Friday, September 27, 2013

Eye on Iran: Rouhani, Blunt and Charming, Pitches a Moderate Iran







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NYT:
"But amid the fervent diplomatic theater, intended to end Iran's isolation, it was at times difficult to tell whether Mr. Rouhani was a genuinely transformative Iranian leader, as his cabinet insisted, or a more polished avatar of the past, as his critics claimed. In television interviews and public addresses throughout the week, he repeatedly sought to cast himself as a moderate ready to do business with the West. But it was also clear that whatever he said here was closely and instantly dissected at home, raising uncertainty over whether he could truly deliver a compromise with the West, if that is what he sought. And so he condemned the Nazis in a television interview, but quickly hedged by saying he was not a historian. And even as he called for 'time bound' talks to resolve the nuclear standoff, he skipped a lunch at which he might have had the chance to meet President Obama and shake his hand. Even charmed diplomats pointed out he offered no concrete proposals, while also noting he had received nothing concrete from Western officials to take back to his constituents... Gary Samore, a former Obama adviser, and now the president of United Against Nuclear Iran, said the substance was 'very similar to Ahmadinejad's, but he says it in a much kinder and gentler way.' 'That's the definition of a charm offensive,' he continued." http://t.uani.com/177EdKV

Bloomberg: "Foreign ministers from the U.S. and five other powers met with Iran's top diplomat to see whether the Islamic Republic's new administration is serious about resolving disputes over its nuclear program. The meeting at the United Nations today represented the highest-level formal talks between the U.S. and Iran since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It came after President Hassan Rouhani, who took office last month, asserted a desire to resolve tensions over his nation's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its European allies say is being used to develop nuclear weapons capability... Some Western analysts say they're uncertain what Rouhani can do, in part because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ultimate authority over the country's nuclear program. 'I haven't seen a dramatic change in what they're willing to offer, or on the limits to what they're willing to do' said Gary Samore, Obama's top coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction until February." http://t.uani.com/1av3Sx2

Back Channel (Al-Monitor): "US Secretary of State John Kerry shook hands and met alone with Iran's new top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif for thirty minutes Thursday, in the highest level direct talks between the two countries in decades. 'We had a constructive meeting, and I think all of us were pleased that Foreign Minister Zarif came and made a presentation to us, which was very different in tone and very different in the vision that he held out with respect to possibilities of the future,' Kerry told journalists after the meeting.  'Now it's up to people to do the hard work of trying to fill out what those possibilities could do,' Kerry said... Zarif 'made a thoughtful presentation, he laid out what Iran's interests were, ... and expressed a desire to come to an agreement and have it fully implemented in a year's time,' the senior State Department official said Thursday, stressing again that Zarif proposed both reaching and implementing a nuclear deal within a year... 'If the Iranians agreed to establish a US-Iran channel on the margins of the P5+1, it's a good sign,' former top Obama nonproliferation advisor Gary Samore, president of United Against a Nuclear Iran [UANI], told Al-Monitor Thursday." http://t.uani.com/1dNTGkY
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Nuclear Program

Reuters: "Six major powers and Iran on Thursday agreed to meet in Geneva next month for further talks on resolving the standoff with Tehran on its nuclear program, the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Thursday... Ashton said the Geneva meeting on October 15-16 would 'carry on from today's meeting and hopefully move this process forward.' 'We want to spend our time in Geneva translating that into the practical details,' said Ashton, adding: 'I am very ambitious for what we can do, but we all know we have to be very practical.'" http://t.uani.com/16F5PTo

Reuters: "Iran has sharply criticized the U.N. nuclear watchdog over 'baseless allegations' about its atomic activity, a document showed before talks between the two sides on Friday to discuss a stalled inquiry into suspected bomb research by Tehran. The uncompromising language in the paper, and the fact that Iran asked the U.N. agency to make it public, may disappoint those hoping for a softening of the Islamic state's nuclear stance under new President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate. Iran's new government said on Wednesday it wanted to 'jump-start' separate talks with six world powers on a diplomatic solution to a decade-long dispute over its uranium enrichment program and hoped for a deal in three to six months. But in a 20-page 'explanatory note' posted on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday, Iran's mission to the IAEA detailed many objections to its latest report on Tehran's nuclear program, issued last month. 'The claims and baseless allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities ... are unprofessional, unfair, illegal and politicized,' it said." http://t.uani.com/1h6dz6N

