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WSJ:
"Obama administration officials expressed new concern that factions
within Iran could use a letter from Republican senators to Tehran leaders
to undo a comprehensive nuclear deal, even as they said the deal's
framework could be in place by next week. Such a move could unravel the
international coalition of sanctions against Iran, U.S. officials said.
The letter, which 47 Republican senators signed, 'has a lot of bearing on
what type of blame game could follow a failure to reach an agreement and
how Iran may seek to utilize that to poke apart the sanctions coalition,'
a senior administration official said... Republicans remained defiant,
seeking out new signatories on Tuesday and vowing to continue pressuring
the White House. 'You can say anything you want to say about the letter,
but you're eventually going to have to vote as to whether you want to
look at a deal that relieves congressional sanctions,' said Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R., S.C.). Some former U.S. officials close to the White House
said they believed the chances of an agreement now are significantly
higher than the 50-50 odds President Barack Obama has repeatedly cited.
'I'm pretty confident they will announce something,' said Gary Samore, a
nuclear expert at Harvard University's Belfer Center, who was the top
nonproliferation official in the first Obama White House... Mr. Graham
said the letter represented the GOP response to Mr. Obama's repeated veto
threats and was designed to demonstrate to Iranian officials that
Congress would play an important role in any agreement. 'I don't want the
ayatollahs to think for one minute we're not in play here,' Mr. Graham
said... Arab and Israeli officials who have been briefed on the
international nuclear talks said they expect negotiators to reach a broad
political agreement by the March 31 deadline." http://t.uani.com/1EzBOL7
NYT:
"President Obama wants any nuclear deal reached with Iran to last at
least 10 years. But a threat by Republican senators raises the question
of whether it would last even 22 months. In their protocol-breaking
letter to Iran this week, nearly four dozen Senate Republicans suggested
that the next president could simply reverse such an agreement after Mr.
Obama leaves office in January 2017. On one level, they were right. A new
president could decide to not go along with the terms inherited from his
predecessor. But it would be an extraordinary breach of tradition, one
that most presidents have avoided. As a practical matter, presidents
generally do not break international agreements because it could call
into question the reliability of other agreements, alienate allies and
set a precedent that few occupants of the White House want to set since
they would like their pacts honored after they leave office... The letter
seemed aimed at sowing doubt among Iranian leaders that the United States
would live up to the terms Mr. Obama is offering and therefore perhaps
scuttle the talks. At first, Iran brushed off the threat, with its
foreign minister dismissing it as a 'propaganda ploy' with no legal impact.
But Hamid Abutalebi, a key adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, issued a
statement warning that congressional interference should be taken
seriously. 'This move must not be easily ignored,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1AiJgCF
AEI:
"President Rouhani lauded Iran's nuclear negotiations team for
safeguarding national interests and resisting pressure, claiming that the
regime is '10 times' stronger. Rouhani said that Tehran's seat at
the P5+1 negotiation table is a source of great pride. He stated: 'Yesterday
your brave generals stood against the enemy on the battlefield and
defended their country. Today, your diplomatic generals are defending
[our nation] in the field of diplomacy; this too is jihad.' Rouhani's
statement has significant domestic implications; elevating Iran's
negotiations team to the status of Iran-Iraq War commanders, who are
traditionally revered by the regime as upholders of Islamic Revolutionary
values, could potentially lead to rhetorical backlash from regime
hardliners opposed to the nuclear negotiations." http://t.uani.com/1Bwv3pI
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AFP:
"Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told top clerics
Tuesday a letter from Republican senators undermining a possible nuclear
deal had sapped Tehran's confidence in dealings with the United States.
