Friday, June 28, 2019

Eye on Iran: Iran Threatens To Pull Out Of Nuclear Treaty, Like North Korea



   EYE ON IRAN
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Iran raised the stakes in its standoff with the U.S. and Europe on Thursday, warning that if the 2015 nuclear agreement unravels, it would follow the path of North Korea and quit a treaty aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. The threat, voiced by an Iranian official to reporters, marked the first time Tehran has explicitly used its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, as leverage in its talks with European officials over keeping its commitments in the separate 2015 deal. 


Diplomats said Iran is on course to breach a threshold in its nuclear agreement within days but U.S. President Donald Trump, who has ratcheted up pressure on the Middle Eastern country, said there was "absolutely no time pressure" on the issue. The prospect that Tehran could soon violate its nuclear commitments, a week after Trump called off air strikes on Iran at the last minute, has created additional diplomatic urgency to find a way out of the crisis.
  

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has warned that Iran's retaliatory actions against U.S. will target America's allies in the region, and around the world. He also warned that U.S. sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could lead to the mobilization of people across the globe who "are in love with the Islamic Revolution."

NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM


Iran's UN ambassador said Europe isn't acting with enough urgency to stop his country from breaching terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. European Union members said Wednesday that Instex, a payment vehicle intended to circumvent U.S. sanctions, was almost ready, but Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi said that may not suffice. "Personally, I don't think it will be enough," he told reporters in New York on Thursday. "It took them more than a year to put this in place, and it's still not operational. It's as if you have a beautiful car, you enjoy looking at it, but there's no gas inside. So all you can do is look."


An Iranian official says Iran's growing stocks of enriched uranium don't violate the international accord aimed at curbing its nuclear development. Amid growing tensions with the U.S., Iran is poised to push its low-enriched uranium stocks beyond a 300-kilogram limit that is part of the 2015 deal with world powers. The Iranian official said Iran was 2.8 kilograms below the limit as of Wednesday and another assessment won't be done until "after the weekend."


President Donald Trump arrived at a gathering of world leaders Thursday searching for support for a new deal to curtail an increasingly aggressive Iran. He's not likely to find any. Not only do other countries still support a 2015 nuclear pact, they're skeptical Trump can strike a better agreement within the time constraints of his fast-approaching reelection campaign, especially after Iran recently proclaimed the end of diplomacy with the U.S.


Iran said Friday's meeting in Vienna between the remaining signatories of the nuclear deal was the "last chance" to save the accord after the U.S. withdrawal last year and warned Tehran would not accept "artificial" solutions to U.S. sanctions. Iran is threatening to exceed the maximum amount of enriched uranium allowed it by the deal, in retaliation for crippling U.S. economic sanctions imposed in the past year. It is just days away from that limit, diplomats say, and going over it could unravel the accord.

SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS  


European signatories to the Iran nuclear deal are scrambling to get a barter-trade arrangement with Tehran up and running this week, in an effort to persuade Tehran not to breach limits on enrichment set out in the agreement. Iran has threatened to break the limit on its stockpile of low-enrichment uranium as early as Thursday. But it is considered likely to hold off until after a meeting in Vienna on Friday with the remaining signatories: Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union.


With the U.S. already sanctioning almost 1,000 Iranian entities, President Donald Trump had limited choices when he opted to impose new penalties to punish Iran's downing of a U.S. Navy drone in the Persian Gulf last week. In the event, he went big, directly targeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among other officials. Through his position, Khamenei, 79, oversees extensive holdings in Iran.


The U.S. policy of maximum economic pressure on Tehran is working but the sanctions do not give Iran the right to breach its nuclear commitments, a senior U.S. official said on Monday. U.S. Special Representative on Iran Brian Hook was speaking in an interview before a meeting with senior French, British and German diplomats in Paris to convince them that the Trump administration's policy of crippling sanctions was the best way to get Iran back to the negotiating table.


Asia's crude oil imports from Iran fell in May to the lowest in at least five years after China and India wound down purchases amid U.S. sanctions, while Japan and South Korea halted imports, data from government and trade sources showed on Friday. Total imports from Asia's top four buyers came to 386,021 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude in May, down 78.5% from a year ago to the lowest monthly level since the data began to be collected by Reuters in 2014.


U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook has said the United States is denying Tehran up to $50 billion in oil revenue exports as a result of sanctions imposed on Iran. Since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran in 2018, daily oil exports have dropped from more than two million barrels a day to around 300,000.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS


Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urged North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies on Thursday to join the U.S. in countering what he called Iran's malign activities in the Persian Gulf, in a first outing on the world stage for the former industry executive-turned-Pentagon chief. Mr. Esper, who had been serving as Army secretary until this week, presented a forceful case in public remarks here for why all alliance nations should be concerned about Iran, asking them to publicly denounce Tehran as well as take part in initiatives to monitor and counter disruptive Iranian actions.


Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said tensions with Iran risk escalating "out of control" and urged the Iranian regime to take up President Donald Trump's offer of negotiations. Speaking in Brussels after his first meeting with counterparts from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Esper also stepped up a call for "like-minded" nations to team up to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf area after recent attacks on oil tankers that the U.S. has blamed on Iran.


