Eye on Iran: The Middle East Nuclear Race Is Already Under Way

Join UANI           Top Stories TIME: "One of the most important reasons why the U.S. is trying to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran is to prevent an Iranian bomb from triggering a nuclear race in the Middle East. Yet even as talks continue now in Switzerland, Tehran's regional rivals have already begun quietly acting on their own atomic ambitions. Nuclear power may be on the wane almost everywhere else in the world, but it's all the rage in the place with all that oil. Egypt's announcement last month that it was hiring Russia to build a reactor near Alexandria made it only the latest entrant in an emerging atomic derby. Every other major Sunni power in the region has announced similar plans. And though none appear either as ambitious nor as ambiguous as what's taken place in Iran - which set out to master the entire atomic-fuel cycle, a red flag for a military program - each announcement lays down a marker in a region that, until recently, was notable as the one place on the planet where governments had made little progress on nuclear power. With the exception of Israel, which has never publicly acknowledged its widely known nuclear arsenal, no Middle Eastern country beyond Iran had a nuclear program - peaceful or otherwise - until the wealthy United Arab Emirates began building a reactor in July 2012 (due for completion in 2017). The list now includes, in addition to Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia - the last Iran's archrival, and which last year revealed plans to build 16 nuclear plants over the next two decades... So the talks in Switzerland are about more than preventing Iran from getting the bomb. They are also about persuading Iran's neighbors that the nuclear option is effectively off the table. If the talks end with a final agreement that looks like a win for the Islamic Republic, diplomats say its neighbors will fast track their own plans." http://t.uani.com/1C7soCW Reuters: "With Iran moving closer to a deal with world powers to constrain its nuclear program in return for an end to sanctions, Arab analysts and leaders are focused more on how Tehran is working unconstrained to tighten its grip on Arab states, from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen. The man behind what some see as an attempt to create a new Persian and Shi'ite 'empire' on Arab land is Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the al-Quds brigade of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Since he emerged from the shadows last autumn, Soleimani seems to be omnipresent on the battlefields of the Middle East... Iran may be serious about a nuclear deal that ends its pariah status and the crippling sanctions. But it has been maximizing its strength across the Middle East and, because Iranian forces and allied militias are spearheading the fight against IS in Iraq and Syria, Sunni Arab leaders believe the United States will do nothing to stop this... That is why, regional analysts say, it is not so much the prospective nuclear deal that is panicking the Gulf and its Sunni allies such as Egypt, but what a U.S.-Iran rapprochement may bring." http://t.uani.com/18UH66c Politico: "Acting at the Justice Department request to prevent the airing of U.S. national security secrets, a federal judge in Manhattan on Monday threw out a Greek shipping tycoon's libel lawsuit against an anti-Iran group. The move by U.S. District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos to dismiss Victor Restis's suit against United Against Nuclear Iran was an unusual one because most motions to dismiss a case on state secrets grounds involve cases where the government is a party or the defendant is a government contractor known or alleged to have worked on secret programs. However, Restis's suit accused UANI - a private, non-governmental organization - of libeling him with claims that his shipping firm provided assistance to Iran's nuclear program. Nevertheless, Ramos said in his 18-page ruling that a secret filing the Justice Department provided to the court-but not to Restis's lawyers-made a persuasive case that allowing the lawsuit to go forward could expose sensitive national security information. 'The Court is convinced that further litigation of this action would impose an unjustifiable risk of disclosing state secrets,' wrote the judge, who is an Obama appointee... UANI's lawyer, Lee Wolosky, hailed the judge's ruling. 'We welcome today's federal court decision dismissing Mr. Restis' lawsuit in its entirety. Since its filing we have consistently maintained that Mr. Restis' suit was meritless,' Wolosky wrote. 'United Against Nuclear Iran is a bipartisan not-for-profit policy and advocacy organization that will not be silenced by intimidation or threat. Through economic and social means and through the exercise of their First Amendment rights, the officers and staff of UANI have acted courageously and patriotically in their efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/1xuH4h1     Nuclear Program & Negotiations WSJ: "Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran's nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said... The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said." http://t.uani.com/1IpXfgn NYT: A coterie of Iran's hard-line Shiite Muslim clerics and Revolutionary Guards commanders is usually vocal on the subject of the Iranian nuclear program, loudly proclaiming the country's right to pursue its interests and angrily denouncing the United States. But as the United States