Solsticewitch13's BOS: Eye on Iran: Iran Leader Says West Will Not Defeat Iran

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AP: "Iran's Supreme Leader said Tuesday that western powers will not be able to bring the country to its knees in nuclear talks, his website reported. 'On the nuclear issue, the United States and European colonialist countries gathered and applied their entire efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees but they could not and they will not,' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, speaking to a group of clerics. The remarks were the first by Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, since Iran and major global powers agreed Monday to decide by March 1 what needs to be done and on what kind of schedule... Earlier on Monday and in a nationwide broadcast, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani told his nation that it 'has achieved a significant victory' and 'negotiations will lead to a deal, sooner or later.' Rouhani also said many gaps in the talks 'have been eliminated.' But he also vowed that Iran will not relinquish its right to nuclear capability. 'Our nuclear rights should be admitted by the world,' Rouhani said. 'We will continue the talks.'" http://t.uani.com/1vaU7PT

Politico: "When nuclear talks with Iran were last extended in July, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that 'we have come a long way in a short period of time.' Now that the talks have been extended again - despite a lack of visible progress - even some moderate Democrats are worried that Kerry's dogged nuclear diplomacy has done the opposite: come a short way in a long period of time. 'It is disappointing and worrying that after a year of serious talks with Iran that we do not have a deal,' said the Democratic Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Robert Menendez, in a statement... But after having preached patience for a long time, Kerry, the designated defender of the talks, is coming under increasing pressure to deliver an agreement or give up. Although he has never said a deal with Iran would be easy, Kerry has sometimes raised expectations-as he did in September of last year, when he told '60 Minutes' that a nuclear deal might be reached in less than three to six months. That was fourteen months ago... 'It is difficult to square the comments of Kerry and others that progress was made this week, and they are close to a final deal, with the need for seven more months of negotiations,' says a former White House official." http://t.uani.com/1raPAhS

NYT: "By the time Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart checked into a luxury hotel near the famous beaches of Oman earlier this month, a long-sought deal that has eluded the last two American presidents to roll back Tehran's nuclear program seemed to be slipping out of reach. With a deadline approaching, Mr. Kerry thought the opportunity could be lost unless the Iranians finally offered a breakthrough compromise. But Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, came with little new. Frustrated, Mr. Kerry said there was no way the United States would accept a deal that did not curb Iran's ability to produce enough fuel for a bomb within a year. The conversation grew heated. The two men, patricians in their own cultures and unaccustomed to shouting, found themselves in the kind of confrontation they had avoided during multiple negotiating sessions over the past year. 'This was the first time there were raised voices and some unpleasant exchanges,' said an American official, who like others requested anonymity to describe secret diplomacy." http://t.uani.com/11sGnW5

Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Free Beacon: "Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday in a television interview that the country's 'centrifuges will not stop,' according to a translation of his remarks. 'Today we have a victory much greater than what happened in the negotiation,' Rouhani said. 'This victory is that our circumstances are not like previous years. Today we are at a point that nobody in the world [in which no one says] sanctions must be increased in order that Iran accept P5+1 demands.' 'No one says to reach agreement we must increase pressure on Iran,' Rouhani said. 'But they say to reach an agreement more time and more discussion is needed. This is a great victory for what the Iranian nation started since last June 15.' ... 'Centrifuges have been running and I promise the Iranian nation that centrifuges will never stop,' he said... Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the point of the talks was to remove international pressure. 'The object of this discussion is to have an Iranian enrichment program and at the same time remove international restrictions and pressures,' Zarif said during a press conference with reporters Monday evening. 'I'm confident that any final deal will have a serious and not a token Iranian enrichment program coupled with removal of sanctions. This is the objective that we're working on and this is the objective we will achieve.'" http://t.uani.com/1vb4Nhm

Fars (Iran): "Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari warned that any US aggression against Iran will result in the liberation of the occupied territories of Palestine by Iranian troops. 'Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran's might and this is obvious in their behavior in the region and in the negotiations, and the enemies' reservations vis-a-vis Iran are completely felt,' Jafari said, addressing a forum in Tehran on Monday. He said today the entire region is within the range of resistance groups' missiles, which, he said, is interpreted as the failure and collapse of the Zionist regime. 'And the final victory will certainly occur,' he added. The IRGC commander, meantime, cautioned that if the US and its allies dare to launch a military attack on Iran, then 'our war will end by conquering Palestine.'" http://t.uani.com/15ng5qE

