|
|
Top Stories
Reuters:
"Negotiations between Iran and six world powers on implementing a
landmark November deal to freeze parts of Tehran's nuclear program in
exchange for easing some sanctions have run into problems over advanced
centrifuge research, diplomats said. The dispute over centrifuges
highlighted the huge challenges facing Iran and the six powers in
negotiating the precise terms of the November 24 interim agreement...
Among the issues to be resolved in political discussions due to begin in
Geneva later this week is that of research and development of a new model
of advanced nuclear centrifuge that Iran says it has installed, diplomats
said on condition of anonymity... 'This issue (centrifuges) was among the
main factors in stopping the previous technical discussions on December
19-21,' a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity... 'As
part of the (November 24) agreement, Iran is permitted to engage in
R&D (research and development), but that is tempered by the fact that
it is prohibited to install new centrifuges, except as required by wear
and tear,' the first diplomat said... Western diplomats said they were
uncomfortable with the idea of Iran pressing ahead with the development
of more advanced centrifuges. But Iran says centrifuge research is crucial.
'We have to make sure our right to research and development is
respected,' a senior Iranian government official said on condition of
anonymity." http://t.uani.com/1dwKv6b
Reuters:
"Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday that
nuclear negotiations with world powers had revealed U.S. enmity towards
the Islamic state. Khamenei was speaking hours before the resumption of
talks between Iran and the European Union in Geneva. 'We had announced
previously that on certain issues, if we feel it is expedient, we would
negotiate with the Satan (the United States) to deter its evil,' Khamenei
told a gathering, reported by the official IRNA news agency. 'The nuclear
talks showed the enmity of America against Iran, Iranians, Islam and
Muslims.'" http://t.uani.com/1dyH9jk
AFP:
"Iran and world powers were set for new talks Thursday on how to
implement a landmark deal aimed at containing Tehran's nuclear drive,
just days before the agreement is due to take effect... Iranian, EU and
US negotiators are gathering in Geneva for their highest-level talks
since hammering out the groundbreaking November 24 deal aimed at reining
in Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Negotiators have said they aim to
implement the deal -- which also offers Iran some sanctions relief -- by
January 20. Little information has filtered out about the two-day talks,
but they were expected to focus heavily on the thorny issue of advanced
centrifuges... Iran's deputy chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi and
Helga Schmid, deputy to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, will
'discuss outstanding issues' on implementing the deal was all Ashton's
spokesman Michael Mann would tell AFP. Top US nuclear negotiator Wendy
Sherman will meet with both Araqchi and Schmid, the State Department said,
without confirming reports there would be a three-way encounter... A
Vienna-based envoy told AFP the issue of advanced centrifuges that Iran
is conducting research on was 'one of the items still to be decided' and
'is being debated a lot'. Two weeks ago, Iran's atomic energy chief Ali
Akbar Salehi said Tehran was 'testing third and fourth generations of its
centrifuges,' which were almost five times more effective that the
current ones. The problem, according to the Vienna-based diplomat, was
that the November plan 'wasn't that specific' on the issue, meaning it is
'open to interpretation by both sides.'" http://t.uani.com/KIPlXq
Nuclear Negotiations
AP:
"Under the November agreement, Iran agreed to limit its uranium
enrichment to 5 percent - the grade commonly used to power reactors. The
deal also commits it to stop producing 20 percent enriched uranium -
which is only a technical step away from weapons-grade material - and to
neutralize its 20 percent stockpile... At the same time, the agreement
allows Tehran to continue enrichment research and development - a
loophole the two officials say Iran interprets as allowing it to continue
producing 20 percent uranium at its research and development site at
Natanz, south of Tehran. Iranian negotiators say that no additional 20
percent material will be accumulated because any made at the site will be
