Top Stories
NYT:
"The United States and five other world powers announced a landmark
accord Sunday morning that would temporarily freeze Iran's nuclear
program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping agreement. It was the
first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that an
international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran's nuclear
program and roll some elements of it back. The aim of the accord, which
is to last six months, is to give international negotiators time to
pursue a more comprehensive pact that would ratchet back much of Iran's
nuclear program and ensure that it could be used only for peaceful
purposes... Iran, which has long resisted international monitoring
efforts and built clandestine nuclear facilities, agreed to stop
enriching uranium beyond 5 percent, a level that would be sufficient for
energy production but that would require further enrichment for
bomb-making. To make good on that pledge, Iran will dismantle links
between networks of centrifuges... Its stockpile of uranium enriched to
20 percent, a short hop from weapons-grade fuel, would be diluted or
converted into oxide so that it could not be readily used for military
purposes. Iran agreed that it would not install any new centrifuges,
start up any that are not already operating or build new enrichment
facilities. The agreement, however, does not require Iran to stop
enriching uranium to a low level of 3.5 percent, or to dismantle any of
its existing centrifuges... In return for the initial agreement, the
United States agreed to provide $6 billion to $7 billion in sanctions
relief. Of this, roughly $4.2 billion would be oil revenue that has been
frozen in foreign banks. This limited sanctions relief can be
accomplished by executive order, allowing the Obama administration to make
the deal without having to appeal to Congress, where there is strong
criticism of any agreement that does not fully dismantle Iran's nuclear
program. The fact that the accord would only pause the Iranian program
was seized on by critics who said it would reward Iran for
institutionalizing the status quo... But some experts, including a former
official who has worked on the Iranian issue for the White House, said it
was unlikely that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would
ever close the door on the option to develop nuclear weapons. Instead,
they said, any initial six-month agreement is more likely to be followed
by a series of partial agreements that constrain Iran's nuclear
activities but do not definitively solve the nuclear issues. 'At the end
of six months, we may see another half step and six more months of
negotiations - ad infinitum,' said Gary Samore, a senior aide on
nonproliferation issues on the National Security Council in Mr. Obama's
first term. Mr. Samore is now president of United Against Nuclear Iran, a
nonprofit group that advocates tough sanctions against Iran unless it
does more to curtail its nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/IoKDfl
NYT:
"The Obama administration's successful push for an accord that would
temporarily freeze much of Iran's nuclear program has cast a spotlight on
the more formidable challenge it now confronts in trying to roll the
program back... The questions that the United States and Iran need to
grapple with in the next phase of their nuclear dialogue, if they want to
overcome their long years of enmity, are more fundamental. 'Now the
difficult part starts,' said Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency... Iran's program to
enrich uranium also needs to be dealt with in detail. The Obama
administration has made clear that it is not prepared to concede at the
start that Iran has a 'right' to enrich uranium. But the interim deal,
reflecting language proposed by the American delegation, says the
follow-up agreement would provide for a 'mutually defined enrichment
program with practical limits and transparency.' So the question appears
to be not whether Iran will be allowed to continue enriching uranium, but
rather what constraints the United States and its negotiating partners
will insist on in return, and how large an enrichment program they are
willing to tolerate. The interim accord makes clear that it must be
consistent with 'practical needs.' Iran and the United States are likely
to have very different ideas of what those needs are. 'This, of course,
will be one of the central issues in the negotiations for a comprehensive
agreement,' said Gary Samore, who served as senior aide on
nonproliferation issues on the National Security Council during the Obama
administration and is now president of United Against Nuclear Iran, an
organization that urges that strong sanctions be imposed on Iran until it
further restricts its nuclear efforts. 'We will want very small and
limited,' Mr. Samore said, referring to Iran's enrichment efforts. 'They
want industrial scale.'" http://t.uani.com/1c4A90b
NYT:
"In its delicate negotiations with Iran over freezing its nuclear
program, the Obama administration is gambling that the gradual relaxation
of punishing sanctions will whet Tehran's appetite for greater economic
relief, inducing the country's leaders to negotiate a further deal to
roll back its nuclear progress. Yet, President Obama's biggest critics -
in Congress, the Arab world and Israel - argue that he has the strategy
entirely backward. By changing the psychology around the world, they
argue, the roughly $100 billion in remaining sanctions will gradually be
whittled away. Wily middlemen, Chinese eager for energy sources and
Europeans looking for a way back to the old days, when Iran was a major
source of trade, will see their chance to leap the barriers... At the
heart of the dispute is a fundamental disagreement about how best to
negotiate with a savvy, skilled adversary, one whose own decision-making
