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Stories
Reuters:
"It is increasingly unlikely that six world powers and Iran will
meet their July 20 deadline to negotiate a long-term deal for Iran to
curb its nuclear program in return for an end to economic sanctions,
diplomats and analysts say. In theory, an extension to the high-stakes
talks should not be a problem if all sides want it. But President Barack
Obama would need to secure Congress' consent at a time of fraught relations
between the administration and lawmakers... An extension would allow up
to half a year more for limited sanctions relief and limits on Iranian
nuclear work as agreed in Geneva. To avoid an open conflict with
Congress, Obama would want U.S. lawmakers' approval to extend that
sanctions relief. The latest round of talks in Vienna last month ran into
difficulties when it became clear that the number of enrichment
centrifuges Iran wanted to maintain was well beyond what would be
acceptable to the West. That disagreement, envoys said, can be measured
in tens of thousands of centrifuges... Barring a surprise breakthrough in
the next round in Vienna on June 16 to 20, Western officials said an
extension was virtually a foregone conclusion. 'We're far apart,' one
diplomat said, adding that the talks would be 'long and
complicated.'" http://t.uani.com/1nOkCdo
Reuters:
"Iran has said it should be able to produce fuel for its Bushehr
nuclear power plant, a demand that world powers are unlikely to agree to
and which may put a July deadline for a deal to end its nuclear standoff
with the West in jeopardy. Diplomats from the major powers negotiating
with Tehran said Iranian negotiators expressed the demand at the latest
talks in May - identifying one reason little progress was made towards a
nuclear deal that could end Tehran's economic isolation... 'They expect
to get capacity to fuel Bushehr and that's unrealistic,' one diplomat
from the 'P5+1' countries in talks with Iran - the United States, Russia,
China, France, Britain and Germany - told Reuters. 'It gets you a very
short breakout time,' he said, referring to the time that would be needed
to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb... Iran's demand
to make its own fuel for the 1,000-megawatt power plant may face
resistance from Russia which built it and has a 10-year contract to
supply the fuel, starting in 2011, something it wants to continue
doing... Iran now has about 19,000 centrifuges, with roughly half of them
in operation. Western diplomats say only about half of the number of
machines operating would be acceptable, although it would depend on other
factors of any long-term deal, including the extent of oversight by the
U.N. nuclear watchdog. Such a number could be a small fraction of what
might be needed to fuel Bushehr." http://t.uani.com/1h9hFks
NYT:
"In a dingy suite of offices in a Treasury Department annex, the
troops work into the night, armed with paperwork, computers and a clock
on the wall set to Tehran time. They blast out advisories ordering banks
to block targeted people, then threaten them with consequences - fines
that can range into millions of dollars - if they do not. Today, this is
how the Obama administration goes to war. 'The United States needs to
remain involved in the world, but does not necessarily need to remain
involved just through military power,' said David S. Cohen, Treasury's
under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, who is
sometimes described within the administration as President Obama's
favorite combatant commander. 'There are other ways of projecting U.S.
power that are consequential.' ... The sanctions against Iran for its
nuclear work are considered the most successful in modern history ...
Perhaps the most stark evidence of success lies in bolstered sanctions
against Iran. Congress and the White House, alongside governments in
Europe, have spurred a currency crisis and driven down prices for the
country's crude oil, thus forcing Iran's leaders to the negotiating
table. 'There were excellent reasons to think that the new sanctions on
Iran would not work, because we'd been sanctioning them for 30 years,'
said Mr. Drezner. 'I think it caused a lot of people to think, Wow, these
are a lot more powerful than we realized.'" http://t.uani.com/1kCpMWv
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AP: "On the eve of talks, Iran's moderate president said Tuesday
that his administration will defend the Islamic Republic's nuclear rights
and work to end international sanctions that have devastated its
economy... 'Without a doubt, nuclear power is our definite right,' he
said during a ceremony in Tehran marking the 25th anniversary of the
death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the founder of the Islamic
Republic. 'Resorting to unity and resistance, we will defend interests of
Iranian nation,' Rouhani said... President Rouhani also said Iran would
support the fight against terrorism and extremism in the region, a
reference to the country's role in helping Syrian President Bashar Assad
in his fight against rebels... 'The Islamic republic of Iran helps those
who fight terrorism and extremism in the region,' said Rouhani. 'Today,
Iran is standard-bearer of fighting terrorism and violence in the
region.'" http://t.uani.com/1ne28zo
Reuters: "Iran faced Western pressure on Wednesday to speed up its
promised cooperation with a long-stalled U.N. nuclear watchdog
investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Tehran, something
the Islamic state denies. The European Union - which groups three of the
six powers seeking to negotiate a settlement to a decade-old dispute with
Iran over its nuclear programme - noted that 'some' progress had been
made in separate talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA). But, the 28-nation EU added in a statement to a quarterly
meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation governing board, 'We call on Iran to
provide all the relevant information to the agency, to address fully the
substance of all of the agency's concerns and to accelerate its
cooperation with the agency.' Canada's ambassador to the Vienna-based
IAEA put it more bluntly, saying Iran was using a kind of 'salami-sliced,
piece-by-piece approach' in its dealings with the U.N. watchdog. 'We are
definitely of the view that Iran is moving too slowly to address these
long-standing questions. They do need to move faster,' Mark Bailey told
Reuters." http://t.uani.com/1l5l4QL
Sanctions
Relief
Tehran Times: "Car manufacturing in Iran grew by 92.5 percent in the
first two months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-May 21),
compared to the same period in the previous year. Iran manufactured
135,901 cars in the two-month period, the Mehr News Agency reported on
Monday. Car manufacturing in Iran dropped 20.2 percent in the past
Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20. Iran manufactured 737,060
cars in the last Iranian year, while the figure was 924,051 in its
preceding year. French carmakers Peugeot and Renault look to be among the
clearest beneficiaries of the interim deal that lifts some sanctions on
Iran, with both hoping to leap back into the Middle East's biggest auto
market, AFP reported in November." http://t.uani.com/1ovbvdr
Sanctions
Enforcement & Impact
National Journal: "A senior U.S. lawmaker wants the Obama
administration to explain how it would respond if Iran and Russia
finalize a 'sanctions-busting' oil deal. U.S. House Foreign Affairs
Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said the potential 'oil-for-goods'
plan would circumvent international efforts to squeeze concessions from
Iran on its bomb-usable nuclear activities. In a Monday letter, he asked
Secretary of State John Kerry to identify what 'designation and
enforcement steps' the administration would pursue if the potential $20
billion arrangement takes effect... Royce said the proposal for Iran to
trade oil for nonmonetary goods from Russia 'would present a clear
violation of Iran's obligations and would undermine the rationale behind
the current negotiations.' ... The lawmaker also asked for a rundown of
steps by Washington or its partners 'to deter a potential deal.'" http://t.uani.com/1ne0X32
Congressional
Sanctions Debate
Free Beacon: "The nation's leading pro-Israel lobbying group is
considering backing new efforts in Congress to pass tighter sanctions on
Iran, according to Senate insiders familiar with the issue. The American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) could put its weight behind an effort to
resurrect currently stalled legislation to tighten economic sanctions on
Tehran, a move meant to pressure the Obama administration to take a
tougher stand in the nuclear talks with Iran. The sanctions measure
originally sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Bob Menendez (D.,
N.J.) stalled earlier this year with 59 co-sponsors after the Obama
administration launched a full court press to kill the legislation.
AIPAC, which had initially supported the bill, backed off its lobbying
bid after Democrats and White House officials expressed opposition to the
bill and argued that more time is needed to negotiate with Iran. Now,
with the six-month interim nuclear accord set to expire on July 20, AIPAC
and its congressional allies are said to be preparing to breathe new life
into the legislation, which just recently garnered its 60th cosponsor, a
key procedural threshold." http://t.uani.com/Td8x3G
Syria Conflict
CNN: "The Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, who left his post just a
month ago, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that he could no
longer stand behind his government. 'I was no longer in a position where
I felt I could defend the American policy,' he said. 'We have been unable
to address either the root causes of the conflict in terms of the
fighting on the ground and the balance on the ground, and we have a
growing extremism threat.' ... 'There really is nothing we can point to
that's been very successful in our policy except the removal of about
ninety-three percent of some of Assad's chemical materials. But now he's
using chlorine gas against his opponents.' At the beginning of Syria's
conflict, the U.S. State Department - including then-Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton - pushed hard for America to provide robust support for
the moderate opposition; that recommendation was not followed. Ford said
it is 'now widely known that the State Department thought we needed to
give much more help to the armed opposition in Syria.' ... Assad would
not be in the powerful position he now is, Ford told Amanpour, were it
not for the support from outside powers like Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia.
'We're always a little bit behind the curve. And we need to get ahead of
the curve. That is important.'" http://t.uani.com/1ne4tKR
Domestic
Politics
AFP: "A quarter of a century after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's
death, Iran is still struggling to navigate its way out of economic and
diplomatic isolation -- against a backdrop of political infighting.
Wednesday marked 25 years of the Islamic republic without its founder,
the charismatic spiritual and political leader who remains ever-present
on bank notes, portraits in public offices and countless street
posters." http://t.uani.com/S8mZZt
Opinion &
Analysis
David Albright, Olli Heinonen, & Andrea Stricker in ISIS: "A
long term, comprehensive solution under the Joint Plan of Action needs to
ensure Iran uses nuclear energy for exclusively peaceful purposes.
