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Top Stories
WSJ: "Royal
Dutch Shell PLC and Vitol Group SA met Thursday with Iran's oil
minister in Vienna, the minister said, as Tehran takes its first steps
toward reopening its energy industry following decades of sanctions. As
it tries to lure back oil companies, Iran also signaled it could offer
production-sharing agreements in the Caspian Sea. Such deals are
considered attractive to companies but haven't been awarded in Iran
since the 1970s. Bijan Zanganeh, who was in Vienna for the meeting of
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he had met
with executives from Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, the world's largest
oil trader Vitol, Austria's OMV and Italy's Eni SpA... As it hopes to
increase its oil sales, the Islamic Republic is also courting European
buyers of oil, which last year were banned from importing the commodity
from Tehran. These sanctions have reduced crude-oil exports from Iran
by more than half since the beginning of last year. 'With OMV, we
discussed about many things and [with] Shell only about the general
willingness for cooperation in future and placing the money that we
have in account of Shell,' Mr. Zanganeh told reporters. Sanctions
against Iran have meant Shell has been unable to pay billions of
dollars it owes to Tehran. 'A various range of cooperation' was
discussed with Vitol, he said. Vitol, which declined to comment, is
discussing possible purchases of condensates once sanctions are lifted,
according to people familiar with the situation. OMV and Shell also
declined to comment. Speaking as he exited the meeting, Eni Chief
Executive Paolo Scaroni said, 'We plan to continue to be in Iran and
possibly increase our activity as long as the sanction regime is
lifted.'" http://t.uani.com/1eV0Xjm
Reuters:
"U.N. inspectors are to visit an Iranian plant on Sunday linked to
a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel,
taking up an initial gesture by Iran to open its disputed nuclear
programme up to greater scrutiny... It will be the first time in more
than two years that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is
allowed to go to the Arak heavy-water production plant, which is
designed to supply a research reactor under construction nearby. The
improved access will enable the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog to
better 'understand' the activities there, IAEA Director General Yukiya
Amano said last week when he announced that Iran had invited his
experts to come on Dec. 8. Iran's atomic energy organisation said this
underlined the country's 'goodwill to remove ambiguities about the
peaceful nature of its nuclear energy programme', Press TV, Iran's
English-language state television, reported on Wednesday. But Western
diplomats and nuclear experts stress that Iran must do much more in
order to fully address suspicions that it has been trying to develop
the capability to assemble nuclear weapons, a charge the Islamic
Republic denies." http://t.uani.com/18IjkcT
AFP:
"President Barack Obama on Thursday defended his nuclear diplomacy
with Iran before an audience of Israeli diplomats and senior members of
the US Jewish community and officials. At a White House Hanukkah
reception, Obama said that it was important for the United States to
test Iran's intentions, and pledged to keep working for a comprehensive
deal to deprive Tehran of a nuclear weapon. 'For the first time in a
decade we have halted progress of Iran's nuclear program,' Obama said.
