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WSJ:
"The already heated battle between Congress and the White House over
U.S.-led nuclear talks with Iran got nastier Monday as President Barack
Obama chastised 47 Senate Republicans who wrote directly to Iran's
leaders to criticize U.S.-led nuclear talks. After Republicans invited
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lay out his case against an
emerging nuclear deal in a congressional speech last week, the nearly
four dozen GOP senators wrote to Iran's leaders to warn that any
agreement between the White House and Tehran could be quickly nullified
or changed once Mr. Obama leaves office. Mr. Obama, firing back, said the
lawmakers were effectively aligning themselves with Iranian hard-liners
who oppose an international nuclear deal... Sen. Tom Cotton, the freshman
Republican senator who led the unusual move, said in an interview he
acted because Iran's leaders don't understand the American system and
'need to know' that any deal not approved by Congress is perishable. The
deal being negotiated, he said, is 'certainly not acceptable to me, and
not to many other members.' Asked to respond to President Obama's comment
that the letters' signatories are effectively teaming up with Iranian
government hard-liners to kill a deal, Sen. Cotton replied: 'There are
nothing but hard-liners in Iran.' ... Messrs. Obama and Biden criticized
the Republican outreach. 'I think it's somewhat ironic to see some
members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in
Iran,' the president told reporters. 'It's an unusual coalition.' Mr.
Obama said his focus was on getting to an agreement with Iran that would
allow the country to develop a nuclear energy program while ensuring that
it could not be weaponized. 'I think what we're going to focus on right
now is actually seeing whether we can get a deal or not,' he said. 'Once
we do-if we do-we'll be able to make the case to the American
people.'" http://t.uani.com/1ExhCJL
WSJ:
"Americans are very doubtful that the multinational negotiations
with Iran to limit its ability to produce nuclear material will make any
impact on the production of nuclear weapons, a new Wall Street
Journal/NBC News poll has found. The poll found that 71% said the
negotiations between Tehran and the Obama administration and other world
powers will not make a real difference in preventing Iran from producing
nuclear weapons; 24% said it will make a difference... The new poll found
that the public was even more skeptical of the impact of talks with Iran
than it was in March 2007 when the poll asked about a U.S. deal to
suspend curb North Korea's development of nuclear weapons. In that poll,
62% said the deal would not make a real difference in ending North
Korea's nuclear weapons program; 30% said it would make a
difference." http://t.uani.com/1BsulcR
Reuters:
"The United States offered $5 million on Monday for help in finding
an American who disappeared in Iran eight years ago and appealed to
Tehran to cooperate in the search for the former FBI agent, Robert
Levinson. 'We ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to work
cooperatively with us on the investigation into Robert Levinson's
disappearance so we can ensure his safe return,' Secretary of State John
Kerry said in a statement. The White House National Security Council said
it was 'committed to the safe return of Bob Levinson to his family.'
Levinson disappeared from Kish Island, an Iranian resort in the Gulf, on
March 9, 2007, while on a business trip as a private investigator." http://t.uani.com/1Bssk0d
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AFP:
"Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday dismissed as
of 'no legal value' a letter from 47 US senators warning that any nuclear
deal will require Congressional approval... 'We believe that the letter
has no legal value and is propaganda,' Zarif said, quoted in Iranian
media. 'The senators must know that under international law, Congress
cannot change the content of the agreement. Any congressional action to
prevent the implementation of any agreement will violate the
international commitments of the (US) government. The world is not just
in America,' Zarif added." http://t.uani.com/1E2TXvv
WSJ:
"Iran and the United Nations atomic agency exchanged additional
information about Tehran's past nuclear work on Monday and will meet
again next month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday,
but there was little sign of a sudden breakthrough. Talks between Iran
and the IAEA are aimed at clearing up questions on whether Iran's past
work was linked to nuclear weapons research... An IAEA team led by Tero
Varjoranta, the agency's deputy chief, held a day of technical meetings
with Iranian officials on Monday, the IAEA said in a brief statement. The
agency said the two sides 'exchanged further information' on two sets of
questions the IAEA has raised about Tehran's past nuclear work. 'The
Agency and Iran agreed to meet again in mid-April 2015,' the IAEA
said." http://t.uani.com/1ExgDZV
Reuters:
"The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is at least six
months behind in providing technical information on the nature of its
neutron calculations and alleged experiments on explosives that could be
used for an atomic device." http://t.uani.com/1F6J5kk
Human Rights
Toronto Star:
"[Iran] is casting an ever-wider net to ensnare Iranians who want to
connect with the world and each other through social media. The latest
victim is Mohammad Yousefi, a 27-year-old graduate student who was seized
from his home Dec. 10, and is said to be 'under strong pressure' to give
a forced video confession that could result in a death sentence. The
arrest was made under a draconian new program called Spider, meant to
root out people who manage social media chat rooms on platforms such as
Facebook... 'His arrest is very concerning,' said Gissou Nia of the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, whose recent report
Internet in Chains details Iran's deepening control over electronic
communications. 'It's the first arrest under the Revolutionary Guards'
Spider program. It shows the state is becoming much heavier in its
