Eye on Iran: Long Absent, Nuclear Expert Still Has Hold on Iran Talks

Join UANI           Top Stories NYT: "As a team of Iranian negotiators parried with the West last week in increasingly heated negotiations over where the country will be forced to dismantle many of its nuclear facilities, one mysterious figure was conspicuously missing. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is considered by Western intelligence officials to be the closest thing Iran has to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who guided the Manhattan Project to develop the world's first nuclear weapon. For more than a decade, he has been identified as the relentless force behind on-again, off-again programs to design a nuclear warhead that could fit atop one of Iran's long-range missiles - a complex set of technologies that are a critical factor in how long it would take for Iran to build a weapon. As the keeper of Iran's greatest nuclear secrets, he looms over the talks that he never attends... Mr. Fakhrizadeh's absence underscores a central reality of the increasingly tense negotiations over the Iranian program: If an agreement is reached by July 20, the ostensible deadline, it will be without any real understanding of how close Iran has come to cracking the technologies of building a nuclear warhead. For years, international nuclear inspectors have been told that Mr. Fakhrizadeh is unavailable to talk, and his empire of laboratories and testing grounds is off limits. Now the empire door is being cracked open, just a bit, but investigators say it will take months or years to get any answers." http://t.uani.com/1v5twRE NYT: "Iran is flying unarmed surveillance drones over Iraq from an airfield in Baghdad and is secretly supplying Iraq with tons of military equipment, supplies and other assistance, American officials said. Tehran has also deployed a unit there to intercept communications, the officials said. The secret Iranian programs are part of a broader effort by Tehran to gather intelligence and help Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's government in its struggle against Sunni militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran's paramilitary Quds Force, has paid at least two visits to Iraq to help Iraqi military advisers plot strategy. And Iran has deployed about a dozen other Quds Force officers to advise Iraqi commanders, and help mobilize more than 2,000 Iraqi Shiite militia members from the country's south, American officials said. Iranian transport planes have also been making two daily flights of military equipment and supplies to Baghdad - 70 tons per flight - for Iraqi security forces." http://t.uani.com/1qvYVN2 Irish Times: "Iran awaits the lifting of sanctions like the return of the hidden imam. But Saeed Laylaz, an economist, informal adviser to the Rouhani administration and president of a company that manufactures city buses, disputes the widespread belief that Iran's economic problems are caused by international sanctions. 'In my opinion, less than 10 per cent of our economic difficulties are due to sanctions,' Mr Laylaz says. 'The first signs of economic crisis appeared in 2007, five years before the sanctions. The recession started in the summer of 2011, exactly one year before sanctions hit.' Mismanagement and corruption under Mr Ahmadinejad, who ruled from 2005 until 2013, are the fundamental reason for Iran's economic woes, says Mr Laylaz... In addition to his defiant, self-destructive bent, Mr Ahmadinejad was responsible for 'the biggest wave of corruption in the history of the Middle East,' Mr Laylaz says. 'They created a smokescreen and they looted hundreds of billions of dollars; between $300 and £400 billion in my estimation.'" http://t.uani.com/1pj1mFD     Sanctions Relief Reuters: "With the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough next month bringing an end to Iran's international isolation, officials in Tehran are preparing to roll out the red carpet to foreign firms. But a tough legal environment and tricky domestic market mean the hoped-for billions in investment may not come soon. Only a few more weeks remain before the July 20 deadline to conclude talks between Iran and Western powers aimed at ending sanctions in return for limits on Tehran's nuclear program... But as the deadline approaches, some foreign firms' initial euphoria over the prospect of investing in Iran is giving way to a harder-headed assessment of the obstacles and the risks. Even if a nuclear deal is reached, unraveling the web of sanctions is likely to be a long, complex process, possibly taking years. Companies will then have to deal with an uncertain legal framework and chaotic business environment within Iran." http://t.uani.com/1sEGJot Trend: "Russian company, Rusagro, has announced readiness to invest in Iran's Amirabad Port. Rusagro is one of the