Eye on Iran: After Nuclear Deal With West, Iran Gears Up to Cash In

Join UANI           Top Stories NYT: "When Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps took over the nation's telecommunications monopoly in 2009, the move was denounced as another dark step in the hard-line military group's seizure of the levers of power. 'It's not just a matter of the Guards dominating the economy, but of controlling the state,' Alireza Nader, an expert on Iran and the co-author of a comprehensive RAND Corporation report on the Revolutionary Guards, said at the time. Last month, however, the company, the Telecommunication Company of Iran, was put up for sale, as the Revolutionary Guards now seem more interested in cashing in on what Iranian leaders are hoping will be a flood of foreign investment if a nuclear deal with world powers gains final approval and sanctions are lifted... 'They had no one to sell to inside Iran but now, with the nuclear deal done, everything is falling into place,' said one well-established Iranian-American consultant who asked to remain anonymous because his business activities are punishable under United States law as long as sanctions remain in place. 'A lot of people here have started pulling out their calculators.' The potential sell-off began to take shape in July, as the nuclear agreement began to move toward a conclusion, economists say. That was when the Etemad-e-Mobin investment company, part of a cooperative fund belonging to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, put the Telecommunication Company of Iran on the selling block." http://t.uani.com/1Ja7VBa CNN: "A growing majority of Americans are turning against the nuclear deal with Iran and believe Congress should reject the deal brokered between the U.S., five other world powers and Iran. As Congress inches closer to a vote to approve or disapprove of the deal, 56% of Americans now say they think Congress should reject the deal with Iran -- up from 52% less than a month ago -- according to the latest CNN/ORC poll released Thursday. And 6-in-10 Americans also disapprove of President Barack Obama's handling of the U.S. relationship with Iran, according to the poll." http://t.uani.com/1WJqDGF NYT: "In his most comprehensive effort to assure wavering Democrats, President Obama wrote in a letter to Congress that the United States would unilaterally maintain economic pressure and deploy military options if needed to deter Iranian aggression, both during and beyond the proposed nuclear accord. The Aug. 19 letter, obtained by The New York Times, is addressed to Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, but is also aimed at other Democrats with concerns about the deal. For Mr. Obama, it reflects steps the administration could take outside the agreement. The president has repeatedly said that the deal reached by Iran and six world powers cannot be changed. While many of the promises have been made before by Mr. Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and others, White House officials say the letter represents the first time that the president himself has compiled them under his name and in writing. It commits explicitly to establishing an office within the State Department to carry out the nuclear accord... 'Should Iran seek to dash toward a nuclear weapon, all of the options available to the United States - including the military option - will remain available through the life of the deal and beyond,' Mr. Obama wrote. He pledged to increase missile defense funding for Israel, accelerate co-development of missile defense systems, and boost tunnel detection and mapping technologies. He also vowed to increase cooperation with Israel and Persian Gulf allies to counter Iran's efforts to destabilize Yemen, its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and its efforts to preserve the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria." http://t.uani.com/1U4rwWc Nuclear Program & Agreement AP: "An AP report has revealed that the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed with Iran that Iranian experts and equipment will be used to inspect Iran's Parchin military site, located not far from Tehran, where Iran is suspected of conducting covert nuclear weapons activity more than a decade ago. Here are some questions and answers about the document, and what it means for the larger deal between Iran, the United States and five other world powers to limit Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions against Iran." http://t.uani.com/1EHPShF The Hill: "Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Thursday slammed an 'unorthodox' deal between an international agency and Iran, suggesting that it underscores what negotiators will do 'to keep from offending the Ayatollah.' 'I am disappointed the White House is claiming these secret arrangements between Iran and the IAEA are nothing but routine, technical agreements when it is anything but that,' said Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. 'These unorthodox agreements speak to how far the P5+1 nations, including our negotiators, were willing to go to keep from offending the Ayatollah [Khamenei].' ... Corker added on Thursday that the agreement 'will set a terrible precedent for the future.'" http://t.uani.com/1TXXDME Tasnim (Iran): "Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced on Friday that the country plans to hold a ballistic missile maneuver in the near future.  In a speech in the northern city of Qaem Shahr on Friday, Brigadier General Hajizadeh rejected as untrue some claims that the IRGC has halted the ballistic missile program over the past two years, saying that missile tests are on the agenda. 'Such measures (war games and ballistic missile tests) are on the agenda and huge successes have been achieved over the past two years,' the commander stressed. He further pointed to the IRGC's plan to stage a massive war game to test-fire ballistic missiles in the near future, adding that its details will be announced soon. Earlier this month, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi underlined that the country's missile tests will be carried out on schedule, according to plans endorsed by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei." http://t.uani.com/1JoSBlm Tasnim (Iran): "A top Iranian cleric cautioned against Washington's plots to take advantage of a nuclear deal for regaining foothold in the Islamic Republic.  