Extending his criticism of the open letter, whose 47 signatories included
several potential 2016 presidential candidates, Zarif said: 'This kind of
letter is unprecedented and undiplomatic. In truth, it told us that we
cannot trust the United States.' ... He said on Monday that the letter
had 'no legal value'... However he added Tuesday: 'Negotiations with the
United States are facing problems due to the presence of extremists in
Congress.'" http://t.uani.com/1BqCKyP
The Hill:
"Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, suggested Tuesday that the reason Republicans wrote an
open-letter to Iran is due to the White House's resistance to
congressional involvement in ongoing nuclear talks. Corker said that idea
originated from a Senate Democrat he spoke to early Tuesday about the
negotiations. 'Some of this is pushback because of the administration
taking the position that it's taken. Again, that is someone else's
observation,' Corker told reporters. 'The fact that the administration
has pushed back on Congress having any role, especially on the
congressionally mandated sanctions and issuing a veto threat at a very
common-sense approach.' Corker introduced a bill with Sen. Bob Menendez
(D-N.J.) several weeks ago that would allow Congress 60 days to review
any nuclear deal struck with Iran before its implementation, but the
White House immediately issued a veto threat. 'My sense is, we're going
to continue to build momentum, but there's no question what you're
saying, the administration has been weighing in heavily and trying to
keep us from weighing in on important issues,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1Bws2po
Free Beacon:
"Iran's foreign minister and chief negotiator in nuclear talks with
the West declared victory for his country, stating that no matter how the
negotiations end, Tehran has come out 'the winner,' according to remarks
made on Tuesday and presented in the country's state-run press. Javad
Zarif, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister, stated in remarks before
the country's powerful Assembly of Experts, which recently installed a hardline
new cleric as its leader, that the nuclear negotiations have established
Tehran as a global power broker. 'We are the winner whether the [nuclear]
negotiations yield results or not,' Zarif was quoted as saying before the
assembly by the Tasnim News Agency. 'The capital we have obtained over
the years is dignity and self-esteem, a capital that could not be
retaken.'" http://t.uani.com/1MsWBB8
AFP:
"The European Union will host talks in Brussels Monday with the
British, French, German and Iranian foreign ministers on Tehran's
contested nuclear programme as a deadline at the end of March nears. EU
foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini will lead the talks, a statement
said, one day after US Secretary of State John Kerry meets his Iranian
counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Switzerland as part of continued
Western efforts to ensure Tehran does not acquire a nuclear weapon."
http://t.uani.com/1MsVzFk
Ynetnews:
"Retired US general David Petraeus doesn't hide his concern for the
situation. Almost every situation. The situation in Syria, the situation
in Iraq, the situation in Libya, the situation with respect to al-Qaeda
and vis-à-vis Islamic State. Petraeus is also worried about Iran... 'To
my mind, a good deal needs to bolt the door on the Iranians getting a
nuclear weapon. In this respect, certainly large swaths of the program
need to be dismantled or at least altered. I don't know that this
requires an end to enrichment, but certainly it would seem to me that
there need to be substantial limitations on how much enriched material
Iran can possess and the percentage to which they can enrich, as well as
restrictions on the research, development, and deployment of new, more
sophisticated models of centrifuges, and so forth. An extremely robust
inspections program is also necessary - going beyond the Additional
Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, the inspections regime
is, in my mind, the most critical component of a deal.'" http://t.uani.com/1wtOgt3
Human Rights
IHR:
"In a press conference held in Oslo yesterday, Iran Human Rights
(IHR) and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) presented IHR's seventh
annual report on the death penalty in Iran.
