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AFP: "Russia will start constructing
two nuclear reactors in Iran next week, as Tehran seeks to reduce its
reliance on oil and gas with 20 facilities over the coming years, an
official said Tuesday. The start of construction follows a historic deal
between Iran and world powers in July that ends a decade-long standoff
over Tehran's nuclear programme. And it comes a year after Tehran signed
a contract with Moscow to construct two reactors at the existing
Russian-built Bushehr power plant. A series of agreements signed between
the two countries last year foresees eventually increasing the total
number of Russian-built reactors in the country to nine. Work on the two
facilities 'will commence next week,' state television's website quoted
atomic energy agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying. Iran plans
to build 20 more nuclear plants in the future, including four in Bushehr.
The accord does not limit Iran's development of civilian nuclear sites.
The two reactors will be financed by Iran, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of
Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom, said last year... And they plan
to boost trade volume, as they signed several joint development documents
last month during Russian President Vladimir Putin's first visit to Iran
in eight years. On Monday, Iran's Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade,
Mohammad Reza Nematzade, and his Russian counterpart, Denis Manturov,
opened an industrial exhibition in Tehran. The three-day fair by Russian
industrial holding Rostec State Corp, along with hundreds of business
leaders, aims to introduce Russian industries to Iran, state television's
website reported. Rostec owns 700 enterprises, organised into 14 holding
companies, and nine of which are focused on the military. Russia is 'not
afraid' of Western economic delegations trying to dominate Iranian
markets after the lifting of sanctions, a Rostec official said Tuesday...
Iranian engineers were examining the Sukhoi Superjet 100, in which the
Russians travelled, Kladov said. 'If we can technically satisfy' Iran, a
possible number 'around 100 aircraft' would be sold to Iran, he added.
Rostec Helicopters was also in talks with Iran to sell new Russian
medical helicopters. Rostec will also repair and upgrade a fleet of 50
Russian helicopters now operating in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1NJqhcn
NYT: "A new United States visa
restriction that applies to Europeans and others who have visited
so-called high-risk countries has led to angry reactions in Iran, where
some leaders say the decision is a violation of the nuclear agreement
reached in July. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, told
state media on Monday that the visa restriction was an 'obstacle, placed
by some individuals,' that he hoped would soon be resolved. Mr. Zarif
referred to a letter sent by Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday,
asserting that the restriction would not affect the nuclear agreement.
The letter, obtained and leaked by the National Iranian American Council,
an advocacy group based in Washington, hinted that President Obama would
use his executive authority to exempt Iran from the visa restriction,
which was passed almost unanimously in Congress. Mr. Obama signed it into
law on Friday. The restriction, a security step arising from the recent
terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., prohibits
visa-free travel to the United States for anyone who has visited or holds
citizenship in Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Iran... The restrictions are part
of an amendment to the current visa-free arrangement among 38 countries,
including members of the European Union and the United States. It will
mean that tourists, businesspeople and others from friendly countries in
Europe as well as Australia, Japan and South Korea, who have visited
Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Iran will soon be forced to apply for a United
States visa, instead of traveling freely... Iranian state radio on
Saturday called the amendment the first 'American, anti-Iranian measure'
since the signing of the nuclear agreement. An influential member of
Parliament, Allaedin Boroujerdi, said the move violated the nuclear
agreement, which was supposed to ease or end many sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1NABePA
AFP: "Iran's economy will continue
to suffer until international sanctions are lifted and the country is
able to significantly lift oil exports, the International Monetary Fund
said Monday. 'The sharp decline in global oil prices, tight corporate and
bank balance sheets, and postponed consumption and investment decisions
ahead of the expected lifting of economic sanctions, have significantly
slowed down economic activity since the fourth quarter of 2014/15,' the
IMF said in its annual review. As a result, real economic growth is
estimated at near zero (-0.5 to +0.5) for 2015-16. Inflation is expected
to remain near 14 percent by year-end. 'Prospects for 2016/17 are
brighter, owing to the prospective lifting of economic sanctions. Higher
oil production, lower costs for trade and financial transactions, and
restored access to foreign assets, are expected to lift real GDP to about
4-5.5 percent next year,' the IMF said." http://t.uani.com/22ntKqG
Nuclear
Program & Agreement
Tasnim
(Iran): "A
number of Iranian lawmakers, in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani,
voiced their protest at the breach of the recent nuclear deal with six
world powers, also known as the JCPOA, by the US and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Mohammad
Javad Karimi Qoddousi, a member of the parliament's National Security and
Foreign Policy Commission, said the letter has been signed by 50 MPs.
