Eye on Iran: U.S. Dispatches Destroyer after Iran Boards Commercial Ship

Join UANI           Top Stories WashPost: "The U.S. military has dispatched a destroyer in pursuit of a commercial ship that was fired upon and then boarded by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged container ship, was intercepted by patrol ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy around 4 a.m. Eastern time, according to Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. No U.S. citizens were believed to be among the more than 30 crew members aboard the vessel. After the ship refused to comply with an Iranian order to steam further into Iran's territorial waters, one of the Iranian patrol vessels fired across the Tigris's bridge, Warren said. The Tigris, which had been heading toward the Persian Gulf when it was intercepted, then complied with the Iranian ships' order, proceeding to an area near Larak Island, in the northern edge of the strait off Iran's coast. According to Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency, the Maersk Tigris was seized at the request of the Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization. The news agency quoted an unidentified source as 'indicating that the IPMO had monetary differences with the ship owner.'" http://t.uani.com/1GvZKLc AP: "The operator of a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel boarded by Iranian forces as it was traversing the Strait of Hormuz said Wednesday it has confirmed the crew is safe but that the company is still trying to determine why the ship was seized the previous day by the Islamic Republic... Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted the maritime deputy director of Iran's Ports and Sailing Organization, Hadi Haghshenas, as saying the seized ship was still under arrest Wednesday. 'A Maersk Line cargo ship seized in the Strait of Hormuz by the Islamic Republic was because of some unpaid debt,' Fars quoted Haghshenas as saying. 'Maersk Line owes some money to an Iranian company and the court has ruled that Maersk should pay the debt.' The report did not elaborate. Michael Storgaard, a spokesman for Danish shipper Maersk Line, earlier said his company had not been 'able at this point to establish or confirm the reason behind the seizure.' U.S. firm Oaktree Capital, a global investment firm based in Los Angeles, would not confirm a shipping industry magazine's report that it owned the MV Maersk Tigris and referred any questions to Radings. Radings would only say the ship was owned by 'private investors' and would not elaborate." http://t.uani.com/1bU0bri AP: "The GOP-controlled Senate on Tuesday turned back an attempt to elevate any nuclear deal with Iran into a treaty, a vote that gave momentum to Republicans and Democrats trying to pass a bill giving Congress a chance to review and possibly reject any agreement with Tehran. The amendment, filed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, failed 39 to 57... The bill has gained tacit approval from Obama. He says he will sign it as written, but the White House warns that he will reconsider if the measure is substantially changed. Sen. Bob Corker, a lead sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the measure in its current form, has 67 backers, enough to override a presidential veto. Corker and his supporters are trying to bat down more than 50 amendments have been introduced so far - all by Republicans... Johnson's failed amendment would have turned any final nuclear agreement with Tehran into a treaty, requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate... It was the first vote on the dozens of amendments under consideration." http://t.uani.com/1EiS68E     Nuclear Program & Negotiations Bloomberg: "Iran and world powers may sign a comprehensive nuclear deal without questions over the Islamic Republic's past military-related work having been resolved, according to the world's top atomic agency. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano said he had urged Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to 'accelerate' his country's cooperation with investigators during a meeting a New York. 'Clarifying the possible military dimensions of Iran's past is essential,' Amano said in an interview on Tuesday. 'It is important to restore confidence' even if 'it has never been a precondition for reaching an agreement,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1ODRqCL Military Matters USA Today: "Iranian naval forces have acted with mounting aggressiveness in the Persian Gulf region in the past week, including encircling and threatening a U.S.-flagged cargo vessel April 24, USA TODAY learned. The previously undisclosed incident follows news Tuesday that Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz fired across the bridge of the Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel... In the incident involving an American ship, four Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps navy patrol ships intercepted the Maersk Kensington, a U.S.