Friday, February 15, 2013

Eye on Iran: Iran Could Use U.N. Talks as Cover to Build Bomb, Ban Ki-moon Says








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WashPost: "The United Nations must be decisive and swift in judging whether diplomacy can resolve world concerns about Iran's nuclear program, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, or invite the risk that Iran, like North Korea, will use talks as a cover to build a bomb. In an interview with The Washington Post, Ban said he wants to accelerate diplomatic talks with Iran and give them new urgency. World powers will hold another meeting with Iran later this month, the latest in a series of thus-far ineffective efforts to resolve questions about the scope and intent of Iran's nuclear development. 'We should not give much more time to the Iranians, and we should not waste time,' Ban said. 'We have seen what happened with the DPRK.' The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the formal name for North Korea, exploded a third nuclear test device this week. The North exploited a decade of fitful diplomatic efforts to make progress toward a weapon... The U.N. Security Council must 'show a firm, decisive and effective, quick response,' Ban said, that makes plain to Iran that the rest of the world is not convinced that it is not seeking nuclear weapons. Ban said he told Iran's supreme leader and president last year that he is not satisfied with their assurances that the program is peaceful. He traveled to Tehran over objections from the United States and other nations that his presence could reward the clerical regime." http://t.uani.com/12oOEZz

Reuters: "Tighter U.S. sanctions are killing off Turkey's gold-for-gas trade with Iran and have stopped state-owned lender Halkbank from processing other nations' energy payments to the OPEC oil producer, bankers said on Friday. U.S. officials have sought to prevent Turkish gold exports, which indirectly pay Iran for its natural gas, from providing a financial lifeline to Tehran, largely frozen out of the global banking system by Western sanctions over its nuclear program. Turkey, Iran's biggest natural gas customer, has been paying Iran for its imports with Turkish lira, because sanctions prevent it from paying in dollars or euros. Iranians then use those lira, held in Halkbank accounts, to buy gold in Turkey, and couriers carry bullion worth millions of dollars in hand luggage to Dubai, where it can be sold for foreign currency or shipped to Iran. Halkbank had also been processing a portion of India's payments for Iranian oil. A provision of U.S. sanctions, made law last summer and implemented from February 6, effectively tightens control on sales of precious metals to Iran and prevents Halkbank from processing oil payments by other countries back to Tehran, bankers said. 'Halkbank can only accept payments for Turkish oil and gas purchases and Iran is only allowed to buy food, medicine and industrial products with that money,' one senior Turkish banker told Reuters. 'The gas for gold trade is very difficult after the second round of sanctions. Iranians cannot just withdraw the cash and buy whatever they want. They have to prove what they are buying ... so gold exports will definitely fall,' he said." http://t.uani.com/Z2lJpn

Mail & Guardian: "A United States computer salesperson who supplied sensitive and potentially 'dangerous' equipment to MTN's mobile network in Iran has been jailed for violating United States economic sanctions. The conviction is damning for the South African mobile giant, as it provides judicial corroboration that the company used sanctions-busting networks to beef up its technical infrastructure in Iran. The salesperson's alleged co-conspirator is also on trial in the US on charges that he serviced embargoed US technology for a 'front company' of MTN Irancell. MTN has denied complicity in sanctions busting after detailed allegations last year that it dodged embargoes by routing high-end computer equipment through a network of Middle Eastern companies... Jailed for four years, the salesperson, Mohammad Hajian, an Iranian-born US citizen, tried to have his sentenced reduced by telling a US court in October last year that he sold super-computers worth about $14-million to 'a South African cellphone company in Iran [a reference to MTN]', rather than to the regime itself. Prosecutors told the district court in Tampa, Florida, that the equipment sold to MTN Irancell in 2009 could have military applications and be used to spy on citizens." http://t.uani.com/YcPz7x
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Nuclear Program

AP: "North Korea is upgrading one of its two major missile launch sites, apparently to handle much bigger rockets, and some design features suggest it is getting help from Iran, a U.S. research institute said Thursday. A successful satellite launch in December, and a nuclear test on Tuesday, both in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, have intensified concern that North Korea is moving toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on an intercontinental missile. An analysis written for 38 North, the website of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, indicates that North Korea has made significant progress since October in constructing a new launchpad and other facilities at Tonghae, on the country's northeast coast. The assessment is based on commercial satellite photos, the latest taken in January. It says design features, including a flame trench covering that protects large rockets from the hot exhaust gases they emit on takeoff, is similar to one at a launch complex in Semnan, Iran, and hasn't been used by the North before." http://t.uani.com/YjGnjQ