and Iran prepare to restart nuclear talks this week, the hard-liners have been keeping a low profile... Their silence is a result of state policies intended by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to seriously try to find a solution through negotiations. Ayatollah Khamenei has largely supported the nuclear talks and the Iranian negotiators, whom he has called 'good and caring people, who work for the country.' The restraint by the hard-liners also reflects a general satisfaction, analysts say, with the direction of the talks and the successes Iran is enjoying, extending and deepening its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen." http://t.uani.com/1C7nFBb Reuters: "Iran should not get an 'undeserved' deal with world powers on its nuclear program, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said on Monday. Prince Saud said Tehran was continuing its interventionist policies in the Middle East. He was speaking at a joint press conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. 'It is impossible that Iran should get undeserved deals,' Prince Saud said. The negotiations should ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear capability and thus threaten the safety and stability of the region, he said." http://t.uani.com/1BoP3r1 Reuters: "The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said on Monday the agency still was not able to conclude whether all nuclear material in Iran was being used for peaceful purposes. 'We continue to verify the non-divergence of nuclear material declared by Iran but we are still not in a position to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful purpose,' International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said at a conference in Washington on Monday." http://t.uani.com/1NaWDMz Congressional Action The Hill: "A letter to President Obama signed by 367 members of Congress warns that lawmakers must be satisfied that any Iranian nuclear agreement must 'foreclose any pathway to a bomb' before they lift sanctions against Tehran. The letter, which was drafted in early March but released on Monday, warns Obama that 'permanent sanctions relief from congressionally-mandated sanctions would require new legislation' from Congress. 'Congress must be convinced that its terms foreclose any pathway to a bomb, and only then will Congress be able to consider permanent sanctions relief,' reads the letter, led by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and ranking member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)... Although the House letter does not mention specific legislation, it said, 'we are prepared to evaluate any agreement to determine its long-term impact on the United States and our allies.'  'We remain hopeful that a diplomatic solution preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon may yet be reached, and we want to work with you to assure such a result,' it said. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) indicated Sunday on CBS's 'Face the Nation' that the House would also pursue similar legislation as the Senate." http://t.uani.com/1FT82jo Sanctions Enforcement Reuters: "The European Union is set to put 40 Iranian shipping firms back on a list of sanctioned groups in a blow to the Islamic Republic's transport sector which has sought an easing of trade restrictions, letters sent from the EU showed. The move, which comes at a critical time in international talks on Iran's nuclear programme, is part of the EU's response to a series of court victories by Iranian companies that have overturned EU sanctions against them. In February, the bloc re-imposed sanctions on Iran's biggest oil tanker firm NITC. The 40 companies, including Hamburg-based Ocean Capital Administration GmbH, were previously placed on the EU's sanctions list because the EU said they were controlled or otherwise linked to top national carrier the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), which had previously been blacklisted." http://t.uani.com/1LSEhVh Iraq Crisis Reuters: "Iraq's request to the U.S.-led coalition for air strikes in the campaign to retake Tikrit from Islamic State insurgents is 'imminent', a senior diplomat from a Western nation that is part of the coalition told Reuters on Tuesday. If the coalition accepts the request, it would see by far the biggest collaboration so far against the militants by Iraqi forces, the Iranian-backed paramilitaries and their Iranian advisers on the ground, and the United States and its allies... The coalition has been absent so far from the Tikrit campaign launched three weeks ago, the largest to be undertaken by the Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias since Islamic State overran a third of the country last year. A military official within the coalition told Reuters on Tuesday that the coalition began providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the Tikrit operation on March 21 after a request from the Iraq government. 'The U.S. is now providing that support,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1BKD8nn Human Rights NYT: "Jason Rezaian, the reporter for The Washington Post incarcerated in Iran for eight months, has been denied permission for a five-day Iranian New Year furlough from prison, his brother, Ali Rezaian, said Monday. The petition for the furlough, presented a few weeks ago by the reporter's lawyer in Iran to a Revolutionary Court judge in Tehran overseeing the case, was rejected last Friday, just as the holiday was about to begin, Mr. Rezaian's brother said. Iranian judicial authorities sometimes grant such furloughs to nonviolent inmates for Iran's New Year, a two-week-long holiday that coincides with the first day of spring... Speaking by phone from California, Ali Rezaian also said there were new indications that his brother's trial, which the family thought would begin once the New Year holiday was over at the beginning of April, would be further delayed." http://t.uani.com/1HwdQxQ Foreign Affairs Haaretz: "A top commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said this weekend he believed Tehran had the ability to control events in Jordan, as it does in Iraq and Lebanon. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds force - the foreign wing of the Revolutionary Guards - was addressing a youth conference in Tehran. His remarks were the first time a senior Iranian official has openly discussed Iranian ambitions in Jordan... The Iranian Student News Agency quoted Soleimani as saying that Iran has a presence in Lebanon and Iraq and that both countries are yielding to Iranian interests. He added that Iran has the ability to control Jordan in the same way. Soleimani said the revolutions in the Arab world are slowly taking on a Muslim tone, similar to Iran's Islamic revolution, and that Tehran should provide aid and guidance to these revolutions." http://t.uani.com/1DTgQH3 Opinion & Analysis UANI Advisory Board Member Michael Gerson in WashPost: "It is the common temptation of Republicans and Democrats to support a strong presidency when it is used to do things they like and to condemn it when it does things they don't. There is, however, a group of committed institutionalists that has gathered around the bipartisan Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, now scheduled for a vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 14. The bill is carefully limited in scope, setting a 60-day review period following a nuclear agreement in which Congress can waive (or not) the congressionally mandated sanctions against Iran. Policy related to United Nations sanctions and executive-imposed sanctions would be left entirely to the president. The administration concedes that Congress should eventually have a role in determining the shape of congressional sanctions; the legislation would merely move a congressional vote from the end of the process to the beginning.  President Obama has promised to veto the measure. His intention (assuming an agreement with Iran is reached) is to waive congressional sanctions until after his time in office ends. Senate proponents of the Review Act count 11 Democratic supporters, including institutionalists such as Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Assuming all Republican senators come along, only two more Democrats are necessary for a veto-proof majority... Many Republican senators are open to supporting a reasonable nuclear deal with Iran. But they have a series of reasonable concerns. Several weeks ago, the multilateral negotiating process - including the five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany - was effectively superseded when the Obama administration began direct talks with the Iranians. Since then, one senator told me on background, the United States has moved 'every day closer to the Iranian position.' This is the source of increasingly vocal concern from excluded partners - including the French, who called for a stiffened spine in negotiations... The administration is attempting a series of enormously complex, consequential diplomatic maneuvers - for which it has shown no aptitude in the past (see the Russian 'reset' and three years of disastrous Syrian inaction). But members of Congress are being told to sit down and shut up. Stunts such as the Cotton letter are counterproductive. Responses such as the Review Act are badly needed." http://t.uani.com/1CUS5dw UANI Outreach Coordinator Bob Feferman in Times of Israel: "Many Western commentators were puzzled by the surprise victory of Benjamin Netanyahu after opinion polls predicted him losing in a close race. Many accused the Prime Minister of 'fear-mongering' to win the elections. In fact, the fears of Israeli voters are already well founded and the result of more than two decades of being the target of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. For Israeli analysts like The Times of Israel columnist Haviv Rettig Gur, the election results were not that puzzling. He wrote, '...it is Iran, not Netanyahu, that has convinced nearly all Israelis from all parts of the political spectrum that Iran is a very real danger to Israel.' The events of the summer of 2014 are just one example. In 50 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas, 4,500 rockets were launched at Israeli civilians. But this is only part of the story. Since Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, terrorists in Gaza have fired more than 11,000 rockets into Israeli territory. What shocked me about the news coverage of the fighting in Gaza is how few commentators in the Western media bothered to ask where all these rockets came from. The answer is no secret. The rockets have two sources: about half were supplied by Iran and smuggled into Gaza, and the rest were made in Gaza with Iranian know-how. Indeed, for two decades, Western analysts have failed to comprehend the pivotal role of Iran as an obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In fact, after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, Iran immediately began to try to sabotage the peace process." http://t.uani.com/1bqhpfc          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.