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FP: "Iranian officials spent the
frantic final weeks before last year's nuclear agreement pushing
Washington to eliminate a long-standing U.N. prohibition on its ballistic
missile program. They didn't get the ban scrapped, but they did get it
softened. Now, eight months later, a recent series of Iranian missile
tests has many in Washington angrily calling for new sanctions on Tehran.
But Obama administration officials shouldn't be surprised by Iran's
decision to test its standing on the international stage to fire the
missiles: To the contrary, the nuclear deal may have made the missile
launches inevitable. Before the July 2015 nuclear pact, Iran was
expressly prohibited by U.N. resolutions from launching ballistic
missiles capable of developing nuclear weapons. U.N. Security Council
resolution 1929 states that the 15-nation body 'decides that Iran shall
not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of
delivering nuclear weapons.' In U.N. legal parlance, invoking the word
'decides' places an unambiguous legal obligation on all states to comply.
But in exchange for Iran's signature on the landmark nuclear accord, the
United States granted Tehran greater wiggle room to advance its ballistic
missile program. Last July's U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 -
which endorsed the nuclear pact - replaced the prohibition with more
permissive language: 'Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity
related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering
nuclear weapons.' At the time, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and
other top administration officials portrayed the concession as a victory,
saying they had successfully rebuffed attempts by Iran, supported by
China and Russia, to eliminate the prohibitions on ballistic missiles
altogether. Instead, the United States secured an agreement to maintain
restrictions on Iran's ballistic missiles for up to eight years. There's
just one problem: The updated measures are neither legally binding nor as
restrictive than the measures in place at the time of the nuclear pact.
In essence, resolution 2231 provides Iran with a loophole big enough to
develop medium- and long-range missiles without the risk of running afoul
of Security Council dictates. It also complicates efforts to define what
kinds of missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead." http://t.uani.com/22nt7zT
Al-Monitor: "Congress has a message for
Russian arms dealers eyeing Iran: Forget about it. Senate Foreign
Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., wants to force the Obama administration
to harshly deal with any conventional arms transfers to Tehran. The move
is part of a three-pronged sanctions strategy that would also renew the
expiring Iran Sanctions Act and punish Iran for its recent ballistic
missile launches. 'In the event there are violations, the snap-back
provisions that are a part of the [nuclear] agreement mean that there has
to be something to snap back to,' Corker told Voice of America last week.
'So extending that, dealing with conventional weapons and dealing with
ballistic missiles are three areas that I think we have a possibility of
reaching consensus on.' While those missiles have received most of the
attention, recent reports that Russia is considering selling Sukhoi Su-30
fighter jets and military helicopters have also drawn congressional ire.
Under the nuclear deal with Iran, such weapons transfers remain
prohibited for five years unless authorized by the UN Security Council,
but Corker is worried that the current administration may be reluctant to
harshly punish such violations to avoid undermining the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 'Russia is getting ready to sell,
or has announced that they're going to sell, Su-30s,' Corker told
Al-Monitor. 'Hopefully it's not going to occur, but we're trying to do
what we can to prevent that kind of thing from occurring.' ... The
chairman is working with ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md., and other
lawmakers on the sanctions package." http://t.uani.com/1R0idJf
Reuters: "Iran's planned execution of
billionaire Babak Zanjani for corruption will mask the identity of senior
officials who supported him, say the president and two lawmakers
independently assessing a case that has fueled public cynicism about
political graft. Hundreds of Iranians have taken to social media to vent
their frustration about the opaque nature and outcome of the judicial
proceedings against the businessman, who says he was backed by powerful
officials during the term of hardline former President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Zanjani has said he helped Iran circumvent sanctions by
selling its oil abroad. He was arrested in 2013 and detained in Tehran,
accused by the judiciary of pocketing more than $2.7 billion for oil sold
on behalf of the Ahmadinejad government, months after moderate President
Hassan Rouhani won power campaigning against corruption in government...