Reuters: "France's foreign minister said on Tuesday that talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program had been 'pretty positive' and that progress had been made on key issues including Iran's capacity to enrich uranium. 'On limiting Iran's capacity to enrich, I found that there had been a certain movement,' Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio... Fabius said the six powers had 'sketched' technical solutions over Iran's Arak heavy water reactor, which Western powers fear could yield significant quantities of bomb-grade plutonium if it is brought on line without major modifications. He also said there had been progress on how to verify that Iran would keep to its commitments once a deal was in place. 'As long as everything is not solved, nothing is solved, but the tone was more positive than before,' Fabius said. 'The devil is in the detail, but there is a will to find an agreement that I hadn't felt in previous talks.'" http://t.uani.com/1vaRJZn

Congressional Sanctions Debate

The Hill: "Additional sanctions recommended by lawmakers frustrated by the second consecutive delay in nuclear talks with Iran would be 'counterproductive,' the White House insisted Monday. 'The concern that we have is that layering on additional sanctions could leave some of our partners with the impression that this sanctions regime is more punitive in nature than anything else, and that could cause some cracks in that international coordination to appear,' White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. 'And that would therefore undermine the point of the sanctions regime in the first place.' Earnest added that allies would believe that the U.S. was simply 'more interested in punishing' Iran than striking a deal, and that the administration could lose 'buy-in' on the talks with additional penalties." http://t.uani.com/11U9fX4

Reuters: "Several U.S. Republican lawmakers insisted on Monday that the extension of nuclear talks with Iran be accompanied by increased sanctions, setting the stage for a battle with the Obama administration after their party takes full control of Congress next year. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, three of the party's leading foreign policy voices, said they view Iran's insistence on having any enrichment capability at all as problematic and warned that a 'bad deal' would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. 'We believe this latest extension of talks should be coupled with increased sanctions and a requirement that any final deal between Iran and the United States be sent to Congress for approval,' they said in a statement... John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, said an extension only allows the administration to make more concessions to Iran. Some Republicans held off calling for immediate new sanctions, but insisted Congress must be allowed to weigh in on any final nuclear agreement with Iran." http://t.uani.com/1pj2WHU

National Journal: "Some U.S. politicians are less than thrilled about Secretary of State John Kerry's Monday announcement that nuclear negotiations with Iran will be extended until June... Sen. Mark Kirk, R.-Ill., a vocal critic of the administration's Iran policy, said Monday that U.S. officials shouldn't continue to provide Iran with sanctions relief as negotiations continue. 'Now, more than ever, it's critical that Congress enacts sanctions that give Iran's mullahs no choice but to dismantle their illicit nuclear program and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency full and unfettered access to assure the international community's security,' Kirk said in an emailed statement. Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, delivered the same message Monday afternoon. 'This seven-month extension should be used to tighten the economic vice on Tehran-already suffering from falling energy prices-to force the concessions that Iran has been resisting,' the Republican from California said in a statement... The deadline extension will likely give skeptics in Congress renewed energy to push back against a deal they don't consider restrictive enough. A new crop of Republicans set to arrive in January would likely come in handy. There are several ways Congress could try to block a deal: It could impose additional sanctions, make it difficult to roll back existing sanctions, or try to withhold funding for any deal the two sides might eventually reach." http://t.uani.com/1ANBAhg

Sanctions Relief

Bloomberg: "That sanctions relief has been less valuable to Iran than U.S. officials anticipated, according to figures declassified by the Obama administration in response to requests from Bloomberg News. They indicate that Iran's direct benefit in cash and non-oil exports in the first six months of this year was about $2 billion less than the administration predicted -- $4.6 billion instead of as much as $7 billion, according to administration officials who agreed to discuss the figures on the condition that they not be identified. Over the same period, Iran earned $5.6 billion more from higher combined sales of crude oil and condensates than it had in the previous six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from energy and customs information from the five nations that import Iranian oil and the International Energy Agency in Paris. That money, however, is held in restricted bank accounts that Iran can't access under U.S. sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1ybDky6

Reuters: "Iran will not delay a much-anticipated conference to offer multinationals the rights to develop oil deposits, an oil official was reported as saying, after nuclear talks in Vienna failed to yield significant relief from Western sanctions. 'The conference will go as planned on February 23-25 2015, in the Marriott Hotel in London,' oil ministry news agency Shana quoted Mehdi Hosseini as saying. Hosseini is head of Iran's Oil Contracts Revision Committee. 'The extension of the agreement has no effect on the seminar and issuing new models for oil contracts in London,' he added, referring to the decision by Iran and world powers to extend an initial nuclear deal to give more time to find a full solution. The conference, aimed at luring foreign investors, had been postponed from November, a move apparently aimed at giving time for sanctions on the country's oil sector to be lifted." http://t.uani.com/1yRM5vH