'Key parts of the program will be rolled back even though the toughest
of our sanctions remain in place. That is good for the world, that is
good for Israel,' Obama said, vowing to keep striving for a final deal
with Iran over the coming months that takes care of the 'threat of
Iran's nuclear weapons once and for all.' Obama also said however that
Washington must remain vigilant and that its commitment to Israeli
security would remain 'iron clad' and 'unshakeable.'" http://t.uani.com/1hCdWdO
Nuclear
Negotiations
FT: "Israel is shifting its tactics over the Iran nuclear talks,
moving from fierce public criticism of the Obama administration to
private pressure about the next stage of the negotiations, according to
US, Israeli and western officials... 'Our opinion is still that the
first deal was a move in the wrong direction,' said an Israeli
official. 'But that's water under the bridge and we will now focus on
what is going to happen in the coming months.' ... Dennis Ross, a
former senior White House adviser on the Middle East, said that one of
the main worries of the Israelis was that the talks would drag on far
beyond six months, which would undermine international support for the
tough sanctions regime. 'We need to be talking with the Israelis about
what happens if there is no deal in six months and the Iranians
effectively opt to have other interim steps or freeze the situation,'
he said. He also suggested that the US and Israel should re-establish a
working group that existed in Mr Obama's first term to discuss sanctions
on Iran. 'The purpose would be to plug any holes and shine a spotlight
on those trying to do business with Iran in defiance of the existing
sanctions,' Mr Ross said. 'We could do a great deal to emphasise the
reputational costs to deter companies from thinking about doing
business with the Iranians.'" http://t.uani.com/1blm1uZ
Reuters: "Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Iran
next week to discuss the interim deal reached by world powers and
Tehran over its nuclear programme and other issues, Russian news
agencies reported on Friday... During the visit on Tuesday and
Wednesday, Lavrov plans to discuss the situation surrounding Iran's
nuclear programme 'in the context of the agreements recently reached in
Geneva', Interfax quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as
saying." http://t.uani.com/18o1N7f
Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran's leading oil negotiator says Tehran wants Western
oil companies to revive its giant ageing oilfields and develop new oil
and gas projects once sanctions are lifted. Mehdi Hosseini, in charge
of revising Iran's oil investment contract, told Reuters that oil
companies will find it hard to pass up Iran's 'low cost, low risk'
investment opportunities that will be offered on more attractive
commercial terms due to be revealed in early April at an energy
conference in London. 'We will have many promising projects for the
international oil companies,' said Hosseini, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan
Zanganeh's former deputy. 'Brown fields, green fields and exploration
blocks - in both oil and gas.' ... 'We need technology and investment
from the IOCs to help reverse the depletion of these oilfields,' he
told Reuters by telephone from Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1jtSLdr
Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry assured Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that core sanctions against
Iran would remain in place despite its interim nuclear deal with world
powers... 'Steps must be taken to prevent a further erosion of
sanctions,' said Netanyahu, who has described a nuclear-armed Islamic
Republic as a mortal menace to the Jewish state... 'I can't emphasize
enough that Israel's security in this negotiation is at the top of our
agenda and the United States will do everything in its power to make
certain that Iran's nuclear program, the program's weaponisation
possibilities, is terminated,' Kerry said. The Obama administration was
warning any other country against 'moving ahead of sanctions' in
trading with Iran, Kerry said. 'The fundamental sanctions regime of oil
and banking remains absolutely in place. It is not changed. And we will
be stepping up our effort of enforcement through the Treasury
Department and through the appropriate agencies of the United States,'
Kerry said." http://t.uani.com/1blo1H2
Politico: "The Obama administration's closed-door push to hold off
new congressional sanctions on Iran will go public next week. On
Thursday, two of President Barack Obama's point people on Iran - top
State Department official Wendy Sherman and top Treasury Department official
David Cohen - will testify before the Senate Banking Committee. They
are expected to publicly make the case that they have been making in
private for weeks in a series of classified briefings for lawmakers.
