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WSJ:
"Leading Persian Gulf states want major new weapons systems and
security guarantees from the White House in exchange for backing a
nuclear agreement with Iran, according to U.S. and Arab officials. The
leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, plan to use a high-stakes
meeting with President Barack Obama next week to request additional
fighter jets, missile batteries and surveillance equipment. They also
intend to pressure Mr. Obama for new defense agreements between the U.S.
and the Gulf nations that would outline terms and scenarios under which
Washington would intervene if they are threatened by Iran, according to
these officials. The demands underscore the complicated diplomatic terrain
Mr. Obama is navigating as he drives toward a nuclear deal with Iran, one
of his top foreign-policy goals. They also demonstrate how a pact aimed
at stabilizing the Middle East risks further militarizing an already
volatile region... The challenge Mr. Obama faces at Camp David is to
assuage growing fears among those Sunni countries that want military
superiority over Shiite-dominated Iran, while not undermining longtime
U.S. security guarantees to Israel. Current law mandates that the U.S.
uphold Israel's qualitative military edge over its neighbors." http://t.uani.com/1EL6K96
AFP:
"US Secretary of State John Kerry Saturday denounced what he called
'hysteria' over a final nuclear accord being discussed between world
powers and Iran over its controversial nuclear programme. 'There's a lot
of hysteria about this deal. People really need to look at the facts, and
they need to look at the science behind those facts,' Kerry told Israel's
privately run Channel 10 Television in an interview. Kerry said a final agreement
due to be agreed by June 30 provides indefinite access to Iranian nuclear
facilities. 'We will have inspectors in there every single day. That's
not a 10-year deal. That's forever. There have to be inspections,' he
said. 'I say it again. We will not sign a deal that does not close off
Iran's pathways to a bomb and that doesn't give us the confidence to all
of our experts and global experts, that we will be able to know what Iran
is doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.'" http://t.uani.com/1AzLhff
Politico:
"In January 2012, Barack Obama sent a private letter to Tehran with
a stern warning: the Strait of Hormuz was a 'red line' for the United
States, and any Iranian attempt to close the vital shipping channel would
draw a swift military response. Obama administration officials say that
in recent weeks Iran has edged closer to that line by harassing
commercial shipping in the area, and the Pentagon is reacting to the
threat. The flashpoint is the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway along
Iran's west coast that provides access to the Persian Gulf and major
oil-exporting ports in Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia that fuel the
global economy." http://t.uani.com/1zsDFjk
Nuclear
Program & Negotiations
The Hill:
"The leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday
released a letter to President Obama urging him to consider using
sanctions to stop Russia from delivering missile systems to Iran. 'If
completed, the transfer of this sophisticated weapons system would
significantly bolster Iran's military capabilities and introduce new
obstacles to our ability to eliminate the threat of an Iranian nuclear
weapon,' wrote Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Ranking Member
Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.). 'We believe existing U.S. sanctions should be used
to deter Russia from transferring this or other dangerous weapons systems
to Iran,' they said in the April 30 letter... President Obama said at an
April 17 news conference that Russia is not prohibited by sanctions from
selling the 'defensive weapons' to Iran. Royce and Engel argued in their
letter that although Moscow may not be prohibited by existing sanctions,
existing U.S. law does provide the him with the authority to apply
sanctions in response a transfer of 'destabilizing' weapons
systems." http://t.uani.com/1JLRZHs
AFP:
"Iran is determined to end the 'manufactured crisis' over its
nuclear programme and drafting of a final deal with world powers, though
hard, is progressing, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said
Monday... 'Drafting #IranDeal is moving forward. Hard work, and many
brackets, remain. Determined to end this manufactured crisis & open
new horizons,' Zarif tweeted." http://t.uani.com/1GUwdNT
Military
Matters
AP:
"The U.S. Navy accompanied four American-flagged ships and a British
vessel moving through the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian
Gulf on Thursday, and officials said the U.S. will offer that aid to any
other nation concerned about interference from Iranian vessels. U.S. Army
Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the four U.S. ships
belonged to the Navy's Military Sealift Command or were contract vessels.
