UANI

The NY Times reported that "President Obama said Monday that he expected to know by the end of the year whether Iran was making 'a good-faith effort to resolve differences' in talks aimed at ending its nuclear program, signaling to Israel as well as Iran that his willingness to engage in diplomacy over the issue has its limits. 'We’re not going to have talks forever,' Mr. Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel after a two-hour session in the Oval Office. The president added that he did not intend to foreclose 'a range of steps' if Iran did not cooperate. Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, told Mr. Obama that he was ready to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, but they would only succeed if the Palestinians recognized Israel as a Jewish state." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/world/middleeast/19prexy.html?_r=1&pag...)

The NY Times reported that "So now begins Mr. Obama’s diplomatic sprint. His declaration Monday that 'we’re not going to have talks forever' was a warning to the Iranians that his fundamentally different approach — serious American engagement with Tehran for the first time in three decades — must bear fruit before Iran clears the last technological hurdles to building a weapon. It is a strategy that some administration officials describe as “negotiations with pressure” — a combination of direct negotiations, reassurances that Washington is no longer seeking regime change in Iran, and an effort to persuade the ruling mullahs that the alternative to serious concessions will be painful: international sanctions that are far harsher and more tightly enforced than the weak mix of actions imposed so far by the United Nations Security Council." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/us/politics/19web-sanger.html?hp)

The LA Times reported that "Iran's most powerful political and spiritual leader warned voters Monday against supporting pro-Western candidates in next month's presidential election, comments widely seen as supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's approach to foreign policy over those of his challengers." (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-election19-2009...)

AFP reported that "Iran's ex-premier Mir Hossein Mousavi has been cleared by the Guardians Council, the powerful constitutional watchdog, to stand in June presidential elections, his media adviser told AFP." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgU9lF1s_n9ht3Zq-IISO...)

AFP reported that "Ex-parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi will if elected president kick-start reforms in Iran but in a 'moderate' way that will not trigger the wrath of his hardline opponents, he told AFP in an interview." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jTLmIMlTLA1GXyGDcZOsL...)

The Washington Post reported that "A planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy, according to a joint analysis by top U.S. and Russian scientists. The U.S.-Russian team also judged that it would be more than five years before Iran is capable of building both a nuclear warhead and a missile capable of carrying it over long distances. And if Iran attempted such an attack, the experts say, it would ensure its own destruction. 'The missile threat from Iran to Europe is thus not imminent,' the 12-member technical panel concludes in a report produced by the EastWest Institute, an independent think tank based in Moscow, New York and Belgium." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR200905...)

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying that "Back when the Bush Administration was warning about Iran's nuclear progress, or its deadly meddling in Iraq, the typical Democratic and media response was to treat the Islamic Republic as innocent until proven guilty. This month, Democrat Robert Morgenthau supplied the proof. In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that was largely ignored by the media, the legendary Manhattan District Attorney opened a window on how Iran is secretly obtaining the ingredients for an arsenal of mass destruction." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124268823646932231.html)

John Hannah of the Washington Institute wrote in the Washington Post that "History's lesson for the Obama administration seems straightforward: Short of regime change or military attack, the method most likely to persuade an anti-American, terrorist-sponsoring state such as Iran to cease its nuclear weapons program is credibly threatening the regime's hold on power. While using intense diplomatic engagement with Tehran to make clear the historic opportunity that exists for reconciliation, the United States should simultaneously be working to confront the regime with a crippling combination of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions and military coercion." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR200905...)