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NYT:
"For more than a decade, the C.I.A. has closely followed the
workings of one Iranian officer and his sprawling nuclear empire: Mohsen
Fakhrizadeh, the relentless driving force behind what Western
intelligence agencies say was Iran's Manhattan Project, its effort to
design a compact nuclear weapon that could fit atop a missile. Now, in
the final push for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran,
accounting for the accomplishments of Mr. Fakhrizadeh and his team of
university scientists, missile engineers and military officers is
emerging as one of the last and most formidable obstacles - perhaps on a
par with the question of whether inspectors will be able, on short
notice, to step into any place they suspect might conceal bomb-related
work. The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano,
is flying into Tehran on Thursday to meet with President Hassan Rouhani
and Iran's top national security officials in the latest effort to agree
on a plan for interviewing scientists, examining their documents and
visiting a long list of places where the agency believes they conducted
nuclear-related experiments. It is the third such effort by the agency
since 2007 to come up with a plan to inspect what agency officials
delicately call the 'possible military dimensions' of Iran's nuclear
program. Over the next few days, the fate of the biggest diplomatic
gamble of the Obama presidency may hinge on the freedom of Mr. Amano's
small, overburdened teams of inspectors to investigate evidence about
past activity and pursue any suspicions - including those about
activities on military bases - as questions come up... 'We don't need a
confession,' one of Mr. Kerry's colleagues, who, like other officials
interviewed, requested anonymity to discuss negotiations, said recently.
'But we also can't set precedent that you can ignore nuclear inspectors
for years and get away from it." http://t.uani.com/1JBbG2u
WSJ:
"With few signs that the talks are close to wrapping up, Mr. Zarif
questioned on Wednesday whether July 7 was really a final and achievable
deadline... The U.S. and other western officials are eager to avoid talks
dragging past that date because it would give Congress an extra 30 days
to review the agreement before voting on it. However, Mr. Zarif said 'we
did not set any deadline.' On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Josh
Earnest pushed back hard against that suggestion. 'We've been engaged in
these negotiations for almost two years now and the United States and our
P5+1 partners have had ample opportunity to work through with Iran the
wide-range of very complex issues that are involved in these
negotiations. So this is a deadline that certainly the United States and
our P5+1 partners take very seriously,' he said. 'All indications are
that the Iranians take the deadline very seriously as well.'" http://t.uani.com/1LKjUZn
Reuters:
"Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium gas dropped below the
maximum level required under a 2013 interim nuclear agreement with world
powers, a U.N. report showed, but a U.S. think-tank suggested Tehran had
not entirely met its obligations. The International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) said in its monthly report on Iran, a confidential document seen
by Reuters on Wednesday, that Iran's stockpile of uranium gas enriched up
to a fissile purity of 5 percent was at 7,537 kg at end-June - below a
roughly 7,650 kg ceiling stipulated in the November 2013 interim nuclear
deal with six world powers. A U.S.-based think-tank, however, issued an
analysis of the IAEA report that questioned whether Iran had indeed
complied with the requirement to convert its low enriched uranium (LEU)
to a form with less risk of proliferation, uranium dioxide. 'The IAEA's
recent report on the implementation of (the interim deal) shows that only
9 percent of Iran's stockpile of newly produced LEU hexafluoride has
actually been converted into uranium dioxide form,' the Institute for
Science and International Security said in a press release. 'When it
became clear that Iran could not meet its commitment to convert the LEU
into uranium dioxide, the United States revised its criteria for Iran
meeting its obligations,' the institute said, adding that the LEU had
apparently been converted into a form different from uranium
dioxide." http://t.uani.com/1GZsdMF
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"Their inability to detect clandestine atomic programs in Iraq and
North Korea shadows Western officials as they seek to curb Iran's known
nuclear activities and keep it from pursuing others in secret... 'I fail
to see how any agreement can pass muster ... that doesn't have snap
inspections (at all sites),' former U.S. deputy secretary of State
Richard Armitage told Reuters. 'I don't see how you can have a verifiable
regime without having snap inspections - whenever, wherever.' ... The
experience of Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war is an example of the limits
the nonproliferation system that then existed. While combing through the
country after a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in
1991, U.N. arms control inspectors found that Baghdad had been pursuing a
