Thursday, January 30, 2014

Eye on Iran: Report: Iran Nuclear Hurdles Political, Not Technical








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Top Stories

Politico: "Iran's ability to make missiles loaded with nuclear warheads now rests primarily on the 'political will' of its leaders, rather than any technical constraints, according to an annual U.S. intelligence assessment presented on Capitol Hill Wednesday. 'Tehran has made technical progress in a number of areas - including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles - from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,' Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in written testimony submitted as he appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee. 'These technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.' On that point, the U.S. Worldwide Threat Assessment suggests a lack of consensus at high levels of the Iranian government and notes that the interim agreement Iran reached to halt and roll back aspects of the program appears to be the product of uncertainty about whether the effort is worth the severe economic price the country has paid in economic sanctions, set to be eased somewhat under the six-month deal. 'Iran's overarching strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional influence have led it to pursue capabilities to meet its civilian goals and give it the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so,' the assessment says." http://t.uani.com/Ml2Qgi

AFP: "President Barack Obama appears to have prevailed, for now, in a campaign to stop Congress from imposing new sanctions on Iran he fears could derail nuclear diplomacy. Several Democratic senators who previously backed a bipartisan sanctions bill publicly stepped back after Obama threatened a veto during his State of the Union address Tuesday. Several sources familiar with behind-the-scenes maneuvring say a number of other Democratic senators signed up for more sanctions had privately recoiled from a damaging vote against their own president. According to some counts in recent weeks, the measure had 59 likely votes, including 16 Democrats, and was even approaching a two-thirds veto-proof majority in the 100-seat Senate. But latest developments appear to have checked that momentum." http://t.uani.com/1fjABZw

Reuters: "India imported nearly 40 percent less Iranian crude last year, with no sign in the last month of 2013 that the easing of Western sanctions in a landmark deal resulted in Indian refiners bumping up their purchases... Oil industry sources in India have said they expect no rapid increases in the imports in coming months, while noting shipments could fall further in the upcoming fiscal year. India's cuts last year due to the toughened sanctions that were put in place in 2012 were deeper even than the targeted cut of 15 percent to 220,000 bpd in average imports from Iran for the year ending March 31, 2014. And New Delhi could take just 180,00-190,000 bpd in 2014/15 as it may have to cut imports further if sanctions against Iran are not fully lifted later this year, an oil ministry official said earlier in January. For 2013, India - Iran's top oil customer after China - imported 195,600 bpd of oil and condensate, down 38 percent compared with 315,200 bpd in 2012, according to data obtained from trade sources. India's purchases from Iran declined nearly 14 percent last month compared with November and about 31.5 percent from a year ago, the data also showed. India's cut in Iranian oil shipment in 2013 was in sharp contrast to a meagre 2.2 percent decline in China's imports excluding condensate. South Korea's crude purchases from Iran were down about 14 percent in 2013 from the previous year. China and South Korea also decreased their Iranian oil shipments in December from the same month a year ago by 14.5 percent and 29.5 percent, respectively. Japan reports its crude import data for December and 2013 on Friday. It cuts its imports from Iran over January-November by 4.6 percent, only by reducing its November intake of the crude by more than half from the same month in 2012." http://t.uani.com/1ezEsyh
   
Nuclear Program & Negotiations

AFP: "Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Iran's Gachin uranium mine on Wednesday for the first time in nine years, Iranian officials said. 'The inspectors expressed their satisfaction after having visited different parts of the mine,' said Mohammed Amiri, an official of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, quoted by state news agency IRNA. He said the visit to the mine lasted five hours, while agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said earlier that it was carried out by three inspectors. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts were to leave Iran in the evening, but no specific details were given of the visit, which was conducted in the absence of any media. Their visit to the mine in southern Iran -- which had been off-limits to the IAEA since 2005 -- falls within the scope of a framework agreement which Tehran reached with the UN nuclear watchdog in November." http://t.uani.com/1dQxRhU

AP: "Iran's Foreign Ministry has rejected President Barack Obama's remarks made during his State of the Union speech on the subject of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Obama said in his annual address on Tuesday that 'American diplomacy, backed by pressure' led to the landmark November deal in which Iran agreed to cap its nuclear program in return for some sanction relief by the West. On Thursday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham dismissed that statement as a 'totally wrong interpretation.'" http://t.uani.com/1bBmfzt

Sanctions Relief

Reuters: "A group of insurers warned shipowners this week to be careful when signing deals to carry Iranian oil because the United States has not been able to clarify whether insurance claims will be paid after the suspension of sanctions ends in July... Uncertainty over post-July insurance payments, however, has made the suspension of sanctions on ship cover 'of very limited, if any, value to shipowners,' the group of shipping insurers said in a note this week. The International Group of P&I Clubs said it was uncertain if insurance claims that arose while sanctions are eased would be honoured if they remained unpaid after July 20. The International Group has been in talks with the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control but OFAC has not been able to confirm whether payments for claims could be made after July 20 when sanctions could possibly be reimposed, the group said. 'Members should proceed on the basis that beyond 20 July 2014 (or any extension of the initial six-month period), clubs will not be able to respond to any claims presented in respect of liabilities arising during the 20 January-20 July suspension period," the group said in its note... P&I claims can take one or two years to settle, said a Japan P&I Club official. If claims cannot be settled within six months it would be similar to having no insurance, he said. He said owners of Japanese ships importing Iranian crude oil are staying with Tokyo's sovereign insurance scheme put in place in mid-2012 to keep the oil shipments flowing, and none have moved to get cover from the Japan P&I Club." http://t.uani.com/1lnVacW

