NY Times: U.S. Missile Test Mimicking Iran Strike Fails A U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co, the Defence Department said.The abortive test over the Pacific Ocean coincided with a Pentagon report that Iran had expanded its ballistic missile capabilities and posed a “significant” threat to U.S. and allied forces in the Middle East region.The Missile Defence Agency said that in Sunday’s test both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, had performed normally.”However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected,” the agency said on its web site. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defence, the sole U.S. bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.It was the first time the United States had tested its long-range defence against a simulated Iranian attack.

Brookings: Iran and Turkish-American Relations Washington is increasingly frustrated with Tehran and appears ready for a policy shift from engagement to coercive diplomacy. In practice, such coercive diplomacy would mean implementing so-called “smart sanctions” that are supposed to hurt the leaders of the country more than the innocent people. All this debate about sanctions does not bode well for Turkish-American relations.  Iran is already an irritant and potential source of crisis in Turkish-American relations. Ankara has significant economic ties and energy contracts with Tehran. The total trade volume between the two countries is $10 billion and expected to double in the next three years — given Turkey’s growing need for natural gas and willingness to lessen its dependence on Russia. As a result, Turkey will resist Western efforts to tighten economic sanctions against Tehran.

CS Monitor: Obama’s new hardball with China, Iran After a year of trying to talk softly with Iran and China – only to be perceived as weak – President Obama has now decided he must carry a big stick. Among several steps, he’s selling $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, seeking tougher sanctions on Iran, inviting the Dalai Lama to the White House, and beefing up Arab defenses against Iranian missiles. And Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also escalated her rhetoric, just as defending Google against Beijing’s censorship of the Internet and Chinese hacking attacks. Obama’s new get-tough actions, however, come with two risks: They could easily escalate into unintended confrontations and they appear to end the Obama strategy of approaching adversaries with an outstretched hand of cooperation.

Guardian: The Iran sanctions dilemma The Foreign Office speaks of a desire to “foster links between the Iranian people and the British people – there is much potential for educational, scientific, sporting and cultural exchanges”. Obama has tried desperately, and so far unsuccessfully, to reach out to Iran and the Iranian people, emphasising the “common humanity that binds us together” in a New Year message.  Replacing rhetoric with the very real gesture of selling a number of safe civilian airliners would show that Obama is serious when he says he wants to improve ties to the Iranian people. As Saeed Kamali Dehghan recently wrote in the Guardian: “I’m not the Iranian government, I’m an ordinary Iranian and the sanctions are just crippling me.”

Independent: A misreading of Iran that risks a fatal replay of Iraq These signals from Washington, though, were a good deal less menacing than the image of Iran that emerged from Tony Blair’s testimony to the Iraq Inquiry in London last Friday. A recurrent theme of his self-justification over the war was a nigh-apocalyptic forecast of what role an un-checked Iran might play. Although he was being questioned about Iraq, he mentioned Iran several dozen times, and always in a negative light. In the worldview of the former prime minister, Iran came across as the next threat to global peace. George Bush’s “axis of evil”, it seems, never really went away; the overthrow of Saddam Hussein merely reduced its membership by one.

Politico: Iran releases father of Washington think tank scholar The Washington Institute for Near East Policy sends word this afternoon that the father of its Iran scholar Mehdi Khalaji was released from Tehran’s Evin prison today, but his passport remains confiscated:

ICHR Iran: Sadegh Larijani and pressure on the Judiciary for executing dissidents: has justice given in to politics? Sadegh Larijani, Head of Iranian Judiciary, said on Sunday that a group in Iran are demanding “accelerated” punishment of protesters arrested during the post-elections events in Iran. He has added that such demands are politically-motivated and illegal. Though Larijani’s statement reveals immense political pressure for harsh handling of those arrested post-elections, it does not reveal who these groups and individuals are. More importantly, Larijani’s words do not indicate how involved these groups and individuals have been during the arrests, abuses of prisoners for extracting confessions, heavy prison sentences, and implementation of death sentences, hijacking control over the Judiciary, from the inexperienced Head of the organization.

ICHR Iran: Shokoufeh Montazeri: My mother and brother are under physical and psychological pressure for confessions Shokoufeh Montazeri, sister of journalist Omid Montazeri and daughter of Mahin Fahimi, a member of Peace Mothers, who were both arrested over a month ago talked to International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Omid Montazeri and Mahin Fahimi were arrested following the third trial session of suspects arrested the day after Ashura in Tehran. Shokoufeh Montazeri says her brother and mother have not had access to lawyers. She says they are not members of any illegal group and considering what her brother has stated in court, she is concerned that he might be under physical and psychological pressure.

ICHR Iran: No Information About Jailed Artist Mehraneh Atashi Internationally recognized photographer Mehraneh Atashi, along with her husband Madjid Ghaffari, were arrested on 12 January 2010 in their home in Tehran and detained, apparently in solitary confinement in ward 209 of Evin prison, but authorities have released no information about charges against them, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today. Atashi and her husband have had no access to a lawyer. They have been allowed no visit by their family and only one brief telephone call they used to inform relatives they had been arrested.

Rooz: Families Are Used as Hostage The way the Iranian state has treated the family of one member of the Nehzat Azadi leadership (Freedom Movement of Iran), Gholamabbas Tavassoli, is a shameful example of how the state treats members of the opposition. Tavassoli’s daughter and son in-law, along with other members of the IDM, including Ibrahim Yazdi the detained secretary general of the group, are all under pressure for the group to completely and definitively end its activities..

Rooz: Renounce Mousavi Political prisoners are under extreme pressure to pledge that they will halt their political activities forever, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s advisors, who were arrested en masse after the Ashoura Day protests last December are under extreme pressure to renounce the wartime prime minister.  So far, Mousavi’s advisors have not given in to the demands.

Guardian: Three-dimensional chess with Iran