processes have long baffled American intelligence agencies. Mr. Obama and
his aides have argued that unless they give President Hassan Rouhani and
his Western-educated chief negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, something to
take home and advertise as a victory from the first round of
negotiations, there is little chance they will return to negotiate a
second, permanent deal. 'Zarif says he has at most six months to get a
deal before the hard-liners rise again,' one of the Obama
administration's strategists said recently. 'And we believe him.' ... The
Saudis and the Israelis clearly believe that the negotiation is not in
their interest. One Saudi official visiting Washington recently called
the effort 'a fool's game' because once the momentum to impose sanctions
is reversed, every deal maker and middleman in the Middle East will find
ways to evade other elements of the sanctions regime... 'We have the
Iranians in boiling water right now,' a senior Israeli official said the
other day. 'Bring it to a simmer, and they will have a nuclear capability
they can live with and the sanctions will erode.' Much of this argument
is based on psychology as much as economics. The fear heard in Congress -
echoed in arguments the Israelis have made in an intense lobbying
campaign - is that any easing of the business climate around Iran from
toxic to tolerable will erode the fear businesses now have of dealing
with the country. Once Iran's economy improves even slightly, its
incentive to negotiate will disappear, they argue." http://t.uani.com/IgrME7
 Nuclear Agreement
AP: "In a nationally broadcast
speech, Rouhani said the accord recognizes Iran's 'nuclear rights' even
if that precise language was kept from the final document because of
Western resistance. 'No matter what interpretations are given, Iran's
right to enrichment has been recognized,' said Rouhani, who later posed
with family members of nuclear scientists killed in slayings in recent
years that Iran has blamed on Israel and allies." http://t.uani.com/1bOY9Rs
Times
of Israel: 'The agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1
"provides disproportionate sanctions relief to Iran,' a former US
ambassador and CEO of the United Against Nuclear Iran advocacy
organization complained early Sunday morning. Mark D. Wallace, who served
in the past as the US representative for UN management and reform, warned
in a lengthy statement that 'by not agreeing to dismantle a single
centrifuge, Iran has not rolled back its nuclear infrastructure and with
the many centrifuges that it is currently operating, Iran retains the
ability to breakout and produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a
nuclear weapon in as little as 2 months.' 'At the same time,' he added,
'the carefully constructed sanctions architecture developed over decades
has been significantly rolled back.' Wallace complained that attempts to
characterize sanctions 'as a spigot that can be turned off and back on'
were 'unrealistic' and warned that 'if Iran's industrial-size nuclear
program is not rolled back, Tehran will inherently maintain the breakout
capacity to build such a weapon.' The CEO - whose organization includes
on its advisory board former International Atomic Energy Agency deputy
director general Olli Heinonen, former Mossad director Meir Dagan and
Fouad Ajami, professor and director of Middle East Studies at The Johns
Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies - described
the agreement as 'a disappointment for those of us who have worked to
pressure Iran's economy and impose the toughest sanctions in history on
Iran - the same sanctions that brought the regime to the negotiating
table.' Wallace warned that 'those touting this agreement do not appear
to understand the fragility of sanctions, or the dangers of rolling them
back and easing the economic pressure on Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/19W135C
Reuters:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced a nuclear deal
with Iran as a historic mistake on Sunday that leaves the production of
atomic weapons within Tehran's reach and said Israel would not be bound
by it. Having lost its battle against easing sanctions, Israel appeared
to be charting a new strategy: intense scrutiny by its intelligence
services of Iran's compliance with the interim agreement and lobbying for
stronger terms in a final accord that world powers and the Islamic
Republic are still pursuing. The terms of the deal and re-engagement of
the West with Iran, after a protracted, volatile standoff, are a setback
for Netanyahu, who had demanded Iran be stripped of its nuclear
enrichment capabilities altogether. His military options in confronting
Tehran now seem more limited and likely to risk Israel's isolation. A
grim-faced Netanyahu said in a statement in English after meeting his
cabinet that Israel would not be bound by the accord. 'What was concluded
in Geneva last night is not a historic agreement, it is a historic
mistake,' he said. 'Today the world has become a much more dangerous
place because the most dangerous regime in the world took a significant
step towards obtaining the world's most dangerous weapon.'" http://t.uani.com/Idjdd5
AFP:
"Sunni-ruled Gulf monarchies feel let down by their US ally and want
good relations with their Shiite neighbour Iran but also fear the Geneva
nuclear deal will boost its regional ambitions, analysts say. Saudi
Arabia and the oil- and gas-rich nations of the Gulf were weighing their
reactions on Sunday hours after the agreement was signed between Iran and
Western powers. Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in the
breakthrough interim deal that world powers claimed was the biggest step in
decade-long efforts to deny Iran an atomic bomb. But Gulf states have
never made a secret of their concerns about Iranian regional ambitions.
