LAST SUNDAY, Iran hanged five Kurdish dissidents, including a 28-year-old woman, who said they had been tortured into confessing to charges of terrorism. On Monday it announced that the Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who covered last year’s fraudulent presidential election for Newsweek, had been sentenced in absentia to 74 lashes and 13 years in prison. This is probably just the beginning of a brutal wave of repression aimed at preventing the opposition Green Movement from rallying as next month’s anniversary of the election approaches.

But on Saturday, Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva will arrive in Tehran in yet another effort to “engage” the extremist clique of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Lula and Turkish President Abdullah Gul claim to be making a last effort to broker a deal with the regime that will avert another round of U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program. No one outside their own governments thinks they will succeed. And will Mr. Lula even bother to mention the blood spilled by his hosts this week? Don’t hold your breath.

The faction that staged last summer’s coup in Iran, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, has demonstrated over and over since then that it has no interest in accommodation with either its own people or the U.N. Security Council. It has been as unrelenting in its repression as it has been in pressing ahead with the enrichment of uranium — for which it is now manufacturing another generation of centrifuges.

The persistence of the Brazilian and Turkish leaders in negotiating with these thugs is partly about their ambitions to demonstrate that they are the leaders of emerging world powers capable of defying the United States. The intervention comes just as the Obama administration is nearing agreement with the other permanent members of the Security Council on a new sanctions resolution, which it hopes will be put to a vote in the coming weeks. Brazil and Turkey happen to hold rotating seats on the council, which provide them with a platform for posturing.

The Obama administration has disowned the Brazilian-Turkish initiative; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Turkish foreign minister on Thursday that “Iran’s recent diplomacy was an attempt to stop Security Council action without actually taking steps to address international concerns about its nuclear program,” according to her spokesman. But the administration is still vulnerable to self-delusion: Ms. Clinton recently said that sanctions could lead to “the kind of good-faith negotiations that President Obama called for 15 months ago.”

That reasoning is wrong for the same reason that Mr. Lula and Mr. Gul are wrong to visit Tehran this weekend. A regime that is actively engaged in murdering its citizens is not going to engage in “good-faith negotiations.” If there is to be change in Iran, it must come from those whose repression the two presidents are ignoring. Go to Washington Post.

THE NEW U.S.-Russian arms control treaty was described Friday by the Obama administration as a step toward the achievement of a host of ambitious goals: a “strong partnership” with the regime of Vladimir Putin; multilateral action to stop or reverse the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea; and not least, as President Obama put it, “a world without nuclear weapons.” But it’s not necessary to share the president’s long-term vision, or his expansive estimation of the new treaty’s influence, in order to celebrate what appears to be a solid diplomatic achievement.

A year in negotiation, the accord mandates a trim of about 30 percent in the deployed strategic weapons of the two countries, to 1,550 warheads on each side. Launchers — land and sea-based missiles as well as bombers — would be reduced to 800. Russia is already near that figure and will almost certainly fall well below it during the treaty’s 10-year term. The United States will have to cut launchers by several hundred, though it will be able to convert some to carry conventional weapons. That’s one reason why the treaty is more important to Moscow, and its ambitions of remaining on a par with the United States, than it is to U.S. national security.

Go to Washington Post.

THE NOTION that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad can somehow be turned from his alliance with Iran and sponsorship of terrorism is one of the hardiest of the Middle East. No number of failed diplomatic initiatives, or outrages by Mr. Assad, seems to diminish its luster. The latest attempt to test it comes from the Obama administration, which this week nominated the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005 and dispatched a senior State Department official, William J. Burns, to meet with Mr. Assad. “I have no illusions,” Mr. Burns said afterward, “but my meeting . . . made me hopeful we can make progress together.”

We don’t disagree with the administration’s selection of an ambassador or Mr. Burns’s visit; both represent a modest delivery on President Obama’s campaign promise of “direct engagement” with regimes such as Syria. But it’s worth noting that Mr. Burns has done this before: He met with Mr. Assad in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration. Earlier, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell “engaged” Mr. Assad. So have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry, and numerous European notables, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy. When he was Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert negotiated extensively with Mr. Assad through Turkish intermediaries.