immediately neutralized, said the officials, who represent countries that
are members of the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear agency monitoring Tehran's
atomic activities. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are
not authorized to discuss the closed meetings. But representatives of the
six powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and
Germany - argue that the preliminary Geneva deal prohibits all enrichment
above the fuel-grade mark of 5 percent, even for R&D purposes. The
two sides also are coming to the table Thursday with an additional dispute
about what can be done at the Natanz R&D site. As reported by the AP
last month, Iran told representatives of the six powers that it had
installed some advanced centrifuges at the facility after signing the
Nov. 24 deal, asserting that it had a right to do so under the R&D
provisions of the accord. That is being opposed by the United States and
its allies. They argue that installing any centrifuge that increases
overall numbers, particularly a new model, violates Tehran's commitment
to freeze the amount and type of enriching machines at Nov. 24
levels." http://t.uani.com/1e5I4v5
Sanctions
AP:
"The Obama administration enters the year locked in a battle with
Congress over whether to plow ahead with new economic sanctions against
Iran or cautiously wait to see if last year's breakthrough nuclear
agreement holds. The new sanctions, widely endorsed by both Republican
and Democratic lawmakers, would blacklist several Iranian industrial
sectors and threaten banks and companies around the world with being
banned from the U.S. market if they help Iran export any more oil. The
provisions would only take effect if Tehran violates the interim nuclear
deal or lets it expire without a follow-up accord... The standoff has
prompted sharp barbs from both sides... White House press secretary Jay
Carney has accused lawmakers of trying to spoil negotiations in Geneva as
part of a 'march to war.' ... The rhetoric has exacerbated what is
essentially a debate over tactics, not substance. All want to prevent
Iran from developing nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/19fP9K9
Terrorism
Al-Monitor:
"The relationship between the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamic Republic of Iran has gone from an
impasse - when Iran was supporting Islamist movements in the Arab region
during the past two decades - to Iran giving financial and logistical
support for the PFLP's political and military wings. The warming of ties
has come as a result of Hamas moving away from Iran due to differing
positions on the Syrian crisis. High-level PFLP sources at home and
abroad revealed to Al-Monitor that Iran has resumed its financial and
military support for the group in recent months in order to strengthen
its alliance with the 'Palestinian resistance forces' and not limit itself
to only supporting Islamist movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Al-Monitor
that several meetings were held between the PFLP leadership abroad and
Iranian officials in Beirut, Damascus and Tehran under the auspices of
Lebanonese Hezbollah. Those meetings resulted in reviving direct support
to the PFLP. 'Following the resumption of Iranian support, there will
soon be a dramatic increase in the strength of the PFLP's military wing,
the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, after the internal reorganization of the
group is completed,' the sources said." http://t.uani.com/1eult9F
Syria Conflict
Daily Star:
"Senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders paid tribute Wednesday
to slain Hezbollah commander Hassan Hawlo al-Lakkis, with Iran's defense
minister saying he played a key role as part of the 'first nucleus' of
the Lebanese resistance. Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan recounted his
own experience as part of the Revolutionary Guard group that came to
Lebanon in the 1980s to train members of what would eventually become
Hezbollah, Iranian media reported. 'The first nucleus of the Lebanese
resistance trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon
[included] martyr Sayyed Abbas Musawi and martyr Hassan Lakkis,' Dehqan
was quoted as saying by the Tasnim News Agency, in reference to a founder
and former secretary-general of Hezbollah. 'During the time I was in
Lebanon, Hassan Lakkis was my office's chief of staff. This great martyr
was loving, he didn't get tired and he loved martyrdom,' Dehqan said...
