Eye on Iran: Israel's Netanyahu: Iran Poses Greater Threat than Islamic State

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday tried to shift the spotlight away from the Islamic State militant group and back to Iran, warning the United Nations that a nuclear-armed Tehran would pose a far greater threat than 'militant Islamists on pickup trucks.' ... 'Make no mistake, ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated,' Netanyahu added. 'But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.' 'It's one thing to confront militant Islamists on pickup trucks armed with Kalashnikov rifles, it's another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction,' Netanyahu said... 'Iran's nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled,' Netanyahu said. He added that the goal of a charm offensive by Iran's 'smooth talking president and foreign minister' was to get international sanctions lifted 'and remove the obstacles to Iran's path to the bomb.'" http://t.uani.com/1uyFcRn WSJ: "U.S. lawmakers will need to weigh additional sanctions against Iran and the U.S. effort to combat Islamic State fighters when they return to Washington in November, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Monday, underscoring the foreign policy challenges currently confronting U.S. policymakers... The Obama administration has dissuaded lawmakers from leveling additional sanctions against Iran while the talks are ongoing, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said they could move quickly to pass additional sanctions if negotiations falter. Mr. Hoyer said he has already started discussing the issue with Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'I think potential sanctions are on the table depending upon what happens on the 24th of November,' Mr. Hoyer said of the chance for action during the lame duck. Western powers need to make clear to Iran that there won't be additional reductions to existing sanctions unless talks are moving in a direction the U.S. finds acceptable. 'Iran has to believe that the military option is not off the table, and two, that further economic sanctions are likely if an agreement is not reached,' Mr. Hoyer said." http://t.uani.com/1pDRccB Asharq Al-Awsat: "Forces with links to Iran and Shi'ite Lebanese militia Hezbollah are helping Houthi rebels to strengthen their hold on the Yemeni capital Sana'a, intelligence sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'Elements affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, who were training Houthis in the north of Yemen, are currently present in the capital Sana'a,' an intelligence source, who requested anonymity because he was not permitted to brief the media, told Asharq Al-Awsat. Following a month of protests against Yemen's central government, Houthi militants last week gained control of key government buildings in Sana'a and looted the homes of top government officials. Members of the Iranian elite force and Hezbollah are helping the Shi'ite rebels implement their political and military agenda in the country, the source said." http://t.uani.com/1ByeUxj     Nuclear Program & Negotiations Al-Monitor: "Iran's insistence that UN Security Council resolutions on its nuclear program be lifted at the front end of a final nuclear deal has emerged as an unexpected sticking point in the negotiations, diplomats say. Western diplomats said if a final nuclear deal is reached, the United States and European Union would quickly waive and then lift unilateral, proliferation-related economic sanctions on Iran that would provide a rapid windfall to Iran's economy. (However, the US trade embargo on Iran, enacted after Iran's 1979 seizure of the US embassy and hostage crisis, would remain in place, a senior US official said.) A new UN Security Council resolution outlining the deal and what steps all sides had agreed on would also be passed, western diplomat said. But the lifting of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran's nuclear program would be step-by-step and tied to Iran's compliance with the terms of the deal, as well as cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe into past possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, the western diplomats said." http://t.uani.com/1u8JflP Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Asian buyers imported less than 1 million barrels per day of Iranian crude for the first time this year in August as China's buys hit the lowest since the easing of Western sanctions, although intake was still up 6.4 percent from a year ago... The interim agreement between Iran and world powers that went into effect in January allowed Tehran to keep exports at the reduced level of about 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Imports by Iran's four major clients in Asia topped that mark in each of the first seven months of the year, rising to as much as 1.37 million bpd in February, although there has not been any apparent crackdown on the higher volumes. Iran's biggest buyers - China, India, Japan and South Korea - together in August took in 921,064 bpd of the Islamic republic's crude, down 10.5 percent from a seven-month low hit in July and the lowest since last October, government and tanker-tracking data showed. For the first eight months of 2014, the four buyers' imports averaged 1.15 million bpd, up 23.6 percent from the same period last year." http://t.uani.com/1vrKATc Shana (Iran): "The sales manager of Austria's Erema Plastics Recycling Systems said the presence of European exhibitors at the 9th Iran Plast exhibition in unprecedented. Horst Roeder is Erema's manager of sales to customers in Brazil, Iran, Pakistan, Portugal and Spain. He said his company is willing to expand its ties with Iran and strengthen its foothold in its market, and added that there are so many customer awaiting Erema's products. He underlined the years long presence of Erema in the Iranian market, and