Not a few have come away hopeful, at first. Ms. Pelosi memorably declared that “the road to Damascus is a road to peace.” Yet none so far has produced the slightest change in Mr. Assad’s behavior or in his unacceptable ambitions. Having carried out a campaign of political murder in Lebanon, including the killing of a prime minister for which he has yet to be held accountable, Mr. Assad continues to insist on a veto over the Lebanese government. He continues to facilitate massive illegal shipments of Iranian arms to Hezbollah, dangerously setting the stage for another war with Israel, and to host the most hard-line elements of the Hamas leadership. He continues to harbor exiled leaders of Saddam Hussein’s regime and to allow suicide bombers to flow into Iraq for use by al-Qaeda.

LA Times’ piece on same here.

Go to Washington Post.

THURSDAY will be a crucial day in the Obama administration’s attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. No negotiations are scheduled, and the “crippling sanctions” President Obama promised in the absence of diplomatic progress are a ways from approval by the U.N. Security Council. But Feb. 11, the day when Iranians celebrate the 1979 overthrow of the shah, has emerged as another test of strength between the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the opposition Green movement. The government has been trying to crush the rebellion with brute force. If it once again fails to stop thousands of protesters from taking to the streets of Tehran and other cities, the West will know that the extremist group that stands behind Iran’s drive for the bomb is one step closer to collapse.

Ever since its manipulation of last June’s presidential election touched off a popular uprising, the extremist clique around Mr. Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been entirely preoccupied with the domestic power struggle. Its confusing posturings on the nuclear program — one day appearing to embrace a deal, the next taking a provocative step toward nuclear capability– are calculated with the Green movement foremost in mind. The regime would like to avoid new sanctions that could deepen the popular unrest and so tries, successfully so far, to drive a wedge between Western governments and China. But it also wants to look as if it is defying the outside world — and so in the days before Feb. 11 there have been a stream of missile tests and announcements of new weapons.

Meanwhile, the United States has the opportunity to weaken the regime by doing that which it fears most: providing moral and material aid to the opposition. The administration took a useful step in that direction Monday by issuing a joint statement with the European Union calling on Iran to “end its abuses against its own people” and expressing concern about “the potential for further violence and repression during the coming days.”

More measures should be ready in the event Thursday witnesses an extension of the regime’s crackdown. In addition to condemnations, the United States could join with European allies in applying sanctions to those engaging in repression, including commanders of the Revolutionary Guard. Legislation due to be introduced Thursday by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) would require the White House to submit a list of Iranian human rights abusers to Congress; their names would be made public and they would be subject to sanctions, including a freeze on assets and financial transactions. Go to Washington Post.

IND:  Khamenei and his allies are unlikely to just pack their bags and leave Iran like shah and his supporters did.    All indications show that these guys have the will and means to use violence to remain in power.  That’s why the Iranian people need the free world’s help.  There is a lot that could be done to help but silence is not one of them. President Obama, please speak up more often and more boldly.

In short, Iran’s political crisis now looks like a battle to the death between the regime and its opposition. No one on either side in Tehran is talking about compromise. Nor does it seem likely that there will be a sustained respite from domestic turmoil until one side triumphs. That in turn means that, more than ever, the Obama administration and other Western governments must tailor their policies toward Iran to reflect the centrality of the Green Movement’s fight for freedom. While diplomatic contact with the regime need not be broken off entirely, by now it should be obvious that it cannot produce significant results — and might serve to shore up a tottering dictatorship.

More should be done, now, to facilitate Iranian use of the Internet for uncensored communication. The State Department continues to drag its feet on using money appropriated by Congress to fund firewall-busting operations and to deny support to groups with a proven record of success, like the Global Internet Freedom Consortium.