Any such agreement will be complex and require a range of interrelated
provisions. We have evaluated five commonly discussed proposals
based on a set of criteria, including breakout potential, reversibility,
stability, and verifiability and found them flawed. As a result, they
should not be part of a long term agreement. They are:
- Bad
compromise 1: Increasing allowed centrifuge numbers
significantly while lowering low enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride
(and oxide) stocks toward zero;
- Bad
compromise 2: Allowing Iran to maintain in the Arak reactor a
core holding significantly more fuel channels than required for
fueling the reactor with low enriched uranium fuel;
- Bad
compromise 3: Agreeing that Iran's centrifuge plants can
maintain installed but non-enriching centrifuges designated as in
excess under the limits of the deal;
- Bad
compromise 4: Leaving the resolution of Iran's past and
possibly ongoing nuclear weaponization and military fuel cycle
efforts until after a deal is concluded and economic and financial
sanctions are loosened, if not removed; and
- Bad
compromise 5: Lack of constraints banning in a verifiable
manner future Iranian illicit nuclear procurement efforts.
A key recommendation is that the P5+1 negotiators avoid
integrating these unacceptable compromises into any deal's
provisions. If accepted, these compromises would create a final
agreement that would be unstable, overly reversible, and likely
unverifiable." http://t.uani.com/1tHNMIp
Emily B. Landau, Ephraim Asculai & Shimon Stein in TNI: "With
most analysis of the Iranian nuclear program focused on its
uranium-enrichment capabilities and the possible plutonium route to a
nuclear device, the purely military aspects of Iran's activities have
been relegated to the sidelines. Indeed, as the nuclear negotiations between
the P5+1 and Iran move toward the July 20 deadline, it is still not clear
whether the international negotiators will insist upon including the
suspected military aspects of Iran's nuclear program in the framework of
a final comprehensive deal. When we consider the relationship between the
decade-long IAEA investigation into the military aspects of Iran's
program, and the recent round of negotiations led by the P5+1, it should
be clear that IAEA findings must feed into P5+1 negotiations. But, the
current situation-in which the IAEA is waiting for some Iranian answers
until the end of August, but the deadline for the talks is July 20-does
not auger well for the inclusion of the military aspects in a
comprehensive deal. In fact, the military aspects of Iran's program are
of critical importance to negotiations with Iran, and should be regarded
as a deal-breaker if not included in any proposal for a final deal. With
regard to fissile-material production, it has not been too difficult for
Iran to insist on civilian explanations (read: excuses) for its
activities based on dual-use technology. But evidence of Iranian work on
developing a nuclear explosive mechanism would be very strong indication
of its military nuclear ambitions. The evidence that the IAEA is trying
to clarify with Iran appears under the diplomatic title of 'Possible
Military Dimensions', but the PMD are just one set of issues, and what
should be on the table is the full range of suspected weaponization
activities... Exposing the military dimensions would put an end to the
erroneous Iranian narrative that enables it to continue to proclaim its
innocence of any wrongdoing. For example, Iran's nuclear chief Ali Salehi
recently said that Iran has a right to enrich uranium even to 90 percent,
per the NPT-but it would be hard for him to make this claim if the
military dimensions were clearly exposed. We also cannot discount that
there is an important message for the broader international community,
especially due to the still looming shadow of the Iraqi case: where a war
was fought to eliminate WMD, but WMD were not found. The lingering doubts
regarding the Iranian case need to be resolved once and for all-it needs
to be clear that Iran did break the rules, and for that reason it is
being compelled to change course. Otherwise, there is no legitimacy for
the international intervention, which of course is Iran's consistent
claim. Russia, until today, resists further sanctions on Iran because it
claims that there is no proof that Iran has worked on a military program-why
allow this charade to continue? If we know what Iran has been up to, this
would also put an end to the statements at the start of each new stage of
negotiations that 'this will be the test of Iran's true intentions'. If
the military aspects were clarified in the talks, Iran's intentions would
be clear. While integrating the military aspects into negotiations along
the first path (namely, enabling Iran to declare problematic activities
without admitting working on a military program) could act as a possible
face-saving mechanism for Iran, it would come at a huge and unacceptable
cost. Not insisting on pronouncing these activities to be a clear breach
of the NPT would have the negative effect of enabling Iran to hang on to
the problematic narrative that it has done no wrong in the nuclear realm.
The Iranian case is also an important watershed moment for setting clear
benchmarks for dealing with proliferation attempts down the road-helping
to clarify nuclear and military activities that must be prohibited
according to the NPT. In conclusion, for all of the reasons
above-verification, overall dealing with Iran, and confronting
proliferation down the road-a final agreement that does not squarely
address the resolution of Iran's weaponization activities would be a
prescription for a bad deal, in which case it would better not to
conclude an agreement at all." http://t.uani.com/1pRaJsn
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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