secret uranium enrichment program that it had not declared... 'Managed
access' is a mechanism to allow the minimum needed IAEA oversight to
ensure there is no diversion to clandestine nuclear or nuclear-related
activities while limiting IAEA access to protect a nation's legitimate
military or industrial secrets. However, there is no time limit on such
negotiations, allowing the state to drag the talks out forever if it
wished. 'If they cannot come to an agreement, that discussion - that
negotiation - can go on ad infinitum,' a senior U.S. official said. 'We
have added a procedure in this agreement that will ensure that that
discussion comes to an end,' the official added, declining to comment on
how quickly that would happen." http://t.uani.com/1GQM528
Reuters:
"Nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers had yet to reach a
breakthrough as they continued in overtime on Thursday, and Western
officials said the latest red lines by Iran's supreme leader had made it
hard to settle disputes on key issues... Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad
Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who have been holding
intense talks in Vienna, were to be joined on Thursday by the foreign
ministers of Britain, France, Germany and China. Britain's Philip Hammond
told reporters on his arrival that an agreement was not yet at hand. 'The
work goes on. You are going to see ministers coming and going to maintain
the momentum of these discussions. I don't think we're at any kind of
breakthrough moment yet and we will do whatever we need to do to keep the
momentum,' Hammond said... 'Substantial differences still remain even at
this last stage,' a Western diplomat told Reuters. 'The positions set out
by Khamenei last week make it more difficult to bridge the gaps in the
next few days and there is still work to be done.'" http://t.uani.com/1LKrcw7
NYT:
"In Vienna, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, said that
Iran had invited Mr. Amano to travel to Tehran. 'We invited Mr. Amano to
go to Iran to work with our officials on how to proceed,' Mr. Zarif said
as the start of a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry and other
senior American officials... Iran is eager to address the issue of the
so-called possible military dimensions of its nuclear program, an unnamed
Iranian diplomat told the website Alef.ir on Wednesday... 'We believe the
topic of possible military dimension can be solved without accessing the
militarily sites,' the Iranian diplomat said. http://t.uani.com/1IvADO3
Press TV (Iran):
"Sticking points still remain between Iran and the P5+1 group of
countries in drafting the text of a final deal over Tehran's nuclear
program, says senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi. 'There
remain issues of difference on which no agreement has been reached yet,
and there are certain texts which have not been written down yet. In
fact, we are working on them round the clock,' Araqchi said on
Wednesday... Stressing that Iran will not accept an agreement at any
price, the senior negotiator said that a good deal should respect Iran's
principles and red lines. 'An agreement should be a good one and a good
agreement is the one that complies with the principles, frameworks and
red lines set especially by the Leader [of the Islamic Revolution
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] and in that case we will agree to a deal,'
he said. Araqchi said that Iran prefers a good agreement to time, adding
that Tehran will not be bound by time in striking a final deal with six
world powers." http://t.uani.com/1FS8uKA
Free Beacon:
"Bowing to Iran's pursuit of nuclear capability will make it harder
to enforce America's longstanding policy of non-proliferation among
enemies and allies alike, according to several foreign policy experts speaking
at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. Experts warned that proliferation
would grow more difficult to control in the coming years, saying that
America is no longer in a position to police nuclear development around
the world. 'The fundamental problem is that we're giving ground on what
has been a principle of U.S. non proliferation policy for 70 years, which
is the spread of enrichment and reprocessing to any country, even our
allies, as a problem. And what this Iran deal does is make an exception,
not just for any country, but for Iran, a country that's continually
cheating on its agreements. So in the wake of the deal, I think it
becomes very hard for us to go to our allies and say, we trust Tehran
with this technology, but we don't trust you,' said Matthew Kroenig, an
associate professor at Georgetown University." http://t.uani.com/1CN7esi
Congressional
Action
The Hill:
"Congressional Republicans are pressuring the Obama administration
to take a firm line with Iran in the final stretch of the nuclear
talks... Republicans say they fear the Obama administration will concede
too much to Iran and are drawing their own redlines for what would be an
acceptable agreement. In particular, they are zeroing in on demands that
Iran allow inspections anytime, anywhere, including at military sites,
and that the country come clean on any past nuclear weapons research.
