Thursday, August 2, 2012

Eye on Iran: US Congress Approves New Sanctions on Iran






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AFP: "The US Congress approved punishing new sanctions targeting Iran's energy and shipbuilding sectors, a day after President Barack Obama unveiled measures to cripple Tehran's nuclear drive. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly 421-6 for the measure, which Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen described as the toughest sanctions yet imposed on the Islamic republic over its refusal to rein in its nuclear program. The new rules -- which target any person or company which works with Iran's petroleum or natural gas sector, provides insurance to the National Iranian Oil Company, engages with uranium mining with Iran, or sells oil tankers to the country -- passed the Senate by a unanimous consent vote. 'This bipartisan, bicameral agreement seeks to tighten the chokehold on the regime beyond anything that has been done before,' Ros-Lehtinen told the House." http://t.uani.com/PAON03

NYT: "A series of public statements and private communications from the Israeli leadership in recent weeks set off renewed concerns in the Obama administration that Israel might be preparing a unilateral military strike on Iran, perhaps as early as this fall. But after a flurry of high-level visits, including one by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to Israel on Wednesday, a number of administration officials say they remain hopeful that Israel has no imminent plans to attack and may be willing to let the United States take the lead in any future military strike, which they say would not occur until next year at the earliest. The conversations are part of delicate negotiations between the United States and Israel that have intensified over the past month. On Wednesday they continued with Mr. Panetta, who appeared with the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, and declared that the United States would stand by Israel if Iran developed a nuclear weapon...  'This is not about containment,' Mr. Panetta told reporters at the start of his meeting with Mr. Peres. 'This is about making very clear that they are never going to be able to get an atomic weapon.'" http://t.uani.com/Ml2qpm

Bloomberg: "Satellite images show that Iran has completed cleanup activity at a suspected nuclear weapons- related site, a Washington-based research group said today. The Parchin military complex attracted international attention early this year when the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, sought to inspect the site because of suspected undeclared nuclear activities. The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based non-profit research group, reported in May that satellite images taken in April indicated that Iran had begun substantial earth removal and other activities at the site to eliminate evidence of nuclear weapons work." http://t.uani.com/PozQxI
Lebanon Banking Campaign   
Nuclear Program 

Bloomberg: "Iran denied that its nuclear facilities suffered a cyber attack that shut down computers and played music from the rock band AC/DC, the state-run Iranian Students News Agency reported, citing the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereidoun Abbasi. Reports of the cyber attack are 'incorrect,' Abbasi told local reporters on the sidelines of a government meeting, without elaborating, according to the Tehran-based news agency. A new worm targeted Iran's nuclear program, closing down the 'automation network' at the Natanz and Fordo facilities, the F-Secure Security Labs website said this month, citing an e- mail it said was sent by a scientist inside Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. The virus also prompted several computers at the sites to play the song 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC at full volume in the middle of the night, according to the e-mail, part of which is published in English on the website." http://t.uani.com/T4Dstu  

Sanctions
  
Bloomberg: "U.S.-led sanctions against Iran are costing OPEC's third-largest producer $133 million a day in lost sales without raising global crude prices, handing President Barack Obama an election-year foreign-policy victory. Shipments from Iran have plunged by 1.2 million barrels a day, or 52 percent, since the sanctions banning the purchase, transport, financing and insuring of Iranian crude began July 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Annualized, that would cost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's country about $48 billion in revenue, equivalent to 10 percent of its economy. While Iran's threats to disrupt the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf sent crude to a three-year high in March, increased production from Saudi Arabia, a U.S. output boom and the slowing global economy have left prices 1.3 percent lower in 2012." http://t.uani.com/MdK57W

Bloomberg: "India, the third-biggest buyer of Iranian oil, will offer state-backed insurance to tankers, helping the nation's biggest sea carrier to resume cargoes from the Persian Gulf nation hit by international trade sanctions. Shipping Corp. of India will soon start services to Iran as Indian insurers have agreed to give as much as $100 million of cover per voyage, Chairman Sabyasachi Hajara said without specifying a timeframe. Prior to the sanctions, European companies provided unlimited protection against risks including oil spills and collisions, he said. The resumption of services will help Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), India's biggest buyer of Iranian crude, and other state processors secure supplies after European Union measures disrupted trade." http://t.uani.com/NLzWoJ