The case has highlighted the complexities of Iran's system of clerical
and republican rule where power is wielded by both elected and unelected
officials. But much remains unclear, including any involvement of
government figures in Zanjani's financial transactions, due to the opaque
nature of the Iranian political and judicial systems. Rouhani, who says
he wants to wipe out the corruption that spread during his predecessor's
tenure, has publicly criticized the handling of the case. The president
has questioned who enabled Zanjani to carry out deals involving huge sums
of money and whether that money can be recovered if he is executed 'Who
protected him and created a space for him to do such things?' Rouhani
said at a gathering during a visit to the city of Yazd last week. 'What
the people want is to know how and with who's permission this individual
was able to sell oil and where has all of this money gone now?'
'Execution isn't going to solve any problem,' he added... 'Executing the
accused will allow the hands behind the scene, who were even more
responsible for this case than the accused, to be forgotten,' Hussein
Dehdashti, an independent lawmaker, said on March 6 after the sentence
was announced, according to the Islamic Consultative Assembly News
Agency. Amir Abbas Soltani, another independent lawmaker on the
committee, said: 'The government officials who were corrupt and
profiteering are still being protected and have not been
confronted.'" http://t.uani.com/1U9kR1Z
Sanctions
Enforcement
Bloomberg: "MasterCard Inc., the
second-largest U.S. payments network, received a finding of violation
from the Treasury for failing to report accounts held by two Iranian
banks that were placed on a list in 2007 that prohibits U.S. entities
from dealing with them. MasterCard had already restricted the Bank Melli
and Bank Saderat accounts by that point,because of sanctions the U.S. had
imposed on Iran in 1995, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
said in a statement Wednesday on its website. However, the company failed
to report the accounts as blocked, which is required. 'MasterCard's OFAC
compliance program appears to have lacked internal controls that would
have prevented, or later identified the oversight of, the violations,'
according to the statement. The funds in the accounts never reached the
sanctions banks, OFAC said. MasterCard wasn't fined for the violation.
'We voluntarily alerted OFAC of our inadvertent failure to report assets
of two Iranian banks that MasterCard had frozen many years ago,' said
Seth Eisen, a spokesman for Purchase, New York-based MasterCard. 'We take
very seriously our compliance obligations and regret that this violation
occurred.'" http://t.uani.com/1WsV7uU
Sanctions
Relief
VOA: "A senior Iranian official has
warned that if Iran does not benefit from increased trade following the
nuclear deal with the West, the consequences for his nation would be
grave. Speaking at London's Royal United Services Institute in London
following a meeting with the British prime minister, the Iranian
President's Chief of Staff Mohammed Nahavandian was frank about the
reason for his visit. 'After this nuclear deal, there is a real, serious
opening up in Iran for economic relations. If it does not happen, and
tangible results do not follow, the damage will be out of any
calculation,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1Mp9B9H
Bloomberg: "Iran could begin making parts
for Airbus Group SE aircraft under plans being discussed following
January's historic agreement to purchase 118 jetliners from the European
manufacturer. Airbus's Middle East office said the company is evaluating
areas of industrial cooperation with Iran that may include component
production and maintenance and overhaul work. Iran developed an ability
to make plane parts in order to keep its aircraft flying during years of
economic sanctions. Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association
President Amin Salari said in an interview in Tehran that it can offer
both 'a level of know-how' and very competitive labor costs. Should an
agreement be reached, Iran will join Mubadala Development Co.'s Strata
unit as a Middle Eastern parts supplier to Airbus." http://t.uani.com/1XxzEBi
Chemistry
World: "A
clutch of chemical companies have made, or are considering, investments
in Iran... Several projects have been confirmed, and many others are in
negotiations. Danish catalyst and process technology firm Haldor Topsoe
is opening an office in Tehran and is planning a new methanol plant in
Chabahar in southern Iran. Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has comitted to
building a manufacturing plant in Iran. Talks are reportedly underway
with German chemical companies BASF and Linde, as well as Japan's Mitsui
Chemicals, regarding investing in petrochemical facilities in Assaluyeh
(southern Iran). This site is part of the Pars Special Economic Energy
Zone, where a huge petrochemical complex is being builit, close to one
one of the biggest gas fields in the world. Iran's National Petroleum
Company (NPC) is also reportedly in negotiations with France's Air Liquide
to build a methanol-to-propylene plant, and the Italian Institute for