-flagged cargo vessel, in the southern Persian Gulf on an internationally recognized trade route, according to the Defense Department official. The confrontation began the morning of April 24 when the Iranian sailors radioed the Kensington, whose crew did not respond. The Iranian boats encircled the ship and came up behind it in waters off Oman. The Kensington's crew 'interpreted this act as aggressive,' the official said. The Iranian boats followed the Kensington before breaking off pursuit. The Kensington reported the threat to the U.S. Navy's Central Command. The Navy informed American shipping companies to report threatening incidents." http://t.uani.com/1DKaxki Congressional Action AP: "The Senate begins debate Tuesday over legislation empowering Congress to review and possibly reject any nuclear pact the Obama administration develops with Iran. The bill approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has gained the tacit approval of Obama, and proponents are trying to discourage any changes. They recognize that politically driven amendments could undermine Democratic support and sink the carefully crafted measure. The legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days while lawmakers weigh in. And it would stipulate that if senators disapprove the deal, Obama would lose authority to waive certain economic penalties - an event that would certainly prompt a presidential veto. Among proposed additions to the bill are demands that Iran release any U.S. citizens it is holding and refrain from any cooperation with nuclear-armed North Korea. Another insists that any agreement be treated as an international treaty, requiring two-thirds ratification by the Senate. Another set of amendments would block any sanctions relief for Iran until it meets goals the U.S. set years ago as negotiating stances and has long since abandoned." http://t.uani.com/1EiS68E Sanctions Relief Press TV (Iran): "The chief executive of Middle East's top carmaker, Iran Khodro, has held talks with France's Peugeot as Iran prepares to welcome foreigners in light of sanctions relief for the Islamic Republic. Hashem Yekke-Zare was quoted by Mehr news agency as saying that he discussed joint manufacturing of auto parts in Iran during his recent visit to Paris. 'Peugeot pulled out of Iran's market due to the toughening of sanctions...Iran Khodro is seriously following up on damage incurred [following Peugeot's withdrawal],' he said. 'When we negotiate for new cooperation with Peugeot, we give assurances that national interests will be taken into consideration,' he added. Yekke-Zare said Iran Khodro expects Peugeot to 'invest in Iran and launch a research and development center.' According to previous reports, Peugeot will set up a joint factory with Iran Khodro, held 50% by Peugeot and 50% by Iran Khodro. The planned joint factory would export 30% of its manufactured vehicles." http://t.uani.com/1PXVyuH Syrian Conflict Reuters: "The European Union's top diplomat on Tuesday voiced the hope that Iran would play an important but constructive role in a renewed United Nations push to restart negotiations aimed at ending the four-year civil war in Syria. The U.N. envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has said he will begin meeting in May with the country's government, opposition groups and regional powers including Iran to assess by the end of June whether there is any hope brokering an end to the war. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who meets Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later in New York on Tuesday, said it was crucial that the EU and six world powers successfully conclude nuclear talks with Tehran, which she said could boost Iran's regional role in a positive manner. 'The best possible approach you can have is ... on one side have a positive outcome of the nuclear talks so that we can be sure that they cannot develop a nuclear weapon,' she said. 'On the other side, call for Iran to play a major, major but positive, role on Syria in particular, to encourage the regime to ... (support) a Syrian-led transition,' she said, referring to a 2012 U.N. plan for a political transition in Syria that has yet to be translated into reality." http://t.uani.com/1EQCI75 Yemen Crisis Reuters: "Jets from a Saudi-led alliance destroyed the runway of Yemen's Sanaa airport on Tuesday to prevent an Iranian plane from landing there, Saudi Arabia said, as fighting across the country killed at least 30 people... In Sanaa, air force planes from the Saudi-led coalition bombed the runway of the country's main airport to stop an Iranian flight landing, officials from both sides said, in a move that will further complicate humanitarian efforts to fly urgently needed aid into Yemen. Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told Reuters that the airport was bombed after an Iranian aircraft refused to coordinate with the coalition and the pilot ignored orders to turn back." http://t.uani.com/1DB489y Opinion & Analysis UANI Advisory Board Member Michael Singh in WSJ: "Most of the debate about the Iran nuclear agreement framework announced April 2 has focused on whether it is a good or bad deal. This misses a deeper question: whether the deal as outlined can work. And three design flaws may ultimately spell its doom regardless of who succeeds Barack Obama as president. First, the framework narrowly addresses Iran's nuclear activities rather than the full range of disputes between Iran and the United States. At one level, this is understandable: Resolving the nuclear crisis is difficult enough without also having to address Iran's support for terrorism and destabilizing regional activities. But this approach presumes that these issues can truly be disentangled from one another.  