Thursday, February 26, 2015

Eye on Iran: Why Israel Is Fighting Obama's Iran Deal








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Politico: "Days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial address to Congress, Israeli officials are citing a little-understood element of the Iran nuclear talks as their chief concern about a potential deal. Concerns that a final deal restricting Iran's nuclear program will 'sunset' any agreement as early as 2025 have thrown a new jolt into Israeli officials who had grown resigned to the idea that Obama will allow Iran a greater uranium enrichment capability than they would like. 'Ten years is nothing. It's tomorrow from our point of view,' said Yaakov Amidror, who served as national security adviser to Netanyahu from 2011 to 2013. 'It's a license for Iran to be a threshold nuclear state.' A former Obama Pentagon and State Department official who met with Israeli officials this week said he heard 'resigned acceptance' on some aspects of the nuclear talks. But not on the question of a nuclear deal's duration... Critics say that after the expiration of any deal's natural life, Iran would be free to use the reactors it was allowed to keep operational for peaceful purposes like producing electricity and instead use them to produce as much fuel for nuclear weapons as it likes. Once it had a large stockpile of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, Iran could fashion nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks, perhaps faster than the international community would be able to react. It's not just the Israelis who are upset. Citing reports of a 10- to 15-year sunset period at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, the panel's top Democrat, Robert Menendez, called that 'a matter of time that is far less than anyone envisioned.' ... One person who talks regularly with members of Congress about Iran says that until recently, many were unaware a nuclear deal would have any sunset clause at all." http://t.uani.com/1zhILZe

AP: "In his sharpest criticism yet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that world powers 'have given up' on stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons in ongoing negotiations. Netanyahu's comments, at a meeting of his Likud Party outside of Jerusalem, come as he plans to address the U.S. Congress on the nuclear negotiations... In his remarks, Netanyahu said that the greatest challenge Israel faces is 'the threat of Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons with a declared goal of annihilating us.' 'From the agreement that is forming it appears that they (world powers) have given up on that commitment and are accepting that Iran will gradually, within a few years, develop capabilities to produce material for many nuclear weapons,' he said. 'They might accept this but I am not willing to accept this.'" http://t.uani.com/1BZkkGS

Al-Monitor: "As negotiators close in on a possible nuclear agreement with Iran, David Albright, one of the most widely quoted Washington experts on the issue, says that a formula that allows Iran to operate 6,000 rudimentary centrifuges but keep a stockpile of only 500 kilograms (2,205 pounds) of low-enriched uranium (LEU) would provide assurance that Iran could not produce fuel for a nuclear weapon for a year without detection... Gary Samore, also a former US nuclear negotiator, expressed surprise at Albright's calculations, saying that another expert, Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, figures that 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges and 500 kilograms of LEU would yield a breakout time of seven months... For Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center and former IAEA deputy director general, 6,000 centrifuges is excessive. Iran does not have enough natural uranium to provide fuel for its one functioning electric power reactor at Bushehr, for which Russia currently supplies fuel. There are also ample amounts of highly enriched uranium around the world - a legacy of the Cold War - that Iran could obtain for use in reactors that produce medical isotopes, Heinonen said. Under the 2013 interim agreement, the P5+1 said Iran could have enough enriched uranium to meet its practical needs, which Heinonen estimated could be met by as few as 1,000 centrifuges. 'Make it small and beautiful,' Heinonen said." http://t.uani.com/1LIXt45

   
Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Reuters: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited the holy city of Qom on Wednesday to appeal to its clergy, religious students and lay people to back his efforts to strike a deal with major powers over the country's disputed nuclear program... The senior clergy of Qom, a center of religious authority in the Islamic Republic, has long played a key role in Iranian politics, shaping public opinion and mobilizing the population, and some hardline figures among them still need convincing. Rouhani's speech could be an attempt to tamp down their criticism before the deadline for the outlines of an agreement expires at the end of March. The next round of talks is expected to start on March 2 in Geneva... 'In the negotiations, we will not accept imposition, humiliation and the continuation of sanctions,' Rouhani said, according to Fars News." http://t.uani.com/1EuxUld