AFP: "Iran tried to smuggle thousands of specialized magnets through China for its centrifuges, in an effort to speed its path to reaching nuclear weapons capability, according to a new US report. The report, by a renowned American nuclear scientist, said the operation highlighted the importance of China as a transit point for Iran's nuclear program, and called for sanctions against any Chinese firms involved. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) report said an Iranian front company used a Chinese commercial website to try to acquire 100,000 ring-shaped magnets, which it is banned from importing under United Nations sanctions, in late 2011. Two magnets were needed for each of 50,000 first-generation centrifuges used to enrich uranium at Iran's nuclear plants, in a process that Western powers say is designed to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. The ISIS report by US scientist David Albright suggested that the operation meant that Iran was trying to 'greatly expand' its number of first-generation centrifuges even as it builds more advanced machines." http://t.uani.com/11Kwylf

Bloomberg: "International sanctions designed to punish Iran for its nuclear program may be counter-productive, said scientists and security analysts tracking the decade-long dispute over the Persian Gulf nation's atomic work. While trade and financial sanctions have choked off Iran's access to materials such as aluminum and maraging steel used to make its first generation of nuclear equipment, they have spurred the Islamic Republic to find its own solutions for subsequent technological innovations. Now, Iran is positioned to both build better nuclear devices and export them. 'The serious consequence of all of these sanctions are that you drive the indigenous production of these parts,' Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, a physicist at the Monterrey, California- based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, wrote in response to questions. 'This means the proliferator learns more about the technology and so now they don't only know how to produce the parts, but they could also sell them to other states.'" http://t.uani.com/Z2mKh8

Sanctions

VOA: "The U.S. government has repeatedly stated that sanctions are 'targeted' at Iran's nuclear program and not the Iran's people. Washington points to humanitarian exceptions from the sanctions for agricultural commodities, food, medicine or medical devices. As with any sanctions regime, there is an ongoing debate about how effective sanctions are and who they really hurt. 'We have no quarrel with the people of Iran,' David S. Cohen, the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department, said in an interview with VOA. 'The ultimate objective here is to try and slow down the development of Iran's nuclear program and to put pressure on those senior officials in Iran who are responsible for making policy judgments with respect to the nuclear program, not to make food and medicine scarce.' But there have been numerous reports of shortages, particularly of medicine, and the reports have turned into a propaganda war between the two sides. Iranian government officials blame Western sanctions for the shortages. Western officials blame the Iranian government for mismanaging the situation and causing scarcity. Iran's health minister, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, was fired last December after she criticized the government for not providing enough foreign currency to import vital medicines, causing a shortage. 'The hard currency that they needed wasn't allocated to the health ministry,' said Cohen. 'Instead, the hard currency is being allocated by the government to other purposes, whether it is supporting the Assad regime [in Syria], supporting terrorism or supporting the nuclear program.'" http://t.uani.com/WqyfhY

Zawya: "Iran's crude export earnings were down USD33 billion last year compared to 2011, according to estimates by The Rhodium Group. The Washington-based think tank closely tracks Iran's economic and political developments and believes that Western sanctions against the country have significantly reduced the country's ability to export crude and generate market prices for its commodity. 'Assuming Iran was able to sell every barrel at the Official Selling Price (OSP) posted by the state oil company National Iranian Oil Company, export earnings were down USD33 billion last year,' wrote Rhodium analyst Trevor Houser in a new report. 'While a 35% decline from 2011 levels, historically high oil prices meant 2012 was still Tehran's third best year in recent history, despite a nearly 1 million barrels per day decline in export quantity.' However, payment delays and discounts, in addition to rising production costs and government revenue needs, means that as much as USD65 billion worth of invoices were not fully paid and kept balance of payments depressed." http://t.uani.com/Zd41mS

