Eye on Iran: Senators Urge Obama to Push for Strict Iran Nuclear Curbs Deal

Join UANI           Top Stories The Hill: "About a quarter of the Senate is urging President Obama to consult with Congress over how the United State will respond to Iran if a deal over its nuclear program is or isn't reached. Twenty-three Senate Democrats made the request in a letter to Obama on Friday, in the third letter Congress wrote to the White House this week on the subject. It's a replica of a letter nearly 400 House members sent to Obama earlier in the week. 'Because any long-term sanctions relief will require Congressional action, we urge you to consult closely with us so that we can determine the parameters of such relief in the event an agreement is reached, or, if no agreement is reached or Iran violates the interim agreement, so that we can act swiftly to consider additional sanctions and steps necessary to change Iran's calculation,' the letter said... While Iran should not be denied a peaceful program, the senators said they are 'gravely concerned' by Iran's industrial-scale uranium enrichment capability and its Arak heavy-water reactor... The letter included signatures from Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (Mich.) and Banking Chairman Tim Johnson (S.D.), who did not sign a similar letter that 83 senators sent to Obama earlier in the week. Some Senate Democrats signed both... A group of nearly 400 House members also sent a similar letter to Obama this week. All three of the letters called on Obama to work with Congress on either legislation that would provide sanctions relief if a deal is struck, or tougher sanctions in case talks fail. They also called on the administration to keep every option on the table, including military action. The new letter specifically highlights other threats Iran poses to the U.S. and its allies, which they want to tackle with the Obama administration. 'We remain deeply concerned by Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism, its horrendous human rights record, its efforts to destabilize its neighbors, its pursuit of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and its threats against our ally, Israel, as well as the fates of American citizens detained by Iran,' they wrote." http://t.uani.com/1giaIvb WSJ: "A U.S. hedge fund plans to bet as much as $100 million that it can collect on a court judgment against Iran for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever aimed at Americans, according to marketing documents and people familiar with the matter. Three decades after an Iranian-linked car bomber killed 241 American servicemen at a Marine barracks in Beirut, RD Legal Capital LLC is seeking to raise that sum from investors to buy stakes in the protracted litigation related to the attack, according to the people. In 2007, a U.S. federal court judge in Washington found Iran liable for the bombing and a judge last year ordered a $1.8 billion payment to the families of the victims. However, that payment hasn't been collected due to an appeal by the Iranian central bank, and it could be years before the families see any money. RD already is buying rights to some of the payments received by victims' families, as well as fees earned by their attorneys involved in the case, at a discount to face value. If the judgment is collected, the fund will earn millions of dollars, the people familiar said." http://t.uani.com/1oU06Vl Trend: "Iran exported some 90 million tons of non-oil goods, worth $40.376 billion during the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20), the country's ISNA news agency reported... Iran exported 83.293 million tons of non-oil goods worth $37.363 billion during the first 11 months of the last Iranian calendar year, which indicates a 15.73 percent increase and a 1.52 percent decrease in terms of volume and value respectively, compared to the first 11 months of the preceding year. China was the main target of Iran's exported goods during the period. Iran exported goods worth $6.582 billion, $5.265 billion, $3.237 billion, $2.31 billion and $2.184 billion to China, Iraq, the UAE, India and Afghanistan respectively during the period." http://t.uani.com/1jvsKZu        Nuclear Program & Negotiations Global Security Newswire: "A senior Russian envoy publicly urged Iran to modify a heavy-water reactor now ready to produce plutonium when it begins operating, Interfax reports... 'We think that our Iranian friends and partners should demonstrate their goodwill, take international concerns into consideration and find a way to modify, reconfigure the Arak facility,' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in comments reported on Thursday. Doing so, he said, would 'lift concerns about its possible use in [an] arms program,' Ryabkov said on Wednesday, as he warned that tensions in Eastern Europe could threaten international cooperation in the talks. The Russian diplomat said he expected negotiators to gain traction on the Arak dispute at their next high-level meeting, which is scheduled to begin on April 7 in Vienna." http://t.uani.com/1jvyXEQ Syria Conflict NYT: "The strong relationship with Russia, combined with recent battlefield victories for the government, like its seizure of the hilltop Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers on Thursday along a strategic highway, are reinforcing a sense here and abroad that Mr. Assad will stay in power at least for the medium term. A pro-government Syrian journalist assessed official views this way: 'Frankly, their attitude is, We don't need Geneva.' ... To Russian and Syrian officials and their supporters, the Syrian war and the standoff over the Crimean Peninsula are essentially part of a single, larger battle, against post-Cold War American unilateralism. They see themselves as resisting Western conspiracies to topple inconvenient but legitimate presidents, Mr. Assad in Syria, and in Ukraine, the pro-Russian leader Viktor F. Yanukovych, whose flight in the face of street protests led to Russia's actions in Crimea. 'Crimea is the next Syria,' said a Russian academic, leading a delegation of students in Damascus this week to explore opening a branch of a Russian institute here." http://t.uani.com/1fUfjyH Domestic Politics FT: "Many Iranians see basij - the 12.5m-strong ideologically-driven volunteer forces of the Revolutionary Guards - as stick-wielding plainclothes thugs on motorcycles who beat up pro-democracy protesters or attack European embassies. But at Café Kerase, these conservative guardians of the 1979 Islamic revolution can be found sipping cappuccinos and espressos, and discussing art and politics over snacks. 