Eye on Iran: Iran's President Says West's 'Blunders' Aided Rise of Islamic State

Join UANI           Top Stories NYT: "President Hassan Rouhani of Iran delivered a searing indictment of Western and Arab states on Thursday in his annual speech to the United Nations, blaming them for sowing the seeds of extremism in the Middle East with 'strategic blunders' that have given rise to the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups. 'Certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hands of madmen, who now spare no one,' Mr. Rouhani said, adding that 'all those who have played a role in founding and supporting these terror groups must acknowledge their errors' and apologize. He also used the occasion to denounce the Western-led sanctions imposed on Iran's nuclear program and reiterated his government's desire to resolve Iran's protracted dispute with the United States and other nations over the program. He implied that the nuclear negotiations were linked to Iran's cooperation in combating the Islamic State and its affiliates, saying that no security cooperation was possible until the sanctions were lifted." http://t.uani.com/1pgd0vu Reuters: "Western strategists have long debated the spectre of Iran 'breaking out' - suddenly showing the ability to explode an atom bomb. But some see a 'sneak-out' less visible to U.N. inspectors as a possibly bigger risk and world powers have calibrated their demands in negotiations with Iran to forestall any such outcome. Under a 'sneak-out' scenario, Western officials and experts say, Iran could build a uranium enrichment plant in secret to make bomb material unbeknownst to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, now empowered to visit only Tehran's declared nuclear sites. To counter this risk, they say, any breakthrough diplomatic settlement with Iran must grant the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) broader surveillance powers in this vast country crisscrossed by remote, often inaccessible mountains and desert. 'Under current circumstances, I believe that a sneak-out from an undeclared enrichment facility is more a likely threat than a 'break-out' from a declared facility,' said Gary Samore, until last year the top nuclear proliferation expert on U.S. President Barack Obama's national security staff." http://t.uani.com/1sxwXot AP: "The U.S. is considering softening present demands that Iran gut its uranium enrichment program in favor of a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep nearly half of the project intact while placing other constraints on its possible use as a path to nuclear weapons, diplomats told The Associated Press. The initiative, revealed late Thursday, comes after months of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers that have failed to substantially narrow differences over the future size and capacity of Tehran's uranium enrichment program... The U.S., which fears Tehran may enrich to weapons-grade level used to arm nuclear warheads, ideally wants no more than 1,500 centrifuges left operating. Iran insists it wants to use the technology only to make reactor fuel and for other peaceful purposes and insists it be allowed to run at least the present 9,400 machines. The tentative new U.S. offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, said two diplomats who demanded anonymity because their information is confidential. They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead." http://t.uani.com/1sxycEi     Nuclear Program & Negotiations Reuters: "There has been no significant progress in nuclear talks between Iran and major powers and, as a result, a meeting between the two sides planned for Friday had to be called off, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday. 'At this moment when I am talking, there have been no significant advances,' Fabius told reporters. 'We were due to have a meeting this morning of the P5+1 on one side and the Iranians on the other but because of a lack of progress, this meeting (had) to be called off.' Fabius did not specify at what level such a meeting was to be held but diplomats had previously said that they had set aside time on Friday for a meeting of ministers from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Iran." http://t.uani.com/1yu3Vsz FP: "When Iranian President Hassan Rouhani came to U.N. headquarters for the opening of the General Assembly a year ago, it was the beginning of a grand love affair with the West. He wished the Jews of the world happy new year, took a historic phone call with U.S. President Barack Obama, and later inked an interim nuclear deal with the Western capitals. Sanctions against Iran eased, and Iran's wheezing economy breathed a sigh of relief. Western leaders began dreaming of a landmark rapprochement, a development that could redraw the fractious lines of Middle Eastern politics. But Rouhani returned to the United Nations this week to find that the blush of the romance has faded... [Gary] Samore, who is now president of the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, said Rouhani's optimism about finalizing a deal is 'total bullshit.'" http://t.uani.com/Yj5cCf Sanctions Relief Press TV (Iran): "The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) says country's economy has attained positive growth for the first time in two years. New figures released by the CBI on Thursday show the economy expanded 4.6 percent in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2014)... In the last Persian calendar year (ended March 20, 2014) Iran's economy shrank to -1.9 percent." http://t.uani.com/1qCdNGE Trend: "The Central Bank of Iran announced that the inflation rate for the 12-month period to the sixth Iranian calendar month (ended on September 22) hit 21.1 percent. The country's point-to-point inflation in the mentioned month was 14.4 percent, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on September 26. The point-to-point inflation rate statistics identify the rate between distinct points in time, such as the inflation rate at the end of a month compared to the rate of inflation at the end of the same month in the previous year... Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on August 20 that the country's inflation will fall below 20 percent by the end of the current calendar year (begins on March 20, 2015)." http://t.uani.com/1wNnM1a Terrorism Long War Journal: "The Treasury Department added 11 individuals and one organization to its list of specially designated global terrorists yesterday... The details in the Treasury Department's designations show how the six al Qaeda financiers and facilitators operate as part of an international network. The countries listed in the short backgrounds for the six include: Afghanistan, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen... Umar al Qatari is a Jordanian whose support for Al Nusrah 'has been broad.' He provides 'financial, material, and technological support' for both Al Nusrah and al Qaeda, according to Treasury.  