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Top Stories
AP:
"Seeking a fresh start to a strained relationship, President Barack
Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday
demonstrated solidarity on the key issues that have stirred tensions between
them. The U.S. president vowed he would do 'what is necessary' to prevent
Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while Netanyahu reaffirmed that his
newly formed government seeks a two-state solution to Israel's
decades-long dispute with the Palestinians. Obama, in Israel for the
first time in his presidency, also pledged to investigate reports that
Syria had used chemical weapons for the first time in its two-year civil
war. And he sternly warned Syrian leader Bashar Assad that use of such
weapons would be a 'game-changer,' one that could potentially draw the
U.S. military into the conflict for the first time. 'The Assad regime
must understand that they will be held accountable for the use of
chemical weapons or their transfer to terrorists,' Obama said, standing
alongside Netanyahu at a nighttime news conference... On Iran in
particular, the two leaders sought to show they were united in their
desire to prevent the Islamic republic from developing what Obama called
'the world's worst weapons.'... Netanyahu strongly backed Obama's
efforts, saying he was 'absolutely convinced' the U.S. is determined to
prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/WGgj4c
Reuters:
"Iran's most powerful authority said the Islamic Republic would
destroy the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if Israel launched a
military attack against it. 'At times the officials of the Zionist regime
(Israel) threaten to launch a military invasion but they themselves know
that if they make the slightest mistake the Islamic Republic will raze
Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground,' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during an
address, broadcast live on state television." http://t.uani.com/YI2ejn
AFP:
"Iran began the Persian New Year on Wednesday with its most senior
leader asking the people to stand up to piling Western economic sanctions
and also warning that the pressure was unlikely to ease. If Iranians show
more 'readiness' to face Western pressure, the next 12 months will be a
'political and economic epoch' for the country, supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei said in a recorded message on state television. The year
will be filled with 'development, activity and dexterity,' Khamenei vowed
in the message aired shortly after Iranians celebrated the Persian New
Year, or Nowruz, marking the transition of winter to spring. But, he
warned, 'it does not mean that the enmity of enemies will subside,'
alluding to Western opposition to Iran's nuclear programme and harsh
sanctions against the economy of the Islamic republic... On Wednesday, Khamenei
said economic sanctions had failed to 'cripple' Iran, while also noting
an increase in pressure. 'It appeared that the enemy was toughening up
against Iran' in the past 12 months, he said. 'They said and insisted
they wanted to cripple the Iranian nation with sanctions. But they
failed.'" http://t.uani.com/11k3JrJ
Nuclear Program
AP: "While international diplomacy
has focused on trying to prevent Iran from using enriched uranium to
produce nuclear arms, concern is growing about another rapidly advancing
project that could supply plutonium for a nuclear weapon. Tehran hopes to
have a plutonium-producing reactor up and running next year, part of a
nuclear program that the Iranians insist is designed to produce
electricity and material for medical and scientific research - not for
bombs. Both plutonium and enriched uranium can be used to produce a
nuclear explosion. International concern has so far focused more
intensely on Iran's uranium enrichment path... The United States and its
allies worry about the plutonium reactor at Arak, southwest of Tehran.
U.S. envoy Joseph Macmanus told a recent meeting of the International
Atomic Energy Agency - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - that the reactor is
'of increasing concern' as its startup date approaches. Israel, which has
taken a lead in criticizing Iran's nuclear program, is even more
concerned." http://t.uani.com/13eW56U
LAT:
"An offer in the most recent round of negotiations over Iran's
nuclear program has created anxiety in Israel and injected tension into
President Obama's scheduled meetings Wednesday with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials
worry that the United States and five other world powers offered too much
to Tehran during Feb. 26-27 talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, aimed at
persuading Iran's government to curb its uranium enrichment program.