control of the Internet.'" http://t.uani.com/1F6HISZ
Domestic
Politics
AFP:
"Iran's Assembly of Experts, the clerics who appoint and can dismiss
the country's supreme leader, picked an ultraconservative as their new
chairman in a surprise appointment on Tuesday. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi,
83, headed the judiciary for 10 years and was a deputy speaker of
parliament after the 1979 Islamic revolution. He gained 47 of the 73
votes cast at a closed-door meeting in Tehran, according to the website
of state television, citing officials... His election represents a heavy
defeat for former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate
who previously held the position between 2007 and 2011, and who received
24 votes." http://t.uani.com/1C1yCWw
RFE/RL:
"An Iranian legislator who has called for the release of opposition
leaders from house arrest has been reportedly assaulted in the southern
city of Shiraz. Iran's IRNA news agency reports that the incident
occurred on March 9 at the airport in Shiraz, where Ali Motahari had
arrived to deliver a speech. People on motorcycles attacked Motahari's
car with stones and sticks, breaking the windows, before the car drove
away to a nearby police station. Motahari reportedly sustained an eye
injury in the attack and had to cancel his speech. Motahari has been
advocating the release of opposition leaders Mehdi Karrubi and Mir
Hossein Musavi, who have been held under arrest since 2011 over protests
that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election." http://t.uani.com/1C1zY3K
Foreign Affairs
Reuters:
"Yemen's Iranian-allied Houthi rebels have released videos made by
their fighters before they were killed in action that highlight the
sectarian nature of a conflict that risks descending into all-out civil
war... The clips have the florid style and high production values of
other Iran-linked militant groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas
and Lebanese Hezbollah. The United States and Yemen's Sunni Gulf
neighbours have watched the Houthi advance with grave concern, believing
Iran seeks regional sway through powerful militias in Lebanon, Syria,
Iraq and now Yemen. Yemen's president and defence minister have fled to
the southern port city of Aden and set up a Gulf-backed rival
administration there, while the north drifts closer to Iran. Houthi
authorities in Sanaa this month signed a civil aviation agreement with
Tehran for 14 weekly flights between the two capitals, and a Houthi
politician who used to head Yemen's branch of Iran's pan-Arab news
channel Al-Alam was appointed chief of state television over the
weekend." http://t.uani.com/1Hu8pAj
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Outreach
Coordinator Bob Feferman & UANI Director of Research Matan Shamir in
The Forward: "In his speech to the U.S. Congress,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively made the case that
the emerging nuclear deal with Iran is a 'very bad deal.' But we would
say that's actually a polite understatement; Netanyahu didn't go far
enough. This is a dangerous deal - not only for Israel but for the entire
region, the U.S. and the world. According to media reports, Iran would
reduce the number of centrifuges in operation to about 6,000 and its
capacity to 'breakout' of its treaty obligations and develop a bomb's
worth of weapons-grade uranium would be set back to one year. Let's say
for the sake of argument that one year is enough time to respond to an
Iranian rush to a bomb and we can live with that. Sounds good, right?
After all, their current breakout capacity is about two months. We're
told that Iran's nuclear program is being rolled back to the point that
it will no longer pose an imminent danger to the security of America and
its allies. So where's the problem? The biggest problem with the proposed
deal is the 'sunset clause' embedded within it. Netanyahu made this very
clear in his speech. And it's important to note this problem did not
originate in the current negotiations. It was one of the several major
faults of the interim accord agreed to with Iran in November 2013 called
the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA). Those flaws could now become enshrined
in a permanent agreement. Our organization, United Against Nuclear Iran
(UANI), warned about these poison pills as soon as the JPOA was signed.
Saving the worst for last, the single most dangerous part of the JPOA is
in its final sentence, which reads: 'Following successful implementation
of the final step of the comprehensive solution for its full duration,
the Iranian nuclear program will be treated in the same manner as that of
any non-nuclear state party to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty].' Think about the significance of this. In exchange for a
temporary rollback of its nuclear program for maybe 10 years, Iran would
get virtually full relief from economic sanctions... Think of how this
would immediately bolster the Iranian regime's nefarious, non-nuclear
activities, such as its state sponsorship of terrorism and quest for regional
dominance. The relief from sanctions and financial rewards would go to
strengthening its militant proxies and its Revolutionary Guard advisers
throughout the region. Will this help bring peace to the Middle East? How
will this make our world a safer place? But it gets even worse... If the
agreement will only last for 10 years, then Iran will emerge with the
freedom to produce hundreds of thousands of centrifuges. Iran would then
have the ability to enrich enough uranium for a bomb in a matter of weeks,
if not days - and no one would have grounds to deny Iran such nuclear
'development.' Any kind of intervention could only come when Iran moves
to making a nuclear weapon, a decision that Iran's Supreme Leader could
make on a whim. And then it would be too late. The proposed deal is
essentially trading short-term concessions on Iran's dangerous nuclear
program for acquiescence to Iran's dangerous non-nuclear activities -
terrorism and its quest for regional domination. So in the end Iran can
have it all: nuclear weapons capability, terrorism and regional hegemony.