Reuters: "Iran played down prospects for a quick breakthrough in talks with the U.N. nuclear agency on Friday over a stalled inquiry into its atomic work, the first such meeting under the new relatively moderate Iranian government. The discussions in Vienna, home of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), started at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT), a day after separate but related talks at the United Nations in New York, where Iran and the United States held their highest-level talks in a generation. For the West, the IAEA negotiations are a test of any substantive shift by Iran from what it saw as intransigence under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline predecessor of new President Hassan Rouhani. Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, stressed the new government's policy of 'constructive interaction' but also said he did not expect any agreement on Friday." http://t.uani.com/18usKpc

AFP: "President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that Iran was committed to negotiate on its nuclear program in 'good faith' after the highest-level talks yet held with world powers. 'We are fully prepared to seriously engage in the process toward a negotiated and mutually agreeable settlement and do so in good faith and with a business-like mind,' Rouhani told a think tank forum in New York." http://t.uani.com/15YXHkY

AP: "Iran's Revolutionary Guard has unveiled an attack drone, capable of carrying missiles and described as the unit's 'most sophisticated' so far. The Guard's website, sepahnews.com, says Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari unveiled the drone Friday. He is quoted as saying the all-Iranian-made drone is a strategic asset in protecting the nation's borders. The website says the drone, dubbed Shahed-129, or Witness-129, can fly up to a distance of 1,700 kilometers (1,062 miles), which puts much of the Middle East within its range." http://t.uani.com/1h8lIrf 

Sanctions

AFP: "US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that if Iran takes rapid measures to cooperate with international monitoring of its nuclear program, Washington could begin lifting sanctions within months. Speaking to CBS News flagship 60 Minutes he said Iran should, for example, open up its Fordow underground nuclear facility to international inspection and undertake to scale down the level to which it enriches uranium. 'The United States is not going to lift the sanctions until it is clear that a very verifiable, accountable, transparent process is in place, whereby we know exactly what Iran is going be doing with its program,' he said. But, asked by his interviewer whether Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had been right to predict that a deal could be in place within three to six months, Kerry replied: 'Sure, it's possible.'" http://t.uani.com/1fMykGC

Reuters: "Japan's top buyer of Iranian crude JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp is set to cut the oil it takes from the Middle Eastern producer in an annual contract for next year by nearly 20 percent, an industry source familiar with the matter said... 'JX is set to cut close to 20 percent, or by more than 10,000 bpd,' the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. JX Nippon, a downstream unit of JX Holdings, is expected to cut its Iran import volumes to around 60,000 bpd in 2014, down from an estimated 73,000 bpd this year." http://t.uani.com/1dNU9DS 

Human Rights

Guardian: "Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years. Activists have expressed alarm that the bill, approved by parliament on Sunday, opens the door for the caretaker of a family to marry his or her adopted child if a court rules it is in the interests of the individual child... Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer with the London-based group Justice for Iran, told the Guardian she feared the council would feel safe to put its stamp of approval on the bill while Iran's moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, draws the attention of the press during his UN visit to New York. 'This bill is legalising paedophilia,' she warned. 'It's not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but this bill is legalising paedophilia and is endangering our children and normalising this crime in our culture.'" http://t.uani.com/1fMBwlB