Those ships have civilian crews and are used to carry cargo or re-supply
U.S. Navy ships. Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central
Command, said that any U.S.-flagged ship can ask to be accompanied by
Navy warships through the narrow strait, which includes Iranian
territorial waters." http://t.uani.com/1GVqtGy
AFP:
"US warships protecting American-flagged ships in the Strait of
Hormuz may extend assistance to other countries' vessels, officials said
Friday, after reports of Iranian forces harassing shipping. The expanded
US naval presence is intended to signal to Iran that Washington is ready
to safeguard shipping along the vital corridor, even at a moment of
delicate diplomacy with Tehran over its nuclear program, experts said.
American warships started 'accompanying' US-flagged vessels in the Strait
of Hormuz on Thursday in response to two incidents in less than a week in
which commercial vessels were coerced or harassed by Iran's Revolutionary
Guards. Defense Secretary Ash Carter approved the operation and 'this is
going to continue for an indefinite period of time,' Pentagon spokesman
Col. Steven Warren said... 'Our current plans are for accompanying
US-flagged ships, although there are discussions with other nations to
include their vessels as well,' Central Command spokesman Col. Patrick
Ryder told reporters." http://t.uani.com/1GVqSZJ
AFP:
"The case of the ship intercepted in the Gulf by Iran's navy on
Tuesday is purely financial and with no political overtones, an Iranian
oil company involved said on Saturday. 'Unfortunately, some are seeking
to exploit the case politically, but the reality is limited only to
damages that Maersk has made us suffer,' said Hamid Reza Jahanian, head
of the Pars Oil Products Talayieh company, the Fars news agency
reported... Jahanian confirmed that a longstanding lawsuit between his
firm and Maersk related to 'containers sent to (the UAE port of) Djebel
Ali and never delivered to the customer'... On Saturday, Jahanian asked
that Maersk 'comply with the law and pay damages' to his firm, adding
that the Iranian courts had jurisdiction in the matter. 'If Maersk pays
what we want, the ship will be released. If not, the goods or the ship
itself will be put up for auction.'" http://t.uani.com/1JkSoxc
Reuters:
"Maersk Line said on Monday it had met again with the Ports &
Maritime Organization (PMO) in Iran regarding the seizure of the vessel
Maersk Tigris but has yet to receive any official documents from Iranian
authorities... Maersk said its representative met Iranian PMO officials,
while the Danish ambassador in Iran met with officials from the Iranian
ministry of foreign affairs. However, little progress appeared to have
been made. 'We have yet to receive any written notifications (court
ruling, arrest order or similar) pertaining to the seizure of Maersk
Tigris or the cargo case,' Maersk wrote in a statement... Maersk repeated
that the crew and the vessel should be released immediately." http://t.uani.com/1zsx0Wn
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters:
"South Africa hopes to restore energy ties with Iran, its energy
minister said on Sunday, according to Iran's Shana news agency, three
years after international sanctions halted oil trade between the two
countries. 'South Africa is aiming for a framework of cooperation with
Iran regarding crude oil, LNG, LPG, gas and petrochemicals,' Tina
Joemat-Pettersson was quoted as saying by Shana during a visit to Tehran.
