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AP:
"Though he once vigorously opposed its involvement, President Barack
Obama signed legislation Friday that gives Congress the power to review
and potentially reject a nuclear deal with Iran. Achieving a deal with
Iran is a central element of Obama's foreign policy ambitions, and the
new law imposes conditions on his ability to act on his own. He signed
the measure without ceremony Friday at the White House... The legislation
would bar Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days
while lawmakers examine any final deal. Congress would have to pass a
resolution of disapproval to reject an agreement, an action Obama likely
would veto. Obama had initially threatened to veto legislation that
placed conditions that Iran would never accept. On Friday, speaking to a
Jewish congregation in Washington, Obama sought to offer assurances that
he wanted an ironclad compact. 'I will not accept a bad deal,' he said.
'This deal will have my name on it, so nobody has a bigger personal stake
in making sure that it delivers on its promise.'" http://t.uani.com/1cXIXZW
AFP:
"An Iranian negotiator on Sunday denied accepting military site
inspections as part of a nuclear deal with world powers, a delicate issue
in talks that must be concluded by the end of June. Abbas Araghchi, who
is also deputy foreign minister, made the remarks as he briefed a
parliamentary committee on the progress of the talks with the P5+1... 'In
his report, Mr. Araghchi said that inspections of military sites have
been accepted but the inspections are regulated and will be seriously
managed,' ultra-conservative lawmaker Javad Karimi-Ghodoussi was quoted
as saying by Fars news agency. The remarks appeared to contradict those
of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said this week that inspections
of military sites and interviews of scientists by foreign experts were
excluded from a framework nuclear agreement... Araghchi said later that
during the briefing both he and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
reiterated their 'objection to inspections or visits to any military
centres or interviews with our nuclear scientists'. 'We presented
necessary explanations... regarding security measures which countries
implementing the protocol usually take in order to protect their
military, nuclear and industrial information and prevent spying,' he said
in a statement from the ministry." http://t.uani.com/1FU03oS
NYT:
"Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent accused by Iran of
espionage who has been imprisoned for more than 10 months, went on trial
in a Tehran courtroom on Tuesday morning, state news media reported. The
trial, which is not open to the public, began at 10:30 a.m. at Branch 15
of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency
reported. The trial was adjourned after two hours, and the judge in the
case, Abolghassem Salavati, will announce a date for the resumption of
the proceedings, IRNA reported... Judge Salavati has a reputation for
tough sentences that led the European Union to place him on a blacklist
in 2011 for human rights abuses. He has ignored foreign requests for
court access. 'If Iran had a case against Jason Rezaian, it would try him
in public,' Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch,
wrote on Twitter. 'It doesn't and won't.' The trial is expected to last
two to three days, Ali Rezaian said in a telephone interview from
California, where he and his brother were born and grew up, adding that
the lawyer had told the family of the judge's decision on court access
only on Monday. He denounced the decision, calling it 'unconscionable.'
... 'The shameful acts of injustice continue without end in the treatment
of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian,' the executive editor of
The Washington Post, Martin Baron, said. 'Now we learn his trial will be
closed to the world. And so it will be closed to the scrutiny it fully
deserves.'" http://t.uani.com/1LCUglG
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
AP:
"Iran has agreed to grant United Nations inspectors 'managed access'
to military sites as part of a future deal over its contested nuclear program,
a negotiator said Sunday, apparently contradicting earlier comments by
the nation's supreme leader. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas
Araghchi's comments, carried by state television, came after he and
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attended a reportedly stormy closed
session of parliament. 'Iran has agreed to grant managed access to
military sites,' state TV quoted Araghchi as saying Sunday. Lawmaker
Ahmad Shoohani, a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign
Policy Committee who attended the closed-door session, said restricted
inspections of military sites will be carried out under strict control
and specific circumstances. 'Managed access will be in a shape where U.N.