Sanctions Relief

WSJ: "Messrs. Pakzad and Mehran are members of a tightknit community of middlemen, most of them educated abroad, that help Iranian companies navigate the maze of financial and trade restrictions imposed on their country by the U.S. and its allies, who say the Islamic republic is pursuing a nuclear weapon... The problem: 'Banks are terrified of dealing with Iranian business, even when it's legal,' said Xavier Houzel, a consultant who advises European companies on trade with Iran. That gray area is where Messrs. Pakzad and Mehran thrive. To obscure the Iranian origin of the funds needed to pay for the aircraft parts, they decide to tap a bank account in China where Iran keeps some of its money from oil exports. Because sanctions prevent the Iranian central bank from bringing these offshore dollars home, Iran encourages its companies to use them to pay foreign suppliers. The companies reimburse the central bank with funds held in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1Euxqvo

Trend: "Iran sold 529 trillion rials (about $19.6 billion) of crude oil and gas condensates in the first 10 months of the current Iranian fiscal year, which began on March 21, 2014. Iran's Treasurer General Rahmatollah Akrami said the income was 81.7 percent of the figure projected in the national budget, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on Feb. 25. Compared to the corresponding figure in the same period last year, the figure rose by 26.9 percent, he said. The administration's general revenues hit 724 trillion rials (about $26.8 billion) in the 10-month period, a 43.8 percent rise year on year, he added. He also said that tax revenues amounted to 540 trillion rials (about $20 billion), a 50.1 percent rise year on year. The tax income was 92.3 percent of the figure projected in the national budget, he noted. The Iranian Oil Ministry's official Facebook page released a report Jan.5, indicating that the country's current oil export, including the gas condensate is about 1.4 million to 1.5 million barrels per day. Iran exported about 1.1 million barrels of crude oil and 400,000 barrels of gas condensate during 2014." http://t.uani.com/1FXT6Sp

Trend: "A Turkish firm will invest $720 million to build a highway in northwestern Iran. Esmaeil Jabbarzadeh, governor general of Iran's East Azarbaijan Province, said that the Tabriz-Bazargan highway will be built by a joint venture through Turkish Bergiz Company, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on Feb.25. Some 30 trillion rials (about $1.2 billion) will be invested in the project, he said, adding that 65 percent of the sum, equal to $720 million, will be invested by the Turkish company and the rest will be invested by the Iranian Transport and Urban Development Ministry." http://t.uani.com/1zJ7ZAJ

Sanctions Enforcement

AP: "A former defense contractor accused of sending sensitive information about U.S. military jet programs to his native Iran in an effort to land a job there pleaded guilty on Wednesday. Mozaffar Khazaee entered his plea to violating the Arms Export Control Act in federal court and faces up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing for Khazaee, who's 60, is set for May. Federal prosecutors said Khazaee, who used to live in Manchester, stole information about engines used in the F35 Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 Raptor programs from three employers, including East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney. He tried to use that information to get a job with multiple state-controlled universities in Iran from 2009 to 2013, authorities said." http://t.uani.com/1Du1ju9

Iraq Crisis

AFP: "The United States and Iran have a 'mutual interest' in defeating the Islamic State group but the long-time foes are not cooperating to do so, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday. 'They are totally opposed to ISIL and they are in fact taking on and fighting and eliminating ISIL members along the Iraqi border near Iran and have serious concerns about what that would do to the region,' Kerry told lawmakers, referring to IS by another acronym. 'So we have at least a mutual interest, if not a cooperative effort.'" http://t.uani.com/1ANSZUX

Human Rights

ICHRI: "In a letter addressed to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the Swiss-based organization responsible for administering the World Cup soccer competitions, 190 Iranian activists have asked FIFA to suspend Iran's membership in FIFA, in response to the Iranian government's ban on the presence of Iranian women in soccer stadiums. The letter, addressed to FIFA chief, Sepp Blatter, and signed by prominent Iranian activists such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, Parastou Forouhar, Mohammad Maleki, and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, states that 'The Islamic Republic of Iran's refusal to allow Iranian women into stadiums to watch soccer matches, a practice started in 1982, has moved us to seek your assistance as the highest official of FIFA, towards removal of this unfair ban.'" http://t.uani.com/1wfsh3p

IHR: "Four prisoners have been hanged in the prison of Rasht during the past two days, reported the official Iranian media." http://t.uani.com/1FusMM8

Foreign Affairs

AFP: "Iran denied Wednesday that it has played any part in a Shiite militia's power grab in Yemen, an accusation levelled by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Speaking to US lawmakers Tuesday, Kerry said 'critical' support of the Huthi militia by Shiite-dominated Iran 'contributed' to the collapse of Yemen's government. Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham responded by saying Kerry's statement 'is nothing but a blame game completely in contradiction to what was previously mentioned by US officials.'" http://t.uani.com/1zKBL8f