'South Africa's private sector can invest in various parts of Iran's oil
industry,' she added. Mohsen Ghamsari, director of international affairs
at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said on Saturday that South
Africa was hoping to import crude oil and other energy products from
Iran, state news agency IRNA reported." http://t.uani.com/1QeQeDo
Reuters:
"A U.S. delegation will visit Iran to review energy investment
opportunities while Tehran negotiates a final deal with world powers on
its nuclear programme, a senior oil ministry official told Mehr news
agency on Monday... 'It is forecast that by the visit of (the) American
delegation this week and in the case of lifting sanctions on Iran's oil industry,
we will witness involvement of major international American oil and gas
companies in Iran in the future,' said deputy Oil Minister Abbas
Sheri-Moghaddam." http://t.uani.com/1zHR4Va
Sanctions
Enforcement
AFP: "A US judge Friday ordered BNP Paribas to pay a record $8.9
billion fine to settle violations of US sanctions linked to Iran and
other countries. Judge Lorna Schofield finalized a sentence that also
included a five-year probation and the imposition of a monitor at
France's largest bank. In June 2014, BNP Paribas agreed to plead guilty
to criminal charges that it had violated the sanctions, deliberately
hiding thousands of transactions with Iran, Sudan and Cuba during
2004-2012 that senior bank officials knew broke US law. At the time, the
bank also agreed to the record penalty. In July the court approved the
plea agreement. Most of the penalty is based on the amount of the illegal
transactions BNP handled: $6.4 billion in Sudan, $1.7 billion in Cuba and
$650 million in Iran. In addition, BNP Paribas will pay $140 million in
fines. BNP Paribas 'has taken many steps' to address the violations, the
bank's chief counsel, Georges Dirani, told the court." http://t.uani.com/1KGU30V
Terrorism
AP:
"The U.S. government announced a system Friday to compensate people
harmed by Sudan, Iran and Cuba using some of the $8.9 billion forfeited
by France's largest bank for violating U.S. economic sanctions by
processing transactions for clients in blacklisted countries. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Andrew Goldstein revealed the plan after U.S. District
Judge Lorna G. Schofield formally sentenced BNP Paribas consistent with
the bank's guilty plea last year. She said the bank must turn over the
forfeiture and pay a $140 million fine. It also pleaded guilty to state
charges. Federal authorities say the forfeiture set a record for a
sanctions case brought by the Justice Department and for a penalty
imposed in a criminal case involving a bank." http://t.uani.com/1F1svVi
Anti-Americanism
Politico:
"America planned September 11. John McCain supports the Islamic
State. Jews are sorcerers. A top Iranian general's recent claim that the
U.S. staged the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to invade the Muslim world may
seem crazy. But it might not be the nuttiest-sounding thing a prominent
Iranian has said in recent months... The creative thinking comes from
Iran's highest levels. In a 2011 speech to the United Nations, for
instance, Iran's previous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also implied
that the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks may have been
self-inflicted, calling them 'a mystery.' Iran's Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly said that the Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant was deliberately created by the west. The alleged
goal: to divide Muslims and bomb their countries. In case the point
wasn't clear enough, Iranian state television recently claimed that Sen.
John McCain met personally with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Sunni militant
group's self-declared caliph. The television network broadcast doctored
images of the hawkish Republican last September, as an announcer
declared: 'These say more than a thousand words regarding the links
between the United States and this group.' In an address last September,
Khamenei added that the West also created Al Qaeda and the Taliban,
groups he called 'the handicraft of colonialists,' in order to counter
Iran." http://t.uani.com/1ERyb2j
Yemen Crisis
AFP:
"Iran considers the security of Yemen to be like its own, Deputy
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Saturday, denouncing
'adventurist actions' by Saudi Arabia, the state television website
reported. 'We consider the security of Yemen to be the security of the
region and of Iran. Others will not be allowed to play around with our
common security with their adventurist actions,' the site quoted him as
saying. 'The fact that Saudi Arabia is focused on the war against Yemen
only benefits the Zionist regime and terrorist groups,' said
Amir-Abdollahian." http://t.uani.com/1zHS0Jc
Human Rights
AFP:
"Hairstyles of a spiky and unorthodox nature have reportedly been
banned in Iran because they imply devil-worship, while tattoos and other
male bodily adornments are also being outlawed. Jagged haircuts have
become fashionable among all strata of Iran's youthful population in
recent years, but have divided opinion and been deemed by the authorities
as western and un-Islamic. 'Devil worshipping hairstyles are now
forbidden,' said Mostafa Govahi, the head of Iran's Barbers Union, cited
by the ISNA news agency. 'Any shop that cuts hair in the devil
worshipping style will be harshly dealt with and their license revoked,'
he said, noting that if a business cut hair in such a style this will
'violate the Islamic system's regulations'. As well as tattoos being
banned, solarium treatments and the plucking of eyebrows - another rising
trend among young Iranian males - will not be tolerated, the report
said." http://t.uani.com/1JLIfNs
IHR:
"On April 16 Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported about execution of a
minor offender in Iran. According to IHR's sources five prisoners were
hanged in the Rajaishahr prison of Karaj (west of Tehran) early Wednesday
morning April 15. All of the five prisoners were convicted of murder. One
of the prisoners, identified as Javad Saberi, was reportedly sentenced to
death for a murder he had committed when he was under 18 years of age.