For Iran, pursuit of a nuclear weapon is part of a broader strategy to develop asymmetric and strategic capabilities that support its effort to project power and bolster its global stature. If that strategy does not change-that is, if Iran continues its support for terrorism, regional adventurism, and related policies-then its underlying rationale for possessing a nuclear weapons capability will not shift either. When it comes to U.S. sanctions, few are truly 'nuclear-related,' a phrase that appears in the Joint Plan of Action concluded in November 2013 and in the Lausanne framework unveiled this month but that is not defined in either document. Most sanctions are linked to multiple Iranian policies, not just its nuclear activities. This means that either these sanctions would continue and Iran would receive scant sanctions relief or that they would be eased and Iran would get a free pass on its non-nuclear policies as well. In the latter case, with our most effective sanctions no longer available, the U.S. would be forced to rely on less effective sanctions or more direct action against Iran. This makes it likely we would become more involved in regional disputes, not less. Second, the deal is sure to roil regional dynamics regardless of progress in Iran or between the U.S. and Iran. Critics have asserted that the absence of a requirement in the framework that Tehran dismantle its nuclear infrastructure implies that the Obama administration is gambling on the Iranian leadership becoming friendlier over the next decade. Yet Iran's threshold nuclear capability poses a problem whether or not its relations with the U.S. improve. Even a friendlier regime is unlikely to give up this capability of its own volition, if only for reasons of national pride. And Iran's long history of regional ambition and rivalries is already leading to others in the Middle East seeking to balance or match Iranian capabilities regardless of the nature of the regime in Tehran or its attitude toward the U.S. Third, the deal may prove unstable and ultimately unsustainable regardless of who next occupies the Oval Office. It is likely that U.S. oil and financial sanctions will initially be waived rather than lifted because the up-front steps required of Iran are not sufficient, and not sufficiently irreversible, to merit immediate lifting of sanctions. This means that President Obama-and his successor and possibly that person's successor-will need to certify Iranian compliance and reaffirm the suspension of sanctions every six months. But because the deal does not require full up-front transparency from Iran, and the size of Iran's residual program will make inspection efforts highly complex (and onerous), suspicions about Iranian cheating are likely to be ubiquitous." http://t.uani.com/1KtLvKM WSJ Editorial: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been in the hostage-taking business since its earliest days, so nobody should be surprised by Tuesday's news that Iranian warships seized a cargo ship and her crew of 34 in the Strait of Hormuz. But it's a useful reminder of the kind of regime with which the West is now seeking to strike a nuclear bargain. The M/V Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged container ship, was transiting the Strait along an internationally recognized maritime route when it was surrounded by gunships of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranians ordered the ship to divert into Iranian waters and fired warning shots when the skipper of the Tigris refused, sending out a distress call that was picked up by the destroyer USS Farragut. The Iranians then boarded the ship and steered her toward the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. We'll see how long this 'diversion' lasts, and what price Iran will demand for releasing the ship and its crew. The incident comes less than a week after a convoy of Iranian cargo and warships destined for Tehran's Houthi allies in Yemen were shadowed by U.S. Navy ships, eventually turning away. It also follows an incident on Friday when Iranian warships surrounded, but did not board, another large Maersk ship, the U.S.-flagged Kensington. Perhaps that means the Iranians are merely trying to score political points by playing a game of payback. But the U.S. effort to turn the Iranian convoy away from Yemen was in the service of a U.N. arms embargo on the Houthis. The Iranian action is effectively identical to the ship-seizing by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean's Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. It's also a reminder that Iran has not moderated its rogue behavior during the presidency of Hasan Rouhani, whose own alleged moderation is one of the Obama Administration's justifications for seeking a nuclear deal. On the contrary, Mr. Rouhani has presided over renewed domestic repression and redoubled regional aggression. A nuclear deal is supposed to ease Iran's return to the community of civilized nations, but so far Western concessions seem to have emboldened it into thinking it can do as it pleases. The habit of seizing unarmed ships on the high seas-or innocent foreign reporters working in Iran-is barbarism. Apologists for Iran will no doubt ascribe the seizure of the Tigris to 'hardline factions' within the regime. That might be true, but it only underscores the futility of striking a nuclear deal with a regime in which the hardliners can operate with impunity. What happens when Tehran decides to imprison pesky U.N. inspectors trying to verify Iran's nuclear promises? Iran's disdain for basic maritime conventions is a good indicator of how it will treat any agreement it signs, which is why the Obama Administration is deluding itself that it can draw a line between Iran's everyday behavior and its nuclear commitments. Pirates don't keep their word, and it's dangerous to bargain as if they will." http://t.uani.com/1KtKSkn Eli Lake & Josh Rogin in Bloomberg: "The Marshall Islands, a small country that gained independence from the U.S.  in 1986, will almost definitely have to rely on the U.S. to retrieve a cargo ship flying its flag that was commandeered Tuesday by Iran's Navy, apparently in Iranian waters. When asked if his country would request that the U.S. rescue the cargo ship from Iran, Junior Aini, the charge d'affairs for the Marshall Islands Embassy in Washington, told us he was still awaiting guidance from his foreign ministry. But he also suggested that his country had no other recourse than to hope the U.S. responds. 