Reuters: "A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced six Iranians, three of them in absentia, to life in prison for kidnapping a British businessman who went missing in Dubai in 2013, newspapers reported on Thursday. Abbas Yazdi, a businessman of Iranian descent who owns a general trading company in Dubai, disappeared in June 2013 and his wife, Atena, told a UAE newspaper at the time that she feared he may have been kidnapped by Iranian intelligence officers. Iran has denied any role in Yazdi's disappearance." http://t.uani.com/1ap2G3F

Opinion & Analysis

Robert Joseph & William Tobey in NRO: "The administration's defenders are vigorously rebutting allegations that President Obama has made too many concessions in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Their defense is a simple statement of fact: There is no agreement yet, so how can the critics be right? They assert that we must wait until the outcome is agreed upon before we can assess it. The concern, however, is both bipartisan and international - with many Democrats voicing alarm and with Israel and the Arab states alike frustrated that a seemingly desperate administration has placed Iran's interests above those of its allies. While Obama's defenders are technically accurate in that Iran has not yet agreed to what has been placed on the negotiating table, press reports citing U.S. officials have provided information on the status of all key issues under consideration and the likely provisions of an agreement, if Tehran is ultimately able to take yes for an answer. Of course, if current negotiating trends continue, the terms could get even worse than described below. They certainly won't get better... The greatest concession in the negotiations has been the abandonment of the original U.S. goal of preventing Iran from having a nuclear-weapons capability. This was a consistent and firm position of the Bush administration. It was also the position of the Obama administration until November 2013, when it was given up to secure Iran's consent to the Joint Plan of Action. Soon after that, Secretary of State Kerry described the new U.S. goal as taking Iran's 'breakout time' from two months to six to twelve months - as if we would know when the clock began, and as if we could do something effective to stop the breakout within that timeframe. The reality is that we have traded permanent concessions for temporary restrictions that will leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state able to build a nuclear weapon whenever it decides to do so. When the deal ends, Iran can openly go to the brink of nuclear weapons with the blessing of the international community. The Obama administration will almost certainly try to portray its nuclear deal with Iran as better than no deal, and will accuse those who oppose the agreement as choosing war over peace. Nothing could be further from the truth. A bad deal is far worse than no deal. A bad deal leaves Iran with a nuclear-weapons capability, which would be far more destabilizing than a return to tough sanctions. A bad deal undermines the IAEA's attempts to get to the bottom of Iran's covert weapons work. A bad deal undermines the Nonproliferation Treaty, leading to additional dangers around the world. A bad deal is a step toward conflict and more nuclear proliferation in a region of vital U.S. interest. Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability is the surest way to prevent war and preserve peace. To that end, the negotiators should return to the table insisting upon limits that will permanently block Iran's paths to nuclear weapons and resolve the IAEA's concerns about Tehran's nuclear-weapons work as a condition of an agreement. The real choice is not between the administration's deal and war, but between preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and capitulation." http://t.uani.com/1zhN3jn

William Tobey in FP: "In Washington, 10 years is a long time - more than two presidential terms. In the antique land of Persia, however, it is the blink of an eye. Those negotiating a nuclear deal with Tehran need to equal the patience of their Iranian counterparts. Now the Associated Press reports that under a deal being negotiated in Geneva, the central restrictions on Iran's nuclear program would be phased out after lasting only 10 years. This is almost inconceivable. Surely no president would accept an agreement with a term shorter than the time it took to negotiate it. Surely no president would trade permanent concessions in return for temporary restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. And surely, no president would put an international seal of approval on an outcome in which Iran could return to a breakout time of two months or less (which was precisely what Secretary of State John Kerry has said the negotiations seek to avoid). One can only hope that the Associated Press, not the Obama administration, has made a terrible mistake, but the New York Times has already corroborated the story. The mullahs in Tehran have exhibited nothing but patience in pursuit of their goals. The 'students' that held the American embassy hostage for 444 days painstakingly pieced back together diplomatic cables that had been shredded into confetti. Iran fought what was by some estimates the longest conventional war of the 20th century, enduring horrific casualties. Since 2002, the International Atomic Energy Agency has struggled against an Iranian stonewall concealing Tehran's weapons-related activities. And Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has boasted that he bought time for the nuclear program when he was its chief diplomatic defender saying, 'While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work on Isfahan' (where Iran converts yellowcake uranium into gas for enrichment). In the blink of an eye, we may find Iran as a threshold nuclear weapons state, a bitter outcome made even worse by U.S. acquiescence to it." http://t.uani.com/1JNxR8N