Al Qatari has been tied to Muhsin al Fadhli, one of the key leaders in al Qaeda's so-called 'Khorasan group' in Syria. Al Qatari has 'worked with Iran-based al Qaeda facilitators to deliver receipts confirming that al Qaeda received foreign donor funding.' And, in late 2011, 'he delivered thousands of dollars to' al Fadhli in Iran. Al Fadhli relocated to Syria, where he has been responsible for plotting against the West, in 2013." http://t.uani.com/1vnxZRX Foreign Affairs AFP: "The lightning takeover by Shiite rebels of Yemen's capital this week is a potential boost for Iran against its rival Saudi Arabia, while the US is preoccupied with fighting jihadists, analysts said. It is still unclear what the links are between the Ansarullah, or Huthi, rebels and Shiite-ruled Iran, but Tehran will no doubt be pleased by a move that offers the prospect of expanding its influence on the Arabian Peninsula... Ibrahim Sharqieh, an analyst at Brookings Doha, said there is 'no hard evidence to confirm official Iranian backing though the issue is very clear that the Huthis receive significant support from Iran." http://t.uani.com/1rxVp7c Opinion & Analysis Matthew McInnis in RCW: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today takes the podium at the U.N. General Assembly. With Rouhani two years into his presidential term, many in the West hold out hope he will push Iran toward modernization domestically and assume a less confrontational approach abroad. Rouhani is seen as savvy and moderate, steering through a mass of treacherous hardliners in Tehran and an entrenched Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. But this is the wrong way to understand Rouhani - it likely reflects wishful thinking on our part. In the face of momentous crises and policy challenges over the past year, the president has stood firmly in Iran's political center, closely bound to Khamenei. This should not be surprising. After the tumultuous 2009 election and the internal political strife that characterized the latter years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, Khamenei was probably pleased to see one of his confidantes ascend to the presidency. Indeed Rouhani, long a regime insider, was intimately involved in the country's nuclear program, and he helped carry out a harsh crackdown on major student protests in 1999. On grave issues such as confronting the Islamic State, Rouhani has deftly managed the Islamic republic's diplomacy and its public relations. In an interview with an American news correspondent, he characterized the Sept. 22 airstrikes against the Islamic State as illegal. Earlier, he dismissed a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, labeling it 'ridiculous.' This balanced suspicions, in Iran and in the West, that some in the president's camp were pushing for broader cooperation with Washington, an effort that would cut against the Supreme Leader's implacable ideological opposition to any such shift. Nowhere has the strength of the Khamenei-Rouhani bond been more evident than in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program... Whatever the resolution of talks this fall, and however the fight against the Islamic State evolves, Rouhani's position with Khamenei will almost certainly remain secure as the president navigates critical economic reforms - with or without sanctions relief - and helps manage regional crises. Washington and other world powers should have no illusions. Rouhani is ultimately a creature of this regime, and as such, his domestic polices and diplomatic outreach will inevitably aim to preserve the Islamic republic rather than to change it from within." http://t.uani.com/1sxADqe William Tobey in Harvard's Iran Matters: "So the P5+1 are scrambling to propose ways in which Iran could maintain its installed base of uranium enrichment centrifuges, while disconnecting some of their plumbing. Putting aside sensible questions about why western diplomats would be thinking creatively about how Iran might keep more of its capabilities, it is also clear that those diplomats are fighting a losing effort on questions even more fundamental to preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had failed to provide necessary information on two agreed work-plan items aimed at resolving the 'possible military dimensions' of Iran's nuclear program, which were originally detailed in November 2011. The missing information relates to initiation of high explosives and to neutron transport calculations. The IAEA also reported that Iran has provided information and explanations related to Tehran's work on exploding bridge wire detonators, although at an August meeting, 'the Agency asked for additional clarifications, certain of which Iran provided.' These issues account for just three of the twelve reasons cited by IAEA for suspecting 'possible military dimensions' to Iran's nuclear program. Prospects for Iranian cooperation are not encouraging. Last week, Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA called the Agency's concerns on these matters 'mere allegations . . .without any substantiation,' despite having been provided with a detailed explanation of sources, facts, and continuing flows of substantiating information. So Tehran is wheedling concessions from the P5+1 allowing it to keep more and more of its enrichment capabilities, while blocking all but 'very limited progress' on the fundamental issue--Iranian efforts with direct applications to nuclear weapons. It is necessary to get to the bottom of these activities to prevent a covert Iranian program from circumventing any future deal on the declared facilities. Meanwhile, the Western negotiators are beginning to feel a 'sense of desperation' about the November 24th deadline for an agreement. This was an entirely predictable situation. To avoid the trap, the P5+1 must slow their concessions to Tehran and gear overall progress in the talks to supporting the IAEA in its efforts to resolve questions related to the 'possible military dimensions' of Iran's nuclear program. If instead, Western negotiators, driven by their sense of desperation, want an agreement in the worst way, that is exactly what they will get--the worst agreement for those seeking to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/1rowmC2    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.