Opinion & Analysis

WSJ Editorial: "About the best that can be said about Monday's agreement to extend the Iran nuclear negotiations for another seven months is that it's better than the bad deal that so many in the West seem eager to embrace. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its European partners are giving Tehran more time and money to get closer to the nuclear threshold. The talks have already been going for nearly a year and were formally extended once in July. Speaking in Vienna on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said 'new ideas surface' in recent days to justify the extension. If a breakthrough is so close, then why seven more months? The answer is that the mullahs still aren't budging on the decisive questions, but the Administration can't bring itself to admit failure and face up to the consequences of having to impose tighter sanctions or perhaps take military action... In the interim deal last year, Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium up to 20% and promised not to bring its Arak water reactor online, but this has also let it focus on other priorities. It continues to construct ballistic missiles that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions but aren't even on the table in the nuclear talks. The IAEA also says the regime still hasn't fulfilled its promise to document its efforts at weaponizing a warhead. The diplomatic breathing space has also let Iran revive its economy and chip away at sanctions... Iranian consumers feel more confident and foreign investors are lining up to do business with Tehran in anticipation of further sanctions relief. The currency has stabilized and a mild recovery has begun after two years of recession, even as oil prices are falling. The longer the interim deal continues, the more confident Tehran will become that the sanctions can never be reimposed. The underlying reality hasn't changed in a year. If Iran is sincere in wanting to remain a non-nuclear power it could open all its facilities to immediate and snap inspections and turn over all of its nuclear technology. That it won't do so suggests it has every intention of playing along with the West until it can become a threshold nuclear power, even if it doesn't have to test a weapon. Meanwhile, the Administration refuses to take no for an answer. Which means it's time for Congress to assert itself after a year of forbearance. A bipartisan bill to toughen sanctions is ready to roll to the Senate floor, and a vote might be the only way to make Mr. Obama face reality." http://t.uani.com/1vjyX3g

Bret Stephens in WSJ: "Does it matter what sort of deal-or further extension, or non-deal-ultimately emerges from the endless parleys over Iran's nuclear program? Probably not. Iran came to the table cheating on its nuclear commitments. It continued to cheat on them throughout the interim agreement it agreed to last year. And it will cheat on any undertakings it signs. We knew this, know it and will come to know it all over again. But what's at stake in these negotiations isn't their outcome, assuming there ever is an outcome. It's the extent to which the outcome facilitates, or obstructs, our willingness to continue to fool ourselves about the consequences of an Iran with a nuclear weapon. The latest confirmation of the obvious comes to us courtesy of a Nov. 17 report from David Albright and his team at the scrupulously nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security. The ISIS study, based on findings from the International Atomic Energy Agency, concluded that Iran was stonewalling U.N. inspectors on the military dimensions of its program. It noted that Tehran had tested a model for an advanced centrifuge, in violation of the 2013 interim agreement. And it cited Iran for trying to conceal evidence of nuclear-weapons development at a military facility called Parchin. 'By failing to address the IAEA's concerns, Iran is complicating, and even threatening, the achievement of a long term nuclear deal,' the report notes dryly. These are only Iran's most recent evasions, piled atop two decades of documented nuclear deception. Nothing new there. But what are we to make of an American administration that is intent on providing cover for Iran's coverups? 'The IAEA has verified that Iran has complied with its commitments,' Wendy Sherman, the top U.S. nuclear negotiator, testified in July to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'It has done what it promised to do.' John Kerry went one better, telling reporters Monday that 'Iran has lived up' to its commitments. The statement is false: Yukiya Amano, the director general of the IAEA, complained last week that Iran had 'not provided any explanations that enable the Agency to clarify the outstanding practical measures' related to suspected work on weaponization. Since when did trust but verify become whitewash and hornswoggle? ... The real problem is cowardice. As a matter of politics it cannot acknowledge what, privately, it believes: that a nuclear Iran is undesirable but probably inevitable and hardly catastrophic. As a matter of strategy, it refuses to commit to the only realistic course of action that could accomplish the goal it professes to seek: The elimination of Iran's nuclear capabilities by a combination of genuinely crippling sanctions and targeted military strikes. And so-because the administration lacks the political courage of its real convictions or the martial courage of its fake ones-we are wedded to this sham process of negotiation. 'They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work,' went the old joke about labor in the Soviet Union. Just so with these talks. Iranians pretend not to cheat; we pretend not to notice. All that's left to do is stand back and wait for something to happen. Eventually, something will happen. Perhaps Iran will simply walk away from the talks, daring this feckless administration to act. Perhaps we will discover another undeclared Iranian nuclear facility, possibly not in Iran itself. Perhaps the Israelis really will act. Perhaps the Saudis will. All of this may suit the president's psychological yearning to turn himself into a bystander-innocent, in his own eyes-in the Iranian nuclear crisis. But it's also a useful reminder that, in the contest between hard-won experience and disappointed idealism, the latter always wins in the liberal mind." http://t.uani.com/1vjzeDh

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