Eye on Iran: U.S. Senators Urge Obama to be Tough on Iran Nuclear Program

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "As talks on a nuclear deal for Iran resumed in Vienna Tuesday, a wide majority of U.S. senators urged President Barack Obama to insist that any final agreement state that Iran 'has no inherent right to enrichment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.' That lack of entitlement was one of several principles the 83 senators outlined in the letter. They urged Obama to 'insist upon their realization in a final agreement' that six world powers and Iran are hoping to hammer out by late July. The senators also want to prevent Iran from ever having the capacity to build nuclear weapons. The initiative in the 100-member chamber was spearheaded by Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and the chairman of the foreign relations committee, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Whether Iran should be able to enrich low-level uranium for use in nuclear power plants is one of many issues expected to be addressed in this week's talks on a comprehensive agreement over its nuclear program. Such uranium can be further enriched to be used in nuclear weapons... The senators also wrote in the letter that any final agreement must dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to a nuclear bomb... In the House of Representatives, 395 lawmakers in the 435-member chamber also sent a letter to Obama, asking him to push for a deal in which Iran would not be able to build or buy a nuclear weapon." http://t.uani.com/1l3swx4 WSJ: "Iran and six major powers discussed the future of Tehran's planned heavy-water nuclear reactor Wednesday, diplomats said, as they prepared to wrap up the second round of negotiations on a final, comprehensive nuclear agreement due by mid-July. The future of the Arak reactor, which under Iran's current plans could produce plutonium for a bomb, was one of the toughest issues to resolve ahead of last November's six-month interim accord between Iran and the six power group. The next round of high-level talks will take place on April 7-9 in Vienna diplomats said... Iranian and western officials have remained hopeful about the talks, saying a July 20 deadline remains plausible... The July 20 deadline could be extended if both sides agree. Still, Iranian and western officials said for now, negotiations are focused more on laying out general positions and possible red lines on the web of tough issues the two sides will have to crack in coming months. 'We are not doing the hard-core negotiations at this stage,' said one western diplomat. That is more likely to come in May and June, the person said." http://t.uani.com/1fHgZeS Reuters: "How to deal with the Arak plant is expected to be among several thorny issues to be tackled in this week's round of talks between Iran and the six global powers in Vienna, with the aim of resolving the decade-old nuclear dispute by late July... 'There are different ways of making sure that the reactor can't produce large quantities of plutonium,' said Gary Samore, until last year the top nuclear proliferation expert on U.S. President Barack Obama's national security staff. 'I think it is much easier for the Iranians to compromise on a research reactor than it is for them to compromise on the enrichment program,' Samore told Reuters, referring to Iran's existing, and much larger, operations to refine uranium...Salehi did not spell out what kind of alterations he might have in mind, and Samore said it was 'very unclear' whether Iran would be willing to undertake the big changes to the reactor core that would be required to address Western misgivings. 'Presumably the Iranians will want to make fairly cosmetic changes that would allow them to run the reactor at much higher power levels and therefore to produce more plutonium,' he said. In contrast, the powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia - 'will want to make pretty extensive and fundamental changes to the reactor that won't be easily reversible.'" http://t.uani.com/1lOstCA        Sanctions Relief Trend: "Two Chinese companies have been selected to build a number of railway projects in Iran. The chairman of the city council of Iran's holy city of Qom, Seyed Mohammad Atashzar, announced March 17 that China's Norinco Company has been selected to build monorail and subway projects. At the same time an announcement was made that CITIC will also build a tram project, Iran's Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper reported on March 18. China's CITIC Company signed a memorandum of understanding with the municipality of Tabriz, the provincial capital of Iran's East Azerbaijan province. Norinco has announced its readiness to sign a $834million (€600 million) deal to implementing a subway and tramway project." http://t.uani.com/1cZoV0c Human Rights Reuters: "An Iranian woman sentenced to die by stoning for adultery and later given a 10-year jail term instead has been allowed to leave prison, the judiciary said, in a new twist to a case that has triggered