Bloomberg: "Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Turkey's biggest mobile-phone operator, asked a U.S. judge to allow its lawsuit against South Africa's MTN Group Ltd. (MTN) to proceed, arguing American courts have authority to oversee a case involving a wireless service deal in Iran. Turckcell, in a filing today in Washington, denied that its lawsuit alleging bribery by MTN Group Ltd., Africa's largest wireless provider, is merely a commercial dispute between two non-U.S. companies that doesn't trigger a 1789 law giving the federal court jurisdiction to consider the case. 'MTN's mischaracterization of this case as a commercial dispute is either a refusal to acknowledge the allegations in Turkcell's complaint, or, far worse, an affirmation of MTN's belief that corruption and bribery are acceptable commercial strategies,' David Farber, Turkcell's lawyer, said in the filing." http://t.uani.com/OrDHLU

Opinion & Analysis

UANI President Kristen Silverberg & UANI Senior European Advisor August Hanning in Die Zeit (Germany): "The United States have further tightened its sanctions against the Iran on Tuesday. Loopholes should be closed to prevent the oil industry and the oil processing industry from the Iran making transactions with foreign countries... The failure of Iranian tanker traffic offers another way to hamper Iranian oil exports. Last week, the Treasury issued sanctions against the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and the ships waters under her. This is a positive step. The concentration of the measures on the ships as a whole will be only partially effective. The Iran has already started its tanker reflagging, to give them new names and change them. Also Iran is currently building a network of Iranian and international front companies, to which the individual ships will be overwritten. Without additional measures it must be assumed therefore that the Iranian tankers in the future in many parts of the world will operate freely so that the financial lifeline of the Islamic Republic remains intact. To guarantee the effective implementation of European oil ban and to make it more difficult, Iranian deception measures, the UANI-ISD initiative that is committed to banning the sale of spare parts for Iranian oil engines in the European Union. By prohibiting delivery of spare parts, Europe can complicate the sale of Iranian oil and significantly reduce the Iranian profits. The majority of the Iranian tanker engines are produced by a small group of European companies. Highly specialized technology are in these machines and the fact that for Iran one a group of tankers are built at one shipyard, causes that Iranian tankers to use only a small number of different engines. For example, the Sulzer RTA84T engine in at least nine Iranian tankers is built. A very limited number of spare parts are required to wait for the majority of the Iranian tanker. Who prevents their delivery to the Iran, difficult and expensive Iranian oil supplies significantly. The financial losses for the Iran are potentially in the billions. Economic pressure had moved to the Islamic Republic to return in the spring to the negotiating table. Therefore, it is likely that a significant increase of costs will motivate the Iran to make tangible concessions in the negotiations. If the current negotiations result in concrete progress, they can pave the way to a peaceful solution of the conflict. If they fail, will dangerously destabilised the region around the Persian Gulf. It is therefore in the interest of Europe to do everything to support a successful conclusion of negotiations with the Iran." http://t.uani.com/N56g2k

Walter Pincus in WashPost: "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believes that his government is so deeply penetrated by U.S., Israeli and other intelligence agencies that when he eventually gives an order to build a nuclear weapon it will be quickly known. As a result, Khamenei is creating redundancy in production sites, adding centrifuges and more low- and medium-level enriched uranium to Iran's stockpile so when the time comes Israel will not have the capability to carry out a surgical strike against Tehran's nuclear complex. Perhaps not even the United States could do it major harm. This is no leak of a classified government report. It was Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaking on CNN's 'Situation Room' on Monday. But it was the first time I believe that any high official had described, if not directly, the current capabilities of U.S. and Israeli intelligence when it comes to Iran. If you take Barak at his word, the United States and Israel not only know that Khamenei has not given the order, but also why he has not given it. In an April 20 CNN interview, Barak said, 'It's true that probably Khamenei has not given orders to start building a [nuclear] weapon,' but at that time the Israeli defense minister gave no hint about why or how he knew it. On Monday, however, Barak told a expanded story. 'He did not tell his people to start and build it - a weapon... We think that we understand why he does not give this order,' Barak said. 'He [Khamenei] believes that he is penetrated through our intelligence and he strongly feels that if he tries to order, we will know it - we and you [the United States] and some other intelligence services will know about it and it might end up with a physical action against it,' Barak said. Barak maintained that Khamenei wants a nuclear weapon but he will wait until he reaches what the Israelis call the 'zone of immunity' from an attack. 'By then,' Barak said, 'he will have to consider when and how to go into building it.'" http://t.uani.com/QxxPGE