Michael Weiss in NOW Lebanon: "A few weeks ago, I met with a senior US diplomat who characterized the Obama administration's sole foreign policy objective with one word - 'rapprochement.' This was offered unprompted and I'd no doubt insult you to make you guess which regime is the object of the president's single-minded solicitousness. When I asked if this policy meant that Iran's terrorism and the atrocities being committed by its militia and death squad proxies in Syria and Iraq would therefore be downplayed or ignored by the White House, the diplomat inclined his head slightly in my direction, adding that during his own recent travels to the Middle East he had encountered many 'reasonable' people who were similarly terrified and anxious at America's acquiescence to expanding Khomeinist hegemony in the region. There are also plenty of unreasonable sorts taking full advantage of this dawning geopolitical reality - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for one - which is why the so-called strategy to 'degrade and ultimately destroy' the Islamic State (ISIS) is in fact the jihadist army's greatest propaganda asset. And to think that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi once had to try to convince Sunnis that the Great Satan and the Islamic Republic were working together. What began as Mideast conspiracy theory now has the distinction of being an aspirational presidential legacy. Benjamin Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security advisor and the director of strategic communications, privately whispers about what a great ally Iran would make, so much more responsible and well-behaved than those awful Gulf states which are now reluctantly enlisted as avowed partners in a coalition against ISIS. Never has a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing been so well earned as it has with Rhodes. As Michael Doran recently observed in an excellent anatomy of the Obama administration's actual Iran policy, it is this National Security Council member who also not-so-privately likens a grand bargain with Tehran to Obamacare as a matter of national priority... It's hard to overstate the sense of anxiety American allies in the Middle East now feel about the course American policy has taken in their neighborhood as the result of a president who wants only one thing before he leaves office: to bring America's regional nemesis in from the cold. Even allies whose support the current administration deems uncontroversial feel abandoned or short-changed. An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government told me recently that while he applauds US airstrikes, which kept ISIS from storming Erbil, most of the rest of the advertised effort to beat the jihadists is false advertising. 'The weapons we have to fight them are fucking ridiculous,' the official said, noting the stark contrast with the heavy-duty materiel such as Abrams tanks and Humvees which both ISIS and the Shiite militias have stolen from the United States. 'We should have blown ourselves up or beheaded some soldiers. Then we would have gotten weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/1LJ0MrY

Ali Khedery in FP: "Washington's response to the Islamic State's (IS) advance, however, has been disgraceful: The United States is now acting as the air force, the armory, and the diplomatic cover for Iraqi militias that are committing some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet. These are 'allies' that are actually beholden to our strategic foe, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and which often resort to the same vile tactics as the Islamic State itself... The administration's cumulative mistakes have played a decisive role in advancing Iraq's implosion, the IS's rise, and Iran's regional hegemony. From the time that Obama took office until today, violence in Iraq has spiked nearly fourfold from the post-surge lows in 2009 - reaching levels not seen since the height of the civil war in 2006 and 2007. The Islamic State has conquered more than a third of the country while the Iraqi military imploded, despite a $25 billion investment in it by American taxpayers. The White House responded by dispatching thousands of American military, diplomatic, and intelligence personnel to Iraq in a final bid to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But this desperate, ill-conceived effort will inevitably fail because the administration is employing the chainsaws of Iraq's Iranian-backed Shiite militias rather than the scalpels of American special operations forces in its ground war against IS. When it became clear that the Islamic State posed an existential threat to Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, resorted to a measure not taken in a century: He issued a religious edict calling for all able-bodied men to take up arms to defend the state. Within months, hundreds of thousands of young Shiites responded to the call - and today, virtually all of them have been absorbed into Iranian-dominated militias, whose fundamental identity is built around a sectarian narrative rather than loyalty to the state. Recently, one militia commander estimated their total strength at 800,000 men, dwarfing the official Iraqi Security Forces. Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, Iran's special forces unit devoted to operations outside the Islamic Republic's borders, has filled the void left by Obama's military and diplomatic disengagement from Iraq. Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Suleimani has personally led operations from the front lines, buttressing decades-old alliances while at the same time cultivating new proxies. The staunchly pro-Iranian Badr Organization commander Hadi al-Ameri - who was welcomed in the Oval Office by Obama in 2011, and is known for favoring power drills to murder his victims - has been tasked with leading all Iraqi efforts to secure and pacify the strategically important province of Diyala. Meanwhile, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in the 1980s, was given command of the Kataib Hezbollah (KH) militia, an Iranian-sponsored group responsible for some of the most lethal attacks against U.S. and coalition forces throughout the war. Muhandis and KH pose such a grave risk to Iraqi stability and American interests that they were designated as terrorists by the U.S. Treasury soon after Obama took office in 2009. Qais al-Khazali, the commander of the Iranian-sponsored Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) militia, which kidnapped and killed five American soldiers at Iran's behest in the holy city of Karbala in 2007, proudly shared his recent photo with Suleimani via social media. This constellation of Iranian-backed militias is eclipsing official Iraqi institutions, and sowing the seeds of conflict for decades to come... It is high time that U.S. officials recognize the Iranian-backed Shiite militias for what they are: a supercharged, multi-headed hydra that represents a clear and present danger to Syria, Iraq, the broader Middle East, and thus to fundamental American national security interests... And let's not forget that it is in Iran's strategic interest to use these militias to consolidate its gains over Iraq and the Levant, and to advance its ambitions for regional hegemony, which Iranian commanders are now publicly flaunting." http://t.uani.com/1LEX94z