The officials will likely urge the committee not to take up a fresh
round of economic penalties on Iran while Obama's team tries to finesse
a permanent agreement with Iran to wind down the country's nuclear
program in return for some economic relief. Sherman and Cohen privately
briefed dozens of largely skeptical House members on Wednesday on the
guts of the six-month interim deal that Western powers struck with Iran
last month to temporarily pause sanctions in return for a scaleback of
the country's nuclear ambitions. According to a Treasury official,
Cohen told House members that the agreement is 'limited, temporary, and
reversible' and that the Treasury Department 'will continue to enforce
sanctions aggressively.'" http://t.uani.com/18o5QQK
Syria
Conflict
AFP: "Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday a peace
conference on Syria slated for January should lay the groundwork for
'absolutely free' elections. 'The ground should be prepared for holding
an absolutely free election with no preconditions,' Rouhani told
visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the presidency website
reported. Rouhani, whose country backs Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, said the conference should also aim for the 'complete
expulsion of the terrorists from Syria,' using the regime's term for
its foes. 'It is our mutual responsibility to defend the ideals and
demands of the Syrian nation in all international conferences,'
especially at the so-called Geneva 2, he said." http://t.uani.com/1jtUwHs
Human Rights
Fox News: "The Obama administration faced renewed criticism
Thursday for entering nuclear talks with Iran without first demanding
the release of U.S. citizens, following reports that imprisoned pastor
Saeed Abedini is facing threats on his life from other prisoners. 'It
is unconscionable that senior American diplomats, including the
secretary of State ... could not bring themselves to even mention his
name, or those of fellow Americans detained in Iran,' Sen. Ted Cruz,
R-Texas, said in a statement. The State Department earlier faced
criticism after a six-month deal with Iran was announced that rolled
back sanctions in exchange for a pause in parts of Iran's nuclear
energy program. The department acknowledged that the status of Abedini,
and other American prisoners, was not part of those discussions." http://t.uani.com/1d0TcGY
Domestic
Politics
NYT: "President Hassan Rouhani, who was surprisingly elected in
June promising to end the nuclear crisis, improve the economy and
restore the 'dignity of Iranians in the world,' has together with his
administration gone out on a limb to try to convince his people that
good times are underway. They point to a 14 percent gain in Tehran's
stock market since the signing of the deal, the stabilization of the
national currency and a drop in the inflation rate. Mr. Rouhani has promised
that the agreement is a first step to 'the collapse of the sanctions
regime.' Western companies, such as the French oil giant Total and
Anglo-Dutch Shell, have said they are eager to return to the Iranian
market, as have the French automakers Renault and Peugeot. 'Following
our victories in domestic and foreign policy, now people have got their
eyes on the economy,' the minister of the economy, Ali Tayyebnia, told
a semiofficial news agency last week... Some experts on the economy
cautioned that the euphoria could be short-lived. 'It shows people are
desperate for good news,' said Kevan Harris, a Princeton University
sociologist who conducts research on Iran's economy and travels
regularly to the country. 'Bad news can prick that bubble.'" http://t.uani.com/1eUZ9qz
WSJ: "Iran is ready to consider production-sharing agreement for
its Caspian Sea resources, the country's oil minister said Thursday.
Though no final decision has been made, the considerations are the
latest example of Iran's efforts to bring oil companies back once
sanctions are lifted amid progress in nuclear talks. Speaking to
reporters in Vienna, Iran's Bijan Zanganeh said 'We can consider it...I
can't promise it' about awarding PSAs in the Caspian Sea. This type of
contract is popular with foreign companies but they have not been
awarded by Tehran in at least four decades. The considerations to award
PSAs in some limited cases are part of a broader effort by Mr. Zanganeh
to revise the country's unattractive oil contracts. Though common in
Africa, PSAs have proved a divisive issue in the Middle-Eastern oil
sector--Iran included--because they allow foreign companies to book
reserves from oil fields." http://t.uani.com/18o0khe
Foreign
Affairs
BBC: "Since taking the job in August, Mohammad Javad Zarif has
held talks in New York; gone to Geneva three times in order to reach an
interim nuclear deal with a group of world powers; and this week, on a
tour of the Gulf, he gets stamps for Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and the
United Arab Emirates. The message he is hoping to convey is obvious;
Iran is under new diplomatic management. The Islamic Republic's new
government, led by President Hassan Rouhani, has set out to improve the
country's position in the region and in the world. In particular, Mr
Rouhani and Mr Zarif want to drain some of the tensions built up during
the eight year administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In recent years,
those tensions were aggravated in the Gulf. In 2011, Iran even
threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's relationship with the
Gulf has largely been overshadowed by its historic rivalry with Saudi
Arabia." http://t.uani.com/Iw4s57
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI President Dr. Gary Samore in Iran Matters: "I am
leaving Israel more concerned than when I arrived. Based on two days of
intense discussions with current and former Israeli officials, the
level of Israeli distrust and anxiety over the Iran deal is worse than
I expected. Part of the Israeli complaint is procedural. They resent