Iranian negotiators showed interest in the offer, but no deal was
reached... The Israelis argue that the U.S. and its partners 'haven't
been maximizing their leverage,' said David Makovsky, a Mideast
specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a
nonpartisan think tank. He said Iran may read the offer as a sign of
wavering U.S. resolve. Other signs, he said, include not sending a second
U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget cuts at the
Pentagon, and Obama's nomination as Defense secretary of Chuck Hagel, who
in the past has expressed reluctance to go to war with Iran." http://t.uani.com/YaM3lt
Sanctions
WSJ:
"Iran's crude production capacity is down almost 20% due to strict
sanctions imposed by western governments on the nation, according to
figures published by the International Energy Agency. The IEA says in its
March oil market report that Iran's maximum sustainable crude production
capacity is off by 700,000 barrels a day since December 2011, to a
current 3 million barrels a day. Western nations agreed on tough
sanctions on Iran's oil industry at the start of 2012. Analysts attribute
the falling capacity to a ripple effect beginning with the dwindling
demand for Iranian crude. Fewer buyers mean it is likely the Islamic
Republic has shut in some production. This can reduce the pressure
pushing oil and gas out of the fields, making it difficult to return to
previous levels of output when production is restarted, analysts added.
'If both gas and oil supply are being shut in, there may well be issues
in terms of sustainable production capacity,' said David Fyfe, head of
market research and analysis at Gunvor, a role he previously held at the
IEA... The energy advisory group is signaling that 'this round of
sanctions has had the impact of arguably permanently destroying some
capacity in Iran,' said Amrita Sen, oil analyst at consultancy Energy
Aspects... The IEA said Iran's oil production was 2.7 million barrels a
day in February, compared with 3.5 million barrels a day in December
2011." http://t.uani.com/WMGY0z
Reuters:
"Iran's most important holiday, Nowruz is rooted in ancient
Zoroastrian culture and marked by large family gatherings, gifts for
children, vacations and spring cleaning (called "house shaking"
in Persian). But Nowruz this year caps 12 months of high inflation and
unemployment and comes with no sign of an end to Western sanctions on
Iran's energy and banking sectors that have halved the country's oil
exports and made it difficult to conduct trade, even in items not banned
by the West. The sanctions are meant to force Iran's leadership to
reconsider its disputed nuclear program, which the United States and some
allies suspect may be aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability,
something Iran denies. But the most immediate effect of the measures has
been a decline in the living standard of millions of Iranians, and that
is being felt keenly at this time of year... But some say it is the
government that is to blame for the price hikes because subsidized dollars
that should have gone to food imports have instead been co-opted by
well-connected individuals who used the hard currency to import luxury
items instead. 'Some wealthy people are importing expensive cars with
cheap dollars and ordinary people can't afford pistachios,' said
48-year-old Shahrokh, who works in a taxi agency." http://t.uani.com/102lQAU
Reuters:
"Oil major Royal Dutch Shell lost money trading Iranian crude in
2012 shortly before a European Union embargo and still owes $2.3 billion
to Tehran for oil purchases. The details, revealed in Shell regulatory
filings, is the first disclosure of its dealings with Iran in 2012, when
it kept buying Tehran's oil right up to the mid-year EU embargo deadline.
The loss raises questions about Shell's decision to continue trading with
Iran in the first half of 2012, taking advantage of an exception for
pre-existing contracts, when many of its rivals had stopped. The firm
said its trading division generated a gross revenue of $481 million in
2012 on Iranian oil purchases and a net loss of $6 million. Condensate
and fuel oil purchases from Iran generated a gross revenue of $631
million and a net profit of $4 million, failing to compensate for the
loss in crude." http://t.uani.com/ZfmiJV
Reuters:
"Standard Chartered Chairman John Peace apologized on Thursday for
inaccurate comments he made earlier this month about his bank breaching
U.S. sanctions over Iran. The highly unusual retraction indicated U.S.