The United States does not want a full-blown war with Iran, although it still is seeking to build up international defenses in the region just in case of a conflict, President Donald Trump's special envoy to the country said Thursday. The big question is whether other countries are ready to join with Washington. So far, Europe is favoring diplomacy instead. Iran is poised to surpass a key uranium stockpile threshold, threatening an accord it reached in 2015 with world powers aimed at curbing its nuclear activity.


Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper appealed to NATO allies on Thursday to publicly denounce Iran's hostile actions and consider participating in a still-evolving plan to better safeguard strategic waterways around the Strait of Hormuz. Esper, at NATO headquarters in his international debut as Pentagon chief, also called for help moving tensions with Iran from a military path - which included Iran's downing of a U.S. drone last week and an aborted U.S. military response - to a diplomatic one. 


Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he came away with no firm commitments from NATO allies to participate in a global effort to secure international waterways against Iran. He says the U.S. will provide more details to allies next month on how the Iranian threat has escalated and how they can work together to deter further aggression. The U.S. has blamed Iran for recent attacks on oil tankers near the Persian Gulf.


Iran's foreign minister said on Twitter on Thursday that US President Donald Trump's view that a conflict with Iran would be a "short war" was an illusion and that his threat of "obliteration" amounted to threatening "genocide." "'Obliteration'=genocide=war crime," Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter "'Short war' with Iran is an illusion."


Is the president of the United States bouncing off the walls in different directions from one moment to the next when it comes to Iran?  That is how one Democratic senator, Tammy Duckworth, describes his standard operating procedure. "It's endangering our nation on national security," she tells me. To be fair, Mr Trump did consult congressional leaders about whether to take retaliatory strikes after Iran shot down that unmanned US drone last week. 
  
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM 


The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not listed in its entirety as a terrorist entity by the government of Canada, despite its long record of support for acts of terror. Instead, only the Qods Force, the armed wing of the IRGC, is listed as a terrorist group. It is of grave concern to both the grassroots Jewish and Iranian communities in Canada that only one segment of an infamous state-sponsored terrorist army is recognized as a terrorist group.

MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS


The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps downplayed the risk of military conflict with the United States. Speaking at a June 27 IRGC ceremony introducing new commanders, Ali Fadavi said, "Despite the passing of 30 years since the end of the war [with Iraq] ... no one has dared fire at us during this time." He added, "The military strength of the Islamic Republic of Iran has resulted in America and its allies not daring to fire one bullet at us."  

IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS


Iranian authorities have seized about 1,000 bitcoin mining machines in two abandoned factories, state television reported, after warnings that the activity had led to a spike in consumption of government-subsidized electricity. "Two of these bitcoin farms have been identified, with a consumption of one megawatt," Arash Navab, a power official in the central province of Yazd, told the television. 

CONGRESS & IRAN


The Senate is set to vote on a bill requiring President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for any military action in Iran -- one of the few measures considered by the Republican-led chamber to curtail his war-making ability. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed the vote, but it wasn't easy to schedule. It will begin early Friday morning for senators trying to head home for the Independence Day recess, and it could stay open for much of the day to allow the six senators running for president to fly back from the Democratic debates in Miami.


Political unease over the White House's tough talk against Iran is reviving questions about President Donald Trump's ability to order military strikes without approval from Congress. The Senate is heading toward a vote Friday on an amendment to a sweeping Defense bill that would require congressional support before Trump acts. It's not expected to pass. But lawmakers say Trump cannot continue relying on the nearly two-decade old war authorizations Congress approved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to continue to act against Iranian entrenchment in Syria, days after a high-level trilateral meeting with the US and Russia. Netanyahu also warned that an Israeli retreat from the Jordan Valley in the West Bank would lead to war, speaking at a ceremony for pilots graduating from the Israeli Air Force's 178th flight school training program. "We will continue to act against Iran's attempt to establish itself in Syria, with the air force having a central role," Netanyahu told the new pilots.


As Iran is the main party fueling Palestinian resistance factions, questions are being raised regarding the stance of these factions if a military confrontation were to break out between Iran and the United States. What are the chances of such a confrontation leading to a new clash between factions and Israel, which is the key US ally against Iran in the Middle East? After Iran downed a US drone June 20, the odds of a US-Iran military confrontation peaked.


Kosovo has now included Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations. The World Jewish Congress lauded the move as a "principled step in the critical quest for international peace and security." "The global community has been terrorized for more than three decades by Hezbollah and its operatives, who have executed their violent actions under the patronage of the Islamic Republic of Iran across nearly every continent," declared World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder in a statement on Thursday.

OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS    


German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday would cover a wide range of topics including trade, investments, West Africa, counter-terrorism and Iran. Speaking to reporters ahead of the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) leaders' meeting in Osaka, western Japan, Trump called Merkel a "great friend of mine" and praised trade between the two countries.


Scott Morrison says Australia has not yet been asked to take part in any military action in Iran but says any request from the Trump administration will be considered "seriously and on its merits". The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has asked Australia to toughen its stance on Tehran and play a key role in a new "global coalition" against the regime. Tensions between the US and Iran are at their worst point since the White House pulled out of what the president said was an "unfair" nuclear deal known as the joint comprehensive plan of action in May last year.

CYBERWARFARE


A cyber attack on Iranian missile systems, claimed by the US last week, would have had to exploit a flaw in the heavily-guarded network, experts say. Citing US official sources, American media last week reported that the Army Cyber Command had crippled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's air defence units that shot down a sophisticated drone on June 20.






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@uani.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.

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