largest agriculture industry holding companies in Russia and the CIS. The holding's activity can be divided into sugar, meat, vegetable oil, and fats production. A representative of Rusagro paid a visit to Iran's northern Amirabad Port and said that conditions were provided for investment by the company in Amirabad, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on June 25." http://t.uani.com/1meEYoM Sanctions Enforcement & Impact Sun Sentinel: "On Friday, June 13, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into law an important amendment to Florida's Iran divestment law. The adoption conveys the resounding message that Florida continues to firmly oppose and condemn Iran's nuclear weapons program, and it adds to national and international efforts seeking to compel Iran to abandon its pursuit of such weapons... In a May 5th letter urging Governor Scott to sign the legislation, the ADL explained that the bill builds on the legislature's enactments in 2007, 2011 and 2012 to counter the nuclear and terrorism threats posed by Iran. The bill expands the 2007 'Protecting Florida's Investments Act' by applying disclosure mandates to the investment portfolios of insurance companies that operate in Florida." http://t.uani.com/1nDqm4S Human Rights Al-Monitor: "Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli was summoned to parliament to answer questions about why more measures have not been taken to prevent women from wearing leggings in public. In the open session, members of parliament were shown pictures of women in leggings, called 'support' in Iran. The elastic, skin-tight garments, typically worn by women who loosely observe Iran's modesty and hijab laws, have irked some religious conservatives." http://t.uani.com/1qIX6yz AP: "Iranian lawmakers approved a bill Tuesday criminalizing birth-control surgeries amid a drop in the country's population, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. The agency said 106 lawmakers out of 207 voted for the bill, which would imprison those convicted of performing vasectomies and tubal ligations for two to five years. Opponent of the bill warn that it could lead to Iranians seeking underground medical care that could be dangerous. The bill requires more debate on its details and ratification by a constitutional watchdog before becoming law. Last year, some 100,000 people underwent birth-control surgery in Iran. Having successfully curbed birth rates for two decades, Iran now is promoting a baby boom to help make up for its graying population. Last year, parliament approved a bill that allows the government to increase maternity leaves." http://t.uani.com/1o2X4hO Opinion & Analysis Setareh Derakhshesh in NYT: "When Anthony Bourdain posted a cryptic message on Facebook at the end of May that he and his television crew would be off the social media grid for the next 10 days because they were 'truly going to #PartsUnknown,' his fans around the world were intrigued. Was he shooting his CNN show (titled 'Parts Unknown') in a remote desert or on top of a snowy Himalayan peak? Ten days later, Mr. Bourdain posted a picture of himself sitting with a small glass of tea at a traditional Iranian teahouse in Isfahan, and it was immediately clear why the famous chef and TV show host had had no other option but to maintain radio silence. In Iran, the government officially blocks access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and almost all other social media platforms. Any attempt to bypass this block by using a virtual private network (VPN) connection or other software solutions is illegal. Numerous reports indicate that Iranian authorities restrict access to thousands of American and European websites, particularly those of international news sources, and even throttle down Internet connections to limit the ability of Iranians to surf the rest of the Web. 'Internet speeds are incredibly slow in Iran, which ranked 164 out of 170 countries in a recent study,' says the latest 'Freedom on the Net' report from the human-rights organization Freedom House. The report lists Iran as last in the world in terms of Internet freedom. And that was before an Iranian court banned Instagram last month... Meanwhile, several top Iranian officials enjoy what they deny to their citizens: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, apparently have accounts on Facebook or Twitter, with Mr. Zarif attracting nearly 900,000 Facebook followers to his page in Farsi... Before leaving Iran, Mr. Bourdain tweeted: 'Never would have guessed that of all countries in world, my crew and I would be treated so well everywhere, by total strangers in #Iran.' It's a pity that Iranians weren't able to read these kind words about their own hospitality on Twitter without breaking their country's law." http://t.uani.com/1meHlYy 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.