The administration has worried excessively that open U.S. support might damage the Green Movement. Now President Obama has publicly taken sides, and the battle inside Iran has reached a critical juncture. It’s time for the United States to do whatever it can, in public and covertly, to help those Iranians fighting for freedom. Go to Washington Post.

The huge, nonviolent crowds, and their chants (”Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!”), proved that there is still plenty of life in the popular movement that Mr. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards provoked by engineering Mr. Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection in June. Given the horrific extent of the repression against that movement, its continued energy is nothing short of inspiring.

But Mr. Montazeri had also linked the democratization of Iran to its peaceful coexistence with the West. Before his death, he apologized for the 1979 Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and — undoubtedly most irritating to Mr. Khamenei — opposed the regime’s nuclear ambitions.

The most momentous international event of 2009 was the uprising in Iran, and though the regime’s collapse is not imminent, it is hardly unthinkable. President Obama is prudent to pursue a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But in doing so, he must not diminish the prospect that Iran’s people might ultimately deliver both themselves and the world from the menace. Go to Washington Post.

For the Obama administration, the hikers’ treatment is but one more indication that the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has no interest in the constructive “engagement” that Mr. Obama has offered. Such despicable persecution of innocent people only adds to the reasons the administration should focus its energies on isolating and imposing sanctions on the regime’s leaders, while doing what it can to support the opposition Green movement.

Go to Washington Post.

The guiding principles in dealing with Iran are: first, forge a phalanx of unity at international level; and second, make sure your policy discriminates between the regime and Iranian citizens – whose tolerance of the Islamic Republic has reached breaking point after last summer’s imposed election result and its bloody aftermath. Do the new sanctions pass either test?

What is needed are measures such as successful US-initiated sanctions on financial transactions and individuals that target all the players in the regime, and command not just the support of the US and its allies but Russia and China and theirs. And Iranians. Go to Financial Times.

Iran’s fraudulently elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will clearly stop at nothing to stifle legitimate dissent and hold on to his illegitimate power. The most recent horror is the sharp rise in executions since the June presidential elections.

The viciousness of the current repression is another sign of the government’s desperation. But that is no consolation to Iranians at the receiving end of the terror. Washington is rightly increasing its already substantial efforts to make accurate, uncensored information more widely available through satellite television, radio broadcasts and Internet sites. Last month, Congress authorized $50 million to be spent over the next year on expanded programming, increased transmissions and anti-jamming technology. An America that stands up for its own values of free, uncensored expression need not worry about the epithets a desperate dictator hurls against it. Go to NY Times.

It has also fallen out with Israel over Gaza, and cosied up to Iran, where Mr Erdogan said the west is treating the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme “unfairly”.

Yet, the turn east – seen by some as neo-Ottoman – is driven by interests more than ideology. Trade with the Middle East is fast expanding to take up the slack of the EU downturn, while Turkey wants to become a hub for energy from the Caspian and Egypt.

Overall, the EU should be positive about this. Turkey is the most successful country in the region, with a big foot in Europe. The ability of its secular republic to accommodate (so far) a governing party with Islamist roots, and simultaneously carry out a constitutional revolution, mesmerises the most dynamic sectors of Arab society. That is surely an asset for Europe, and for the broader Middle East. Go to Financial Times.

IND:  The Obama administration needs to hold regular White House briefings on Iran’s human rights abuses led by President Obama himself.  Put the international media spotlight on the regime’s Achilles’ heel and watch the regime’s support melt away.

THE OBAMA administration could not have picked a more inappropriate moment to cut off funding to a watchdog group documenting Iran’s human rights abuses. When Iranians protested the corrupt reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this summer, the repressive regime took a lesson from Tiananmen Square and suppressed the popular uprising with force…The group, which has tallied the assassinations of political dissidents and investigated prisoner abuse, will shut down in the spring without grants to continue its vital work.