Javad Saberi had a serious mental illness and had stayed at 'Amin Abad'
mental hospital, according to these sources... Iran is among the few
countries in the world imposing death sentence for offences committed at
under 18 years of age." http://t.uani.com/1I8syh1
Opinion &
Analysis
WSJ Editorial:
"In the matter of the Corker-Cardin bill giving Congress a voice in
the Iranian nuclear deal, allow us to adapt Churchill's dictum on
democracy: It's the worst form of legislation, except for all the others
that have been proposed. We write this as the bill-named for Senate
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and ranking Democrat
Ben Cardin (Maryland)-is being assailed by some of our conservative
friends as a damp squib that won't stop President Obama from striking a
bad deal with Tehran while giving the agreement an implicit seal of
Congressional approval. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have proposed
amendments that, while defensible on their merits, would give Democrats
the political excuse many of them seek to vote against the bill. In a
better world-one in which Mr. Obama were not President-we'd be inclined
to agree with the critics. A nuclear deal with Tehran is the most
significant international agreement of the past decade and should be
handled as a treaty, requiring two-thirds support from the Senate. By
contrast under Corker-Cardin Democrats need only 41 votes to filibuster a
resolution of disapproval of a deal, and only 34 to sustain a
near-certain presidential veto. In other words, the legislation
effectively inverts the Founders' intentions by allowing the President to
get his way with one-third of the Senate on his side. There is also no
good reason why Mr. Cruz's amendment, which would require an Iran deal to
get a simple majority from the Senate and House to go into effect, or Mr.
Rubio's demanding that Iran accept Israel's right to exist, should be
deal-breakers for Democrats. But then we step back to reality. Critics of
Corker-Cardin insist the bill is a gift to the Administration, but you
wouldn't know it given how hard the President and Secretary of State John
Kerry lobbied against the bill before it was voted out of committee on a
19-0 bipartisan vote. What the Administration most fears is that the bill
will require Mr. Obama to submit a nuclear deal, in all of its detail, to
a public debate, in which supporters may have to explain its various
giveaways. Why, for instance, should Iran get tens of billions of dollars
in immediate sanctions relief, which (money being fungible) will
immediately be put to use funding missiles for Hezbollah, rockets for
Hamas, and barrel bombs for Bashar Assad? ... That debate will be an
education that will inform voters going into the next election. It will
also make a filibuster uncomfortable for Senate Democrats, most of whom
have political careers to think about after Mr. Obama leaves office. This
may not defeat an Iran deal, but that was always unlikely once Mr. Obama
chose to submit it as an executive agreement and go to the United Nations
first. The Corker bill nonetheless does offer the potential of putting a
bipartisan majority's stamp of disapproval on Mr. Obama's dangerous
diplomacy... We have long been skeptical of Mr. Obama's Iran project, and
the deal so far looks like a strategic blunder that will unleash a new
age of nuclear proliferation. Until the U.S. elects a President who is
serious about stopping Iran's nuclear bid, Corker-Cardin is the best bet
for censuring Mr. Obama's misbegotten diplomacy, and giving his successor
a fighting chance to reverse it." http://t.uani.com/1zsIMQy
David Crist in
Politico: "President Barack Obama must have spent
last week wondering if he'd stumbled back into the 1980s as he responded
to new Iranian aggressions in the Strait of Hormuz and ordered the Navy's
5th Fleet to escort ships transiting the Persian Gulf. The headlines
could have been ripped right out of Ronald Reagan's presidency, when
naval engagements with Iran became all-too commonplace. It's a chapter of
history that most U.S. policymakers-and too many military officers-have
long forgotten. But the Iranians certainly haven't. Ryan Crocker, one of
America's old Middle East hands and whose first posting as a newly minted
diplomat was to Khorramshahr during the days of the Shah, once explained,
'For Iran, history is not the past, but the present.' Just as Vietnam
shaped a generation of American military officers, the Tanker War of the
1980s profoundly influenced the thinking of Iran's current military