AP: "Iran has ordered a six-month ban on pistachio exports to try to control the price of the nut, which doubled in the past month. Pistachios are among Iran's top non-oil exports and widely consumed at home, bringing in an average of $1.5 billion a year and providing work for hundreds of thousands of people. Iran was long the world's largest pistachio exporter, with over 200,000 tons a year, but was surpassed last year by the United States. First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iranian state TV on Friday that the ban is temporary and meant to help bring down the price of pistachios that doubled from about 250,000 Iranian rials ($7) per kilogram." http://t.uani.com/WuwEaX 

Terrorism

Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court refused Thursday to revive a lawsuit against UBS AG by U.S. victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks in Israel who claimed the bank aided international terrorism... The plaintiffs had contended that the two organizations, which the U.S. government has labeled terrorist groups, received billions of dollars in funding from Iran, which had received billions in cash from UBS from 1996 to 2004. UBS was fined $100 million by the Federal Reserve in 2004 for violating sanctions by sending money to countries including Iran, which the U.S. government deems a state sponsor of terrorism. Karina Byrne, a UBS spokeswoman, said that while the bank 'expresses sympathy for the plaintiffs, as victims of terrorism, today's decision further vindicates the firm's strong repudiation of the plaintiffs' claims.'" http://t.uani.com/Un48td

Syrian Uprising

Reuters: "An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander has been killed inside Syria by rebels battling Iran's close ally President Bashar al-Assad, Iranian officials and a rebel leader said on Thursday. Syrian rebels have repeatedly accused Tehran of sending fighters to help Assad crush the 22-month-old uprising, a charge Iran has denied. The Iranian embassy in Lebanon said the dead man, Hessam Khoshnevis, was in charge of Tehran's reconstruction assistance in Lebanon. It said he was killed by 'armed terrorist groups', a label used by the Syrian government to describe Assad's foes, on the road to Lebanon as he returned from Damascus." http://t.uani.com/14Wx914

Human Rights

WSJ: "The U.S. formally called for the release from house arrest of Iran's two top opposition leaders in a blunt statement that indicated a policy shift regarding Tehran as it approaches national elections. The politicians, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have been detained by Iranian security services for two years after charging the government of rigging 2009 presidential elections, in which both men were candidates and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. The White House at the time offered only muted condemnation of Tehran's handling of the presidential vote. Iranian political and human-rights activists charged the U.S. with playing down the Iranian government's abuses." http://t.uani.com/XJzUAk

Guardian: "Six leading human rights organisations have called on Iran to the end the 'arbitrary' house arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have been cut off from the outside world for nearly two years without being put on trial. 'For two years now Iranian officials have stripped these opposition figures of their most basic rights without any legal justification or any effective means of remedy,' the Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, said in a joint appeal signed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, International Federation for Human Rights, League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, and Reporters Without Borders. 'They and their families should not have to endure even one more day under these wholly unjustifiable and abusive conditions,' she said." http://t.uani.com/VYX4iM

RFE/RL: "Iran appears to be taking measures to tighten online censorship ahead of its presidential vote. In recent days, a long list of online activities has been designated as criminal, including calling for an election boycott, organizing sit-ins or protests, and insulting presidential candidates. Simultaneously, reports by Iran's Fars and ISNA news agencies say that linking to Facebook, Twitter, and other websites that are blocked in Iran, or even promoting blocked websites, has also become a crime. Iran is already one of the world's harshest online censors. The regime bans tens of thousands of websites it considers immoral or a threat to national security, including news websites and social-media sites. The new measures, if enforced, would put increased pressure on people who use the web or social media as platforms for online activism." http://t.uani.com/YjMp3K

AFP: "US lawmakers on Thursday pressed for the release of an Iranian-American pastor imprisoned in Tehran over his work with underground churches, urging the use of all diplomatic efforts. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, 84 senators and House members across the political spectrum urged him 'to exhaust every possible option' to secure the release of naturalized US citizen Saeed Abedini. Representative Trent Franks, a conservative Republican from Arizona who helped lead the effort, said in a statement that Abedini's case needed Kerry's 'immediate and personal attention.' Representative Henry Waxman, a left-leaning Democrat from California, said that Abedini's detention 'exemplifies Iran's flagrant violation of human rights and religious freedom.' 'We hope that this letter, with its deep support from all across America, will show Saeed Abedini that he is not alone and that we have not forgotten him,' Waxman said." http://t.uani.com/11KwOAK