inspectors will have the possibility of taking environmental samples from
the vicinity of military sites,' Shoohani said... The broadcast also
quoted Araghchi as saying Iranian negotiators rejected demands that its
scientists be interviewed. 'Americans are after interviewing our nuclear
scientists. We didn't accept it,' state TV quoted him as saying." http://t.uani.com/1HIIfuh
AFP:
"Moscow and Tehran have concluded talks on the delivery of Russian
S-300 missiles to Iran which should take place 'quite' soon, Deputy
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday. 'The
negotiations on the subject have ended in success. I estimate that the
S-300 delivery will take place in quite a short time,' Amir-Abdollahian
said in Moscow. 'It will be done at the soonest opportunity possible,' he
added after meeting his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov. The Russian
foreign ministry has not confirmed the announcement, but noted the
'importance of maintaining a regular Russian-Iranian dialogue' in a
statement Monday. Tehran has previously said the missiles would be delivered
by the end of the year." http://t.uani.com/1BnaMAP
Sanctions Relief
AFP:
"Iran's deputy oil minister said Monday he hoped for a total lifting
of international sanctions later this year if a nuclear deal is struck
with world powers by June 30. Amirhossein Zamani-Nia also told the oil
ministry's Shana news agency that the lifting of sanctions could help
Iran's oil and gas sectors attract billions of dollars in foreign
investment. 'The structure of sanctions is being destroyed bit by bit and
we could expect a total lifting of the sanctions towards the month of
Azar,' which in Iran falls between November 22 and December 21, he said.
'If the sanctions are lifted, Iran will become a central point for oil
and gas projects,' Zamani-Nia said." http://t.uani.com/1Arrlkd
Iraq Crisis
Reuters:
"The general in charge of Iran's paramilitary activities in the
Middle East said the United States and other powers were failing to
confront Islamic State, and only Iran was committed to the task, a news
agency on Monday reported. Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of
the elite Quds Force responsible for protecting the Islamic Republic's
interests abroad, has become a familiar face on the battlefields of Iraq,
where he often outranks local commanders. 'Today, in the fight against
this dangerous phenomenon, nobody is present except Iran,' the Tasnim
news agency quoted Soleimani as saying on Sunday in reference to Islamic
State... 'Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront Daesh:
doesn't that show that there is no will in America to confront it?' Mehr
quoted Soleimani as saying, using a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic
State. 'How is it that America claims to be protecting the Iraqi
government, when a few kilometres away in Ramadi killings and war crimes
are taking place and they are doing nothing?'" http://t.uani.com/1LCMnNh
AP:
"Iran has entered the fight to retake a major Iraqi oil refinery
from Islamic State militants, contributing small numbers of troops -some
are operating artillery and other heavy weapons - in support of advancing
Iraqi ground forces, U.S. defense officials say. Two U.S. defense
officials said Iranian forces have taken a significant offensive role in
the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shiite
militia... One official said Iranians are operating artillery, 122mm
rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the
Iraqi counteroffensive." http://t.uani.com/1RkkTzG
Yemen Crisis
AFP:
"United Nations officials in the Horn of Africa port of Djibouti
said Saturday they had taken charge of the aid cargo carried by an
Iranian boat headed for war-torn Yemen. The vessel, the MV Shahed, is
carrying 2,500 tonnes of aid including flour, rice, canned food, medical
supplies and bottled water, all urgently needed in the conflict-wracked
state just across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti. 'The cargo has been
handed over to WFP in Djibouti and is currently being offloaded,' said UN
World Food Programme spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told AFP... Djiboutian
authorities said the Iranian cargo ship arrived late Friday night in the
Gulf of Aden port. 'The ship will be completely unloaded and reloaded
onto other vessels, everything is transparent,' Djibouti port authority
chief Abubaker Hadi told AFP." http://t.uani.com/1KkmBwX
Human Rights
IHR:
"In the last three weeks 44 prisoners convicted of drug charges have
been executed in the Gehzelhesar prison of Karaj. Iran Human Rights (IHR)
warns against mass executions of the Gehzelhesar prisoners and calls for
immediate action by the international community. Reports by several
independent sources indicate that all of the 22 prisoners in Ghezelhesar
prison who were transferred to solitary confinement on Saturday and
Sunday, have been hanged. The executions reportedly took place on Monday
morning May 25... Since the beginning of 2015, at least 400 prisoners
have been executed in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1Fdz2a7
IHR:
"Iran Human Rights has observed a sharp increase in the number of
executions for drug offences in the past few months in Iran. The official
website of the Judiciary in Khorasan Razavi (Northeastern Iran) flogging
sentences of three prisoners were carried out publicly in the town of
Joghatai near Mashhad. The prisoners were charges with drug offences and