Robert Einhorn in NYT: "Fortunately, even if an agreement cannot eliminate Iran's capability to enrich uranium to weapons grade, it can prevent Iran from exercising that capability. It can do so by deterring Iran's leaders from making the decision to break out of the agreement and produce nuclear weapons. To deter such a decision, a deal should meet three requirements. First, it should have rigorous monitoring measures to convince Iran that any attempt to violate and break out of the agreement at either declared or covert sites would be detected very quickly. This would require intrusive verification provisions that go beyond the measures contained in the International Atomic Energy Agency's additional protocol, including frequent access to centrifuge production facilities, detailed reporting of nuclear-related procurement and robust inspection procedures. Second, the accord should ensure that the time Iranians would need to produce one bomb's-worth of weapons-grade uranium would be long enough to enable the United States and others to intervene decisively to stop them. The Obama administration is seeking to increase this 'breakout time' from the current two-to-three months to at least one year, which is more than enough time to exhaust diplomatic efforts and economic pressures before turning, if necessary, to military force. Getting to one year would depend on a package of interrelated constraints, including on the number and type of operating centrifuges and the amount of enriched uranium Iran would be allowed to retain. There is nothing magic about any particular number of centrifuges. The lower the amount of enriched uranium, the higher can be the number of centrifuges without shortening breakout time, and vice versa. With the Iranians reportedly willing to ship most of their enriched uranium stocks to Russia, the so-called P5+1 - the United States, France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain - may be closing in on a package that would achieve the desired one-year breakout time. Negotiators may have taken a step closer last weekend in Geneva by making headway on the agreement's duration, apparently discussing a duration of perhaps 15 years, with some restrictions on Iran gradually relaxed in the final years of the agreement. Third, it is necessary to convince Iran's leaders not only that breakout would take a long time and would be detected promptly, but also that they would face a harsh international response that would prevent their breakout from succeeding. To supplement any agreement, the Obama administration should collaborate with its international partners and the Congress on contingency plans - including both economic and military options - to ensure that the threat of a decisive response to a breakout attempt is credible. Members of Congress and other interested parties, both at home and abroad, will judge for themselves whether any agreement eventually reached provides a sufficient deterrent against a future Iranian decision to pursue nuclear weapons. In forming these judgments, it is important to compare the eventual deal not with an ideal but unattainable agreement but with the alternatives to a negotiated solution. One alternative is to try to ratchet up sanctions dramatically in the hope of pressuring Iran to make concessions it has been unwilling to make. But it may be very difficult to persuade states that have supported sanctions at considerable cost to themselves to adopt much tougher measures, especially if Iran is successful in portraying itself as not to blame for the negotiating impasse. And even if the United States could persuade others to adopt stronger sanctions, it is questionable whether they would produce the desired Iranian flexibility, given Iran's ability so far to withstand punishing sanctions and the repeated assertions by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iran can make do economically without an agreement. Another alternative is military force. A military attack could set back Iran's nuclear program. But such a setback would probably only be temporary, and the use of force could trigger an Iranian decision to go for nuclear weapons as soon as possible, a decision the American intelligence community believes has so far been deferred. Moreover, the use of force could end I.A.E.A. monitoring, the best source of information about Iran's nuclear program, and lead to the unraveling of international sanctions that would be needed to keep pressure on Iran in a post-attack environment." http://t.uani.com/1vC91SV
        

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.

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