Opinion & Analysis

UANI Advisory Board Member Walter Russell Mead in The American Interest: "Iran can sometimes be very hard to read, but the announcement that even as talks approach it is installing advanced and more capable centrifuges at its nuclear facility in Natanz doesn't need much interpreting: Iran isn't afraid of Barack Obama. The Ayatollahs have looked at the clues, added up the numbers, and come to the conclusion that the President will not use military force as Iran presses forward with its nuclear plans. One of the clues that lead them to this conclusion is the U.S. decision to cut back the number of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf region. If Washington were serious, the Iranians believe, we would be building up our naval presence, not drawing it back. President Obama's choice of one of the most prominent 'Iran doves' in American public life as his new Defense Secretary is also being read in Tehran as a sign of the President's thinking. Surely, the mullahs appear to believe, if the President were really serious about using force to stop Iran's nuclear program, he would be appointing someone who isn't deeply opposed to it. In any case, this kind of appointment is what people overseas often see as a signal. The President may not have meant to send it, but he did. The announcement of more troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in last night's SOTU will confirm the already widespread view in Tehran that the U.S. is in retreat and that if Iran hangs tough it can get what it wants. If the U.S. really were gearing up for war, the mullahs would expect to see signs that American forces in the region were strengthening positions rather than standing down by land and by sea. From Iran's point of view the Administration also seems to be standing down in Syria. A year ago Washington was full of tough talk: demands that Assad relinquish power, unambiguous statements that he 'must go.' America was huffing and puffing-but folded like a cheap suit when it came time to back words with deeds. From an Iranian point of view this sends two very clear signals. First, don't worry about threats and rhetoric from this White House. When they utter threats, they are just making noise. Assad 'must go,' Iran 'must stop' its nuclear program. This is just chit-chat; it won't be followed up by anything other than diplomatic notes. Another signal our Syria policy inadvertently sends is that Iran still has power in the Middle East. The alliance with Assad and Hezbollah puts Iran at the center of the politics of the eastern Mediterranean. American passivity in Syria tells Iran that its 'resistance' axis of anti-Israel, anti-U.S. forces isn't on the verge of collapse; the Americans aren't going to push Assad off the cliff and break Iran's regional alliance system. Russia has also signaled that it won't abandon Assad, adding to Iran's determination to hang tough. It can deepen its alliance with an Iraq where American power is a fading memory, salvage something out of the Syria mess, and enhance its regional power in the face of ineffective and mostly verbal U.S. opposition. On Syria, the Obama administration has done exactly the opposite of what Teddy Roosevelt proposed: we've been a loudmouthed blowhard with a handful of wet noodles instead of a big stick. Some of the Iranian tea leaves are hard to read, and it's clear that Iran isn't ready to go for broke and rush to build a bomb. For one thing, the mullahs are worried about an Israeli attack, and they may well fear that too rapid and open a push toward nuclear capacity will awaken political forces in the United States that will stiffen the administration's spine. Thus Iran continues to send mixed signals, balancing the news of new centrifuges with soothing talk of concessions. But over time the conviction seems to be growing in Tehran that President Obama is unwilling to take Iran on, and the fact that the President didn't make the confrontation with Iran a centerpiece of his State of the Union message will be read in Iran as yet another signal. Their nuclear program isn't a high enough priority for this President to lead to war. We aren't saying the Iranians are right about President Obama. Kaiser Wilhelm once thought that Woodrow Wilson was so determined to stay out of war that he didn't have to worry about U.S. intervention in Europe. After Wilson ran for re-election on the slogan 'He kept us out of war,' Germany tended to discount Wilson's threats. But while Germany misread Wilson, that misreading made war more likely." http://t.uani.com/X7qAGu