being kept in the dark about the secret U.S.-Iranian meetings in Oman
(even though Israeli intelligence learned about the meetings) and fear
that the U.S. and Iran may have already reached secret agreements on
the terms of a final deal. They are shocked at how quickly the interim
deal came together and complain that a tougher U.S. posture that
extended the negotiations for several more rounds could have produced a
more favorable interim agreement. They don't accept the argument that
President Obama decided to seize the opportunity rather than run the
risk that it would slip away because of opposition in Tehran and
Washington. Fundamentally, according to my Israeli contacts, Prime
Minister Netanyahu suspects that President Obama has shifted from a
policy of preventing Iran from getting a bomb to a de facto policy of
containment in order to avoid war and kick the Iranian issue into the
next administration. Specifically, the Israelis complain that the
interim agreement makes no mention of the requirement for Iran to
suspend its enrichment program in accordance with UN Security Council
resolutions, as - the Israelis claim - Washington repeatedly promised
to include in any agreement. Instead, the agreement accepts that Iran
will be allowed to have a 'mutually defined' enrichment program
'consistent with practical needs,' which the Israelis fear will be
interpreted in the final deal to allow Iran to retain a substantial
enrichment capacity. Israeli fears were aggravated by a November 27
story by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, citing US government
sources, on US demands for a final deal. Among them, according to
Ignatius, 'the United States will press Iran to dismantle a substantial
number of its roughly 19,000 centrifuges, perhaps more than
half.' [emphasis mine] Sensitive to any hints of U.S. concessions,
Israeli officials believe the U.S. may be prepared to accept as many as
9,000 centrifuges, which the Israelis say could give Iran the ability
to produce a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium within a few months,
if Iran retained a sufficient stockpile of low enriched uranium.
As one of my Israeli contacts said, 'We can't live with that.' ... Most
of my Israeli friends hope to avoid a political confrontation with
Washington. Indeed, they are looking for ways to resume cooperation
against the common threat of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The
upcoming meeting between the new Israeli National Security Adviser
Yossi Cohen and U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice in Washington
could be a positive turning point. First, Washington will explain its
demands for the upcoming negotiations with Iran for a final deal. Most
of these demands, as conveyed to Ignatius (such as closure of the
Fordow facility and elimination of the Arak heavy water research
reactor), would serve President Obama's expressed intent that a final
deal should make it 'impossible' for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
The crucial issue will be the scope and scale of enrichment in Iran
that the U.S. is prepared to accept in a final deal. The Israelis are
unlikely to come off their demand for zero enrichment for fear that the
U.S. will pocket any concessions, but the U.S. also has an interest in
ensuring that "break out" time is extended beyond a few
months. Second, both the U.S. and Israel have a common interest in
developing a strategy to ensure that the remaining sanctions remain in
force during the negotiations of a final agreement. Without this
leverage, US hopes to negotiate a favorable end state will
evaporate." http://t.uani.com/1ceLUxJ
UANI Advisory Board Member Walter Russell Mead in WSJ: "Could the
Saudis and Israelis be cooking up a little diplomatic revolution of
their own to offset the shift in American policy toward Iran? The
temporary nuclear agreement between Iran and the world's major powers
has this pair of America's oldest and closest Middle East allies deeply
worried. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a bevy of
Saudi officials attacking the deal, Jerusalem and Riyadh are torn
between rage and fear. The question is whether this matters. The U.S. is
the world's only superpower, and its security guarantees have been the
pillar of Israeli and Saudi defense thinking for a very long time. As
long as U.S. domestic politics give President Obama the leeway he needs
in the Middle East, U.S. officials and commentators appear to believe
that the Saudis and Israelis will have to live with whatever Washington
does. Perhaps. The Saudis and Israelis are status-quo,
stability-seeking powers. Maybe they will stand by and watch while a
U.S. president they neither trust nor respect remakes the region. But
maybe not. The two countries could instead forge an entente, informal
or formal. Just as Saudi support for the coup in Egypt thwarted two
years of painstaking if farcical American efforts to promote 'a
transition to democracy' in the land of the Nile, so the Saudis and
Israelis could throw some serious wrenches in the Obama
administration's Iran strategy. Riyadh and Jerusalem have common
interests that are not limited to preventing Tehran from acquiring
nuclear weapons. The Saudis believe Iran is leading Shiites in a
religious conflict with Sunnis now engulfing the Fertile Crescent. They
fear that the Islamic Republic, nuclear or not, poses an existential
threat to their security as the Shiite tide rises... Yet necessity has
made stranger diplomatic bedfellows. From the Saudi point of view,
times are grim. The Sunni Arab world is in a fight for survival against
the Shiites, but without Israeli help the weak and divided Sunnis may
not stand. There has already been some discussion, public and private,
about a relatively weak form of Saudi-Israeli collaboration against
Iran. In this scenario, Israeli jets would overfly Saudi territory as
part of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Saudi sources
hint that the Israeli air force would encounter no Saudi resistance.