years of criticism of Iran's rights record. A judiciary spokesman told Reuters that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani had been given 'a leave' from prison several weeks ago for good behaviour. He said, without elaborating, that the decision was a sign of 'our religion's leniency towards women'. There was no immediate word on whether the release was permanent or whether it was subject to some form of probation. Ashtiani, who has two children, was convicted of adultery and complicity in the murder of her husband in 2005. A court sentenced Ashtiani to be stoned in 2006 but the sentence was suspended in 2010 in the face of international pressure on Tehran. Her sentence was then reduced to 10 years, for being an accessory to her husband's murder." http://t.uani.com/PP7G7I Reuters: "European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Tuesday defended her talks with human rights activists during a recent visit to Iran, saying meeting dissidents is a central part of her official travels. Speaking on the sidelines of talks in Vienna between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's contested nuclear program, coordinated by Ashton, her spokesman said meetings with civil society representatives abroad were 'quite normal'. A day before, Iran's official IRNA news agency said, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had canceled a customary dinner with Ashton on the eve of the talks due to her 'undiplomatic' behavior, an apparent reference to the Tehran meeting. Iran has also warned the Austrian embassy in Tehran after it hosted a meeting between Ashton and six Iranian women on March 8 that such contacts could jeopardize relations between the Islamic Republic and Europe, according to Iranian media. 'She always sees civil society representatives, particularly women, when she travels to a country,' Michael Mann told reporters in Vienna. 'It was the same when she went to Iran,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1otGgQD Domestic Politics WashPost: "As the Iranian year draws to a close, leaders here are attempting to manage the expectations of a public who have seen few signs of the economic improvement promised by President Hassan Rouhani when he took office in August. Despite some progress toward a lasting nuclear deal that could potentially end years of crushing sanctions, fiscal growth has been slow, and many here worry that the incoming year - 1393 on the Iranian calendar - will bring even leaner times... While currency rates have stabilized at more than 10 percent above where they were when Rouhani was elected last June, little has changed for most Iranians, who are struggling to make ends meet... In its annual report, the Ministry of Economics and Finance said Iran is still suffering from high inflation and deep stagnation, which has led to negative growth of more than 5 percent in the past year. The continued bad news has prompted Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to ask Iranians to embrace what he calls a 'resistance economy,' which means more reliance on domestic production and less rampant consumption of imports." http://t.uani.com/1gP2qqs Opinion & Analysis Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in FT: "At last it seems realistic to hope for a resolution to the unnecessary crisis surrounding Iran's peaceful nuclear programme. In large part that is because attitudes towards my country are changing. It is now recognised that Iranian scientists have mastered nuclear technology - and it is widely accepted that the knowledge we have attained cannot be wished away. There is also a growing appreciation that Iran does not have any interest in nuclear weapons. True, we live in a volatile neighbourhood. Yet we have always been clear that pursuing nuclear weapons - or even being wrongly suspected of doing so - would put our national security in jeopardy... The option of a nuclear weapon would harm our security, putting at risk our relative advantage in conventional forces. Instead, we must win the confidence of actors who have worried unnecessarily about Iranian strength. Iran cannot expect to possess a meaningful nuclear deterrent, either directly or through proxies... While some in the west may have entertained illusions in the past, few now doubt that the only way to ensure that Iran's nuclear energy programme will remain exclusively peaceful is to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. This shift did not occur overnight. It was prompted by the realisation that coercion, pressure and sanctions only result in more centrifuges, more resentment and deeper mistrust... Iranian engagement is not a means to an end but a national security priority. To be absolutely clear, we are not negotiating for the sake of negotiating, nor in order to gain time. We have shown once again that we keep our word. As the IAEA recently confirmed, we have kept all the promises we have made. It is now time for our counterparts to keep their side of the bargain. As we enter talks on the comprehensive nuclear deal, our counterparts will have to make tough