Lee Smith in Tablet: "The White House and President Obama's supporters insist that he's making his first trip to Israel next month to assure the Jewish state that if push comes to shove with Iran, he'll have Israel's back. But North Korea's nuclear test Tuesday morning could indicate that it's already too late for that. If North Korea has the bomb, then for all practical purposes Iran does, too. If that's so, then Obama's policy of prevention has failed, and containment-a policy that the president has repeatedly said is not an option-is in fact all Washington has. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider the history of extensive North Korean-Iranian cooperation on a host of military and defense issues, including ballistic missiles and nuclear development, that dates back to the 1980s. This cooperation includes North Korean sales of technology and arms, like the BM-25, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching Western Europe; Iran's Shahab 3 missile is based on North Korea's Nodong-1 and is able to reach Israel. Iran has a contigent of Iranian weapons engineers and defense officials stationed in North Korea. Meantime, North Korean scientists visit Iran. And last fall, both countries signed a memorandum of understanding regarding scientific, academic, and technological issues. Given all this, there's a great deal of concern that, as one senior U.S. official told the New York Times, 'the North Koreans are testing for two countries.' The classic case of testing for another country is when the United States tested for the U.K. under the 1958 U.S.-U.K. Mutual Defense Agreement. The situation with the Hermit Kingdom and the Islamic Republic is different: The North Koreans certainly aren't going to make the cooperation quite so explicit, but they're also not hiding it. In January, Kim Jong-un boasted that the United States was the prime target for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. Earlier this month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected the idea of nuclear negotiations with the United States. So, neither North Korea nor Iran believe the White House can do much to stop their march-one that they seem to be conducting in lockstep. Nuclear-proliferation experts I spoke with are reluctant to push the conclusion quite that far. 'There's no evidence of direct cooperation on nuclear tests,' Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Monterey Institute, told me. 'And it would be hard to know,' he added, given the paranoid, secretive nature of both regimes. Unless or until the North Koreans or Iranians volunteer that information, it is going to be hard to prove definitively that the North Koreans would give the bomb-or blueprints for one-to Iran... Pyongyang's nuclear program is the crown jewel of the North Korean state enterprise, a carefully guarded secret to which they have given only Iran access. Given how extensively the Iranian nuclear program has been penetrated by foreign intelligence services-which foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi openly admitted in 2010-the North Koreans surely understood they were taking an enormous risk by letting Iranians in the door. Whatever they're getting from Iran in exchange-oil, money, or scientific cooperation on complicated issues-must be crucial. If Tehran has paid for access to Pyongyang's program, it will also pay for a bomb. At this point, it could be only a matter of haggling over the price. 'Some of us have been saying this is something to worry about for five or six years,' said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. 'The North Koreans have been cooperating with Iran for about a decade on nuclear and missile issues, and the Iranians have several full-time weapons engineers on site in North Korea. Neither the North Koreans or the Iranians have made a secret of this. The Iranians were reported at North Korea's last nuclear test as well. It's hard to believe they had no access to the most recent test.'" http://t.uani.com/XBzxEb

Amir Taheri in the NYPost: "'A strategic partnership': So Iran and Russia describe the series of security, economic and cultural agreements they've signed together in the past few weeks. Iran's Foreign Minister Ai-Akbar Salehi arrived in Moscow this week to co-chair the first annual session of the 'partnership' with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Days earlier, a group of officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard arrived in the Russian capital for a crash course in crowd control and civil unrest. They're expected to return to Iran by May and be 'operational' in time for the June presidential election. Iranian authorities are nervous about expected unrest during the elections, and so have called on Russia to help prevent an Iranian version of the 'Arab Spring.' But Russia made its support conditional on signing a security treaty with Iran; Tehran complied last month. The agreement represents a break with an old principle in Iran's defense and security doctrines. Russia has been a source of fear and fascination for its Iranian neighbors since the 18th century. Several wars of varying magnitude proved Russia to be a threat, as successive czars dreamed of winning control of a port on the Indian Ocean - which meant annexing or dominating Iran. In Iranian political folklore, Russia has long been depicted as a bear whose embrace, even if friendly, could smother you. The dynamic persisted despite multiple changes of regime in both nations. Even after the fall of the shah and of the USSR, the Iranian tradition of keeping the Russian bear at arm's length continued under the Khomeinist regime. It's clear that a different fear has moved Tehran to abandon that tradition. The new security pact provides for cooperation in intelligence gathering and the fight 'against terrorism, people-trafficking, and drug-smuggling.' But it more significant is that it commits Russia to training and equipping Iranian security forces to deal with civil unrest. Tehran and Moscow are nervous about being hit by Arab Spring-style uprisings. Under the agreement, Moscow will help Tehran create special police units patterned on the 500,000-strong 'internal army' controlled by the Russian Interior Ministry. There are other signs of change in Moscow-Tehran relations. Last week, Iran played host to Russian warships visiting Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz in what looks like the opening gambit for a Russian naval presence in the strategic waterway." http://t.uani.com/12OrSdg

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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