leaders; in fact, today Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy is headed by a
veteran of that war. The 1980s conflict also has influenced the Iranian
military's view of any future war with the United States, and it's spent
decades ensuring that it won't repeat the crippling mistakes made
fighting a previous U.S. president. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has
begun listening to those lessons only recently... Even as nuclear
negotiations continue, Iran is making provocative moves around the Middle
East-providing an unprecedented flotilla of weapons to the Houthis in
Yemen, boarding the Maersk Tigris, and apparently attempting to do the
same to a U.S. flagged ship, Kensington. Those incidents resulted in the
Navy's 5th Fleet announcement of a new naval escort regime, whereby U.S.
warships would accompany American merchants as they transited the Strait
to safeguard them from Iranian forces. It's eerily familiar. Some 28
years ago, a yearlong quasi-war between the two nations, pitted the high-tech
U.S. Navy against an unorthodox force of Iranian small boats. Described
as a guerilla war at sea, the struggle culminated in the U.S. Navy's
largest surface battle since World War II. And it all began with
incidents not unlike those of last week. War dominated the Middle East
during the 1980s. The Iranian Revolution portended a Shia revival across
the region, which many Sunni states found uncomfortable. With the
encouragement of Saudi Arabia, on September 22, 1980, an opportunistic
Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, hoping to take advantage of the
revolutionary chaos and seize Iran's oil fields. The Iraqi army proved no
more competent than its current version has been against the Islamic
State. Iran rallied and the war quickly bogged down into brutal trench warfare.
To try and break the stalemate, Iraq began attacking Iranian oil tankers.
Tehran retaliated by striking the shipping of Baghdad's chief supporters,
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, who allowed large quantities of military
hardware for Iraq to transit their ports and provided Saddam Hussein with
as much as $1 billion in assistance each month. By the end of so-called
Tanker War, Iran had sunk or damaged 214 ships from more than 30 nations.
In a move akin to last week's actions, Iran declared it had the right to
board any ship entering the Gulf suspected of carrying Iraqi war
material. Any vessel found with suspicious cargo would be diverted to
Bandar Abbas. In the first eight months of 1985, Iranian Revolutionary
Guard boats stopped and boarded 66 ships in the Strait of Hormuz. On
January 12, 1986, an Iranian boat intercepted the American ship President
Taylor off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. After the ship's
captain refused to comply with a request to allow a search of his ship,
the Iranians trained their weapons on the U.S. merchant ship to force the
issue. Seven Iranian sailors boarded the ship, holding her crew under
armed guard while conducting a perfunctory search. After an hour, they
allowed the President Taylor to proceed." http://t.uani.com/1JLTgOH
Josh Rogin in
Bloomberg: "Top Obama administration officials have
released new details about how they would lift most sanctions against
Iran. Those are unnerving some experts, who doubt the administration's
claims about the sanctions will hold up. In speeches last week to a
conference at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Treasury
Secretary Jack Lew and Vice President Joe Biden revealed new details
about the end of most sanctions against Iran if a nuclear deal is
reached. The officials also claimed that most of the sanctions, including
multilateral sanctions, could be snapped back into place if Iran cheated,
and they argued that giving Iran tens of billions of dollars in cash
won't dramatically increase Iran's spending on terrorism and other
nefarious activities. Lew spoke to a private meeting of Washington
Institute members last Wednesday, after which Treasury posted his
remarks. He said that President Obama planned to use his own authority to
suspend sanctions against Iran's oil, banking and trade sectors after
Iran complied with the initial parts of the deal and that Congress
wouldn't actually be asked to lift sanctions during his presidency. 'Only
after many years of compliance would we ask Congress to vote to terminate
sanctions, and only Congress can terminate legislative sanctions,' he
said. Lew said this suspension, rather than a legislative repeal of
sanctions, would allow the administration to quickly reinstate U.S.