'The parliament and the members of the National Security and Foreign
Policy Commission are seriously pursuing cases of violation of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the part of the US and the IAEA,'
he said, adding that the lawmakers want the country's administration and
diplomatic apparatus to firmly respond to such violations of commitments.
The senior parliamentarian went on to say that in the letter, the MPs
have called on the Rouhani Administration to address four issues,
including the recent report of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, the
IAEA Board of Governors' resolution, and the recent approval of a bill by
the US Congress to impose strict visa requirements for those travelling
to Iran." http://t.uani.com/1QIEKLn
Fars
(Iran): "The
Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on
Monday deplored the US Senate's Visa Waiver Program as a flagrant
violation of the nuclear agreement with Tehran. His remarks came after
the US senate passed a bill related to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)
which allows citizens of 38 countries - namely European states,
Australia, Japan and South Korea - to travel to the United States without
having to obtain a visa but excludes from this program all dual nationals
from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Sudan, and anyone else who has traveled to
those countries in the past five years. 'During the commission meeting
today, the lawmakers recognized the US Senate bill on the Visa Waiver
Program that enforces restrictions for those people who have travelled to
Iran as a violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and
condemned it,' the commission's rapporteur Nozar Shafiyee announced on
Monday. 'They also called on the Iranian foreign minister to take
appropriate measures to reciprocate the US violation,' Shafiyee told FNA.
In recent days and before the congress bill turned into law, the Iranian
officials seriously frowned at the US congress proposal to make changes
in the US Visa Waiver Program, and called it against the nuclear
agreement. On Sunday, some 102 Iranian parliamentarians demanded the
government to take retaliatory measures against changes in the US Visa
Waiver Program. The Iranian lawmakers described the changes in the US
Visa Waiver Program as a blatant violation of the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action - the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world
powers - and called for the government's firm and proper retaliatory
measures, Mohammad Dehqan, a senior MP said on Sunday." http://t.uani.com/1OlknUe
IRNA
(Iran): "Defense
Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan underlined that Iran will
implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after the western
countries show their commitment to the nuclear agreement reached between
Tehran and the powers in Vienna in July. General Dehqan pointed to the
nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China,
France and Britain plus Germany) the commitments and undertakings of the
western countries, and said, 'We will implement the JCPOA only if the
other side fulfills its commitments and if it fails to do so, we will
drop the implementation of the JCPOA.' The defense minister, meantime,
underlined that the country has developed its missile industries and
production. 'We have not halted designing, producing and testing our
missiles, (on the contrary) we have even increased our production,'
General Dehqan said, addressing a ceremony in the city of Sari, Northern
Iran on Monday." http://t.uani.com/1mfFJ8T
Sanctions
Relief
The
National: "A
top-level Russian government and business delegation heads to Tehran on
Monday for a three-day mission aimed at boosting trade between the two
countries, as sanctions on Iran are poised to be lifted next year. The
meetings will be held at the Russian National Industrial Fair in Tehran
through Wednesday, and will be hosted by Denis Manturov, Russia's
minister of industry and trade. 'It is hard to overestimate the strategic
importance of Iran in the political, economic and geographic context,' Mr
Manturov said in a statement released by the ministry... Russia's trade
with Iran took a hit from the nuclear-related sanctions. Russia's exports
to Iran grew from about $250 million in 1995 to $3.4bn in 2011, before
halving to $1.2bn by 2013. Iran's exports to Russia carried on growing,
however, from $21m in 1995 to $351m in 2011 and $433m in 2013... Russian
companies on this week's mission will cover a wide range of industries
and will include United Aircraft Company, United Engine Corporation
(Rostec), GAZ Group, RT-Chemcomposite (Rostec), and Russian Helicopters
(Rostec)." http://t.uani.com/1m66DAy
Press TV
(Iran): "Iran
on Saturday awarded a deal to a Dutch company over the development of a
town in the vicinity of the country's biggest airport - Imam Khomeini
International Airport (IKIA) - in southern Tehran. The contract was
signed between the Managing Director of IKIA Airport Town Company Mahmoud