Foreign Trade Insurance Services (SACE) has signed several agreements
with Iranian banks and government bodies, which may have implications in
petrochemical investment." http://t.uani.com/1S69MLu
Tehran
Times: "The
Iranian Foreign Ministry's director general for political and
international affairs said on Wednesday that four more Iranian banks have
been connected to Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunication (SWIFT). Hamid Baidinejad said the four banks consist
of Mellat Bank in Yerevan, Tejarat Bank in Dushanbe, Bank Melli Iran in
Baku and Iraq, IRNA reported. Baeedinejad pointed out that 26 Iranian
banks have been re-connected to SWIFT since sanctions were lifted on
January 16. He said that seven other Iranian banks have applied for
reconnection." http://t.uani.com/1MaLd0t
Terrorism
JPost: "General Qassem Suleimani, the
commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, reaffirmed
Iran's commitment to the Palestinian resistance in a secret meeting with
Hamas's delegation to Iran on Wednesday, al-Mayadeen Arab news site
reported. The Palestinian delegation, headed by the chairman of Hamas's
political bureau, Musa Abu Marzouk, met secretly with senior Iranian
figures, including the secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security
Council, Ali Shamkhani, Shura Council Chairman Ali Larijani and Qassem
Suleimani." http://t.uani.com/21wP5L7
Syria
Conflict
WSJ: "Unlike Syria's other
neighbors, Israel has by and large stayed away from the war that is
ripping the country apart. But that doesn't mean it isn't deeply
interested in how the five-year conflict ends-or that its interests are
necessarily aligned with Washington's. The Israeli government's priority
is clear: to stop the rise of Iran as a regional power following last
year's nuclear deal and the lifting of international sanctions on Tehran.
It is an approach that has increasingly aligned Israel with the
anti-Iranian, Sunni Muslim camp led by Saudi Arabia. Asked in an
interview to state Israel's main objective in Syria, Dore Gold, the
director-general of the foreign ministry, said: 'At the end of the day,
when some kind of modus vivendi is reached inside of Syria, it is critical
from the Israeli standpoint that Syria does not emerge as an Iranian
satellite incorporated fully into the Iranian strategic system.'" http://t.uani.com/1R0gNyf
Regional
Destabilization
Fars
(Iran): "A
senior army commander said Iran plans to deploy commandos and snipers in
Iraq and Syria as military advisers. 'At some point we might decide to
use our commandos and snipers as military advisers in Iraq and Syria,'
Deputy Chief Liaison of the Army's Ground Force General Ali Arasteh told
reporters in Tehran on Wednesday. He said the first group of commandos
and snipers are being trained for the purpose and the country might
decide to send them to Iraq and Syria in the near future." http://t.uani.com/1R0CJYR
Human
Rights
JPost: "Two 17-year-old Jewish
teenagers were arrested in Tehran earlier this week after they were
caught spray painting a building in the center of the Iranian
capital with the words 'Death to Haman,' according to a report in The
Jerusalem Post's sister Hebrew publication Maariv. Details of the
incident quickly came to the attention of various US Jewish
organizations. According to the latest reports, the two have not yet been
released. The Iranian Jewish community expressed concern for the safety
and the future of the teenagers in light of past cases in which
imprisoned Jews disappeared. 'Based on the details that came from
Iran, the Tehran police promised to release the two boys, both 17, after
it was made clear to them that this is not a political act, but a simple
Purim prank, but as of now, the boys have not been released,' said one
official dealing with the issue according to the report." http://t.uani.com/1UCtC39
Opinion
& Analysis
WSJ
Editorial: "The
Obama Administration made many promises about its nuclear deal with Iran,
and this week we've learned that another one turns out to be false.
Sanctioning Iran for violating its commitments really does depend on the
acquiescence of those famously good global citizens, Russia and China.
That's the lesson from Russia's refusal to go along with U.S. pressure to
sanction Iran for its latest ballistic-missile tests. The Islamic
Republic test-fired at least two missiles this month with ranges of some
1,200 miles and a payload capacity of up to one ton, which is more than
enough to deliver a nuclear warhead. That's an apparent violation of
Security Council Resolution 2231, agreed last year in connection to the
deal, which 'called upon' Iran not to build or test nuclear-capable
missiles for eight years. Iran never had any intention of honoring the
resolution, and Moscow-which is in talks to sell Iran as much as $8
billion in advanced weapons-has no intention of enforcing it. 'A call is
different from a ban so legally you cannot violate a call,' Vitaly
Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the U.N., explained this week. Russia
wields a veto on the Security Council, so Administration cajoling is
futile. Such resistance makes nonsense of Administration promises that it
didn't need Russia's cooperation to restore sanctions if Tehran cheats.