Republicans also say Iran should agree to phased-in sanctions relief...
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a 2016
presidential candidate, blasted reports that a senior administration
official told reporters that the U.S. wouldn't insist upon access to
Iranian military sites, because the U.S. would not allow for others to do
the same. 'There is no place in this negotiation for moral equivalence,
they said in a statement. Iran must be held to different, more rigorous
standards. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.)
added, 'It's logical that any deal with a nuclear pariah and state
sponsor of terrorism must require exceptional access for international
inspectors.' Stop explaining Iran's position, and certainly don't do it
by comparing Iran with the U.S. in any way, shape, or form. The standard
needs to be go anywhere, anytime - not go some places, sometimes,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1NzhGKq
Sanctions
Relief
Free Beacon:
"Iranian officials said Monday that the Islamic Republic's Central
Bank has successfully repatriated 13 tons of gold as part of a package of
sanctions relief provided to Iran by U.S. and Western powers. The gold
was transferred to Iran by the government of South Africa, which had been
holding onto the assets due to harsh sanctions meant to pressure Tehran
to rein in its rogue nuclear program. The gold appears to have been
released as part of a sanctions relief package that will have awarded
Iran nearly $12 billion in unfrozen cash assets by the time negotiations
wrap up next week. Iran received $4.2 billion in unfrozen assets under
the 2013 interim agreement with the United States and was then given
another $2.8 billion by the Obama administration last year in a bid to
keep Tehran committed to the talks." http://t.uani.com/1Kvb8xV
WSJ:
"Iran's oil biggest shipping company has amassed the world's largest
fleet of super tankers and is in talks to sail back into western waters
should the Islamic Republic strike a nuclear deal, according to senior
officials. NITC, the privatized Iranian shipping company, says it has 42
very large crude carriers, known as VLCCs, after buying 20 such
China-built vessels in the past 2½ years. It is the first time the
company has disclosed the size of its VLCC fleet which it expanded as
sanctions cut off access to European-insured vessels, 'No other company
in the world owns that number of VLCCs,' said Capt. Nasrollah Sardashti,
NITC's commercial director, in an interview in the Iranian capital. VLCCs
can carry 2 million barrels of oil each... Ali Akbar Safaei, the
managing director of the NITC, said in an interview that the company is
in talks with insurance companies that are part of London's Protection
& Indemnity-a form of oil-shipping insurance coverage that pools
insurers' resources to cover high risks-as the company seeks to speed up
its return to Europe. 'We have resumed our connections with partners in
the maritime field' in the EU, he said. 'All conditions are there to call
at European ports' when sanctions are lifted. Mr. Safaei also mentioned
contacts with European safety-rating agencies, shipping logistics
agencies and finance houses." http://t.uani.com/1GR0bzv
Fars (Iran):
"The Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Company and a French company
on Wednesday signed a contract to develop railway stations in the three
Iranian cities of Tehran, Mashhad and Qom... The contract also includes
locating and designing of Tehran's high-speed railway as the first step
to launch similar railway systems in other cities. The Islamic Republic
of Iran Railways Company and the French AREP company endorsed the
contract which also envisages optimizing and modernizing the Tehran
railway station's area. Similar plans are also due to be implemented in
Mashhad and Qom cities." http://t.uani.com/1CKxqE4
AzerNews:
"German petrochemical company is taking measures to convey the
technology to Iran while the sanctions on the Islamic Republic are still
valid. The experts from the Basell Polyolefine GmbH have even traveled to
Iran and visited some petrochemical projects in Asaluyeh, southern Iran,
IRNA reported. The sides held several talks with Iranian petrochemical
officials and plan to transfer the technology. The project is said to be
worth $300 million... Basell Polyolefine GmbH produces and markets
polyolefins in Germany. Its products are used to manufacture films, cable
and pipe coatings, fuel tanks, injection moldings, and household
articles. The company operates as a subsidiary of LyondellBasell Industries
N.V." http://t.uani.com/1H0xzHt
Reuters:
"For April-June, India's first fiscal quarter and the first three
months of annual contracts with Iran, India shipped in nearly 50 percent
more oil from Tehran at 306,000 bpd compared with the same period last year,
the data showed." http://t.uani.com/1CNco7J
Extremism
Haaretz:
"Throughout 2014, Iran continued to block a website that provides
information on the Holocaust and Jewish-Muslim relations, the U.S. State
Department said Thursday. In its annual report on human rights, the State
Department said Iran's government kept blocking the Persian-language
website of the Aladdin Project, a foreign-based non-governmental
organization. In November 2013, the report said, Iran's Fars News Agency
published an article describing the website as a creation of
'international Zionism' that sought 'to recognize the Zionists'
fabricated narrative about the Holocaust, which will enable them to
present the creation of [Israel] as both legitimate and necessary.
Questions over the history and uniqueness of the Holocaust continued into
2014, according to the report... In a national address to mark the
Persian New Year in March, Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei
asserted that the historical reality of the Holocaust was unknown and
questioned if it actually did happen." http://t.uani.com/1CNarIy
Foreign Affairs
Reuters:
"Cut off from Yemen and its allies there by a Saudi-led military
campaign, Iran has intensified a media counter-offensive against Riyadh,
accusing its regional rival of inflicting catastrophic suffering while
presenting itself as a blameless peacemaker. Iranian state media have
given blanket coverage in Arabic, Farsi and English to the
three-month-old war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Sunni Arab allies
have been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi faction for over three
months... In its latest broadside, the hardline Fars news agency on
Wednesday released a video clip showing the face of Saudi King Salman
morphing into that of Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator loathed in
Tehran as its enemy in a 1980-88 war, interspersed with scenes of crying
Yemeni children. Another tactic was a state-sponsored cartoon contest
about the Yemen war -- even as an Iranian court sentenced an activist to
more than 12 years in jail on charges including drawing cartoons of
Iranian lawmakers." http://t.uani.com/1IRzEDM
Opinion &
Analysis
Thomas Friedman in
NYT: "Sometime after the 1973 war, I remember seeing
a cartoon that showed President Anwar el-Sadat lying flat on his back in a
boxing ring. The Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, wearing boxing
gloves, was standing over him, with Sadat saying to Meir something like,
'I want the trophy, I want the prize money, I want the belt.' I've been
thinking of that cartoon a lot lately as I listen to Iran's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lecturing the United States and its five
great power partners on his terms for concluding a deal that would
restrict Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon for 10 to 15 years in
return for lifting sanctions. But in that draft deal Khamenei has managed
to preserve Iran's basic nuclear infrastructure, albeit curbed, and has
continually insisted that Iran will not allow international inspections
of military sites suspected of harboring covert nuclear programs. It's
still not clear if the last remaining obstacles to a deal will be
resolved. But it is stunning to me how well the Iranians, sitting alone
on their side of the table, have played a weak hand against the United
States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain on their side of the
table. When the time comes, I'm hiring Ali Khamenei to sell my house.
You'd never know that 'Iran is the one hemorrhaging hundreds of billions
of dollars due to sanctions, tens of billions because of fallen oil prices
and billions sustaining the Assad regime in Syria,' said Karim
Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. And 'it's Ali
Khamenei, not John Kerry, who presides over a population desperate to see
sanctions relief.' Yet, for the past year every time there is a sticking
point - like whether Iran should have to ship its enriched uranium out of
the country or account for its previous nuclear bomb-making activities -
it keeps feeling as if it's always our side looking to accommodate Iran's
needs. I wish we had walked out just once. When you signal to the guy on
the other side of the table that you're not willing to either blow him up
or blow him off - to get up and walk away - you reduce yourself to just
an equal and get the best bad deal nonviolence can buy. Diplomatic
negotiations in the end always reflect the balance of power, notes the
Johns Hopkins University foreign policy specialist Michael Mandelbaum,
writing in The American Interest. 'In the current negotiations ... the
United States is far stronger than Iran, yet it is the United States that
has made major concessions. After beginning the negotiations by insisting
that the Tehran regime relinquish all its suspect enrichment facilities
and cease all its nuclear activities relevant to making a bomb, the Obama
administration has ended by permitting Iran to keep virtually all of
those facilities and continue some of those activities.' How did this
happen? 'Part of the explanation may lie in Barack Obama's personal faith
in the transformative power of exposure to the global economy.' But, adds
Mandelbaum, 'Surely the main reason ... is that, while there is a vast
disparity in power between the two parties, the United States is not
willing to use the ultimate form of power and the Iranian leaders know
this.' ... This deal could be as big, if not bigger, an earthquake in the
Middle East as the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And what both
had in common is that we were totally unprepared to manage the
aftershocks the morning after. The Arab world today has almost no
geopolitical weight. Egypt is enfeebled, Saudi Arabia lacks the capacity
to project power and Iraq is no more. An Iran that is unshackled from
sanctions and gets an injection of over $100 billion in cash will be even
more superior in power than all of its Arab neighbors. Therefore, the
U.S. needs to take the lead in initiating a modus vivendi between Sunni
Arabs and Persian Shiites and curb Iran's belligerence toward Israel. If
we can't help defuse those conflicts, a good bad deal could very easily
fuel a wider regional war." http://t.uani.com/1CN9oYR
Bobby Ghosh in
Quartz: "Something fascinating just came over the
transom from Tehran: In an interview to the state-owned news service
IRNA, president Hassan Rouhani threatened that 'if the other side
breaches the deal, we will go back to the old path, stronger than what
they can imagine.' We can set aside the belligerent tone here: Bluster
and bullying have long been the Tehran regime's stock-in-trade. But it's
worth spending a few minutes parsing Rouhani's words. The 'other side' is
the collection of world powers, known as the P5+1, that are currently
negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program. (They've just extended
the deadline by a week, to July 7.) The 'deal' is a long-sought bargain
that would allow the regime in Tehran to pursue peaceful nuclear
technology while the world lifts economic sanctions on Iran. But what,
pray, is 'the old path' along which the cleric-president is threatening
to take his country? Since its secret nuclear plant in Natanz was
revealed in 2002, the Iranian regime has sworn, over and over again, that
it has never pursued nuclear weapons. Among other things, the country's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that nuclear weapons are
'un-Islamic,' and therefore taboo for the Islamic Republic. If we're to
believe the regime's claim, then Rouhani's threat makes no sense. The
'old path' would simply be more 'peaceful' nuclear research, allowing the
sanctions to continue devastating the Iranian economy. That's not so much
a threat as a flagellant's cry for help: 'If you go back on your word,
I'll hurt myself.' It's possible Rouhani is merely bluffing: There's no
'old path,' and Tehran is simply trying to frighten the P5+1 into
relenting on the remaining sticking points at the negotiating table in
Vienna. (To his critics, president Barack Obama's claim that the US will
walk away from negotiations if it doesn't get a good deal smacks of
bluff, too.) The alternative is that Rouhani has unwittingly revealed that
Iran was indeed pursuing nukes. That would be a real threat, especially
if he is also sincere in pursuing this path 'stronger than what they can
imagine.'" http://t.uani.com/1LFMXw2
Rep. Kevin
McCarthy in WashPost: "When former advisers to
President Obama contribute to an open, bipartisan letter outlining their
collective concerns that the nuclear deal the administration is
negotiating with Iran would fall very short of its own standard of a
'good' agreement, something is wrong. And they aren't the only ones who
are nervous. Now that the deadline for the negotiations has passed, Obama
should ignore the rhetoric that his legacy depends on an agreement and be
prepared to reject a bad deal. Decades ago, Ronald Reagan was faced with
a similar dilemma in talks with the Soviet Union at Reykjavik, Iceland.
Despite knowing that any agreement with the Russians would earn broad
praise, Reagan walked away, only to come back to the table later and
secure a better deal. Reagan understood that peace without freedom is
meaningless and that knowing when to walk away from the negotiation table
is just as important as knowing when to sit down. Recent reports on the
status of nuclear negotiations, combined with statements from senior
Obama administration officials, give serious cause for three main areas
of concern. These include the administration's apparent willingness to
allow Iran to keep its past military nuclear work secret, the potential
lifting of sanctions not tied to Iran's nuclear program and U.S.
