran, a newspaper reported today. The missile landed in a barren area in the Southwestern border province of Khuzestan, the Jomhuri Islami newspaper reported. Iran, which condemned the four-night strikes that ended on Sunday, had strongly protested the accidental landing of another Iraq-bound missile on its territory last week, reports PTI.."

Islamic Republic News Service (IRNA) 4/14/99 "...the ministry of defense and armed forces logistics spokesman keyvan khosrawi said here on wednesday that the modern surface-to-air missile 'sayyad-1' was successfully test fired on wednesday. khosrawi said the missile, produced completely by the airspace industries organization, affiliated to the defense and armed forces logistics ministry, was named after the late iranian army commander lieutenant general ali sayyad shirazi to appreciate his braveries and devotion...."

ConservativeNews.org 4/21/99 Justin Torres "...Iranian defense officials have privately conceded that China contributed to the development of an Iranian surface-to-air missile, code-named "Sayyad-I," which was successfully tested on April 14, sources have told CNS. According to a diplomatic report out of Iran, a defense ministry official said that the missile's components were built in Iran with Chinese technology. The missiles reportedly can hit a target at an altitude of over 10,000 meters..... A source close to the situation told CNS that Chinese aviation industry minister Zha Yuli was on an official visit to the strategic Iranian town of Qeshm in Bushehr province at the time the missile was fired. The Chinese ambassador to Iran, Wang Shi-jie, also accompanied the minister to the area, according to the source. Chinese officials were not available for comment. A U.S. State Department official, who spoke on the condition their name not be used, told CNS that the United States has "absolutely no evidence" that China had been involved in technology transfers to Iran, or that Chinese officials were present at any Iranian missile launches...."

Global Intelligence Update 5/4/99 "...Following his meeting with visiting Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abd al Aziz al Saud, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said that there are no longer any outstanding differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This possible reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran has serious political, military, and economic ramifications for the region...."

Fox News Wire 5/8/99 AP "...Iran has proposed boosting nuclear cooperation with Russia and wants to enlarge a nuclear power plant being built with Moscow's help, Russia's atomic energy minister said Saturday. Yevgeny Adamov told the Interfax news agency that Iran's vice president had written him to propose adding a second reactor to the power plant currently under construction in Bushehr in southern Iran....."

INA 6/12/99 "... Iran on Thursday fired three long-range surface-to-surface missiles on a military camp for Iranian Mujahidi Khalq opposition organization deep inside Iraqi territory. An official Iraqi spokesman said this aggression followed a series of criminal acts of terrorism committed by Iranian agents inside Iraq, the latest of which the car bomb explosion of June 9, 1999 that killed a number of Iraqi civilians and six Mujahidi Khalq members...."

AP 6/20/99 Jamal Halaby "...Contrary to accusations that Iran supports terrorism, the Islamic country is a victim of attacks by terrorists harbored in European and other Western nations, Iran's foreign minister said Sunday. Kamal Kharrazi accused unspecified Western nations of "harboring Iranian terrorists and giving them facilities'' - a reference to the dissident Mujahedeen Khalq Organization, which has offices in the United States and Europe. The group has been behind assassinations of military officials in Tehran and attempts to kill other Iranian leaders. Washington accuses Iran of sponsoring international terrorism and trying to acquire nuclear weapons, charges that the Iranian government rejects. "Terrorism is an old allegation. And actually, Iran is a victim of terrorism and Iran has done its best to combat terrorism,'' Kharrazi said in an interview with The Associated Press. Iran differentiates between terrorists and the Lebanese and Palestinian groups it champions, including Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon who are fighting Israeli occupation. "We, Muslim nations that have grown, have come under such allegations,'' Kharrazi said. "This is used as an instrument to put pressure on us,'' he added, declining to elaborate. It is "only through genuine international cooperation that this menace can be removed,'' he said...."

Stratfor 7/1/99 "...Greece and Iran have announced that they intend to sign a tripartite military cooperation agreement, along with Armenia, as early as July 12. Such an agreement would seriously undermine NATO unity and strategy in the Balkans and the Caucasus, exacerbate tensions between Greece and Turkey, isolate Azerbaijan and Georgia and, by extension, Central Asia, and provide Russia with a tremendous lever against NATO. As all involved intended, it is not something NATO can ignore....Tsokhatzopoulos' announcement that the trilateral cooperation between Greece, Iran, and Armenia would be expanded from the economic arena to include security and defense cooperation is a political bombshell, setting the stage for dramatic shifts in a number of regional alignments. First and foremost, the claim that this defense pact is not directed at any country is patent nonsense. Explicitly intended as such or not, Ankara can only view a new military alignment of its traditional foes Greece, Armenia, and Iran -- with Russia as a silent partner -- as a clear and present danger to Turkey. The agreement also raises concerns in Azerbaijan, which remains in conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and which has blamed Iran for backing an assassination plot against President Heydar Aliyev The defense pact between Iran, strongly Russian-backed Armenia, and NATO member Greece, and the tacit threat it poses to NATO member Turkey, is a slap in the face of NATO..."

