Business Week: EU Backs Tighter UN Sanctions on Iran, Delays Unilateral Steps. European Union foreign ministers sought tighter United Nations sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, while putting off unilateral EU penalties.A day after Iran said it is poised to announce fresh progress on its nuclear goals, the 27-nation EU said it wants to assemble the broadest possible front to isolate Iran.“We are moving very strongly toward sanctions,” Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb told reporters at an EU meeting in Brussels today. “We’ll start with UN sanctions and if that doesn’t work, we’ll go to EU sanctions.”

Time: To Obama’s Pile of Woes, Add a Failing Iran Policy The idea behind Obama’s engagement effort, though, was that if Iran kept stalling, countries previously opposed to sanctions, such as Russia, China and Germany, could be persuaded to support new punitive measures aimed at forcing Iran to cooperate.  So, how’s that working? Not very well, by all indications. True, with Iran stalling, the Germans seem to be playing along, although earlier in the year they said they’d only support sanctions if approved by the U.N. And while senior American officials and European diplomats say Russia has come around to supporting sanctions, nothing that has happened publicly has confirmed that claim — and the signals from Moscow remain mixed.  But where Russia had previously taken the lead in blocking sanctions efforts, that role has now fallen to China, which has a rapidly growing stake in Iran’s energy sector.

Splitting the international community has been Iran’s goal from the start, and unilateral sanctions could be fatally undermined if a bloc of countries that trade with Iran, such as China, Russia, Turkey and India, don’t comply. The very fact that the U.S. and its allies are even thinking of going it alone is a sign of just how much trouble Obama’s policy is in.

Foreign Policy: Interview: Mohamed ElBaradei FP: It seems like people are beginning to doubt that the Iranians are negotiating in good faith. Do you think that’s fair? Do you think this deal still has potential? ElBaradei: I think that, unfortunately, as we were moving ahead with this fuel package deal, which we were about to conclude, Iran fell into an internal fight as a result of the [contested June 2009] election. This issue became [part of] a payback situation in Iran, as I see it. I still have hope that this domestic hype [IND:  "Domestic hype"?  People are getting killed, sir.  The world is better off now that this delusional man is no longer the head of IAEA.] will come to an end and then Iran will see the fantastic opportunity you have in that deal. It is not the deal per se, but the horizon that it opens.

Times UK: General David Petraeus: full transcript of interview with The Times IND:  A long interview mostly on Afghanistan

You told CNN that the US has contingency plans to address…

No, actually what I told Christiane Amanpour is that it would literally be irresponsible if Central Command was not considering a variety of contingencies including those involving Iran and planning for those contingencies.

What are the contingency plans for Iran?

Well would you like me to spell all of them out for you.

Well, yes.

[Laughs] Again it wouldn’t be productive I don’t think to go into any kind of discussion beyond really the answer that I gave to Christiane. Nice try though.

ICHR Iran: Ambiguities in the case of three Americans: no meetings, no trial, and no phone calls Massoud Shafiee, attorney to the three Americans who were detained six months ago after they drifted into Iranian territory, told International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that his efforts for accessing his clients have been unsuccessful and authorities in charge of the case refuse to address his requests. Shafiee said that he told the Prosecutor’s Office authorities, “These three individuals have been unable to contact their families for the past six months. All suspects in detention are allowed to contact their families occasionally to at least relieve their families’ concerns for their health conditions. These individuals’ families are seriously concerned about them and they have no idea what is happening to them in prison.”

ICHR IRAN: Problems, fears, and hopes of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey (Part III) Continuing the series of International Campaign for Human Rights’ interviews, here’s another interview with an Iranian refugee who has spent 18 months in Turkey, waiting for asylum. This refugee who was working as a journalist in Iran, talks about issues surrounding seeking asylum in Turkey, financial difficulties related to renting a residence, language barriers and interacting with local communities. Part II here.

ICHR IRAN: Pressure on student leaders for confessions and dissolution of Daftar-e-tahkim-e-vahdat Pressure from security organizations to shut down Daftar-e-tahkim-e-vahdat takes place while over the past two years Iran’s Journalists Association and Center for Defense of Human Rights have also been shut down. Closure of independent civil society organizations in Iran which has been taking place over the past four years has been implemented systematically in Iran.