Opinion & Analysis

Charles Krauthammer in WashPost: "The search, now 30 years old, for Iranian 'moderates' goes on. Amid the enthusiasm of the latest sighting, it's worth remembering that the highlight of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages debacle was the secret trip to Tehran taken by Robert McFarlane, President Reagan's former national security adviser. He brought a key-shaped cake symbolizing the new relations he was opening with the 'moderates.' We know how that ended. Three decades later, the mirage reappears in the form of Hassan Rouhani. Strange résumé for a moderate: 35 years of unswervingly loyal service to the Islamic Republic as a close aide to Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. Moreover, Rouhani was one of only six presidential candidates, another 678 having been disqualified by the regime as ideologically unsound. That puts him in the 99th centile for fealty. Rouhani is Khamenei's agent but, with a smile and style, he's now hailed as the face of Iranian moderation. Why? Because Rouhani wants better relations with the West. Well, what leader would not want relief from Western sanctions that have sunk Iran's economy, devalued its currency and caused widespread hardship? The test of moderation is not what you want but what you're willing to give. After all, sanctions were not slapped on Iran for amusement. It was to enforce multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding a halt to uranium enrichment. Yet in his lovey-dovey Post op-ed, his U.N. speech and various interviews, Rouhani gives not an inch on uranium enrichment. Indeed, he has repeatedly denied that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons at all. Or ever has. Such a transparent falsehood - what country swimming in oil would sacrifice its economy just to produce nuclear electricity that advanced countries such as Germany are already abandoning? - is hardly the basis for a successful negotiation. But successful negotiation is not what the mullahs are seeking. They want sanctions relief. And more than anything, they want to buy time. It takes about 250 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in August that Iran already has 186 kilograms. That leaves the Iranians on the threshold of going nuclear. They are adding 3,000 new high-speed centrifuges. They need just a bit more talking, stalling, smiling and stringing along of a gullible West. Rouhani is the man to do exactly that. As Iran's chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005, he boasted in a 2004 speech to the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, 'While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility in Isfahan .... In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.' Such is their contempt for us that they don't even hide their strategy: Spin the centrifuges while spinning the West." http://t.uani.com/1eMqFJE

Shane Harris in FP: "Hasan Rouhani, a 37-year-old senior foreign affairs advisor in the Iranian government, and his country's future president, sat with a delegation of White House officials on the top floor of what was once the Hilton hotel in Tehran. It was May 27, 1986, and Rouhani had come to secretly broker a deal with the Americans, at great political and personal risk. The U.S. team's ostensible purpose was to persuade Iranian leaders to assist in the release of American hostages held in Lebanon, something Rouhani was willing to do in exchange for the United States selling missiles and weapons systems to Iran. But the group, which consisted of senior National Security Council staffers, including a then little-known Marine lieutenant colonel named Oliver North, had a second and arguably more ambitious goal: to forge a new political alliance with moderate Iranian leaders, such as Rouhani and his bosses, the men who ran the country.  In those meetings, the man to whom U.S. officials are now turning as the best hope for a rapprochement with Iran, after more than three decades of hostilities, showed himself to be a shrewd negotiator, ready to usher in a new era of openness. But he was also willing to subvert that broader goal and string the Americans along to get what he wanted -- more weapons. If there is a window into how Rouhani thinks today and how he will approach negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, it may be those few days in May he spent in high-stakes talks with the Americans over hostages and the countries' shared futures.  Rouhani knew that helping to free the hostages held by Hezbollah, the terrorist group with which Iran held some influence, was a top priority for President Ronald Reagan. The U.S. president had personally committed to the families that he'd do whatever it took to rescue their loved ones. A televised homecoming would be a political triumph for Reagan. 'By solving this problem we strengthen you in the White House,' Rouhani told North and his colleagues. 'As we promised, we will make every effort.' But it would not come without cost. Rouhani and his cohort, a group of lower-level functionaries in the regime, kept turning the conversation back to the subject of weapons. The Americans had pledged to have a plane full of missile parts on its way to Tehran within 10 hours of the hostages' release. The Iranians wanted the missiles first. When it was clear that wouldn't happen, they offered to help secure the release of two hostages and said that after further negotiations they'd try for two more." http://t.uani.com/15zHdS8

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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