The State Department had no explanation for turning off the tap that has channeled more than $3 million to the group. The Obama administration should not abandon its efforts to engage Iran. [IND: With all due respect, we disagree because such engagement has a demoralizing effect on the democratic dissidents.] But surely the United States, as it pursues diplomacy, can also finance a nongovernmental group that documents Iran’s human rights violations. Go to Boston Globe.

…The Iranian regime, as ever, is playing hard to get. While Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the mercurial president ruthlessly re-imposed by fraud in this summer’s bitterly contested elections, has welcomed a US shift to “co-operation”, Tehran wants a sort of instalment plan to phase its exports of LEU.

There is some wiggle room – not least because Iran has not set out a formal, written position. When it does, it should be clear what is at stake. Take the path to detente; the other road leads to perdition. Go to Financial Times.

IND:  Another outstanding commentary by the Washington Post Editorials.

…The Obama administration and other Western governments say that they are cognizant of the danger of strengthening Mr. Ahmadinejad and his superior, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But they have been cautious about following the advice of Iranians such as Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who is urging the administration to talk as much about the treatment of people such as Mr. Tajbakhsh as it does about Iran’s nuclear program. To be sure, White House and State Department spokesmen protested Mr. Tajbakhsh’s sentence; the White House statement said that he “embodies what is possible between our two countries.” We hope that President Obama himself will see fit to speak up about Mr. Tajbakhsh’s case and others like it. The fact that Tehran is imprisoning the very people capable of building bridges between Iran and the United States is a clear message to the president about how the regime regards his “engagement” policy. Go to Washington Post.

IND:  Another great piece by the Washington Post Editorials.

…it was startling this week to hear Ms. Ebadi say bluntly that the Obama administration has gotten some things backward when it comes to Iran. It’s not that engaging with the government is a mistake, she said during a visit to The Post. But paying so much more attention to Iran’s nuclear ambitions than to its trampling of democracy and freedom is a mistake both tactical and moral.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “is at the lowest level of popularity one can imagine,” Ms. Ebadi said. “If the West focuses exclusively on the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad can tell his people that the West is against Iran’s national interest and rally people to his cause. But if the West presses also on its human rights record, he will find himself in a position where his popular base is getting weaker and weaker by the day.”

…Ms. Ebadi suggested that the nature of Iran’s regime is more crucial to U.S. security than any specific deals on nuclear energy. Iran’s people are not as wedded to the nuclear program as the regime wants outsiders to believe. A democratic government would be unlikely to build a nuclear bomb, she said, and even if it did, the weapon would not be a threat in the hands of a government that would not view America or Israel as enemies. By contrast, she argued, even a seemingly ironclad nuclear agreement with Mr. Ahmadinejad might be of little value: “Imagine if the government actually promised to stop its nuclear program tomorrow. Would you trust this government not to start another secret nuclear program somewhere else?” Go to Washington Post.

IND:  We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Suppose this year’s Nobel Peace Prize had gone to the scores of Iranians now on trial for having protested the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June. For the three defendants who were sentenced to death over the weekend, a Nobel might have made all the difference in the nick of time. At a minimum, it could have validated their struggle.

Our friends in Oslo had a different idea, which means that the fate of the three defendants—known officially by their initials M.Z., A.P. and N.A.—are at the mercy of Iran’s appellate and supreme courts. It’s a slender hope in a country that is the leading executioner of juveniles, and whose leaders have only become more truculent toward dissenters since the election.

Hope is also slender because the Obama Administration has downplayed human rights in Iran as it pursues a negotiated nuclear settlement with the Ahmadinejad government. Without explanation, the State Department this month pulled funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a New Haven, Connecticut outfit that has been investigating the plight of those Iranians now in the dock, including Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari.

In his Rose Garden remarks about the Nobel, President Obama spoke about “the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard even in the face of beatings and bullets.” The elliptical reference is almost certainly to 27-year old Neda Agha-Sultan, whose murder last June by one of Ahmadinejad’s goon squads was captured on a video seen around the world. We hope the President keeps in mind that the same people whose good faith he now seeks in negotiations were her killers. Go to WSJ.