Anthony Cordesman in CSIS: "There are times when the best way to prevent war is to clearly communicate that it is possible. No one can now calculate the odds of a serious conflict in the Gulf, or preventive strikes on Iran, or how the two might interact. The fact is, however, that negotiations are not yet making clear progress, there is a steady rise in tensions and military readiness in the Gulf, the United States is enforcing still more sanctions on Iran, and the last week has seen Israel's leaders become involved in new debates over the timing and prospects of preventive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities... It is all too easy to postulate a successful outcome to military action. But, several thousand years of history reinforce the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq about the limits to military power, and make it clear that real-world grand strategy consists largely of living with the unpleasant impact of the law of unintended consequences. It is also far from clear that this mix of tensions has as yet raised the probability of war to anything other than a low-level risk. For all these reasons, however, this may well be the moment to begin to take action to limit the risk of war as much as possible. To be specific, there are three actions the United States could take. The first is to reshape the focus of negotiations around clear U.S. redlines. If we really mean we have a military option and will act on it, we need to be far less ambiguous. Iran needs to know there are real limits to how long it can talk and stall. Our allies and all the members of the 5+1 need to know this as well. And Israel and our Southern Gulf allies need to know that they can truly count on the United States to act if Iran does not agree to a negotiated settlement or crosses a clear redline. We have talked so long in vague terms that the U.S. threat may have begun to seem like political posturing to both Iran and Israel. It may well be a prelude to a U.S. acceptance of a nuclear Iran and a strategy based on containment and deterrence. If we are serious, we need to do far more to convince Iran that it does not have a choice between negotiations and preventive strikes. We also need to convince Israel that it does not have to act on its far more limited window of opportunity as Iran disperses and buries its nuclear facilities. The second action is to make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options. The United States does not have to reveal its war plan to have its military clearly outline the ways it can defeat Iran's defenses. There are many ways in which U.S. analysts with official connections can suggest out how easy it would be to escalate to the point of destroying Iran's refineries and power grid, suppressing its air defenses, and reacting to any low level of asymmetric attack by destroying key Iranian military objectives. The iron law of asymmetric warfare is to never be trapped into fighting on the enemy's terms and to use force decisively to escalate where this is possible. The time to communicate just how many ways the United States can do this-with the support of key Gulf states-is before a conflict begins. Similarly, the United States does not have to threaten preventive strikes. It simply has to make its capabilities clear in terms of a wide range of possible scenarios. It can make clear that it might not simply target known and suspect nuclear facilities, but missile and military industrial facilities as well. The United States can point out that it does not have to destroy hardened Iranian targets. All it has to do is keep closing the access entrances with repetitive strikes. It can make clear to Iran that the United States is not simply planning for a single strike, but considering ongoing intelligence and reconnaissance efforts and follow-on strikes. The United States has many options for such attacks if they are necessary, and it can talk about them as exercises or war college studies without giving away any details. In fact, the United States can confront Iran with many more options than Iran can react to, while making it clear to our allies just how credible U.S. options can be as a last resort. The United States can-and should-speak softly while providing the clearest possible picture of the fact that it carries a big stick." http://t.uani.com/MAHkPx