Russia Today 6/29/99 Reuters "...Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin gave the go-ahead on Monday for discussions with Iran on building three nuclear power plants in that country, Interfax news agency said. It said the Atomic Energy Ministry had made the proposal but did not say when the talks might start. Officials were not immediately available for comment. Russia is already building a nuclear reactor for Iran in the Gulf port of Bushehr in a deal worth $800 million...."

Islamic Republic News Wire 7/2/99 "...Iran's Interior Minister Abdolvahed Moussavi lari said here today that the Islamic Republic cannot stand foreign intervention in the Caspian Sea and its regime. The Iranian Minister who was speaking to reporters after his talks with the Chairman of the State Duma Genady Seleznev said here that Washington is trying to ruin relations between Iran and the Russian Federation with the idea of imposing its own preferences on the region frequently also subscribing to opposite criteria in doing so. He said the arrest of a group of 13 Iranians on charges of espionage is simply Iran's internal matter. He commented that his talks with the Chairman of the State Duma in Moscow had been very fruitful...."

Orange County Register 7/15/99 "…"Insurrection in Iran July 15, 1999 It is certainly too early to tell whether student unrest will lead to substantial change in the Shiite Islamic regime that now rules in Iran. But as Ted Carpenter, head of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told us, the development can't be good over the long run for the ayatollahs and the mullahs…".

Daily Telegraph (UK) 7/19/99 "...IRAN gave warning of reprisals yesterday after several people were killed or wounded in a Turkish bombing raid on an Iranian army border base. The official IRNA news agency reported: "Turkish warplanes on Sunday dropped rockets and bombs on Iranian border outposts in Piranshahr and villages around the city." An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid-Reza Asefi, said several civilians were killed and some others injured, IRNA said..."

AFP 7/19/99 "…Iranian officials called for swift retaliation Monday after a deadly bombing raid by Turkish warplanes on a mainly Kurdish region of Iran that Turkey denied ever took place. Tehran insisted five people were killed in the attack while Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit dismissed the claim as a "misinterpretation," following a week of growing tension between the two nations…"

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL,CUBA 7/25/99 Antonio Penque Brizuela "…During his visit to the island, Hassan Ibrahin Habibi, first vice president of Iran, met with President Fidel Castro, signed collaboration agreements and spoke of `more cooperation and contact' THE governments of Iran and Cuba agreed on the possibilities of deepening cooperative relations and made concrete steps in that direction during a visit to the island by Iran's first vice president, Hassan Ibraín Habibi, and his meeting with President Fidel Castro…."

Chicago Tribune 8/3/99 Colin McMahon "...A trophy case in a dark corridor testifies to the faded glories of Baltic State Technical University. On proud display are banners and awards sporting the name of Lenin and the seal of the USSR. The 124-year-old university helped defeat Hitler, then helped the Soviet Union become the most feared nuclear power on the planet..... Now Baltic University, the school's new name, is at the heart of a new global fear: that desperate Russian scientists, bitter with their impoverished lot in a financially crippled country, might be providing Iran with the knowledge to build its own long-range missiles and other advanced weaponry that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East. Citing training received by Iranian students in Russia and teaching stints in Iran by faculty members, the United States has imposed sanctions against Baltic University as well as nine other Russian scientific institutions accused of aiding Iran. Washington also has pressured Moscow into placing them under intense intelligence surveillance. ...The anger and sense of betrayal is palpable in Baltic University's decrepit classrooms. For decades, this school was off-limits to Westerners as well as most Russians, a respected cradle of Soviet military secrets. Still unaccustomed to scrutiny and more comfortable in the shadows, the scientists here deeply distrust America and its allies, and they seethe at their nation's fall from its status as a superpower...."

AP 8/15/99 "...Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court reportedly has condemned to death instigators of last month's mass protests, Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Meanwhile, Iran's spiritual leader named a new chief of the nation's judiciary, removing a powerful hard-liner responsible for a crackdown on the liberal media. It was unclear whether the new chief had different political leanings than his hard-line predecessor. The Islamic Revolutionary Court also gave long jail terms to several other defendants, the evening Kayhan daily reported...."