Reuters: "Switzerland said on Wednesday it had suspended sanctions against Iran on trade in precious metals and in petrochemical products until August 14, in light of a deal with world powers under which Tehran has scaled back its nuclear programme. In a statement, the Swiss Federal Council (cabinet) said it was following the lead of the European Union, which agreed on Jan. 20 to suspend some sanctions. The United States eased some sanctions last week, pausing efforts to reduce Iranian crude exports. The Swiss lifted a ban on precious metal trade with Iranian public bodies and eased restrictions on trade in petrochemical products, transport of Iranian oil or petroleum products, and the provision of insurance for shipments, it said. Ceilings were raised tenfold for transfers of funds to Iranians, it added." http://t.uani.com/1iPf7HT

Domestic Politics

Reuters: "While international sanctions have made life a struggle for many Iranians, they were a big break for businessman Babak Zanjani, who made a fortune helping the government evade the restrictions on oil sales. He also made enemies. A $40,000 watch on his wrist and a Tehran football club for a plaything, Zanjani shuttled to meetings on private jets, arranging billions of dollars of oil deals through a network of companies that stretched from Turkey to Malaysia, Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates, he said last autumn. 'This is my work - sanctions-busting operations,' he told Iranian current affairs magazine Aseman. Under the conservative presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the 39-year-old Zanjani was good enough at his work to amass a fortune of $10 billion - along with debts of a similar scale, he told Aseman - until he was arrested late last month. He is being held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, accused of owing the government, under moderate new President Hassan Rouhani since August, more than $2.7 billion for oil sold on behalf of the oil ministry... Analysts say Zanjani's connections with senior officials in Ahmadinejad's administration and in the Revolutionary Guards - a powerful branch of Iran's military with extensive business interests - have made him a political target." http://t.uani.com/1jNyQb1

Opinion & Analysis

Zachary Keck in TNI:
"The most significant way the U.S. has benefitted from the Syrian civil war is by seeing its regional and global adversaries undermined by the conflict. Just as the U.S. has been the primary external benefactor of the Syrian civil war, no third party has been a bigger loser in Syria then Iran. The prospect of the Alawites losing power in Damascus threatened to roll back all the gains Iran made over the last decade, not only undermining Iran's position in Syria, but also by extension in Lebanon. Not surprisingly, Iranian leaders quickly sprang into action, providing significant assistance to Assad's regime. They undoubtedly realized the danger of being seen as propping up Assad, as evidenced by their refusal to acknowledge doing so in the beginning. Moreover, Iranian leaders probably believed the rebellion could be suppressed quickly given their experience following the disputed 2009 presidential elections. With the conflict nearing its third year, it has proven anything but short. Over the past two years, Iran and its ally Hezbollah have been forced to devote considerable blood and treasure into preventing Alawite rule from collapsing in Syria. Although the Alawites' rule no longer seems to be in imminent danger, they also appear no closer to reasserting control over the entire country. Thus, the material costs for Iran are likely to continue to mount. From Iran's strategic perspective, the larger cost of supporting Assad has been its loss of Iran and Hezbollah's softer power in the greater Middle East. Lacking the ability to project conventional military power, Iranian influence in the region is largely based on the soft power it accrues from its defiance and denouncements of Israel and the United States. For decades this soft power has allowed Iranian leaders to bridge the ethnic and sectarian divide with the Arab Sunni street. The Syrian civil war, and Iran's support for al-Assad, has quickly eroded Iran's favorability among this demographic. Although Iran's popularity in the Arab world began diminishing before the Syrian conflict began, it has virtually fallen off the cliff over the last few years. As James Zogby notes, in 2006 Iran had a 75 percent favorability rating among publics in twenty Middle Eastern nations, with 85 percent of Saudi Arabians viewing Tehran favorably. By 2012, Iran's favorability ratings in those same countries declined to just 25 percent, and 15 percent in Saudi Arabia. This has had real and immediate repercussions for Iran. For example, Iran's support for al-Assad caused a serious rift in its relationship with Hamas. Similarly, after considerable diplomatic pressure, Egypt and Iran resumed tourism ties in April of last year. Egyptian Salafists responded days later by storming Iran's chargĂ© d'affaires in Cairo. Months later, Egypt quietly severed tourism ties. Elsewhere, in Yemen, multiple Iranian diplomats have been kidnapped and killed in recent months. The latest one was  evidently beheaded after being held hostage for months (at the time of this writing, Iran is denying this account). The growing sectarian divide in the Middle East poses a real threat to Iran. It is for this reason that the Rouhani administration has made repairing ties to Arab states a top priority, and why Supreme Leader Khamenei has made Muslim unity an ever-more prevalent theme of his public addresses." http://t.uani.com/1cyKFxO

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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