'We like this café to be a hang-out for an exchange of thoughts, literature and art,' says Mohammad Jafari, the 30-year-old manager whose 'dream is to be a good basiji' and who holds a collection of university degrees including mechanical engineering. Café Kerase - an old Persian word for 'book' - gives a nuanced image of the paramilitary force and is an attempt to embrace the values of the middle class and narrow the gap with the rest of the society, although there has been no tangible change in the guards' cultural policies following Iran's shift toward moderation under centrist president Hassan Rouhani, who swept to power last summer." http://t.uani.com/1dplbFJ Opinion & Analysis UANI Outreach Coordinator Bob Feferman in the South Bend Tribune: "The recent interest by many parties in normalizing business with Iran highlights the fact that too many have forgotten the lessons of history. It's important to remember the words of Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, who warned, '... the peril threatening humankind today is indifference ...' Wiesel tells us what indifference looked like in the years before and during World War II. But what does it look like in 2014? We can see it ourselves, as hundreds of multinational companies still do open business in Iran -- and more eagerly look to renew business there -- while Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, and provides massive support to the brutal regime of Bashar Assad in the murder of more than 140,000 Syrian civilians. What does indifference look like in 2014? We see it when Iran hangs its own citizens in public squares on building cranes, and the companies that manufacture those cranes defiantly do nothing about it. We also see indifference as hundreds of human rights activists suffer in Iranian prisons, while the manufacturers of electronic monitoring equipment continue to sell Iran surveillance products. We see indifference when Asian and European auto manufacturers continue to do business in Iran with entities owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. These automakers know that IRGC has supplied 100,000 rockets to Hezbollah in Lebanon and terrorists in Gaza for the purpose of murdering Israeli civilians and destroying any hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Yet the automakers continue business as usual in Iran. What does indifference look like in 2014? When planeloads of European trade delegations fly into Iran to discuss ways to line their pockets even before Iran has agreed to halt its nuclear program, ended its support for terrorists, while ignoring the repeated threats of Iranian leaders to the destruction of Israel. What does the opposite of indifference look like in 2014? It looks like the American people and their elected representatives in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures -- including the Indiana General Assembly -- imposing the toughest sanctions ever against Iran and pursuing more. It is thanks to these sanctions that American companies are prohibited from doing any business in Iran with the exception of the sale of food and medicine. Yet it's not enough for America, and a few key allies like Canada, to have tough sanctions when much of the world is still doing business as usual in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1dpmpB5 Alan J. Kuperman & Frank N. Von Hippel in NYT: "Next week President Obama will join 57 world leaders in The Hague for the third biannual Nuclear Security Summit. The first two summits played a critical role in phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium as fuel in research reactors to prevent its misuse by states or terrorists to make nuclear weapons. But the previous conclaves have failed to address the single largest use of such fuel: in nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. At this summit, world powers must take an important first step toward ending that dangerous and unnecessary practice. International efforts to end the use of H.E.U. in research reactors began in the 1970s. In its place, engineers developed low-enriched uranium fuels - enriched to less than 20 percent - unsuitable for weapons. These efforts have eliminated half the annual worldwide use of H.E.U. in research reactors, or about 1,700 pounds, enough for 30 nuclear weapons. But naval reactors use about four times as much H.E.U., over 6,000 pounds per year. The United States is the biggest consumer, using about 4,500 pounds a year, more than the combined total of Russia, Britain and India, the other three navies that use H.E.U. fuel. Each step of the H.E.U. fuel cycle for naval reactors raises security concerns, from fabrication to shipment to storage before loading into a reactor. Thefts have occurred in both the United States (in the 1960s) and Russia (in the 1990s). Naval use of H.E.U. also opens the door for other countries to demand the same right. In Iran, the last administration, and more recently 100 members of Parliament, have called for nuclear-powered submarines fueled by H.E.U., which would give it an excuse to produce and possess weapons-usable uranium. But H.E.U. is not actually necessary for naval reactors. France and China use low-enriched uranium in their nuclear submarines, and Russia has developed an L.E.U. reactor for its next generation of nuclear-powered icebreaker ships." http://t.uani.com/1lgqcD6 Bijan Khajehpour in Al-Monitor: "In the last few years, amid economic decline and hardships, one positive indicator has been the Iranian economy's continuous trade surplus. Many expected the country's export performance to collapse as a result of external sanctions. However, the sharp decline in crude oil exports was compensated for by the decline in imports and the modest growth in non-oil exports. According to the March 2014 issue of Eqtessade Iran magazine (Iran Economics), the country's trade surplus is projected to reach $40 billion in the Iranian year 1392 (that ended on March 20), up from $31 billion the previous year. Furthermore, growing exports will lead to a trade surplus of $62.5 billion in the new Iranian year 1393. In this picture, Iran's non-oil exports - meaning all exports with the exception of crude oil and gas - will grow from $33 billion in 1392 to $37.7 billion in 1393. Based on the projections of Iran Economics magazine, non-oil exports will have a 11.5% share in the country's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in the new Iranian year. In 2009, non-oil exports represented a 7.2% share in the country's GDP, only to fall as a result of sanctions and currency devaluation. The hardest hit non-oil export sectors were the petrochemical and automotive industries. Incidentally, the so-called plan of action agreed upon by Tehran and the P5+1 introduced a suspension of sanctions on the two mentioned sectors. A growing trend can be detected in the export performance of Iranian companies, not just as a result of partial sanctions relief, but as a consequence of the change of government, a more confident business community and stability in exchange rates and export laws. Evidently, the country has a major competitive advantage in all industries that rely on gas, and related exports are on the rise. However, the exports in the service sector (especially the export of engineering services) are also growing. It is expected that Iran will export $7.1 billion in services in 1393, up from $6.2 billion the previous year. Expanding non-oil exports has been one of the recurring objectives of Iranian governments in the past two decades. However, unleashing the true potential of Iran's non-oil export potential would require major reforms that were outlined in Al-Monitor in October 2013. In this piece, we will look at the key sectors that have the potential to contribute more to the country's export performance." http://t.uani.com/1jmoGPD 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.