Lakkis was gunned down on Dec. 4 outside his home in Hadath, south of
Beirut." http://t.uani.com/K8dSnK
Human Rights
ICHRI:
"The Iranian Judiciary has announced charges against the seven
Internet specialists arrested in December 2013, accusing them of
collaborating with hostile foreigners and insisting on the harshest
punishment available. One month after the IRGC Intelligence Unit arrested
several Internet specialists in the city of Kerman, the Head of the Kerman
Province's Judiciary has stated the detainees' charges as 'executing
projects and plans of anti-revolutionary foreign residents,' alleging
that they worked for BBC Persian Service and the Green Voice of Freedom
Website... The Head of the Kerman Judiciary emphasized that there will be
'maximum punishment' for such individuals, although no trials have taken
place and the suspects have not yet had a chance to defend
themselves." http://t.uani.com/1ks22FS
Domestic
Politics
Al-Monitor:
"Yalasarat al-Hussein weekly, the official media outlet of Ansar-e
Hezbollah, has been suspended by Iran's Press Supervisory Board, which
announced that two other hard-line publications have also received
warnings. These actions come as 65 members of parliament issued a written
warning to President Hassan Rouhani over his approach to media critical
of his administration... Two other hard-line publications, Vatan-e Emrooz
and 9 Dey, have received warnings from the Press Supervisory Board. It
appears that the written warning to Rouhani by 65 members of parliament
about his approach to media that is critical of the administration was a
response to the suspension of Yalasarat and the warnings issued to
Vatan-e Emrooz and 9 Dey. The parliament members asked him to stick to
the ideas in a recent speech, in which he said that his administration
will tolerate criticism, especially criticism that is 'healthy,
productive and sympathetic.'" http://t.uani.com/1abyx18
Opinion &
Analysis
David Ignatius in
WashPost: "Four years ago, al-Qaeda appeared to have
been destroyed in Iraq. Last week, fighters from the group captured
Fallujah, a city where hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded in
the last decade fighting the jihadists. How did this stunning reversal of
fortune happen? Like everything else about Iraq, this is a tragic and
confusing story. But two points seem clear: First, the Obama
administration, in its rush to leave the country, allowed the sectarian
Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to undo many of the
gains made against al-Qaeda. Second, Iran has waged a brilliant
covert-action campaign that turned Maliki and Iraq into virtual clients
of Tehran - and in the process alienated Sunnis and pushed them toward
extremism. 'What is tragic is that Iraq's slide toward an Iranian axis
and civil war were not only predictable but indeed predicted by Iraq
experts within the U.S. government,' laments one former U.S. official.
'Iraq's current meltdown and its grave implications on U.S. national
security interests were entirely avoidable.' The greatest irony of all is
that Iraqis voted in March 2010 to dump Maliki in favor of an alternative
slate headed by Ayad Allawi, a pro-American former interim prime
minister. In the horse-trading that followed, however, Maliki and his Iranian
sponsors (bizarrely backed by the United States ) ended up forming a new
government, with Vice President Joe Biden, the architect of U.S. policy
(if that's the right word), proclaiming all the while that 'politics has
broken out in Iraq.' Maliki's new government has played a particularly
vengeful sort of politics. The government reneged on promises to pay the
Sunni tribal militia that Gen. David Petraeus mobilized in 2007 and 2008
to battle al-Qaeda in Fallujah and other areas of Anbar province. Many Sunnis,
fearing that Maliki's Shiite government was simply a tool of Iran, began
turning back toward sectarian warfare. The covert campaign in Iraq was
directed by Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and it included a range of different
Shiite figures around Maliki. This ability to ride many horses at once is
a mark of Suleimani's operating style. The Iranians also benefit from
intelligence relationships that in some cases date back 40 years. Iran has
drawn its cards from a full deck of Iraqi militias. Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, who allegedly helped plan the 1983 attack on the U.S.
Embassy in Kuwait, now directs the IRGC-backed insurgent group known as
Kataib Hezbollah. Qais al-Khazali, charged with kidnapping and killing
U.S. Marines in Karbala in 2007, runs an IRGC-allied insurgent group
known as Asaib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous. A third Iraqi
Shiite militia is known as the Promised Day Brigades. At Iran's covert
direction, fighters from all three militias have been sent to Syria to
battle Sunni rebels there. Iran allegedly has been able to use Iraq as a
staging ground for operations to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
thanks partly to Hadi al-Ameri, the Iraqi minister of transportation. He
headed the Badr Brigade, a pro-Iranian militia. The sectarian cleavage in
Iraq has widened since the United States departed. With Iraqi Shiites
pulled toward Iran, Sunnis were drawn back toward the jihadist orbit -
especially after Syria lurched into civil war... New Iraqi elections will
be held in April. It's a mark of Iran's tactical skill that Tehran is
said to be abandoning Maliki and searching for a new client. The United
States is picking up the slack, once more supplying Maliki with advice
and weapons. The Iranians, it must be said, play the Iraqi game with a
finesse and staying power the United States has never matched." http://t.uani.com/1e5nVFB
Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani in Project Syndicate: "When I
campaigned to become President of Iran, I promised to balance realism and
the pursuit of the Islamic Republic's ideals - and won Iranian voters'
support by a large margin. By virtue of the popular mandate that I
received, I am committed to moderation and common sense, which is now
guiding all of my government's policies. That commitment led directly to
the interim international agreement reached in November in Geneva on
Iran's nuclear program. It will continue to guide our decision-making in