'In principle, the Gulf states want good relations with Iran,' Saudi
analyst Jamal Khashoggi told AFP. 'But the (Geneva) agreement has reduced
the Iran problem to the nuclear level only, while its regional
interference is of key concern to these countries.' Khashoggi said Gulf
states 'fear Iran will see this accord as encouragement to act with a
free hand in the region.'" http://t.uani.com/18jeKSi
Globe & Mail:
"Striking a distinctly harsher tone than its closest allies, Canada
is balking at lifting any of its sanctions against Iran until the Islamic
regime fully abandons its nuclear weapons' ambitions. Foreign Affairs
Minister John Baird said Sunday he is 'deeply skeptical' of a weekend
deal to curb Iran's nuclear program signed with six leading powers - the
United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France. At least in
tone, Canada is positioning itself somewhere between Israel, which has
called the agreement a 'historic mistake,' and the optimism expressed by
the negotiators of the breakthrough deal. 'We have made-in-Canada foreign
policy,' Mr. Baird explained to reporters in Ottawa. 'We think past actions
best predict future actions, and Iran has defied the United Nations
Security Council and defied the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Simply put: Iran has not earned the right to have the benefit of the
doubt.'" http://t.uani.com/1aMXFi1
AP:
"The United States and Iran secretly engaged in a series of
high-level, face-to-face talks over the past year, in a high-stakes
diplomatic gamble by the Obama administration that paved the way for the
historic deal sealed early Sunday in Geneva aimed at slowing Tehran's
nuclear program, The Associated Press has learned. The discussions were
kept hidden even from America's closest friends, including its
negotiating partners and Israel, until two months ago, and that may
explain how the nuclear accord appeared to come together so quickly after
years of stalemate and fierce hostility between Iran and the West...
President Barack Obama personally authorized the talks as part of his
effort - promised in his first inaugural address - to reach out to a
country the State Department designates as the world's most active state
sponsor of terrorism. The talks were held in the Middle Eastern nation of
Oman and elsewhere with only a tight circle of people in the know, the AP
learned. Since March, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Jake
Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's top foreign policy adviser, have met
at least five times with Iranian officials." http://t.uani.com/18jbypC
AFP:
"Syria's regime hailed the 'historic' nuclear deal between its ally
Iran and world powers Sunday as proof that negotiations rather than
military action were the best way to resolve crises. Syria 'considers it
to be a historic accord which guarantees the interests of the brotherly
Iranian people and acknowledges their right to the peaceful use of
nuclear energy,' the foreign ministry said, quoted by local media." http://t.uani.com/1jBogPQ
Sanctions
Roll Call:
"Two top Democrats said Sunday they expected the Senate would still
move forward with enhanced sanctions against Iran, despite news out of
Geneva of an interim agreement regarding the Iranian nuclear program. 'As
for additional sanctions, this disproportionality of this agreement makes
it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass
additional sanctions when we return in December. I intend to discuss that
possibility with my colleagues,' New York Democratic Sen. Charles E.
Schumer said in a statement... 'It was strong sanctions, not the goodness
of the hearts of the Iranian leaders, that brought Iran to the table, and
any reduction relieves the psychological pressure of future sanctions and
gives them hope that they will be able to gain nuclear weapon capability
while further sanctions are reduced,' Schumer said. 'A fairer agreement
would have coupled a reduction in sanctions with a proportionate
reduction in Iranian nuclear capability.' That statement came just after
Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez expressed a similar sentiment.
Both Menendez and Schumer are senior members of the Senate Banking
Committee, which has lead jurisdiction over the sanctions issue... 'In my
view, this agreement did not proportionately reduce Iran's nuclear
program for the relief it is receiving. Given Iran's history of
duplicity, it will demand ongoing, on the ground verification,' Menendez
said. 'Until Iran has verifiably terminated its illicit nuclear program,
we should vigorously enforce existing sanctions. I do not believe we
should further reduce our sanctions, nor abstain from preparations to
impose new sanctions on Iran should the talks fail. I will be monitoring
the enforcement of existing sanctions not covered by the interim
agreement to ensure they are being robustly enforced.'" http://t.uani.com/182kj1y
Reuters:
"Republican and Democratic U.S. senators on Sunday voiced skepticism
about a nuclear deal reached with Iran but Congress looked likely to give
President Barack Obama room to see if the agreement works. The deal does
not need to be ratified by Congress and Obama is using his executive
power to temporarily suspend some existing U.S. sanctions on Iran. On
Sunday, influential Democrats - who control the Senate - made clear that
any new sanctions against Iran would include a six-month window before
they took effect. That would allow time to see if Iran is sticking by the
pact, worked out between Tehran, the United States and other world
powers... Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who is known as a hawk on
Iran, said forthcoming legislation would 'provide for a six-month window
to reach a final agreement before imposing new sanctions on Iran.' That
gives supporters of the pact some breathing space but allows Obama to
have a series of new sanctions approved by lawmakers in the coming weeks
and ready to impose on Iran if need be." http://t.uani.com/1etPFmo
Reuters:
"The easing of a ban on European insurance for shipments of Iranian
oil may lift Iran's crude exports to big oil buyers in Asia, including
India and China. The easing of EU shipping insurance sanctions was part
of a deal on Sunday between Iran and six world powers to curb Tehran's
nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief. Oil buyers in
Asia, Turkey and South Africa have reduced imports of Iranian oil to
avoid the threat of U.S. sanctions, but also have had imports curtailed
by the ban on UK-dominated providers of shipping insurance. Iranian oil
sales have fallen by more than half from 2011 levels to about 1 million
barrels a day as a result of EU and U.S. sanctions on oil trade, shipping
insurance and banking. 'The relief in EU sanctions on oil shipping
insurance is a big deal and creates the conditions to make it easier for
Iran to get at least up to the sanctioned levels,' Olivier Jakob from
Petromatrix energy consultancy said. 'A lifting of the insurance ban
could free up some of Iran's strained tanker fleet for increasing use in
domestic floating crude oil storage,' Goldman Sachs said in a note...
Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners in Washington,
said the easing on insurance could provide for an increase of 200,000 to
400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in Iranian exports, particularly to Indian
refiners." http://t.uani.com/1jBl5Yq
WSJ:
"The relaxation of sanctions on Iran promises an opening for
international companies that have been sidelined from one of the Middle
East's largest consumer markets. Iran needs imported products for all
aspects of its economy, as well as foreign-made parts for some domestic
industries, such as automobile production. In its vital oil-and-gas
industry, infrastructure has long strained under sanctions, which have
all but cut off the country from selling oil to the rest of the world.
Sanctions relief agreed to by Western powers over the weekend-designed as
an incentive for Iran to cooperate on nuclear-arms talks-doesn't directly
ease restrictions on selling crude. It does, however, lift sanctions
against insuring shipments of Iranian oil, making its transportation less
expensive, and gives Iran access to proceeds from the limited sale of
crude in installments. The agreement also will allow Iran to regain
access to much-needed goods, including parts for aircraft and cars, and
will allow the country to sell refined petrochemical products in global
markets. Some Western companies said Sunday they were still determining
how they might benefit and waiting for legal clarity about what activity
will be allowed and when. Many companies, particularly in the U.S., still
may avoid conducting business in Iran because doing otherwise could
result in bad publicity, executives said. As a result, the companies to
profit in areas such as airplane parts may not be the original
manufacturers but instead middlemen, who operate out of public view but
whose businesses nonetheless were curtailed by the sanctions. Many
European companies, such as car makers and energy companies, continued
doing significant business in Iran until as recently as last year so have
fresher contacts in the country. Even those companies responded
cautiously, though they expressed hope that the deal could pave the way
to wider access." http://t.uani.com/1bNv88I
WSJ:
"Part of the strength of the Iranian sanctions regime has been U.S.
pressure, first personal and then legislative, to get foreign companies
to exit the market. The campaign, with an assist from U.S.-based pressure
group United Against Nuclear Iran, has worked, getting companies from
France's Total SA to Italy's Fiat SpA to leave. But would they come back
under the right conditions? A Wall Street Journal report said Western
companies are eager to get back to business, though some companies said
they were still waiting for legal clarity on what will be allowed, and
when." http://t.uani.com/1jBd8CL
WashPost:
"The nuclear deal with Iran will allow the country to export more
crude oil than it did in October, although still slightly less than it has
averaged this year, according to estimates by the International Energy
Agency. The deal also will suspend U.S. pressure for progressively deeper
cuts by importers of Iranian crude oil, including countries such as
China, India, Japan and South Korea that would have come up for new
sanctions compliance reviews by the State and Treasury departments on
Dec. 2, oil analysts said. During the first nine months of the year, Iran
exported an average of 1.1 million barrels a day, the IEA said in its
most recent monthly report on the oil market. And the White House fact
sheet on the deal said that 'Iran will be held to approximately 1 million
bpd [barrels per day] in sales.' Yet Iran exported only 715,000 barrels a
day of crude oil in October, according to IEA estimates. The agency said
that the National Iranian Oil Co. was having so much trouble selling oil
that it had stored 37 million barrels on tankers awaiting customers...
Robert McNally, who served on President George W. Bush's National
Security Council as an adviser on energy affairs and who is now president
of the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm, said: 'The deal included an
explicit if partial easing in oil sanctions. This was unexpected, as
officials had been strongly signaling oil would be untouched in the preliminary
deal. It eases sanctions by replacing current U.S. law's requirement for
significant reductions with holding steady... Also, I suspect you will
see importers willing to buy more crude in general as they will fear U.S.
sanction less.'" http://t.uani.com/1fCUc9g
Reuters:
"Iran's currency jumped more than 3 percent against the U.S. dollar
on Sunday as news of a breakthrough deal to curb Tehran's nuclear
programme raised hopes that the economy would start recovering from
international sanctions... The rial traded at around 29,000 against the
dollar in Tehran's free market, up from about 30,000 before the nuclear
deal was announced, Iranian traders said. Heavy supplies of dollars
appeared as speculators anticipated capital flight from Iran would slow with
the easing of diplomatic tensions. At some times on Sunday, nobody in the
market was willing to buy dollars, traders said - a dramatic contrast
from last year, when the rial lost about a third of its value in a few
months. A firmer outlook for Iran's currency could help to revive its
foreign trade in a range of agricultural and consumer goods other than
oil, by reducing the foreign exchange risks which have deterred many
traders over the past two years. Also, foreign and Iranian businessmen
may become more willing to do deals - even under the existing sanctions
framework - if they feel that political trends have shifted in their
favour, and that they will not face even harsher sanctions or enforcement
from Western governments in the future. 'Up to now, the trend has been
towards more restrictions on trade,' said Hossein Asrar Haghighi, a
founder of the Iranian Business Council in Dubai, which is a major
conduit for Iran's trade with the rest of the world. 'What we can say now
is that the restrictions are not going to increase still more. And if
people do not expect them to increase, they will gradually look at ways
to develop business under the current situation.'" http://t.uani.com/1gbASNZ
Bloomberg:
"Efforts by PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault SA to boost sales
outside Europe's slumping car market stand to get a boost from a deal to
lift sanctions on Iran... Peugeot, Europe's second-largest carmaker, sold
458,000 vehicles in 2011 in Iran prior to the trade sanctions, making the
country the automaker's second-biggest market after France. Chief
Financial Officer Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon said last year that the
sanctions had cut 10 million euros ($13.5 million) a month from operating
profit. 'Any indication that we could resume doing business with our partners
in Iran goes in the right direction,' said Jean-Baptiste Thomas, a
Peugeot spokesman. 'We'll see how we can do that the day sanctions are
lifted.' ... Renault sold more than 100,000 vehicles in Iran in 2012 and
took a first-half charge of 512 million euros as a result of its forced
withdrawal from the country. 'This is good news for us as Iran is an
important market for Renault,' said Florence de Goldfiem, a Renault
spokeswoman. 'We're waiting to see what the conditions of redeployment of
our activities in the country may be.' ... 'We're closely monitoring the
current political developments in Iran, but we don't currently plan to
reenter the market,' Daimler spokeswoman Ute Wueest von Vellberg
said." http://t.uani.com/IoOJnZ
Bloomberg:
"Lifting petrochemical sanctions will permit $1 billion in exports
for Iran, according to U.S. officials close to the talks. Iran may not
feel an immediate impact because it's been able to ship materials such as
polyethylene resins to China in violation of sanctions, Paul Hodges,
chairman of International eChem, a London-based consulting firm, said in
an interview. Any future increase in Iranian supplies of oil and gas
would trickle down to Europe's chemical industry, creating a potential
game changer for energy-intensive industries, including those making
polyvinyl chloride, the plastic known as PVC, said Hodges, a former
executive of Imperial Chemical Industries. .. That would be a bonus for
companies from German plastics maker Bayer AG and synthetic rubber
supplier Lanxess AG to Arkema SA of France and Solvay SA of Belgium, he
said. Linde AG of Germany, whose industrial and specialty gases are used
by petrochemical customers worldwide, said it's too early to say if the
company will seize on the lifting of sanctions. 'We withdrew a few years
ago from Iran because of the political situation,' Uwe Wolfinger, a
spokesman for Munich-based Linde, said by telephone. 'We'd need to wait a
bit before deciding whether it's worth returning.'" http://t.uani.com/1aMU5ED
Human Rights
IHR:
"Six prisoners among them two women were hanged in the prison of
Yazd (Central Iran), reported the official site of the Iranian Judiciary
in Yazd today. According to the report the executions were carried out
early Thursday morning, 21. November." http://t.uani.com/1etKdAf
Domestic
Politics
NYT:
"The smiling started early in Tehran on Sunday, when President
Hassan Rouhani kissed a young schoolgirl in an Islamic head scarf before
dozens of cameras, signaling that Iran's future had taken a new turn... People
from across the Iranian political spectrum, including many hard-line
commanders and clerics who had long advocated resistance and isolation
from the West, told state news media on Sunday that the deal that Mr.
Rouhani's negotiating team had made was a good start. One man's nay could
have undone it all. But Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
has been working for some time to engineer a way out of the economic and
diplomatic quagmire of sanctions. Soon after Mr. Rouhani spoke to
reporters, Ayatollah Khamenei issued a short message online saying he
considered the deal a success. 'The nuclear negotiating team deserves to
be appreciated and thanked for its achievement,' Ayatollah Khamenei said,
according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency. He added that 'their
behavior can be the basis of the next wise measures.'" http://t.uani.com/1ek4Myj
Foreign Affairs
Reuters:
"But one common thread running through their opinions about Iran
three decades later is the feeling that Tehran needs to acknowledge the
444-day ordeal of 52 Americans - 39 of them are still alive - or be held
accountable for it. The hostage-taking from November 1979 to January 1981
prompted Washington to break diplomatic ties and set the stage for
decades of mistrust between the two countries. 'I personally believe
there should be no relationship established whatsoever until Iran has had
extracted from them some type of reparations,' said Kevin Hermening, who
was a Marine guard at the embassy when it was over-run by supporters of the
Islamic Revolution... Seeing Iran talk to the United States without
acknowledging blame for the hostage crisis upsets Rodney 'Rocky'
Sickmann, a former Marine guard at the embassy. 'It hurts that here we
are negotiating with Iran, and Iran acts like nothing really happened.'
Sickmann was locked in a room with 24-hour armed guards, enduring mock
firing squads and Russian roulette, and allowed outside only seven times
during '444 traumatic days' of captivity. 'They told us in my
interrogation it is not you the American people we hate, it's your
government, but we will use you to humiliate your government,' he said.
'And they've done it for 34 years.'" http://t.uani.com/1ejZz9D
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI President Gary Samore Q&A in The New Yorker: Early
on Sunday morning in Geneva, Iran and the six world powers known as the
P5-plus-1 announced the terms of a potentially groundbreaking six-month
interim agreement to curtail Iranian nuclear enrichment.For more on the
deal and its implications, I spoke to Gary Samore, who served as White
House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction during
President Obama's first term. Samore, who has worked on non-proliferation
issues for the U.S. government for more than two decades, was extensively
involved in negotiations with Iran and North Korea, as well as the New
Start treaty with Russia. He now serves as the executive director for
research at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, and is president of United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy
group that supports tougher sanctions against Iran to halt its
development of nuclear weapons...
This is a temporary deal, which is meant to last for six
months. What is the significance of that time frame? Why a temporary deal
rather than a permanent one? What should we be looking for in the next
six months to determine whether a more permanent agreement can be
reached? The reason for an interim deal rather than a permanent
agreement is because Iran is not willing to accept the limits on its
nuclear program demanded by the P5-plus-1 as a condition for permanently
lifting nuclear-related sanctions. In particular, the U.S. wants Iran to
accept physical limits on the scope and scale of its enrichment program
so that Iran cannot produce significant quantities of highly enriched
(weapons grade) uranium quickly and to halt construction of the
heavy-water research reactor or replace it with a type that would produce
less plutonium. In essence, these measures would require Iran to give up its
nuclear-weapons program, at least for the time being. Unless Iran's
Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, makes such a fundamental decision, a
permanent agreement is unlikely.
You worked on these
issues in the first term of the Obama Administration, and you've been
following them for a much longer time. Can you describe the evolution of
U.S. and Iranian thinking on this issue in the last several years? How
did we get to this temporary deal? The reason for the
temporary deal is because Iran is seeking relief from the unprecedented
sanctions that the U.S. and its allies have imposed over the past several
years. For the U.S., the temporary deal is an opportunity to slow down
and limit Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons capability, and
hopefully create time and space to negotiate a comprehensive deal that
rolls back Iran's nuclear program. At this point, I think the fundamental
dispute between the U.S. and Iran over Iran's nuclear program has not
been resolved, but it may be possible to have a series of interim
agreements that reduces tension over time and creates opportunities for
improved relations.
Does this mean that
the sanctions worked? Yes, the sanctions have worked to
pressure Iran to accept temporary limits on its nuclear program, but
whether the remaining sanctions and the threat of additional sanctions
will be sufficient to force Iran to accept more extensive and permanent
nuclear limits is unclear. For supporters of the interim deal, the
limited sanctions relief will create incentives for Iran to make
additional nuclear concessions in order to obtain further sanctions
relief. For opponents of the deal, the limited sanctions relief will make
it easier for Iran to live with the status quo and therefore resist
further nuclear concessions. In six months, we'll have a better idea
which argument is correct.
What are the
Administration's options going forward in terms of further sanctions
relief, or, if necessary, ramping sanctions up again?
According to the White House, the main oil and financial sanctions
against Iran will remain in place during the interim deal. No doubt, the
Iranians will try to exploit the limited sanctions relief to create
loopholes to evade the remaining sanctions, and the U.S. will need to
enforce the remaining sanctions to maintain leverage for negotiating a
final deal or another interim deal. Our ability to rally international
support to ramp up sanctions will depend heavily on being able to
demonstrate that Iran has reneged or cheated on the agreement or is
blocking diplomatic progress. Without a credible threat to increase
sanctions, I doubt Iran will make additional nuclear concessions.
Did Iran's involvement
in Syria play a role in this deal? Probably not a direct
role. Indirectly, however, Iran views its involvement in Syria as a
success-defending the Assad regime against opponents backed by the U.S.
and Iran's main regional enemies, such as Saudi Arabia-and that probably
gives Tehran more confidence that it can resist pressure from Washington
for additional nuclear concessions. In other words, Iran's involvement in
the Syrian Civil War probably makes a final nuclear deal less likely...
A lot of commentary
has focused on Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani, and his eagerness to
end Iran's international isolation. But if the Supreme Leader, Khameini,
is the one really calling the shots here, has he also taken a softer line
than in the past? What might account for his change of position, if
that's the case? I think Khamenei has given President Rouhani
and Foreign Minster Zarif enough flexibility to make tactical concessions
in hopes of obtaining sanctions relief without giving up Iran's nuclear
weapons ambitions. Our job is to make sure that Khamenei doesn't get
comprehensive sanctions relief unless he accepts comprehensive limits on
Iran's nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/17T4YWo
Eli Lake in The
Daily Beast: "For years the United States has
pressed other countries to support and enforce U.N. Security Council
resolutions that demand Iran stop all of its enrichment activities and
enter negotiations. On Sunday morning in Geneva, U.S. negotiators signed
an interim agreement that would tolerate 'a mutually-agreed long-term
comprehensive solution' for Iran, according to the text of the deal. The
agreement signed in Geneva says Iran and six world powers will negotiate
over the next six months 'would involve a mutually defined enrichment
program with practical limits and transparency measures to ensure the
peaceful nature of the program.' To be sure, the idea that Iran would be
able to enrich uranium after a final status deal has been floated in
negotiations for the last two years. But the offer represents a
significant softening of earlier demands from the United States and even
the Obama administration... Already this language has drawn fire from top
Republicans. In a statement Sunday morning, House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor (R-VA) said, 'The text of the interim agreement with Iran
explicitly and dangerously recognizes that Iran will be allowed to enrich
uranium when it describes a mutually defined enrichment program in a
final, comprehensive deal. It is clear why the Iranians are claiming this
deal recognizes their right to enrich.' ... David Albright, a former
weapons inspector and the president of the Institute for Science and International
Security, said the document does not explicitly acknowledge that Iran has
a right to enrich uranium, the process for creating the fuel needed for a
peaceful nuclear reactor and also a nuclear weapon. But he also said he
was troubled that the language on enrichment was so vague. 'I would have
hoped some of the parameters were clarified in the initial deal," he
said. "How many centrifuges are we talking about? Is it 18,000 or
3,000? How long will these limitations last, five years or twenty years?'
... Robert Zarate, the policy director for the Foreign Policy Initiative,
a think tank that has supported more sanctions on Iran, said the deal
signed in Geneva was dangerous. 'We're another step closer to a
nuclear-1914 scenario in the Middle East or elsewhere,' Zarate said. 'If
we cannot say no to Iran -- a country, by the way, that's repeatedly
violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, international nuclear
inspections and U.N. Security Council resolutions -- then good luck
getting countries who haven't broken any rules, including some of
America's allies and partners, to refrain from getting enrichment and
reprocessing or, perhaps eventually, nuclear weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/18jjXcA
Michael Doran in
Brookings: "One's evaluation of the nuclear deal
depends on how one understands the broader context of US-Iranian
relations. There are potential pathways ahead that might not be all that
bad. But I am pessimistic. I see the deal as a deceptively pleasant way
station on the long and bloody road that is the American retreat from the
Middle East. By contrast, President Obama sees this agreement as stage
one in a two-stage process. Six months from now, he believes, this
process will culminate in a final, sustainable agreement. In the rosiest
of scenarios, the nuclear rapprochement will be the beginning of
something much bigger. Like Nixon's opening to China, it will inaugurate
a new era in Iranian-American relations. Whether Obama himself is
dreaming of such an historic reconciliation is anybody's guess, but many
commentators certainly are. I, however, am not among them. On the nuclear
question specifically, I don't see this as stage one. In my view, there
will never be a final agreement. What the administration just initiated
was, rather, a long and expensive process by which the West pays Iran to
refrain from going nuclear. We are, in essence, paying Ayatollah Khamenei
to negotiate with us. We just bought six months. What was the price? We
shredded the six United Nations Security Council resolutions that ordered
the Islamic Republic to abandon all enrichment and reprocessing
activities. We exposed fractures in the coalition against Iran. And we
started building a global economic lobby that is dedicated to eroding the
sanctions that we have generated through a decade of hard, very hard,
diplomatic work. That's the price that we can see clearly before our
eyes. But I also wonder whether there were hidden costs - in the form of
quiet commitments to Iran by third parties. I assume that the Iranians
demanded economic compensation for every concession that they made. Will
all of the promised payments appear in the text of the agreement? Did
parties less constrained than our president by US congressional oversight
also offer up sweeteners on the margins? At this point we do not know
whether there is, in effect, a secret annex to the deal. Only time will
tell. But a hidden cost that is more easily verified is the free hand
that the United States is now giving to Iran throughout the region. This
is the price that troubles me most. In my view, that free hand was
already visible in the chemical weapons deal that Obama cut with Syria's
Bashar al-Asad. I have long suspected that Obama's retreat from Syria was
prompted, in part, by his desire to generate Iranian goodwill in the
nuclear negotiations. The evidence for that case is growing by the day.
We now learn, for example, that the administration had opened a bilateral
backchannel to Tehran well before the Syria crisis. I can only assume
that the president backed away from the use of force against Assad
because, in part, he saw the Syria challenge as a subset of the Iranian
nuclear negotiation... The nuclear deal will further subject the Arab
world to the tender mercies of the Revolutionary Guards. Iran will now
have more money - our money - to channel to proxies such as Hezbollah.
Washington cannot expose the mailed fist of the Qods Force without
endangering the nuclear rapprochement, so it has a positive incentive to
ignore all Iranian subversion and intimidation in the region. Whether he
realizes it, Obama has now announced that the United States cannot be
relied upon to stand up to Iran. Therefore, Israel and our Arab allies
will be forced to live by their wits. Some actors, like the Saudis, will
prosecute their proxy war with Iran with renewed vehemence. Others will
simply hedge. They will make a beeline to Tehran, just as many regional
actors began showing up in Moscow after the Syrian chemical weapons deal.