We would then have a true nightmare scenario on our hands." http://t.uani.com/198GKtl
UANI Advisory
Board Member Walter Russell Mead & Nicholas M. Gallagher in The
American Interest: "The Constitutional problem
therefore isn't that Congress is trying to micromanage the President; the
problem is that the President is trying an end run around Congress on a
matter of the greatest importance. President Obama has the right to
conduct whatever policy he wishes towards Iran as long as he stays within
the bounds of American law; he cannot, however, bind future Presidents
and Congresses unless the legislative branch weighs in. Writing a letter
to the Supreme Leader of Iran might not have been the best or the most
tactful way to make the point, but Senators have an obligation to their
institution and to the Constitution to uphold their right to review long
term international commitments made in America's name. The best way out
of the potential deadlock would be for the President and the Secretary of
State to work directly with key Senators who can command the support of
the GOP caucus and work to meet their objections. Historians fault
President Wilson for failing to bring Republican Senators with him to the
negotiating sessions in Versailles and working with people like Lodge
(who was anything but isolationist) to find an approach to the Treaty
that they could support. People praise Truman for reaching out and
working with key Republicans to get their support for the Marshall Plan.
We note that Senator Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, and no stranger to criticisms of the administration's Iran
policy, has not signed Senator Cotton's letter. If the White House is
smart, it will take the opportunity to work with Corker and other
important Republicans to reach some kind of bipartisan agreement on Iran
policy. President Obama may complain that this means that he can't get
the Iran policy he wants; that may be true, and it may be as bad a thing
as the President fears, but that isn't the point. American presidential
powers have their limits, and President Obama can't bind the future
without congressional buy-in. Republicans like Senator Corker and Senator
Cotton are neither stupid nor malicious. Both men are serious figures who
take their responsibilities seriously. We don't need a Congress that is
continually gumming up the foreign policy works by intervening on every
little negotiation, but a prospective nuclear deal with Iran is one of the
most important questions that the nation faces. Nothing about our
Constitutional system says that the executive should have a free hand to
reach an agreement that binds the whole country on a matter like this
without congressional concurrence. To blame the Senate for the
possibility of a constitutional train wreck is to blame the victim; it is
the responsibility of the President to go to Congress on a matter of this
kind." http://t.uani.com/1wW1QWo
Jeffrey Goldberg
in The Atlantic: "The Iranian foreign minister,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, wants Jews to know that he, and the country he
represents, are their friends. In an interview with Ann Curry, he accused
the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of intentionally
misreading Jewish scripture in order to make the case that Iran is
malevolently predisposed toward Jews: 'If you read the Book of Esther,
you will see that it was the Iranian king who saved the Jews,' Zarif
said. 'If you read the Old Testament, you will see that it was an Iranian
king who saved the Jews from Babylon. Esther has a town in Iran where our
Jewish population, which is the largest in the Middle East, visits on a
regular basis.' It is true that, at different times, and in different
ways, Persia has been a friend of the Jews. Cyrus the Great (the Iranian
king mentioned by Zarif in the interview) restored the Jews to their
homeland in the Land of Israel after their Babylonian exile. President
Harry Truman, who recognized the state of Israel in 1948, 11 minutes
after it was reborn, later proclaimed proudly, 'I am Cyrus.' There is
dark humor (or a lack of self-awareness) in Zarif's citation of Cyrus as
proof of Iranian philo-Semitism, because today's Iranian leadership does
not recognize Jewish sovereignty in Israel, as Cyrus once did, but instead
seeks the annihilation of the Jewish state. I am in favor of a negotiated
agreement that will keep Iran at least a year away from a nuclear weapon
in part because, in the post-Holocaust era, it is crucially important to
keep such weapons out of the hands of those who promise to do Jews real
harm. As I've written, it is not likely that Iran would launch a
preemptive nuclear attack on Israel, but it would almost certainly
redouble, under the protection of a nuclear umbrella, its work toward
Israel's eradication, with disastrous consequences. (We'll have the
argument over whether the agreement now taking shape is the best possible
deal in another post. Suffice it to say that the parameters of the
current, still-unfinished deal are cause for some worry.) Netanyahu's
deployment of the Holocaust to make his case against Iran (and against
the current deal) is controversial. There are many aspects of Netanyahu's
approach I find disagreeable and counterproductive (most, actually), but
an Israeli prime minister who does not recognize that extinction-level
threats directed at Jews have sometimes been more than aspirational is
not fulfilling his responsibilities... The Iranian regime is not
populated by Nazis, but it is led by people who do, in fact, seek the physical
elimination of the Jewish state and its replacement by a Muslim state. It
works toward this end, by sponsoring terrorist groups that regularly kill
Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere. So, as a reminder to those who argue
that Jews should stop worrying so much about people who threaten to kill
them, here is some (just some) of what Iran's leaders, and leaders of its
proxy militia, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, have said about Israel." http://t.uani.com/1D04hJt
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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
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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
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