'The United States has the full security responsibility over the islands and for the defense of the islands, this is what our treaty says,' he told us. Aini was referring to a 1986 accord between the U.S. and the island nation that set the terms for independence. The Marshall Islands has no standing army... The ship is owned by the Danish conglomerate Maersk, which like many shipping companies uses Marshall Islands' 'flags of convenience' to reduce operating costs and sidestep regulation. The incident seems a direct response to President Barack Obama's decision last week to send warships to the Arabian Sea. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said at the time that the warships were meant on 'a very clear mission to ensure that shipping lanes remain open, to ensure there's freedom of navigation through those critical waterways, and to help ensure maritime security.' On Tuesday, Warren told reporters it was 'inappropriate' for Iran to fire shots at the cargo ship. He said the U.S. is looking into any obligation it may have for Marshall Islands-flagged ship... By taking a non-U.S. ship under questionable circumstances at a moment of high tension in the region, Iran has again put Washington in a tough spot. Given that the U.S. Senate is simultaneously debating its bill on oversight of Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, the repercussions are going to spread far beyond the Strait of Hormuz... By taking a non-U.S. ship under questionable circumstances at a moment of high tension in the region, Iran has again put Washington in a tough spot. Given that the U.S. Senate is simultaneously debating its bill on oversight of Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, the repercussions are going to spread far beyond the Strait of Hormuz." http://t.uani.com/1FxHZiu Gideon Rachman in FT: "There was a presidential statement in the Rose Garden of the White House. There were joyous celebrations on the streets of Tehran. There were lamentations in the US Senate. All these events were provoked by the news, earlier this month, of a framework nuclear deal between Iran and the US. Three weeks later, the newspapers are still full of critiques of the agreement. But all of this fuss disguises an awkward fact. There is no Iran nuclear deal. The joint statement released by Iran and its negotiating partners, earlier this month, was a few short paragraphs, skirting all the crucial issues. All the detail about what was 'agreed' was actually contained in a unilateral statement issued by the Americans on April 2nd - the so-called White House fact sheet. Iran had not signed off on that 'fact sheet'. And, in subsequent days, Iran made it clear that it dissents from the American interpretation of what was agreed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has tweeted that the US fact sheet was 'wrong on most of the issues'. The disagreements between Iran and America on what was agreed in the Geneva negotiations are - as Mr Khamenei suggests - wide-ranging. They cover everything from the inspections regime, to the precise fate of the reactor at Arak. But perhaps the starkest disagreement is over when sanctions on Iran would be lifted. Ayatollah Khamenei says that all sanctions will have to be lifted on the very day that agreement is reached. The Americans insist that sanctions can only be lifted in phases, as Iran puts in place restrictions on its nuclear programme. The two sides are meant to bridge all these gaps between now and their next deadline of June 30, which is when a final agreement is meant to be agreed. However, given that the framework agreement reached this month is actually a mirage, it seems rather unlikely that the two sides will sign off on the final deal in June - or even later this year. The story of how we got to this delicate and confused stage says a lot about the extreme difficulty of reaching a final agreement. The issuing of the 'White House fact sheet' was a calculated gamble by the Americans, who were frustrated by the agonisingly slow negotiations in Geneva. Dismayed by the lack of a detailed agreed text, senior US officials drew up their own memorandum - setting out the various concessions that they believed the Iranians had made over many months of discussions. By releasing the 'fact sheet' unilaterally, the US was effectively daring the Iranians to walk away from the negotiating table. The Americans felt that the celebrations in Iran - in response to the announcement of the 'deal' - vindicated their gamble. Their calculation is still that Iran's leaders - having raised domestic expectations that Iran's international isolation will soon end - will now find it very difficult to dash their people's hopes, based on some minor-sounding details about the numbers of centrifuges allowed at Natanz, or the phasing of sanctions relief. That calculation could still work. But the increasingly open dissent from within Iran suggests that it could just as easily unravel, as the two sides re-engage in detailed negotiations." http://t.uani.com/1ODQlep          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.