* 753 people were executed in 2014 (10% increase compared to 2013)
* 291 cases (39%) were announced by official sources
* 49% (367) were executed for drug-related charges
* 32% (240) were executed for murder charges
* 53 executions were conducted in public spaces
* At least 14 juvenile offenders were among those executed
* At least 26 women were executed
* At least 4 people were resuscitated after being hanged" http://t.uani.com/1xcMSWJ
AFP:
"Draft legislation aimed at boosting a flagging birth rate threatens
to reduce Iranian women to 'baby-making machines' and set their rights
back by decades, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday. The
London-based human rights group said that a first bill, which has already
been approved once by parliament, would restrict access to contraception,
forcing women into unsafe backstreet abortions. It said the second draft
law, which is to go before parliament next month, would close many jobs
to women who choose not to or are unable to have children. 'The proposed
laws will entrench discriminatory practices and set the rights of women
and girls in Iran back by decades,' said Amnesty's deputy director for
the Middle East and North Africa, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. 'The authorities
are promoting a dangerous culture in which women are stripped of key
rights and viewed as baby-making machines rather than human beings with
fundamental rights to make choices about their own bodies and
lives.'" http://t.uani.com/1EbtfDo
Domestic
Politics
Reuters:
"A prominent hardliner was elected on Tuesday to head the
influential body that will pick Iran's next Supreme Leader. The surprise
choice of Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as head of the Assembly of Experts
took place at a highly sensitive time... In the internal election, Yazdi,
a hardline cleric who headed the judiciary through much of the 1990s,
defeated former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by 47
votes to 24, according to Fars news agency... The result suggested that
hardliners within the Assembly had closed ranks at a sensitive time when
a new Supreme Leader could soon be chosen - a decision in which the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful military force in the
country, could also play a role. 'The main message of this election was
that hardliners refuse to loosen the grip on power in key state entities,
and when the day comes, chances of a hardliner successor to Ayatollah
Khamenei continue to remain strong for now,' Hossein Rassam, a former
political analyst at the British embassy in Tehran who is now a business
consultant focused on Iran, told Reuters in an email." http://t.uani.com/1Ebr4zE
Foreign Affairs
MEMRI:
"On March 8, 2015, Ali Younesi, advisor to Iranian President Hassan
Rohani and previously intelligence minister (2000-2005) in the government
of president Khatami, spoke at the 'Iran, Nationalism, History, and
Culture' conference in Iran; his statements were published by the Iranian
ISNA news agency the same day. According to Younesi, Iran is once again
an empire, as it was in the past, and its capital, Iraq, is 'the center
of Iranian heritage, culture, and identity.' Delineating the borders of
the Persian Empire, or, in his words, 'greater Iran,' he included
countries from China, the Indian subcontinent, the north and south
Caucasus, and the Persian Gulf. He added that since the very dawn of its
history, Iran had been an empire and a melting pot of different cultures,
languages, and peoples. Younesi stressed that despite the current
obstacles to the unification of the countries in the region under Iranian
leadership, Iran cannot disregard its regional influence if it wishes to
preserve its national interests." http://t.uani.com/1AfJ0p7
Opinion &
Analysis
Michael Young in
The Daily Star (Lebanon): "While Netanyahu's
proposals for how to strengthen the nuclear accord are not likely to be
implemented, two issues he raised cannot be readily ignored by President
Barack Obama: How a deal might enhance Iran's regional influence; and
whether regional wariness with a deal could spur nuclear proliferation.
Iran's regional role is an issue that the U.S. has strenuously, and
foolishly, sought to separate from the nuclear discussions. This has
alarmed the Gulf states - and now Israel - who fear that a lifting of
sanctions on Iran and a rapprochement with the U.S. would facilitate
Iranian expansionism. The Arab states understand that the implications of
a nuclear accord are mainly political. Having signed a long-awaited
arrangement with Tehran, the U.S. is unlikely to turn around and enter
into new conflicts to prevent it from widening its reach in the Arab
world. Indeed, there are signs that the Obama administration would do
precisely the contrary. Obama, in a letter last October to Iran's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, effectively recognized Iran's role in
Syria by reassuring him that coalition airstrikes against ISIS would not
target Bashar Assad's forces. Moreover, by affirming the parallel
interests of the U.S. and Iran in combating ISIS, Obama defined a basis
for regional cooperation with Tehran... The questions [Netanyahu] raised
are the same ones that many Arab states have, and to which Obama has
offered no answers. Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, the
Palestinian territories and now Yemen, is very real, and Tehran has spent
years building it up, patiently and deliberately. Obama has explained his
Iran policy poorly, and there is a growing sense that this has been
intentional. Why? Because Obama's true ambition is to reduce America's
role in the Middle East, and, to quote analyst Tony Badran, leave in its
place 'a new security structure, of which Iran is a principal pillar.'
Because such a scheme is bound to anger U.S. allies in the region, Obama
has concealed his true intentions... The Israeli prime minister is
correct about one thing: If the Arabs feel threatened by an Iran that,
ultimately, has the means of going nuclear, they will respond in kind by
trying to develop their own nuclear capability. This would generate
considerable instability and defeat the purpose of a nuclear agreement
now... The reality is that Obama is deeply distrusted in the Arab world.