said the company has run pavilions at Iranian petrochemical exhibitions for years." http://t.uani.com/1u8KPnT Human Rights Guardian: "A 37-year-old man has been executed in Iran after being found guilty of heresy and insulting prophet Jonah, according to human rights activists. Mohsen Amir-Aslani was arrested nine years ago for his activities which the authorities deemed were heretical. He was engaged in psychotherapy but also led sessions reading and reciting the Qur'an and providing his own interpretations of the Islamic holy book, his family said. Amir-Aslani was hanged last week for making 'innovations in the religion' and 'spreading corruption on earth', but human rights activists said he was a prisoner of conscience who was put to death because of his religious beliefs. He had interpreted Jonah's story in the Qur'an as a symbolic tale." http://t.uani.com/1xwX4gK IHR: "Reyhaneh Jabbari's scheduled execution has been postponed for 10 days and she is transferred back to her old prison ward at Gharchak prison of Varamin (southern Tehran). The death row prisoner Reyhaneh Jabbari was transferred yesterday (Monday September 29) to Rajaishahr prison of Karaj (West of Tehran) and the execution was scheduled for this morning. The news of her scheduled execution received broad attention inside and outside Iran." http://t.uani.com/1tdKufq ICHRI: "The Iranian Judiciary should immediately release the Iranian physicist and prisoner of conscience, Omid Kokabee, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. Kokabee has multiple serious health problems and requires immediate medical attention. The Campaign has learned that Kokabee's health is in great danger as he is suffering from heart, kidney, stomach, and dental illnesses. On September 26, 2014, in an open letter to Iran's Leader, Ali Khamenei, eighteen physics Nobel laureates called for the 'immediate and unconditional' release of Kokabee. The letter was published in the leading scientific journal Nature." http://t.uani.com/1vrKXgF Foreign Affairs Reuters: "Iran will supply the Lebanese army with military equipment to be used in fighting Muslim extremist groups, a visiting senior Iranian official said on Tuesday. The announcement marks the first time that Iran has said it would give Lebanon military assistance. Tehran has offered help in the past but such offers did not materialize because of sharp divisions among Lebanese political groups over Iran." http://t.uani.com/1ounKWZ Opinion & Analysis UANI President Gary Samore in IISS: "Earlier this month I gave a talk at the IISS Global Strategic Review in Oslo, focusing on the status of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and in particular the prospects for completing a comprehensive agreement by the deadline of November 24. Since then I've spent some days in New York for events around the UN General Assembly opening. My conversations there confirmed my fairly pessimistic prognosis for a November deal, so what I said in Oslo still looks right to me. Since the extension of the Joint Plan of Action for four months on July 24, the negotiators have established a more sensible process, with fewer formal multilateral P5+1 meetings with Iran in favour of more bilateral sessions, including two extended meetings between the full Iranian and American teams in Geneva in August and September. These bilateral US-Iran talks have continued in New York. This procedural shift is useful because the P5+1 format is too cumbersome for real negotiations. Any deal will have to be negotiated directly by the US and Iran and then ratified by the P5+1 and ultimately the UN Security Council. Unfortunately, the two sides remain very far apart on the most contentious and important issue in the negotiations: Iran's status as a nuclear weapons threshold state. This refers to Iran's physical capacity to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium, which is determined by the technical details of Iran's enrichment program, such as the number and types of centrifuge machines, size of the stockpile of enriched uranium, limits on enrichment levels, restrictions on research and development, etc. The US is demanding that Iran significantly reduce its existing enrichment capacity (equal to about 10,000 operating IR-1 centrifuges) and maintain these restrictions for up to 20 years. Iran, on the other hand, rejects any reduction of its current capacity and insists on building up a much larger industrial scale capacity within a few years. I could imagine a compromise that would require very difficult and painful concessions from both sides, but neither side feels compelled to make such hard choices. The Supreme Leader seems to believe that the Ukraine Crisis and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has weakened and distracted the US and reduced pressure on Iran to meet P5+1 demands. He also appears confident that Iran's economy - under President Rouhani's more competent management - is better equipped to withstand a resumption of sanctions if the Joint Plan of Action expires. By the same token, I see no sign that President Obama is prepared to accept a 'bad deal' that would allow Iran to retain or develop a significant enrichment capacity in the near term. Such an agreement would badly damage US strategic interests, deeply upset US allies in the region, and face stiff Congressional opposition at a time when President Obama wants to focus his energies on prosecuting the campaign against ISIS. Moreover, the US administration also believes it can put additional pressure on Iranian oil exports if the talks collapse because growing oil supply and decreasing demand has created a soft international market in which further restrictions on Iranian oil exports would not trigger price increases. So, at this stage, it's difficult to see how a comprehensive deal can emerge by late November." http://t.uani.com/1Bwb1sT    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.