sanctions if Iran is caught cheating. He also said that United Nations
sanctions would be able to snap back easily and no single nation would be
able to stop that. 'We have made it abundantly clear that if Iran breaks
its commitment, it will face once again the full force of the
multilateral sanctions regime,' he said. 'The snapback would not be
vulnerable to a veto by an individual P5 member, including China and
Russia.' That explanation directly conflicts with what Iranian Foreign
Minister Javad Zarif told an audience at New York University earlier that
day. Zarif said that UN sanctions would be lifted within days of an
agreement being signed and that all sanctions would be permanently
lifted, including Congressional sanctions, once Iran met its initial
obligations. Treasury officials told me that Lew's statements were in
line with previous administration explanations about how sanctions would
be suspended and potentially put back into place later. But the
Washington Institute's Matt Levitt, a former Treasury official who
moderated the April 29 event with Lew, said that once sanctions are
suspended, especially the multilateral sanctions, there's no easy way to
put them back into place. 'No one should be fooled into thinking there
will be any automaticity here,' he said. 'If we thought Iran was
cheating, the debate then moves to whether there was in fact a violation.
You can see a situation where Russia and China will dispute whether there
is in fact a violation.' Levitt and other experts also noted that Lew
said the sanctions on one specific part of the Iranian regime, the Quds
Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, will stay in place.
Treasury considers it linked to terrorism. Lew didn't say anything about
the rest of the Revolutionary Guard, which is sanctioned for both
proliferation and human rights violations and controls as much of a third
of the Iranian economy through shell companies in mining, banking and
oil. It stands accused of directing huge amounts of illicit activity
around the region... Several experts said that in order for Iran to
receive the sanctions relief it seeks as part of a deal, most if not all
of the IRGC sanctions would have to go. That could allow for a huge
expansion of the group's influence and activities... The exact amount of
money Iran would receive after a deal is signed is also in dispute, but
Lew said not to worry about that either: Iran has between $100 billion
and $140 billion of oil revenue frozen in foreign banks. $30 billion to
$50 billion could be released to Iran right after signing a deal. But Lew
said Iran was likely to spend that cash on domestic needs and not on
terrorism or support for violence. 'President Rouhani was elected on a
platform of economic revitalization, and Iranians are demanding proof
that engagement with the international community will produce tangible economic
benefits,' Lew said. 'As a result, Iran is expected to use new revenues
chiefly to address those needs, including by shoring up its budget,
building infrastructure, maintaining the stability of the rial, and
attracting imports.' Lew also said that Iran has lost so much money to
the sanctions, it would take the Iranian government years to recoup those
losses. Levitt disagreed and said that the Iranian economy doesn't have
to recoup losses like a business would. 'It's a cute argument, but it
misses the point,' said Levitt. 'I don't think the argument is going to
sway people in the region, particularly the Gulf states, who are very
worried about the near-term release of significant amounts of money that
will empower Iran to do all sorts of things.'" http://t.uani.com/1F1B6ax
David Feith &
Bari Weiss in WSJ: "Iranian Foreign Minister Javad
Zarif was in New York this week facing the harsh, skeptical reception
appropriate for the high representative of a brutal theocratic terror
state on the verge of going nuclear. Just kidding. Between visits to the
United Nations and the 'Charlie Rose' television show, Mr. Zarif appeared
Wednesday at New York University. The New America Foundation think tank
hosted him there to talk statecraft with Washington Post columnist David
Ignatius. American colleges these days are famously sensitive places,
bristling with trigger warnings, protests and boycotts, but NYU and its