Navidi and Kiel Cloisterville, the vice president of the Netherlands
Airport Consultant Company (NACO). Accordingly, NACO will be in charge of
providing consulting services for the development of Phase 1 of IKIA
Airport Town for a period of five years, IRNA reported... Earlier this
month, France's AccorHotels signed an agreement in Tehran to run two
hotels near IKIA, marking the first foray by a major foreign entity into
the country's hospitality market since 1979. Under the deal, the group
will manage four-star Ibis IKIA with 196 rooms and five-star Novotel IKIA
with 296 rooms." http://t.uani.com/1V2v51n
Press TV
(Iran):
"Russia's minister of trade and industry says Moscow is interested
in the local production of Sukhoi 100 super jets in Iran. 'Regarding
Sukhoi 100 Superjets, we want to produce the components of the aircraft
in Iran. This will be carried out through cooperation with Iranian
partners,' Denis Manturov was quoted as saying by the Tasnim News Agency
on Monday. Back in November, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry
Rogozin said Moscow might deliver a large batch of Sukhoi Superjet 100
passenger aircraft to Iran by 2020. The planes can be in part localized
by Iranian producers if Tehran makes the political decision to purchase
ready-made aircraft, he told Rossiya 24 TV during a two-day trip to
Iran." http://t.uani.com/1QIDVSG
Tehran
Times: "Renault
boosted its sale of cars to Iran by more than ten folds in November 2015
compared to the same month in 2014. The French carmaker sold 8,050 cars
to Iran. The November 2014 sale had been announced 780 cars. Sales of
Renault in November also rose by 27 percent compared to October,
according to the Tasnim news agency." http://t.uani.com/1YyRhjH
Sanctions
Enforcement
Free
Beacon: "A
Chinese national pled guilty to scheming to supply Iran with sensitive
nuclear technology from 2009 to 2012, according to the FBI. The transfer
of this technology shows that Iran has been interested in pursuing
nuclear weapons grade material in recent years during the same period
when it claimed its nuclear program was purely for peaceful purposes.
Sihai Cheng, a 35-year-old Chinese national, pled guilty last week in
U.S. district court to two counts of conspiring to commit export
violations in order to 'smuggle goods from the United States to Iran,'
according to the FBI. Cheng pled guilty to four additional counts 'of
illegally exporting U.S. manufactured pressure transducers to Iran.' Cheng
was initially charged in 2013 of conspiring to export 'highly sensitive
U.S. manufactured goods with nuclear applications to Iran,' the FBI said
in a statement. Cheng was charged along with an Iranian national and two
Iranian energy and manufacturing companies, Nicaro Eng. Co., Ltd. and
Eyvaz Technic Manufacturing Company. The Iranian national Seyed Abolfazl
Shahab Jamili, remains a fugitive and 'the U.S. government, through
Interpol, has requested his arrest to face prosecution in the United
States,' the FBI said." http://t.uani.com/1QVT8hK
Terrorism
Tehran
Times:
"Hundreds, rather thousands, of resistance fighters will grow out of
every drop of the blood of Samir Qantar, said Iran's Ali Akbar Velayati,
who serves as the secretary general of the World Assembly of Islamic
Awakening. Expressing condolences on the occasion of the Lebanese Druze
member of the Palestine Liberation Front, Velayati said Qantar is the
symbol of resistance, the YJC reported on Monday. He added that the
martyrdom of Qantar will be like a pain in the neck of the Zionist regime
of Israel." http://t.uani.com/1U2su6i
JTA: "Argentina's former foreign
minister said on secretly recorded phone conversations that Iran was
responsible for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos
Aires while he was negotiating with Tehran. The conversations featuring
Hector Timerman, who is Jewish, were released Friday by the Argentine
radio station Mitre. In the leaked recordings of conversations with
leaders of the Argentine Jewish community, Timerman defends the efforts
made by the government of then-president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner,
saying the only goal is to solve the AMIA case. Timerman justifies the
negotiations with Iran to jointly investigate the attack, saying
'Eighteen years ago they planted the bomb.' The bombing left 85 dead and
hundreds wounded. The conversations took place in 2012, when AMIA
criticized the negotiations with Iran. In the first recording, Timerman
is speaking with Guillermo Borger, then the president of the AMIA Jewish
community organization." http://t.uani.com/1QVOFMd
Syria
Conflict
Reuters: "The vehicle carrying Iranian
Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani was passing through the outskirts of
Aleppo on the afternoon of Oct. 8 when it was shot up by Islamic State
fighters. Hamedani was hit in the left eye by a bullet and died after the
driver lost control of the vehicle. He was the most senior Revolutionary
Guard commander to be killed in Syria to date and also one of a growing
number of Iranian military personnel to lose their lives there. The death