American influence will further deteriorate. That, in sum, is the true
price that we just paid for six months of seeming quiet on the nuclear
front. It is price in prestige, which most Americans will not notice. It
is also a price in blood. But it is not our blood, so Americans will also
fail to make the connection between the violence and the nuclear deal. It
is important to note, however, that this is just the initial price. Six
months from now, when the interim agreement expires, another payment to
Ayatollah Khamenei will come due. If Obama doesn't pony up, he will have
to admit then that he cut a bad deal now. So he we will indeed pay -
through the nose." http://t.uani.com/1bOVOWE
Elias Groll in FP:
"At the center of that debate -- whether the agreement represents a
clear-eyed test of Iran's true intentions or a victim of Iran's savvy
bait-and-switch negotiating tactics -- is the question of whether the
document recognizes what Tehran describes as its right to enrich uranium.
Immediately after the agreement was announced, Fars News, the Iranian
state-sponsored news outlet, proclaimed that the accord 'includes
recognition of Tehran's right of uranium enrichment' and that the 'right
to enrichment has been recognized in two places of the document.'
Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, made exactly the opposite claim
on ABC's This Week on Sunday: 'There is no right to enrich. We do not
recognize a right to enrich.' Over the next few weeks one of these two
narratives will become the dominant interpretation of the Geneva
agreement -- and which one catches on will go a long way toward
determining its ultimate success. Either the West has by force and
calculation compelled Iran into accepting a change in its strategic
outlook and abandoned its nuclear ambitions. Or the West has backed down
- 'appeased' Iran, if you will -- and allowed Tehran to hold on to its
nuclear program in the hopes of avoiding war in the Middle East... What
the document does do is allow Iran to continue some of its enrichment
activities, and that has handed Iranian hardliners an important
rhetorical victory. Throughout the negotiating process, Iranian leaders
have repeatedly emphasized that they refuse to give up the ability to
enrich uranium. As recently as Friday, just before the deal was struck,
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif laid out Iran's negotiating
position. 'Our right to enrichment is our red line. The enrichment
program that Iran has, will continue. ... Any agreement should include
enrichment program for Iran,' he said in an interview with Iran's Press
TV. 'We will not accept anything else other than that.' On that point,
Zarif can now claim victory. The agreement allows Iran to continue the
enrichment activities it has in place, though that enrichment cannot go
beyond 5 percent and the uranium already enriched to 20 percent -- a
level that is a hop, skip, and a jump from weapons grade -- must be
diluted or converted into oxide. The Geneva agreement thus produced a
diplomatic breakthrough by completely ignoring one of the thorniest
issues on the table. The West insists Iran has no right to enrich
uranium. Iran considers that right sacrosanct. The agreement solves the
complete lack of overlap between those two negotiating positions by
making no mention of that conflict. Regardless of the substance of the
agreement, it's a neat diplomatic trick... By skirting the debate over
the right to enrichment, the Geneva agreement lays out a clear compromise
position: Iranian leaders are welcome to crow to their domestic audiences
that they have finally squeezed the West to grant its right to a nuclear program.
Western leaders are willing to take that political blow in order to keep
the Iranian nuclear program contained at a manageable level. Western
leaders will meanwhile make exactly the opposite argument to their
domestic audiences and hope that the Iranian position doesn't catch on
and become the accepted interpretation of the agreement." http://t.uani.com/18BANkW
Mansour Farhang in
ICHRI: "'An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent
to lie abroad for the good of his country.' The endurance of this remark
by Sir Henry Wotton, a 17th century English diplomat, is due to the fact
that it contains an element of truth. Politically astute diplomats,
however, know the limits of such practice. They are aware that
credibility cannot be sacrificed if they are to be effective in what they
do. Mr. Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, has produced a YouTube
video in which he asks all countries, particularly his negotiating
partners in Geneva, to trust the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear
program... The problem with Zarif's performance in the video is that he
goes far beyond what 'an honest gentleman' must do to serve his country.
Indeed, the disconnect between his claims and the reality inside Iran
today demands a response. Zarif asks, 'What is dignity? What is respect?'
The government of Iran must not know, for it affords neither to its own
citizens. Dignity is the right to free expression-without being arrested
for voicing criticism of the state and forced, under torture, into making
public 'confessions' of crimes 'against national security.' Respect is
the right to engage in peaceful dissent, without disappearing in the
middle of the night-and emerging days later in a body bag, beaten to
death by interrogators for blogging articles critical of the government.
Yes Mr. Zarif, you are right, dignity and respect are not negotiable,
which is why there are still many in Iran who continue to stand for human
rights-including mothers who have spent years in prison while their
children grow up without them, because they did their job as lawyers to
uphold the law and represent imprisoned human rights defenders. Zarif
proudly states that free will 'has been the essence of the collective
demand of us Iranians for the past century.' Yet this reference back to
Iran's Constitutional Revolution in 1905 brings into sharper relief the
tragedy of the continued thwarting of democracy in Iran, where only
candidates deemed acceptable to the Supreme Leader are allowed to run,
where peaceful protests over the disputed 2009 presidential election were
met with the ruthless state violence, and where opposition leaders remain
under extrajudicial house arrest, without charge, for almost three years
now." http://t.uani.com/1aSEceR
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