He is not a man who communicates much with Arab leaders or societies. His
aversion to the region's problems is palpable. Nor is Obama a president
who immerses himself in the Middle East's details. The extent of this was
best illustrated by the fact that he never considered appointing an envoy
to coordinate with regional allies over America's position in the nuclear
talks. Obama may get his deal with Iran, but he has prepared the terrain
so carelessly that the consequences may be quite damaging. Iran is a
rising power in a region where Arab states are disintegrating. Agreeing
with Iran, if that happens, will be the easy part. Much tougher will be
leaving in place a stable regional order. And given Obama's performance
until now, no one is wagering much that the U.S. will succeed in
that." http://t.uani.com/1b1XRh3
David Ignatius in
WashPost: "Even by congressional Republican
standards, the naysaying letter to Iran sent Monday by 47 GOP senators
was grossly irresponsible. Not only did it undercut President Obama's
ability to negotiate a diplomatic agreement, but it also undermined the
aspect of the Iran nuclear deal that would potentially be most beneficial
to the United States and Israel. From the beginning of the Iran nuclear
talks, a key U.S. goal has been to obtain an agreement whose duration is
long enough that it will bind Iran's actions into the next generation of
leaders that will follow Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is 75 and
ailing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the future
expiration of the agreement as a key worry during his speech criticizing
the deal last week to Congress. The political wrecking ball that is the
Republican caucus has, perhaps unwittingly, challenged precisely this
goal of a long-term deal by advising the Iranian leadership that the deal
being negotiated is merely an "executive agreement" that could
be abandoned if the domestic political winds change. 'The next president
could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and
future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,'
the letter says. To this assertion of the impermanence of an agreement,
Khamenei and other hard-liners might well respond with an Iranian version
of 'Amen.' Indeed, they could use the Senate GOP letter as a rationale
for abandoning aspects of the deal they find too constraining. That would
force the United States to consider military action. The casus belli,
bizarrely, might begin with an argument made by Senate Republicans."
http://t.uani.com/1wXFBPS
Kori Schake in FP:
"It is yesterday's news that 47 Republican senators signed a letter
darkly warning Iran's Supreme Leader that they will be political forces
to be reckoned with long after President Barack Obama leaves office. But
the spin is wrong: All but seven GOP members in the Senate ought not be
described as 'GOP hard-liners' - when 85 percent of Republicans in the
Senate do something, they are the main body, not just the hard edge of
it. That said, I think it was a mistake for the Republicans to send the
letter. It looks bad for Congress to undercut the president during the
negotiations with Tehran; moreover, it is unlikely to appeal to Americans
who are fed up with Washington and want their elected representatives to
work together and solve the country's problems. Republicans in the Senate
would argue that Obama is on the brink of a deal with Iran that could be
disastrous to America's national security, and that by skirting
Congress's advise-and-consent role, he left them no recourse. But the
senators underestimate their own strength in preventing the president
from carrying out an executive agreement - they can simply use the next
legislative vehicle to remove his waiver authority and the sanctions on
Iran remain in place. And if a bad deal is struck, there will likely be
winnable Democrats to make the sanctions veto-proof... Whatever Senate
Republicans' mistakes, and angry as the president might be about
legislators undercutting him during the endgame of a difficult
negotiation, he might want to consider his complicity in the matter: Had
he not flouted the requirement for the president to submit international
agreements to the Senate for its consent to ratification, Congress would
get its chance once the deal had been completed. Obama should reflect on
that, particularly since going forward he's bluffing with a weak hand. If
his point was to prove he's still relevant, he's succeeded. If his point
was to negotiate an end to Iran's nuclear weapons program, he's provoked
a mutiny that will make the policy difficult to carry out... Savvy U.S.
presidents use the threat of congressional abandonment in order to
negotiate better terms for the United States... President Barack Obama
took the exact opposite approach, and by doing so - even before the 47
Republicans wrote to Ayatollah Khamenei - he'd already telegraphed his
domestic political weakness to Iran." http://t.uani.com/1C4Ye4X
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