of Hamedani, who played a vital role in Iranian military efforts in
Syria, was described by a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei in the Revolutionary Guards and published by the Entekhab news
site in mid-October. It was an event that marked the start of a new
development in Iran's military involvement in Syria, where experts
believe Tehran may have as many as 3,000 troops. Since early October,
nearly 100 Revolutionary Guard fighters or military advisers, including
at least four senior commanders, have been killed there, according to a
tally from Iranian websites. That is only slightly less than half of all
the casualties suffered by the Guard in Syria since the beginning of
2012, when death notices began to appear... The death of the
Revolutionary Guard members is an indication of Iran's increased
involvement in fighting in Syria - and the heavy price its soldiers are
paying - as it props up a Syrian army hit hard by nearly five years of
conflict. 'The Iranians have increased the extent of their direct
military involvement in the conflict mostly in order to make up for the
heavy attrition among Syrian army units,' said Hilal Khashan, a political
science professor at the American University of Beirut. The Syrian army
has recently had to take a back seat as Iran and its allied militias take
the lead in the fight against the opposition. 'The SAA (Syrian Arab Army)
is a gutted institution,' said a Western diplomat in Beirut who asked not
to be identified. 'There's defections, there's fleeing.' The timing of
Iran's increased involvement in the conflict, particularly in the fight
for control of Aleppo, was coordinated with the start of Russia's air
campaign in late September... For now, the high number of deaths in a
relatively short period does not appear to have reduced the commitment of
the Guards to the conflict in Syria." http://t.uani.com/1MtGWyv
AFP: "After years of tense relations
with President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia has adopted a bolder
approach towards Syria, prompted by rival Iran's growing regional
influence. The kingdom recently brought Syrian political and armed
opposition factions together for unprecedented talks in Riyadh, the
culmination of months of manoeuvring by the Sunni Muslim power. The step
highlighted Saudi Arabia's rising profile in efforts to end the war in
Syria, where Shiite Iran gives military and financial support to Riyadh's
longtime opponent Assad. Days later, the kingdom gained world attention
by announcing the surprise formation of a 34-nation coalition against
Islamic 'terrorism'. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said there were even
'discussions among countries' including his, about possibly 'sending some
special forces in Syria'. Experts say the more assertive stance aims to
counter an emboldened Iran in an increasingly unstable region. 'Saudis'
plan has to do with Iran,' said a foreign diplomat who considers both the
Saudi-led coalition and the Riyadh talks as part of the same strategy...
Before Iran can increase its power as the economic embargo eases, Saudi
'wants to gather its friends and allies,' the foreign diplomat said. The
nuclear deal accentuated concerns in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf that
Washington has not paid enough attention to what they see as Iran's
destabilising acts. 'The general recognition seems to be that if you want
something done you can no longer rely on others,' said a second diplomat,
from a Western country. Regional competition with Iran plays 'a huge
role' in Saudi opposition to Assad, he added." http://t.uani.com/1QVN60P
Human
Rights
IHR: "On the morning of Sunday
December 20, at least seven prisoners were hanged in Iran. Two of the
executions were carried out in public. On the morning of Sunday December
20, two prisoners accused of armed robbery were reportedly hanged in
public at Kouzeh Gari Square in Shiraz, Fars. On the same day, five other
prisoners were reportedly hanged at Bandar Abbas Central Prison on drug
related charges." http://t.uani.com/1QEBPDP
Domestic
Politics
Reuters: "Iran has drafted a state
budget for next fiscal year that is 2.6 percent smaller than the plan for
this year, as low oil prices put pressure on the country's finances. The
budget for the year starting on March 20 has been tentatively set at
2.670 trillion rials, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht was
quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA on Tuesday. That compares with
an original plan for this year of 2.740 trillion rials, not including
state-owned enterprises. The budget must be approved by parliament, and
figures could change in the three months before it is due to come into
effect. Nobakht said the budget was based on an official exchange rate of
29.970 rials to the dollar, giving it a value of $89.1 billion. Brent
oil's fall to an 11-year low of just above $36 a barrel this week
threatens new damage to Iran's export revenues, which have been hit for
decades by international sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.