environs received Mr. Zarif with eerie equanimity. There was one notable
exception. Outside the Greenwich Village hall where Mr. Zarif spoke, a
group of activists ridiculed his welcome by sardonically celebrating a
recent Iranian-regime milestone: hanging 1,000 prisoners in a mere 18
months. With festive red, white and green balloons to match the Islamic
Republic's flag and an ice-cream truck parked at the curb, the mock
celebration's theme was, 'Free ice cream; free Iran's political
prisoners.' Passersby lined up for artisanal ice cream from the truck,
adorned with signs reading 'Over 1,000 hanged. Go Iran!' Speakers
broadcast an English-language message from a gay Iranian who recently
fled the Islamic Republic. 'A lot of my friends are being arrested.
Tortured. Mocked. Terrorized,' he said. 'The government wants to imply
that we do not exist. But we do.' Homosexuality is a hanging offense
under the regime Mr. Zarif serves. Another sign on the truck identified
the street corner as 'Majid Tavakoli Plaza,' in honor of the Iranian
student leader imprisoned since 2009 for protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
fraudulent re-election to Iran's presidency. On an earlier visit to New
York, in 2013, Mr. Zarif denied knowing who Mr. Tavakoli was. That claim
earned him widespread derision on Iranian social media. The person who
challenged Mr. Zarif about the Tavakoli case two years ago was David
Keyes, executive director of the group Advancing Human Rights-also the
organizer of Wednesday's guerrilla block party." http://t.uani.com/1zI3RXN
Nick Gillard in
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "For more than 30
years, Iran has purchased goods for its nuclear program largely from the
shadows. Sanctions and an increasingly constrictive global nuclear supply
regime have left it little other option. So Iran has built a clandestine
global network of front companies and used it to obtain the key goods
Tehran needs to keep its centrifuges running and reactor construction on
track. With the framework agreement agreed in Lausanne recently, all this
may change. According to the US State Department, one of the
agreement's provisions creates a dedicated procurement channel for Iran's
nuclear program. This channel will 'monitor and approve, on a
case-by-case basis, the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of certain
nuclear-related and dual-use materials and technology,' a US State
Department press release on the agreement says. President Obama has
described the channel as being run by a 'procurement committee.' That's
more exciting than it sounds. This provision will open a legal trade line
to most aspects of Iran's nuclear program for the first time in years.
Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III, Iranian nuclear
procurement is finally going legitimate. It's a sea change for the way
Iran's nuclear supply chain works, and several questions have already
been posed about how this channel will function and who will oversee it.
The most interesting of these questions, perhaps, is just who will supply
Iran the goods it needs to keep its nuclear program running... Big-ticket
items like power reactors are one thing that Iran will probably seek via this
new, legitimate trade channel. But the procurement committee envisaged by
the framework agreement is likely to have to deal far more regularly with
smaller, but equally important, items: dual-use, nuclear-related
consumables. Take the various widgets that keep Iran's centrifuges
spinning. Centrifuges operate only with the assistance of a network of
dual-use infrastructure, some parts of which need regular replacement.
Pressure transducers, for example, which monitor the flow of uranium
hexafluoride gas in centrifuge cascades, need to be frequently swapped
out due to the corrosive nature of their operating environment. These
dual-use goods are made and sold by private companies, rather than by
states. It is private companies that Iran will most likely want to buy
them from. And surprisingly, it might be American companies that will
fill the role of seller." http://t.uani.com/1JLSS2F
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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.
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