robbery, said the report." http://t.uani.com/1FU3tIh
Domestic
Politics
AFP:
"Iran will scrap a petrol allowance from midnight on Tuesday as part
of a 2010 plan to phase out subsidies on energy products and boost the
economy, media reported. Motorists will no longer to be entitled to buy
60 litres of petrol monthly at a reduced price of 7,000 rials (about 24
US cents) a litre, media reported. The reports said a litre of standard
petrol will retail at 10,000 rials (around 34 US cents) and super will
cost 12,000 rials. Diesel will sell for 3,000 rials a litre. Iran last
increased the cost of petrol in April 2014, when prices rocketed by 75
percent. By removing the fuel subsidy, Iran, which is under a crippling
international sanctions regime because of its disputed nuclear drive,
hopes to help tackle its budget deficit." http://t.uani.com/1PKiIbk
Opinion &
Analysis
Bret Stephens in
WSJ: "Can there be a rational, negotiable,
relatively reasonable bigot? Barack Obama thinks so. So we learn from the
president's interview last week with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg-the
same interview in which Mr. Obama called Islamic State's capture of
Ramadi a 'tactical setback.' Mr. Goldberg asked the president to
reconcile his view of an Iranian regime steeped in 'venomous
anti-Semitism' with his claims that the same regime 'is practical, and is
responsive to incentive, and shows signs of rationality.' The president
didn't miss a beat. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's strategic objectives,
he said, were not dictated by prejudice alone. Sure, the Iranians could
make irrational decisions 'with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic
rhetoric as an organizing tool.' They might also pursue hate-based
policies 'where the costs are low.' But the regime has larger goals:
'maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their
country,' and getting 'out of the deep economic rut that we've put them
in.' Also, Mr. Obama reminded Mr. Goldberg, 'there were deep strains of
anti-Semitism in this country,' to say nothing of Europe. If the
president can forgive us our trespasses, he can forgive the ayatollah's,
too. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that a man with an
undergraduate's enthusiasm for moral equivalency (Islamic State now, the
Crusades and Inquisition then) would have sophomoric ideas about the
nature and history of anti-Semitism. So let's recall some basic facts.
Iran has no border, and no territorial dispute, with Israel. The two
countries have a common enemy in Islamic State and other radical Sunni
groups. Historically and religiously, Jews have always felt a special
debt to Persia. Tehran and Jerusalem were de facto allies until 1979,
when Ayatollah Khomeini came to power and 100,000 Jews still lived in
Iran. Today, no more than 10,000 Jews are left. So on the basis of what
self-interest does Iran arm and subsidize Hamas, probably devoting more
than $1 billion of (scarce) dollars to the effort? What's the economic
rationale for hosting conferences of Holocaust deniers in Tehran, thereby
gratuitously damaging ties to otherwise eager economic partners such as
Germany and France? What was the political logic to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
calls to wipe Israel off the map, which made it so much easier for the
U.S. and Europe to impose sanctions? How does the regime shore up its
domestic legitimacy by preaching a state ideology that makes the country
a global pariah?" http://t.uani.com/1BneCKo
UANI Advisory
Board Member Walter Russell Mead in TAI: "President
Obama agrees with Goldberg that anti-Semitism is a bad thing and that
Iran's regime is riddled with it. The difference between them seems to be
that the President believes that this propensity of the Iranian
leadership is unpleasant but ultimately not that important. Goldberg,
however, is asking a deeper question: does the fact that the curse of
anti-Semitism has the Iranian leadership tightly in its grip mean that
the Iranian leaders aren't, by our lights, rational actors? When this
phrase comes up in a nuclear context, 'rational actor' usually means
someone who understands the logic of deterrence and is prepared to be
deterred by it. But there are other forms of unreason. Goldberg seems to
be asking whether President Obama has fully considered the possibility
that his counterparts in Iran don't see the same world that he does, that
they don't think political cause and effect works the same way that he
thinks it does and that they see him, for example, less as an independent
actor proceeding on the basis of rational convictions and humanitarian
good will than as a mask for the real American overlords, the evil
Waspo-Jewish conspiracy that in the demonology of Iranian revolutionary thought
controls the United States and is driving the world to destruction? What
gives the question its resonance is the uncomfortable fact that President
Obama has been singularly unsuccessful at understanding and dealing with
foreign leaders who don't share his world view. President Obama tried to
deal with both Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan on the basis of western
rationality. He failed in both cases to understand that these men were
driven by very different visions and priorities from those President Obama
assumed that all rational people share. He was wrong about them, and he
appears to have similarly misread the Saudis. The problem here is that
the President, ironically enough, doesn't seem to understand diversity.