The obstacles against a successful attack on Iran may be too great even
using Saudi airspace. But an agreement that let Israel use Saudi bases
for takeoff and refueling could tip the military balance enough to make
a difference... Those who think the Israelis and Saudis will have to
accept whatever treatment the Americans dish out may be right. But if
access to Saudi facilities changes the calculations about what Israeli
strikes against Iran can accomplish, the two countries have some
careful thinking to do. It would be an error for American policy makers
to assume that allies who feel jilted will sit quietly." http://t.uani.com/1ceLc3p
Kimberley A. Strassel in WSJ: "The Iranian mullahs might be
negotiating a nuclear deal with Secretary of State John Kerry, but the
man they've got their eye on is Sen. Chuck Schumer. As should we all.
As the Senate mulls exercising some necessary oversight of the Obama
administration's historic fold on Iran, the member who now holds
ultimate power over whether that body acts is the senior senator from
New York. Mr. Schumer has spent the past week busting on the White
House deal, and calling for additional sanctions. What the mullahs are
banking on is that Mr. Schumer is, per usual, playing a double game.
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and
his Republican counterpart, Illinois's Mark Kirk, are crafting
legislation to impose a new tranche of sanctions on Iran if it cheats
on the interim accord, or if the administration fails to cement a
legitimate deal within six months. This puts Mr. Obama on notice that
any final agreement must hit certain markers, even as it makes clear to
Iranians that the price of deception will be greater economic pain. Yet
Mr. Obama wants to be left free to concoct whatever weak deal he can
claim toward a legacy. He's also desperate to avoid another public
rebuke from his party (on top of ObamaCare). So the White House is
lobbying key senators to stand down and taking a strident line against
Senate action. Even sanctions 'with a delayed trigger,' insists White
House Press Secretary Jay Carney, would 'undermine the negotiations.'
Assisting is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose only planetary
function these days is as left tackle for the White House. Mr. Reid
shuffled the sanctions question to the Banking Committee, where
Chairman Tim Johnson can be counted on to run out the clock. Only one
other legislative vehicle is positioned to pass the Senate this
year-the defense authorization bill-and Mr. Reid seems primed to block
a sanctions amendment, or squash the bill altogether, to protect the
president's Iranian dealings. The only man with the juice to change
this is Sen. Schumer. Third in the Senate leadership, a member of the
body's most powerful committees, Mr. Schumer fashions himself his
party's staunchest defender of Israel... Publicly, Mr. Schumer has
derided the Geneva accord with Iran, arguing that the White House's
generous sanctions relief is 'disproportional' to Tehran's meager offer
to freeze some of its nuclear program, maybe. He's publicly embraced
additional sanctions, arguing that they will only prove effective if
Iran has 'the psychological fear that they will get worse.' ... The
senator has a huge opportunity this week-by simply holding by his
stated principles-to be remembered as the guy who stepped up forcefully
to contain Iran. Or not. His donors and constituents, like the mullahs,
need to be watching." http://t.uani.com/1blhvga
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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
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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
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