choices. They will have to back up rhetoric with action. Some of them will have to spend copious amounts of political capital to remain credible before the international community. Others, who have grown comfortable with the status quo, will have to scramble to reposition themselves. One thing that everyone will have to do is show courage - far more than has been displayed so far." http://t.uani.com/OwrBaJ Michael Singh in Arms Control Today: "In the debate over sanctions on Iran-their role in bringing Tehran to the negotiating table and their proper place in U.S. diplomatic strategy in the future-scant attention has been paid to a major shift in the negotiating position of the P5+1, the group of six countries (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) that is negotiating with Tehran over the Iranian nuclear program. No longer is the P5+1 demanding that Iran halt uranium enrichment. Indeed, in the November 24 first-step nuclear accord, the Joint Plan of Action,1 the P5+1 all but concedes that Iran will be permitted to enrich in perpetuity. In separate comments that have quickly become conventional wisdom among Iran analysts, U.S. negotiators now characterize their previous position that Iran should halt enrichment as 'maximalist.' Although undoubtedly expedient, this shift away from a zero-enrichment negotiating position is misguided and unnecessary. The U.S. shift away from zero enrichment to limited enrichment represents a significant diplomatic victory for Iran. For the last decade, the position of the EU-3 (France, Germany, and the UK) and then the P5+1 had been that Iran must 'suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development.' This position was enshrined as an Iranian obligation in a series of UN Security Council resolutions. Iran, however, asserted a 'right to enrich' and refused to halt enrichment after resuming it when nuclear talks with the European Union broke down in 2005. This difference formed the core of the confrontation that subsequently developed between Iran and the allies. Beginning in 2005, the United States, the EU, and others imposed onerous sanctions on Iran, effectively cutting the country off from the global financial system and sharply curtailing its oil revenues and other forms of trade. Nevertheless, it was not Iran but the P5+1 that flinched first. In October 2009, the allies proposed a fuel swap, under which Iran would ship low-enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for fuel plates for its Tehran Research Reactor, which uses uranium enriched to a higher level to produce medical isotopes. The proposal did not explicitly recognize Iran's claimed right to enrich, but seemed to implicitly accept that Iran would continue enriching uranium to a low level of 5 percent or less. The November 24 joint plan represents the culmination of this shift. Iran, which is a net exporter of fossil fuels and electricity, has insisted that it desires enrichment solely for peaceful purposes. The text of the joint plan indicates that Iran will be permitted a 'mutually defined enrichment program with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs.' The notion that Iran has any practical need for enrichment, however, is a dubious one. Iran is blessed with abundant resources of oil and natural gas, so much so that it was one of the world's leading exporters of these fuels before the recent sanctions. It provided refined fuel to domestic consumers at deeply subsidized rates, making Iranian per capita consumption of gasoline among the highest in the world. Even if one puts this aside and accepts Tehran's argument that it wants to diversify its energy supply for environmental and other reasons, enriching uranium makes little sense. Because importing fuel is much more economical, very few non-nuclear-weapon states enrich their own uranium. Iran may claim that it does not want to import reactor fuel-although this is precisely what it does for the Bushehr reactor-so that it can ensure a secure supply. Because Iran has minimal uranium reserves, however, it would remain dependent on imports of natural uranium. Indeed, Iran's two reported uranium mines together annually produce insufficient uranium for even a single 1,000-megawatt reactor. As former Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Siegfried Hecker and former Secretary of Defense William Perry recently observed, 'Iran can never become self-sufficient' in its nuclear energy program. Iran's energy security would be far better served by reducing its reliance on imports of refined petroleum and natural gas and lowering domestic consumption... In short, Iran has no 'practical need' for uranium enrichment, unless its actual desire is to build or preserve the option to build a nuclear weapon. Indeed, the Iranian government has not even convinced its own people that its intentions are peaceful. The poll cited above finds that 55 percent of Iranians believe that Iran 'has ambitions to produce nuclear weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/1paRyHV 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.