He thinks diversity is trivial: that people of different religious
faiths, ethnic backgrounds and ideological convictions are not all that
different in the way they look at the world. The President's life
experiences have taught him that diversity is superficially important but
on the big issues it matters much less. Rulers of great nations, in
particular, can't afford to let their backgrounds and their religious
ideas get in the way of clear thinking and planning. Essentially,
Goldberg was asking the President whether his years in the White House
have taught him that real diversity exists, and that it matters. He was
asking whether the President understands that people from different
cultures can sometimes operate on the basis of such radically different
presuppositions that their mental world maps are fundamentally
incompatible with the norms of reason as the President sees them. He was
asking whether the President had considered whether Iranian leaders in
particular reason so differently from standard cosmopolitan Washington
liberal thinking that they may not, in fact, be approaching these
negotiations from what the President, and most Americans, would recognize
as a logical point of view. Far from quieting (or even addressing)
Goldberg's concern, President Obama's answer will deepen the concern
among his critics that he has learned nothing from his encounters with
Putin and Erdogan, and continues to think that his opponents see the
world more or less as President Obama does." http://t.uani.com/1FU9STN
UANI Outreach
Coordinator Bob Feferman in JPost: "Following the
signing of the Munich Agreement between Adolf Hitler and the leaders of
France and Great Britain, Sir Winston Churchill warned in a speech to the
House of Commons on October 5, 1938, 'All these calamities fell upon us
because of evil counsel...When they had done the most evil, then was
peace made with them.' Sadly, the same could be said of the comprehensive
nuclear deal now being negotiated between the P5+1 nations and Iran.
Presumably, the goal of the current negotiations is to make our world a
safer place. This deal, however, is more likely to make our world a much
more dangerous place. It was a grave mistake for the P5+1 to disconnect
Iran's belligerent behavior from the negotiations over its nuclear
program. With Iran set to be rewarded with tens of billions of dollars in
sanctions relief in exchange for temporary and limited concessions on its
nuclear program, it will be free to use this windfall to bolster its
quest for regional hegemony and its role as the world's leading state
sponsor of terrorism. An emboldened Iran will then have billions in funds
at its discretion to give to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis to drag the
region into even more violence and bloodshed. Iran will also have more
money to bankroll Bashar Assad and his unrelenting slaughter of innocent
Syrian civilians. Another grave mistake was for the P5+1 to agree to have
a sunset clause built into any final nuclear deal. After the expiration
of restrictions on Iran's enrichment program, that are being negotiated to
last between 10 to 15 years, Iran will be free to produce tens of
thousands of centrifuges and enrich tons of uranium that could easily be
diverted toward building nuclear weapons. It was also a grave mistake to
exclude Iran's ballistic missile program from a nuclear agreement. Iran
already has missiles that can reach Israel, America's Arab allies and
European capitals. Now Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) that will be able to reach the United States. The only
logical reason to develop ICBMs is for them to carry nuclear
warheads." http://t.uani.com/1AvKT6X
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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