IRNA did not report projections for total state revenues and the deficit
in next year's budget, but said oil revenues were estimated at $22
billion." http://t.uani.com/1PifJTY
Tehran
Times:
"President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that Iran will get past all
problems under Velayat Faqih (the guardianship of the jurist). Speaking
to reporters after he signed up for the Assembly of Experts election, a
body that qualifies or disqualifies the leader, Rouhani said Velayat
Faqih is the most important pillar in the Islamic Republic. The Assembly
of Experts elects the most important pillar of the system, he
added." http://t.uani.com/1PkfLwF
Foreign
Affairs
Mehr
(Iran): "Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani will pay an official visit to Italy and France
on January. Gerard Larcher, who is visiting Tehran, expressed that French
President Francois Hollande hopes to be able to welcome Iranian
counterpart on January 27 and 28. He called the meeting the beginning of
stronger ties between Iran and France. Rouhani is also due to visit Italy
on his first European tour on January 25." http://t.uani.com/1Olj8o1
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI
Advisory Board Member Michael Singh in WSJ: "The Obama administration has
emphasized that the nuclear deal with Iran was narrowly focused and was
not intended to address concerns such as Iran's support for terrorism or
its regional activities. Yet while the U.S. and its allies got a narrow
deal, Iran effectively received a far more comprehensive one. Iran's
actions have made clear that it can be expected, at most, to abide by the
letter of the text. As Sen. Bob Corker has noted, since the agreement was
signed in July, Iran has sentenced Washington Post reporter Jason
Rezaian-who has been in jail for more than a year-and imprisoned another
Iranian-American. It has defied United Nations sanctions by exporting arms
to Yemen and Syria; by dispatching Gen. Qasem Soleimani, chief of Iran's
elite military Qods Force, and other sanctioned officials to Russia,
Iraq, and elsewhere; and by conducting two ballistic missile launches.
Iranian hackers have reportedly engaged in cyber attacks on the State
Department. Tehran also refused to fully cooperate with the International
Atomic Energy Agency investigation into its nuclear weapons research. How
have the U.S. and its negotiating partners responded to Iran's actions?
Rote condemnation. This has not been for lack of tools to respond. In
defending the nuclear deal, Obama administration officials were at pains
to rattle off the multiple multilateral and unilateral options remaining
to them to respond to just these sorts of situations. Despite these
assurances, designed to sell the agreement to a skeptical Congress, the
administration has not acted. U.S. reticence is probably based on the
fear that taking a tough stand against Iran's provocations would derail
the nuclear deal, which has yet to be implemented. Iran's supreme leader
has insisted that the Islamic Republic will walk away from the agreement
if new sanctions are imposed, whether related to nuclear activities,
terrorism, or human rights. The U.S. and its allies may fear that any
punitive action or delay in sanctions relief could damage the prospects
of President Hassan Rouhani's allies in Iran's parliamentary elections,
benefiting hard-liners. If so, this suggests that the timeline for
implementation of the nuclear deal will be driven primarily by politics
and that U.S. acquiescence to the agreement, contrary to recent
assertions by Secretary of State John Kerry, is based at least in part on
the hope that it will tilt Iran's domestic politics in a more congenial
direction. But inaction in the face of Iranian misbehavior implies that
Tehran stands to receive broader-than-intended relief in exchange for
limited and temporary nuclear constraints. This is a steep price-and one
unlikely to achieve its objectives. Iran would be foolish to walk away
from an agreement that offers it substantial financial rewards and leaves
it well-positioned to develop nuclear weapons in 10 to 15 years.
Undermining the credibility of our own threat to punish such an action
can only encourage the Iranians to test the deal's limits. Nor is Western
magnanimity likely to influence Iran's elections-which are far from
democratic-in February; if anything, it was economic pressure that
propelled Mr. Rouhani to victory in 2013. Even if his allies prevail, it is
not clear that Mr. Rouhani diverges significantly from hard-liners in his
commitment to a nuclear weapons' capability or regional policies that
undermine U.S. interests." http://t.uani.com/1J3begW
Eli Lake
& Josh Rogin in Bloomberg: "Members of Congress knew the Iran nuclear deal came
with strings attached. They just didn't know how many. When the
administration presented the agreement to Congress, lawmakers were told
that new sanctions on Iran would violate the deal. Now the administration
is trying to sidestep a recently passed provision to tighten rules on
visas for those who have visited Iran. Since the accord was struck last
summer, the U.S. emphasis on complying with its end of the deal has
publicly eclipsed its efforts to pressure Iran. In that time, Iranian
authorities have detained two American dual nationals and sentenced a
third on what most observers say are trumped up espionage charges. Iran's
military has conducted two missile tests, one of which the U.N. said
violated sanctions, and engaged in a new offensive with Russia in Syria
to shore up the country's dictator, Bashar al-Assad. In the latest
example of the U.S. effort to reassure Iran, the State Department is
scrambling to confirm to Iran that it won't enforce new rules that would
increase screening of Europeans who have visited Iran and plan to come to
America. There is concern the new visa waiver provisions, included in the
omnibus budget Congress passed last week, would hinder business people
seeking to open up new ventures in Iran once sanctions are lifted. U.S.