2014. Indeed, in terms of foreign policy, my government is discarding
extreme approaches. We seek effective and constructive diplomatic
relations and a focus on mutual confidence-building with our neighbors
and other regional and international actors, thereby enabling us to
orient our foreign policy toward economic development at home. To this
end, we will work to eliminate tensions in our foreign relations and
strengthen our ties with traditional and new partners alike. This
obviously requires domestic consensus-building and transparent
goal-setting - processes that are now underway... That is no less true of
Iran's peaceful nuclear-energy program, which has been subject to
enormous hype in recent decades. Since the early 1990's, one prediction
after another regarding how close Iran was to acquiring a nuclear bomb
has proved baseless. Throughout this period, alarmists tried to paint
Iran as a threat to the Middle East and the world. We all know who the
chief agitator is, and what purposes are to be served by hyping this
issue. We know also that this claim fluctuates in proportion to the
amount of international pressure to stop settlement construction and end
the occupation of Palestinian lands. These false alarms continue, despite
US national intelligence estimates according to which Iran has not
decided to build a nuclear weapon. In fact, we are committed not to work
toward developing and producing a nuclear bomb. As enunciated in the
fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, we strongly
believe that the development, production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear
weapons are contrary to Islamic norms. We never even contemplated the
option of acquiring nuclear weapons, because we believe that such weapons
could undermine our national-security interests; as a result, they have
no place in Iran's security doctrine. Even the perception that Iran may
develop nuclear weapons is detrimental to our security and overall
national interest." http://t.uani.com/K8fcqF
Siegfried Hecker
& William Perry in NYT: "As Iranian and Western
diplomats continue to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program, the details
will matter more and more. Obstinacy and obfuscation will return the two
sides to deadlock. But there is hope for the long term if Iran and
America are willing to break with the past. Iran has very little to show
for its 50 years of nuclear pursuit. It has only one commercial reactor
ready for electricity production at Bushehr that was supplied by Russia
without Iran learning much about the technologies needed for the
manufacturing and construction of reactors. The country also has an aging
1960s-era American-supplied research reactor on its last legs of medical
isotope production. The heavy-water reactor Iran is building at Arak,
ostensibly for medical isotope production, remains a major hurdle in
negotiations. The current reactor design appears much better suited for
producing bomb-grade plutonium than for civilian uses - and if producing
plutonium were the goal, it would take several years for such production.
Iran's pride and joy, its uranium centrifuge program, can enrich in one
year as much uranium as the European consortium, Urenco, can produce in
about five hours. A ten-fold increase in Iran's centrifuge capacity would
be required to enrich enough uranium fuel for its Bushehr reactor alone.
And no matter how many more centrifuges Iran installs, it can never
become self-sufficient because it does not possess adequate uranium ore
reserves for a large-scale nuclear energy program. It could purchase
enrichment services on the global marketplace just as it would have to
buy the natural uranium to feed into the centrifuges. All Iran has today
is the capacity to produce small amounts of reactor fuel or, if it
decides to, one or two bomb's worth of highly enriched uranium per year
(which it would then need to weaponize). Meanwhile, the direct costs of
its nuclear pursuit have been enormous. And the indirect costs to the
nation of keeping the nuclear weapons option open, in terms of political
and scientific isolation plus economic sanctions, are staggering. If
Iran's endgame really is a civilian nuclear power program, it will
require a fundamentally different approach. The best economic option for
Tehran would simply be to get out of the nuclear fuel-cycle business
altogether, but this is unlikely given Iran's insistence on its sovereign
right to nuclear energy. A second option would be to settle for a modest
nuclear electricity program relying on the Bushehr reactor and
construction of one or two more Russian-built reactors. Iran could
maintain the current arrangement with Russia - that is, have Moscow
supply the nuclear fuel and take back the spent fuel. Iran could then
simply forgo all indigenous nuclear power development, including
enrichment and the final disposal of spent fuel. It would not be doing so
under pressure, but rather acting in its own best interest. If Iran
insists on a large and mostly indigenous nuclear electricity program, it
can succeed only through international cooperation, not isolation. Like
South Korea and Japan, Iran can never become fully independent because it
lacks large indigenous uranium resources. It takes decades for countries
without an established industrial and regulatory nuclear infrastructure
to produce large amounts of nuclear electricity and requires close
cooperation with established nuclear suppliers. The lesson for Iran,
based on other nations' experiences, is that it should concentrate on
developing the capability to fabricate reactor fuel elements and reactor
components, and learning how to build nuclear power plants. Japan and South
Korea became leading global reactor vendors by doing so. This could
constitute a pragmatic and honorable choice. Domestic enrichment would be
abandoned because it isn't economical. And Iran would forgo the
reprocessing of spent fuel because it isn't cost effective. Such a
solution offers the best opportunities for technical and industrial
development with greatest economic gain and least danger of
proliferation. For the Arak reactor, Iran can still make technical
changes that would reduce the proliferation risk and agree to send spent
fuel out of the country to eliminate concerns about plutonium production.