'Americans know that if they want to renew their political hegemony, they will have to opt for the cultural hegemony and are, thus, thinking of carrying out such an absurd idea,' Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani said in the Friday prayers sermon in Tehran. The cleric said it would be naive to think that the US officials have changed their attitude, noting, 'They will remain our enemy as long as Islam prevails, because the US feels hostility towards Islam.' Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani also rejected the notion that the US could find a way into Iran after finalization of the text of a nuclear accord between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany). 'The US and its allies should know that we will not stop supporting the (anti-Israeli) resistance and Palestine,' he further pointed out." http://t.uani.com/1U4LXT1 Congressional Vote Free Beacon: "Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.) said Friday that he opposed the Iran nuclear deal for, among other reasons, giving the rogue regime a greater balance of power in a fragile region. 'The danger in the Iran agreement is in what it does not address, other than nuclear issues, that allows Iran to continue to gain a greater balance of the power in a very fragile region,' Webb said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. 'It affects Israel. It affects the Sunni countries.' Webb noted he voted against the Iraq War while he was in the Senate because he felt it would shift too much influence to Iran. This flies against the White House's continued insistence that foes of the deal all supported the Iraq War. President Obama has also claimed the only alternative to the agreement is eventual warfare, an opinion not shared by top military experts. 'We've had no signals from Iran through this whole process, no confidence-builders ... that would indicate Iran is ready to move forward in a different way in the region,' Webb said." http://t.uani.com/1WJrfMD Reuters: "As he weighed whether to support President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Representative Donald Norcross was showered with the sort of attention rarely shown to junior members of the U.S. Congress. The New Jersey Democrat, a former labor union leader, met with Obama and other Democrats twice in the White House. He listened to briefings by Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and senior Defense Department officials. He took an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent two hours with him and 21 other Democratic lawmakers, picking out faults in the agreement that Israel opposes. Voters from Norcross's south New Jersey district flooded his office with phone calls and emails and buttonholed him in person. On Tuesday, Norcross said he would oppose the deal on the grounds that it does not go far enough to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. All the attempts at persuasion gave him the information he needed to make up his mind, he said, adding that the politics of the debate weren't a factor... The intense pressure appears to have made the outcome of next month's votes on the deal closer than expected as some Democrats are persuaded to break ranks with Obama... The fate of the deal now hinges on the votes of the 18 Democratic senators and roughly 100 Democratic House members who have yet to say how they will vote." http://t.uani.com/1Jaa0Nf The Hill: "Twenty-two House Democrats visiting Israel got an earful from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their recent visit to the Middle East. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders pressed their case against President Obama's historic nuclear deal with Iran, and focused on Democrats who could be the swing votes in the House. Rep. Gene Green, a 12-term Texas Democrat who's toured the region numerous times in the past, said visiting lawmakers typically get about 30 minutes of face time with Israel's prime minister. As a sign of the urgency surrounding the nuclear deal, Netanyahu gave the Democrats two hours... Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Neb.) returned from the trip with suggestions that he'll oppose the agreement. 'There may be circumstances under which I could support a deal but at the moment it is just not good enough,' he said in a statement. DeSaulnier said if the vote were today he'd back the deal, but he's still meeting with constituents before reaching a final decision. Green said the overwhelming majority of calls to his office are urging his opposition, but he also remains undecided. 'I'm really torn on it,' Green said. 'I want to make sure Israel is safe and secure but this is the first time since '79 we've had any kind of agreement with Iran.' ... 'The image that it's a partisan issue is wrong for the long-run,' Green said." http://t.uani.com/1U4JxDL PJ Media: "A Democratic congressman who co-chaired President Obama's election campaign in Georgia blasted the Iran nuclear deal as a pact that 'allows for Iran to get a nuclear bomb.' Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the Congressional Black Caucus, told Atlanta NPR affiliate WABE this week that 'unfortunately' the deal falls flat. Asked what's missing, Scott replied: 'The prevention of Iran getting a nuclear bomb.' 'In essence it sort of permits it too, within the agreement, without Iran even having to cheat at all,' he said. '...When we started out, there was no ifs, ands or buts about it, under no circumstance, all of the nations agreed, the United Nations, NATO, the United States, all agreed that under no circumstance would Iran acquire a nuclear weapons or the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. But this agreement allows them to do that within 9 or 10 years.' 'It would do that by not requiring them to dismantle their nuclear weapons program. It does that by allowing them to continue to build the centrifuges and do their uranium production. It does that by having off-limits the underground plant where they're doing their military component where we know that they are developing a warhead for the delivery on a missile system... They're not allowed to go into Fordow. Nor are they allowed to go in and do any inspections, in any area of Iran, where Iran objects. It then goes to a committee - a committee on which Iran sits.' Scott stressed that 'there's no question: Iran wants the nuclear bomb... we know full well what Iran is after.' He said that Iran may live up to the terms of the agreement, and would even have the incentive to do so as it doesn't matter - because the deal is essentially 'permission' to get their weapon 'legitimately.'" http://t.uani.com/1U4Qc0W AP: "President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is picking up crucial support from swing-state Senate Democrats despite Republican opposition heightened by revelations of a secret side-agreement between Iran and the U.N. agency that inspects nuclear facilities. On Thursday, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., became the latest to declare her backing, saying in a statement, 'This deal isn't perfect and no one trusts Iran, but it has become clear to me that the world is united behind this agreement with the exception of the government of Israel.' McCaskill's announcement followed a similar declaration a day earlier from Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., who said, 'I am willing to give this agreement the opportunity to succeed.' Their support brings to 26 the number of Senate Democrats who've come out in favor of the agreement." http://t.uani.com/1PohPRd LAT: "With the largest delegation and with DeSaulnier among nearly two dozen Golden State Democrats who have yet to publicly commit to a position, California has become critical turf this summer as lawmakers home for a six-week recess ask their constituents how they feel about the diplomatic effort. Rep. Ami Bera's website has a Google Forms pop-up survey asking voters their views. 'As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I take this issue very seriously and want to know your thoughts,' the query reads. His office would not give a vote tally but says Bera is 'continuing to take time to talk with stakeholders so he can thoroughly review the deal.' Rep. Jim Costa's office says the calls and emails reflect a mix of people supporting and opposing the plan. He is undecided. Rep. Xavier Becerra, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and one of the biggest question marks, has remained mum, with his office saying only that he is reviewing the deal. Linda Sanchez, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has not picked a side either." http://t.uani.com/1U4Fs2o Terrorism WSJ: "The Obama administration is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Iran's central bank seeking to prevent terrorism victims from collecting nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian banking assets. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed a brief with the high court urging the justices to deny an appeal by Iran's Bank Markazi, which held an interest in the frozen funds. At issue are efforts by more than 1,300 American victims and surviving family members who want to collect on civil judgments holding Iran liable for sponsoring terrorist attacks, including the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. The victims learned in 2008 that the Iranian funds were in a New York Citibank account and moved to restrain the assets. Lower-court rulings allowed the money to be turned over to the victims." http://t.uani.com/1EHPzU2 FT: "Israel's air force struck a vehicle in the Syrian Golan region on Friday and killed at least four people it said were behind Thursday's firing of four rockets into its territory, in a further escalation of a cross border exchange of fire that the Jewish state blames Iran for having started... This came as Israel delivered a demarche to the six world powers who signed a nuclear deal with Iran, which it blames for having co-ordinated the rocket attack. 'This is another clear and blatant demonstration of Iran's continued and unabating support and involvement in terrorist attacks against Israel and in the region in general,' the demarche, published by Israel's foreign ministry on Friday morning, said... 'This attack has also occurred before the ink on the ... nuclear agreement has even dried, and provided a clear indication of how Iran intends to continue to pursue its destabilising actions and policies as the international sanctions regime is withdrawn in the near future,' the Israeli protest said. Israel's military blamed the rocket fire on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, and said the attack was 'facilitated and directed' by a man it identified as Said Izaadi, who it said was the head of the Palestinian unit of the Al-Quds forces, part of Iran's Revolutionary Guards." http://t.uani.com/1UXt3jp Times of Israel: "Four Hamas militants on their way to board a vessel at a Cairo port were abducted from the bus they were travelling in, by Egyptian Intelligence police. The four were on their way from Rafiah at the southern edge of the Gaza strip to the Egyptian capital, and their final destination was Iran. The four were high ranking members of Hamas's naval commando unit. The report was confirmed by a high ranking Hamas official to Al Jazeera." http://t.uani.com/1fvlbWi Domestic Politics Al-Monitor: "The front page of Iran newspaper contained a picture of a stern President Hassan Rouhani looking straight ahead with the headline, 'Rouhani's election warning.' The paper, which operates under the administration, was alluding to Rouhani's criticism of the hard-line Guardian Council, the body that approves or disqualifies candidates from running in the elections. With his nuclear opponents on the ropes, Rouhani is focusing on the 2016 parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections. But his comments Aug. 19 at a meeting of his Cabinet with the governors of the provinces has drawn the ire of his critics, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jaffari. Rouhani said, 'The honorable Guardian Council is a supervisor, not an administrator. The administrator of the elections is the administration. The administration is responsible for carrying out the elections and agencies have been predetermined to supervise so that violations of the law do not take place.' ... His comments were viewed by critics as attempting to limit the Guardian Council's role in the elections. Without addressing Rouhani directly, Jaffari responded Aug. 20, 'This kind of language that would weaken one of the pillars of the Islamic Revolution, as in the Guardian Council, damages national unity.' He asked Iranian officials not to 'question the beliefs and values of the revolution' in order to 'appease the dominant powers and the Great Satan.'" http://t.uani.com/1NqDVox Opinion & Analysis J.B. Pritzker in The Hill: "The challenge in multi-lateral negotiations is not to lose sight of one's over-arching goal in the midst of the cacophony of opinions at the bargaining table. For the U.S., which Iran has dubbed its No. 1 enemy in the world, our objectives were to reduce the threat to the homeland, to American interests abroad and to our allies in the region. Regrettably, the Iran deal fails to meet these goals and raises the prospects for war. I cannot support a deal that reduces all our leverage upfront, giving Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in return for permitting it to maintain its advanced nuclear program and the infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state. For decades, Iran has covertly worked to develop a nuclear weapons program and has repeatedly violated its international obligations. The United States cannot afford to give Iran the benefit of the doubt; our national security will depend on it. In addition to gaining access to up to $100 billion worth of frozen assets and the lifting of sanctions at the beginning of this agreement, the deal lifts the arms embargo in only five years and critical ballistic missile restrictions after only eight years. This regime has no respect for human rights or international norms and is the world's most robust supporter of terrorists bent on destroying Western countries.  A financially bolstered hard-line Iranian regime will result in increased terrorism abroad and even more repression at home.  Given Iran's atrocious human rights record, we risk compromising our progressive values if we eliminate sanctions and prop up this reactionary regime. I am a lifelong Democrat.  Like a rapidly expanding list of Democrats across the country, I oppose this deal. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) encapsulated our thoughts most eloquently when he recently came out against the agreement: 'better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.' The president and Secretary Kerry disagree with us.  We are all Democrats. Apparently, this is not a partisan issue. I have been disappointed to read the president's remarks tainting the debate by challenging  the motivations of deal opponents like myself.  There is room in our party to have opposing views of the Iran deal.  Democrats on both sides can legitimately reach alternate conclusions based on different interpretations of the facts without questioning their loyalties or their intentions. Instead, I question the motives of Iran. Just days after the agreement was announced, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei announced that his 'government's policies toward the arrogant government of the United States will not be changed at all' as his audience responded with exuberant shouts of 'death to America.' Some will argue that if this agreement works, it will buy us 15 years and prevent the need for military engagement. But they ignore that the agreement allows Iran to continue research and development on advanced centrifuges, and therefore it will be only days away from breaking out to a nuclear weapon after 15 years. Iran will have done this within the confines of the agreement, so the U.S. and the international community will have legitimized Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state, not prevented it. This will leave the U.S. with two bad options: accept a nuclear Iran, or take military action. By legitimizing Iran's nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less... For the sake of our values and our security, Congress should reject this deal, leave the sanctions in place, and support efforts to negotiate a better agreement." http://t.uani.com/1hwjTMo   UANI Advisory Board Member Irwin Cotler in the Montreal Gazette: "The Iranian record on compliance with its human rights undertakings casts significant doubt on the validity and veracity of its commitments as part of the recent nuclear deal. In 2010, as part of the UN Human Rights Council's first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Iran, the Iranian government committed to implementing 126 of the 212 recommendations made to it by the international community. Last fall, on the eve of Iran's second UPR, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, appeared before the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights, of which I am the vice-chair. I asked him to what extent Iran had lived up to its commitments. His response: 'I have been very disappointed in the way this has turned out.' In his more recent appearance before our Foreign Affairs subcommittee during our annual Iran Accountability Week, he joined other witnesses, including former Iranian political prisoners such as Maziar Bahari and Marina Nemat, in deploring the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran and the ongoing breach of its international undertakings. Indeed, in the five years since making those commitments - on matters ranging from women's rights, to freedom of religion and expression, to the humane treatment of detainees - the human rights situation in Iran has worsened in many respects. The persecution, imprisonment and torture of human rights defenders, members of minority groups, journalists and many other leaders of Iranian civil society has intensified, while the execution rate in Iran - which was already the highest in the world under former president Ahmadinejad - has almost doubled under the supposedly moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Given the Iranian regime's appalling track record of bad faith and duplicity when it comes to international commitments - as well as its standing violation of international treaties to which it is a party and its wanton violation of the human rights of its own citizens - there are serious questions to be asked about the nuclear agreement. To begin with, will Iran truly scale back its nuclear operations, as it has pledged to do? It has been long-standing practice for the regime to conceal and lie about its nuclear activities, even using past negotiations as opportunities to distract the West while secretly progressing toward a nuclear bomb. Indeed, it was current Iranian President Hassan Rouhani himself who said of his time as chief nuclear negotiator in 2004: 'While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the (nuclear) facility in Isfahan. ... In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work on Isfahan.'" http://t.uani.com/1PDtlJa           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.