officials confirmed over the weekend that Secretary of State John Kerry
sent his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, a letter promising to use
executive powers to waive the new restrictions on those who have visited
Iran but are citizens of countries in the Visa Waiver Program. These
officials also told us that they have told Iranian diplomats that,
because they are not specific to Iran, the new visa waiver provisions do
not violate the detailed sequence of steps Iran and other countries
committed to taking as part of the agreement. Even so, the State
Department is promising to sidestep the new rule. At issue is a provision
that would require travelers who visit certain countries -- including
Iran, Sudan, Syria and Iraq -- to apply at a U.S. Embassy for a visa
before coming to the U.S., even if they are from a country for which such
visas would normally be waived. House staffers who spoke with us say Iran
was included for good reason, because it remains on the U.S. list of
state of sponsors of terrorism for its open support for Hezbollah and
Hamas. The White House did not object until the Iranian government told
the administration last week that the bill would violate the nuclear
agreement, according to correspondence on these negotiations shared with
us. Since 2013, when the open negotiations with Iran began, the Obama
administration has repeatedly told Congress that additional sanctions on
the Islamic Republic would wreck negotiations. The resulting agreement
obligates the West to lift sanctions in exchange for more transparency
and limitations on Iran's nuclear program. Iran and the White House seem
to be interpreting 'lift sanctions' more broadly than others expected...
In February, Iran will have parliamentary elections and elections for the
powerful assembly of experts, the committee of clerics that would choose
the next supreme leader of Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies. If
anti-deal elements win those elections, the future of the nuclear deal
will be dim. These factors explain why Kerry has been willing to overlook
Iran's own provocations while trying to mitigate what Iran sees as
provocations from the U.S. Congress. They also explain why Iran seems so
intent to provoke the U.S. at the moment it's supposed to implement the
deal to which it just agreed." http://t.uani.com/1PkgJZJ
Michael
Rubin in Commentary:
"Let's put aside the fact that Iranian authorities seem to violate
the deal by repeatedly taking and holding Americans and Iranian Americans
as hostages. Daniel Levinson, the son of the longest-held American
hostage, this weekend has a must-read piece in the Washington Post that
noted, among other things, that proponents of the deal actually threw a
party celebrating it. Never mind the fact that Americans remain in
Iranian prisons. The controversy is actually reminiscent of one 16 years
ago when Iran advocacy organizations and their fellow travelers
complained about the U.S. government's decision to begin fingerprinting
Iranian travelers. Indeed, in December 1999, six Iranian scholars alleged
they were so insulted at JFK airport that they had no choice but to
return to Iran. Iranians were fingerprinted upon entering the United
States for two reasons: First, fingerprinting was and is still necessary
because the Iranian government continues to refuse to allow American
consular officials to visit Tehran to issue visas. Iran's Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then as now ridiculed the notion of a consular
office in Tehran as a subterfuge to set up a U.S. spy center. Terrorists
can use aliases to evade computer searches, but fingerprints do not lie.
Counterfeit visas are always a problem. In 1993, Immigration and
Naturalization Service inspectors confiscated 170,000 fraudulent
documents, and that did not count what escaped their notice. In the years
since, with North Korea, Iran, and now reportedly the Islamic State
possessing machines to produce high-quality counterfeit American and
European documents, an additional check in a visa application is both
wise and necessary. Second, no diplomat should forget that Iran still
sponsors terrorism and has ordered assassinations overseas. In 2006, the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps successfully infiltrated an agent into
the Arkansas National Guard and, five years later, undertook a plot to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on American soil.
Today, of course, fingerprinting at airports in both the United States
and across the world is simply considered prudent. No government
complains that the quick fingerprinting process - often conducted
electronically - hampers business or travel, and yet those were the
arguments made when the requirement was first adopted. The same holds
true for requiring visas in advance in situations where there might be a
risk to American security. Congress is acting to protect American
security. It's about time the State Department did as well. If Kerry
refuses to uphold the law, it's long past time Congress used its power of
the purse to compel remind Kerry and his aides that they answer to
Congress and not vice versa." http://t.uani.com/1O6AnHK
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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