negotiators' apparent lack of insistence on vigorous inspections as part
of an eventual deal. All three reflect this administration's unbridled
quest for an agreement. But all three would guarantee a bad deal. Only
two months ago, Secretary of State John F. Kerry told PBS that the
Iranian regime would absolutely have to account for potential previous
nuclear weaponization activities if there's going to be a deal. Iran's
suspected past work toward military-grade weapons undermines claims that
it is pursuing a peaceful, civilian nuclear program. There is no way to
accurately gauge the status of Iran's nuclear capability without knowing
what it has been hiding all these years. Considering that the history of
Iran's nuclear program is replete with efforts to obfuscate and deceive,
the onus is on Iran to prove that it has nothing to hide. That hasn't
happened - but we must insist on it. But U.S. negotiators aren't
insisting. Kerry said recently that 'we're not fixated on Iran
specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or
another.' These wild vacillations only spur congressional concern over
the direction of the negotiations... A bad deal would also take the
Iranian regime at its word that it isn't cheating on its nuclear
commitments. International inspectors must have 'anywhere, anytime'
access to the Iranian sites they need to visit, including military and
other sensitive facilities. The United States should not grant Iran veto
power over international inspectors. The Iranian regime's refusal to
submit to intrusive inspections would be a telling indicator that it
intends to continue its deception... The words of Iran's Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei have done little to dispel this notion. Khamenei has
vowed to reject allowing international inspectors to visit Iran's
military sites or interviewing nuclear scientists. Iran's Parliament
agreed - passing legislation that bans these types of inspections as part
of any eventual deal. As negotiations continue, Congress stands ready to
stand up for core U.S. national security interests - and against a bad
deal with Iran. Hopefully, President Obama will see the wisdom in
President Reagan's example." http://t.uani.com/1RTWj71
Michael Oren in
CNN: "If you scan the headlines, you may have seen
that I've written a new book, 'Ally: My Journey Across the
American-Israeli Divide.' Clearly, it has touched a nerve. This is hardly
surprising. The book is out precisely when the United States looks poised
to sign a nuclear deal with Iran -- a deal that is bad for Israel, bad
for America and bad for the world. For Israel, Iran's nuclear program
poses not one, but several existential threats. The first and most
obvious is that Iran will develop nuclear warheads and will place them
atop one of the many intercontinental ballistic missiles it has built,
missiles whose sole purpose is to carry such warheads. Israel, according
to the 'moderate' former Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is 'a
one-bomb country.' The second threat derives from the fact that Iran is
the world's largest state sponsor of terror, backing attacks against
Israeli civilians and Jews across five continents and in dozens of
cities. If Iran acquires nuclear capabilities, so too will the
terrorists, who will not need an ICBM to deliver their weapon, but only a
ship container. Lastly, but no less nightmarishly, once Iran acquires
nuclear capabilities, so too will many of the countries in the Middle
East, transforming an already unstable region into a nuclear powder keg.
For Israelis, the Iranian nuclear issue is not about legacy, but our
children's lives. However, the Iranian nuclear program threatens not only
Israel and the Middle East, but also America and the world. Iranian
proxies are second only to al Qaeda in the number of Americans they have
killed in recent years. This is the same regime that took over the U.S.
Embassy and took its staff hostage in 1979, that was responsible for the
attacks on the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the
Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. In 2011, as the U.S. attorney
general noted, it even endorsed a plot to blow up a crowded popular
restaurant in Washington. In the short run, perhaps, America can at least
gamble on whether the Iranian regime is rational and a potentially
responsible regional actor. But what if Israel's estimation is correct --
that the Iranian regime is irrational and will devote tens of billions of
dollars in sanctions relief not to peaceful development, but to enhancing
its global terrorist networks? Well-intentioned advocates of the proposed
Iranian nuclear deal, the deadline for which has been pushed back to July
7, will argue that it provides for intrusive inspections of Iranian
nuclear facilities, will remove a large portion of Iran's stockpile of
enriched uranium, and, for a 10-year period, will prevent Iran from
producing a nuclear weapon in less than 12 months. Yet other experts --
including leading American scientists -- have concluded that, under this
agreement, Iran could break out military nuclear power in a far shorter
period and could develop the wherewithal to create not just one bomb, but
an atomic arsenal. In the interim, the agreement will also bestow
legitimacy on an Iran that is attempting to overthrow pro-American
governments throughout the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen,
and is propping up the Syrian dictator who has killed many tens of
thousands of his own citizens. The regime seeks to extend its hegemony
throughout the region and beyond." http://t.uani.com/1H3x7YW
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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