'Snapback sanctions' was one of the main slogans by which wavering
Democrats like New York's Kristen Gillibrand were won over during last
summer's congressional debates. Another slogan-'unprecedented
verification'-amounted to a brief, one-time visit by U.N. inspectors to
Iran's military site at Parchin. It would be nice to think the next U.S.
President could walk away from an agreement that Iran won't honor and we
cannot enforce. But it would take years to restore the global sanctions
regime to what it was before the deal. Don't expect Iran's nuclear and
missile programs to remain frozen in the meantime." http://t.uani.com/1pw98Oa
Saeed
Ghasseminejad in HuffPost: "Reformists did not win Iran's elections in February,
but they certainly dominated the headlines. Judging by the coverage in
major U.S. news outlets, the Islamic Republic's first elections since
last summer's nuclear deal resulted in a resounding victory for the
forces of democracy, moderation and closer ties with the outside world.
The truth is starkly different. In the Assembly of Experts - a body of
Muslim clerics that chooses Iran's supreme leader - hardliners won 75
percent of the seats, while independents and relatively more pragmatic
revolutionaries won the rest. In parliament, the pragmatists - though not
'moderates' in any meaningful sense - scored better, gaining about 28
percent of seats, while its harder-line rivals won 27 percent,
independents took 22 percent and the remaining 23 percent will be decided
in an April runoff election. So what caused the impression in Western
media of a reformist victory in parliament, and the notion that the
Assembly of Experts results mean its members could select a 'moderate' as
the next supreme leader? It's this: an astounding 80 percent of
candidates for the Assembly and 50 percent for parliament were disqualified
by the Guardian Council - the body that vets candidates for their
ideological commitment to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Consequently,
non-hardliners did not have enough candidates with relatively 'moderate'
credentials for their list, and had to rely on hardliners to fill it.
These include Ali Movahedi-Kermani, the supreme leader's former
representative to the ultra-hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A
week after signing the nuclear deal he delivered his Friday prayer behind
a podium bearing the words, 'We will trample upon America.' They also
include Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi - a former intelligence minister
responsible for a string of assassinations against intellectuals in the
1990s - as well as Mohammad Reyshahri, another ex-intel minister who
oversaw the murder of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, and
Yousef Tabatabaee-Nejad, who slammed opponents of the headscarf as
'infidels' and encouraged violence against women who don't adopt strict
Islamic dress. In Tehran, longtime hardliner Kazem Jalali had an
overnight epiphany and ran on the more pragmatic ticket, despite his
previous demand for imposing harsh punishment on the jailed leaders of
the reformist Green Movement. Others on the putatively moderate list
include Mustafa Kavakebian, who has described Israelis as 'not human.'
The so-called reformists even supported parliamentary speaker Ali
Larijani, who co-led the hardliners' counterattack against the reform
movement during the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, neither
Khamenei nor the Revolutionary Guard was threatened by February's ballot.