Herb Keinon in JPost: "And it all has to do with one word: capability. Listen to what the two men said: 'Today we'll have the opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing our region and no challenge is greater than stopping Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,' Netanyahu said, welcoming his guest. This is a line we think we have heard a million times before. And, indeed, we have. But pay attention to the word capability. There is a need, Netanyahu said, to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. Now listen to Panetta, when it is his turn to speak: 'I want to reassert again the position of the United States that with regards to Iran, we will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period,' he said in an unequivocal statement that sounded like a read-my-lips-moment. 'We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen.' The US won't allow Tehran to get a nuclear weapon. But Panetta did not say anything about keeping the Iranians from gaining nuclear weapons capability. And that is a world of difference. In Netanyahu's view, Tehran must be kept from accumulating all the different components needed for a nuclear weapon, meaning it cannot have the sufficient quantities of enriched uranium, triggers and missiles. It must be stopped before it has all the technical pieces in place and just needs to make the decision to put them together. In Panetta's view, Iran cannot get a weapon. Apparently meaning, if his words are parsed, that the US has no intention of preventing the Iranians from achieving the capabilities, only from actually putting all the capabilities they accumulate into a nuclear bomb. In layman's terms, that means that in America's view it may be okay if the Iranians have a missile in one room, and all the enriched uranium for a bomb in another, as long as they do not make the decision to put it all together in the same room and emerge with a nuclear-tipped missile. Israel's view is that Iran must be stopped before it has sufficient uranium in any one room. This difference - between keeping Iran from nuclear capability and keeping Tehran from a nuclear weapon - has huge operational ramifications affecting the decision when military action might need to be taken. Those who believe the Iranians must be stopped before they have achieved nuclear capabilities must take action well before those who say they must be stopped only before they start putting together everything they have in their different 'rooms.' That key difference in approach came out clearly in Netanyahu and Panetta's smiling public comments on Wednesday. But how the two sides deal with that difference, and what it means operationally, remains very much in the realm of speculation." http://t.uani.com/ODtgp6

David Albright & Robert Avagyan in ISIS: "Commercial satellite imagery from July 25, 2012 of a site at the Parchin military complex shows what appears to be the final result of considerable sanitization and earth displacement activity (see figure 1). The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suspects that this complex contains a high explosive testing chamber that was used for nuclear weapons related development. The Parchin site garnered international attention in late February 2012 when the IAEA declared its interest in inspecting it in compliance with its mandate to ensure that there had been no military nuclear related activity.  The IAEA wants to inspect the site in particular to ensure that Iran's declaration under its safeguards agreement is complete.  Iran has consistently refused to grant the IAEA access to Parchin. It has insisted instead on allowing access only after the negotiation of a broader agreement addressing all issues concerning the military dimensions of its nuclear program.  The IAEA agreed and attempted to negotiate an agreement.  However, Iran demanded that the IAEA unduly limit its inspection rights and methods, something it is not prepared to do in any case.  Looking back, Iran's negotiating strategy appeared aimed at stalling while it undertook a range of cleanup activities at the Parchin site. The site in question had remained unchanged since early 2004 until a month following the IAEA request for access; then what appeared to be clean-up activity began.  Iran denied doing any cleanup, calling it routine construction work. The first signs of such activity were publicly reported by ISIS in May 2012 with satellite imagery from April 9, 2012 showing objects lined up outside the suspected high explosive building, and next to it, traces of water flow (figure 2). Over the subsequent four months there was considerable activity with the razing of two buildings within the site, notable earth removal and displacement, the likely cleanup of the inside of the suspect building and possibly its exterior surfaces, the removal of the security perimeter, and the removal of all roadways (reports documenting the changes are available on the ISIS website here). The latest image from July 25, 2012 shows stark differences in the site's current layout from earlier imagery in figure 2. The entire area surrounding the buildings appears to have been bulldozed, covered, and flattened. The only remaining traces of activity are the apparent base of one of the demolished buildings and earth piles formed as a result of earth removal and displacement (figure 1). There are no traces of heavy machinery or construction materials suggesting that no major activity is planned in the near future. The degree of the site's modification and the fact that this apparent cleanup work started soon after the IAEA's request for access cast further doubt on Iran's claims that its nuclear program does not or has never had any military aspects." http://t.uani.com/NLEprx

Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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