regulators had put pressure on the bank to clarify the comments following
a high-profile settlement last year which cost Standard Chartered $667
million. The London-based bank agreed to deferred prosecution agreements
with the U.S. Department of Justice and District Attorney of New York as
part of the settlement. Peace said on March 5 at a press conference with
reporters that Standard Chartered 'had no willful act to avoid
sanctions'. But in a statement on Thursday, he said those comments were
'both legally and factually incorrect' and he retracted them. He said they
directly contradicted the bank's acceptance of responsibility. 'To be
clear, Standard Chartered Bank unequivocally acknowledges and accepts
responsibility ... for past knowing and willful criminal conduct in
violating U.S. economic sanctions laws and regulations,' Peace said in
the statement. He said he 'very much' regretted his earlier comments,
which 'were at best inaccurate.'" http://t.uani.com/162sATv
Syrian Uprising
NYT:
"Iran is stepping up its military assistance to President Bashar
al-Assad of Syria, and the supplies have strengthened his belief that he
can prevail in his struggle with the opposition, a senior State
Department official said Wednesday. 'They are plussing up their
assistance,' said Robert S. Ford, the American ambassador to Syria, referring
to Iran. 'They are plussing up their people on the ground. They are
plussing up what they sending in.' The continued support from Iran,
Russia and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, have had an important
influence on Mr. Assad's calculations, Mr. Ford said. 'Today, he still
thinks he can win militarily,' Mr. Ford noted in testimony to the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs." http://t.uani.com/149HZTA
Opinion &
Analysis
Robert Zarate in
RCW: "As President Obama meets with Prime Minister
Netanyahu in Israel this week, it's critical that both leaders
discuss-without any illusions-the Iranian nuclear program's growing
threat to Middle East security and global stability. For nearly a decade,
the United States and other world powers have used a dual-track strategy
of diplomacy and non-military pressure in an effort to persuade Iran to
halt its highly controversial nuclear program. However, the dual-track
strategy has not yet succeeded in dissuading Iran from its quest for the
capability to make a nuclear weapon on increasingly short notice. In one
of the more alarming scenarios, analysts estimate that Iran-using only
declared nuclear material and declared sites for uranium enrichment-has
the technical potential to produce nuclear explosive material for its
first nuclear weapon in a matter of a few months. What's worse, if Iran
has undeclared sites for uranium enrichment, then analysts worry that
Iran's possible timeline for breaking out overtly-or sneaking out
covertly-of the international inspections regime and building its first
nuclear bomb could further shorten. The question of whether Iran has
declared all of its nuclear materials, equipment, and facilities is of
critical importance. For example, while Director of National Intelligence
James R. Clapper wrote in an unclassified report to Congress that U.S.
intelligence agencies 'assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material
and produce a weapon-worth of WGU [weapons-grade uranium] before this
activity is discovered,' Clapper's report remained completely silent on
the possibility that Iran has undeclared-and therefore
unsafeguarded-nuclear material. U.S. policymakers and lawmakers should
press the intelligence community on this omission because the possibility
that Iran has undeclared nuclear material is very real, according to the
world's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In February 2013 report, the IAEA warned once again that international
inspectors are able to verify the correctness-but not the completeness-of
Iran's nuclear declarations to the Agency... Moreover, the IAEA
reiterated that international inspectors 'will not be in a position to
provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear
material and activities in Iran unless and until Iran provides the
necessary cooperation with the Agency' as legally demanded by the
35-nation IAEA Board of Governors and the United Nations Security
Council. However, Iran has adamantly refused to provide the IAEA with
such 'necessary cooperation' for nearly a decade and counting... Whatever
President Obama may say during his trip to Israel, it's clear that he
still views diplomacy as a viable means to achieving the ultimate end of
stopping Iran's nuclear weapons-making potential. But as the window
rapidly closes for the United States, Israel, and other responsible
members of the international community to halt Iran's destabilizing
nuclear ambitions, it's urgent that Mr. Obama not to give up his end to
obtain his means." http://t.uani.com/11k8HVo
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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