They have successfully neutralized the reform movement, including the
Green Movement of 2009, which was quashed by regime brute force in
fraudulent elections that saw the return of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
to the presidency. Today, most reformist leaders are either in jail or
under house arrest. To make it clear that the results do not alter Iran's
behavior, the Revolutionary Guards launched a several ballistic missiles,
including the long-range Ghadr H missile with a specific message written
on it in Hebrew: 'Israel should be wiped off the Earth' Why should
Americans care about Iran's elections? What happened this February was
hardly an election in the way that Americans understand the word. Voters
were allowed to choose only candidates who adhere to Iran's official
ideology, who even once elected, have their power strictly limited by
unelected institutions." http://t.uani.com/1nQXLig
Michael
Rubin in Commentary:
"That Iran hasn't invaded anyone or, indeed, started a war in more
than two centuries has become a talking point for those advocating trust
and outreach to Iran... The Iranian regime knows when it has got a good
thing going. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif yesterday tweeted,
'Iran hasn't attacked any country in 250 years. But when Saddam rained
missiles on us and gassed our people for 8 yrs, no one helped us.' But is
it true that 'Iran hasn't attacked any country in 250 years' as Zarif and
his fellow travelers insist? Not quite. Between 1804 and 1813, Iran and
Russia fought a bloody conflict in the Caucasus which ended with the 1813
Treaty of Gulistan... Then there was the Anglo-Persian War of
1856-1857... But that's ancient history, right? After all, isn't it
quibbling to say that Iran actually hasn't waged aggressive war in 150
years rather 250 years? Maybe Zarif was just confused. Alas, Iranian
aggression has a longer history. In 1968, British Prime Minister Harold
Wilson announced that Britain would withdraw 'from east of Suez' within a
few years. As the British Navy pulled back from the Persian Gulf in 1970,
Iranian forces seized Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tonbs, islands
that legally belonged to Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates. At the time,
the United States turned a blind eye toward Iranian aggression. After
all, under the Nixon Doctrine, Iran was a pivotal state through which the
United States hoped to bring stability to the Middle East. The Islamic
Republic has only doubled down on that occupation, transforming those
islands-and Abu Musa in particular-into Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) bases. Indeed, in the course of talk about returning Abu Musa
(though not its waters) to the United Arab Emirates, it transpired that
the IRGC has used the island as a chemical weapons depot... Then there's
Hezbollah. About a decade ago, the Islamic Republic's first two
ambassadors to Lebanon gave a lengthy interview to Asharq al-Awsat, the
largest circulation pan-Arab newspaper, in which they detailed Iranian
involvement in the creation of Hezbollah. In its initial years, Hezbollah
focused just as much on attacking other Lebanese groups as it did Israel.
Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 (and the United Nations certified
its withdrawal) but Hezbollah precipitated a war in 2006 by staging a
cross-border raid into Israel. While Hezbollah has constantly framed
itself as a resistance organization, it turned its guns on fellow
Lebanese in 2008 in a fight for control over revenue. More recently, it
has carried out aggressive ethnic and sectarian cleansing inside Syria on
behalf of the Assad regime. It is an Iranian proxy through and through.
I've been to Hezbollah bunkers before at Mlitta, in southern Lebanon.
That they are decorated with posters of Khomeini and Khamenei, rather
than any Lebanese figures, should put to rest the notion that Hezbollah
is a Lebanese nationalist organization. And, of course, there's the
Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein certainly started that conflict, but the
Islamic Republic sought more than to return to the status quo. In 1982,
Iran had more or less pushed the Iraqi invaders out of its territory.
Khomeini was considering a ceasefire but, according to former president
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's memoirs, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps pressured/convinced Khomeini to keep the war going until they met
the goal of 'liberating Jerusalem.' There followed six more years of
bloodshed at the cost of perhaps a half million more lives. And, while
pedantic, Zarif might want to remember that the missiles flew both ways
during the Iran-Iraq War, as did the chemical weapons (although,
admittedly, Iraq used them first). Then there's the issue of 'Export of
Revolution,' defined in both the Iranian constitution and the founding statute
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as an essential part of the
Islamic Republic. In 2008, according to the Iranian newspaper Emruz
(Today), former President Mohammad Khatami suggested 'Export of
Revolution' was just a call to utilize soft power to show the superiority
of the Islamic Republic's system... That would be all well and good if
the matter dropped there. But the IRGC was outraged and protested
Khatami's remarks. Three weeks later, Ayatollah Shahroudi, one of the
Supreme Leader's closest associates, ended the debate once and for all,
declaring to a group of IRGC, 'Know your worth since today you are the
hope of Islamic national and Islamic liberation movements.' Then, of
course, there's the fact that not only has Iran become the largest state-sponsor
of terrorism, but it also continues its efforts to attack Israel with a
declared goal of eradicating the Jewish state. This isn't simply the case
of the most recent Iranian ballistic missile launch... So is it true that
Iran hasn't invaded anyone in the last 200 or 250 years? No. Zarif has
long had trouble with the truth... since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has
been perhaps the most aggressive state in the Middle East, launching more
attacks against neighbors and deploying its military far more widely and
aggressively than any other country. It's time to get real." http://t.uani.com/1RQGYUx
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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