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Top Stories
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
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
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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
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
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commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
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