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U.S./Top News

U.S./Top News
1) U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb, the New York Times reports. Recent assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former U.S. officials, the Times says. The officials said assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Some intelligence officials and outside analysts say Iran could be seeking to enhance its influence in the region by creating what some analysts call "strategic ambiguity," the Times notes. Rather than building a bomb now, Iran may want to increase its power by sowing doubt among other nations about its nuclear ambitions. Some point to the examples of Pakistan and India, both of which had clandestine nuclear weapons programs for decades before they actually decided to build bombs and test their weapons in 1998.

"I think the Iranians want the capability, but not a stockpile," said Kenneth Brill, a former U.S. ambassador to the IAEA who also served as director of the intelligence community's National Counterproliferation Center from 2005 until 2009.

Some U.S. analysts warn that Iran's efforts to obstruct Western scrutiny of its nuclear program are not necessarily proof of a weapons program, the NYT notes. They say that one mistake the C.I.A. made before the war in Iraq was to assume that because Saddam Hussein resisted weapons inspections, it meant that he had a weapons program.

2) The U.S. ordered all Western advisors withdrawn from Afghan government ministries Saturday after two U.S. military officers were shot and killed in a heavily secured compound inside the Afghan Interior Ministry, the Los Angeles Times reports. The pullout came as a fifth straight day of protests raged over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. Saturday's fatalities brought the death toll since the riots broke out Tuesday to more than 30, four of them Americans, with hundreds more people injured.

3) The burning of copies of the Koran by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan has set off a deadly chain of events that has possibly exposed a crippling weakness in the U.S. strategy to wind down the war, the Washington Post reports. The killing of two high-ranking NATO officers by an Afghan security official has spurred doubts about whether Afghan security forces can be relied upon to provide for the protection of their Western partners. "If the trust, ability and willingness to partner falls apart, you are looking at the endgame here," said Mark Jacobson, who served until last summer as the NATO deputy senior civilian representative in Kabul.

4) The world's major emerging economies rejected the tradition that an American automatically is selected to head the World Bank and they will look at putting forward their own candidate for the open job, Reuters reports. "Candidates should be based on merit and not on nationality," Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said. "It is time we break the traditions of the U.S. and Europe sharing the two seats and amongst all of us we must try harder this time to find some consensus," said Pravin Gordhan, South Africa's finance minister.

5) The trial of employees of four U.S.-backed nonprofit groups was adjourned Sunday amid signs that the case was growing into a broader indictment of Egypt's alliance with the U.S., the New York Times reports. Tensions over the case have escalated into threats from Washington to cut off $1.55 billion in annual aid to Egypt, and from Egypt to review its peace treaty with Israel. The trial has prompted an outpouring of pent-up resentment against the U.S. over its backing of Mubarak and Israel and the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, the Times says. Though the accusations in the case seem far-fetched, many Egyptians say they resonate with the history of U.S. and Western involvement in the Middle East. [Notably, the New York Times does not refer to the U.S.-financed groups as "NGOs" or "democracy promotion groups," two disputed media descriptions - JFP.]

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