A radical but even better solution would be to cooperate with other
countries that sell and build reactors and tailor the design for medical
and research applications in order to limit fears of proliferation. Such
reactors are typically operated as international facilities. One is being
constructed by South Korea in Jordan and an Argentine-built reactor has
operated in Australia for the past six years. Such an arrangement would
bring Iran into a cooperative relationship with the International Atomic
Energy Agency instead of a confrontational one and integrate, rather than
isolate, its nuclear program. Sixty years after President Dwight D.
Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace program, one lesson is clear:
Civilian nuclear programs flourish only through cooperation and openness.
Secrecy and isolation are typically signs of a nuclear weapons program.
If Iran accepts these pragmatic approaches to nuclear energy, it can
resolve the nuclear stalemate in a manner that serves its people well and
is acceptable to the international community." http://t.uani.com/KIJHoe
Max Boot in
Commentary: "When it comes to Iran, hopes in
Washington appear to be outrunning the reality on the ground. Based on
the fact that Iran has agreed to a slowdown in its nuclear
program-nothing more, and even that hasn't actually been implemented
yet-many policymakers and analysts are envisioning a new alignment in
which the U.S. and Iran work together for the greater good of the Middle
East. As Jonathan Tobin wrote earlier today, this New York Times article
from Tehran, written by Thomas Erdbrink, is indicative of the current
zeitgeist. It claims that Washington and Tehran 'are being drawn together
by their mutual opposition to an international movement of young Sunni
fighters, who with their pickup trucks and Kalashnikovs are raising the
black flag of Al Qaeda along sectarian fault lines in Syria, Lebanon,
Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.' There is no doubt that Iran has cause to be
unhappy about Sunni Islamist extremists in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon who
are fighting its proxies-even going so far as to bomb the Iranian embassy
in Beirut. But that is a far cry from claiming that the U.S. and Iran share
identical goals in the region. The U.S. grand objective is pretty clear:
stability above all, even if many Americans disagree about whether
long-term stability is better achieved by backing dictatorships or
nascent democracies. Under the rubric of stability, the U.S. would
specifically like to see the defeat of al-Qaeda, the end of the Iranian
nuclear program, the negotiation of an accord between Israel and the
Palestinians, and the end of the Syrian civil war, among other
objectives. Now what is the Iranian goal? Is it stability above all?
Hardly. If that were the case, why would the Iranians be backing
insurgent groups such as Hezbollah (which is receiving long-range Iranian
rockets) and the opposition in Bahrain (which was the would-be recipient
of a boatload of arms from Iran that was intercepted by Bahraini
authorities)? Iran is a revolutionary, not a status quo power, and its
goal above all is regional hegemony. Only by accepting Iranian hegemony
could the U.S. truly get on the same page as the Islamic Republic. But
the cost of such acceptance would be so high (Do we truly want the Quds
Force dominant in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Kabul, Bahrain, Doha, Abu
Dhabi, and other capitals? Do we want to permanently alienate allies in
Saudi Arabia and Israel?) that it would be unacceptable." http://t.uani.com/1d2PjDZ
|
|
Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive
media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with
discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please
email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a
commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own
interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of
nuclear weapons.
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment