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NYT:
"Iran continued its 'terrorist-related' activity last year and also
continued to provide broad military support to President Bashar al-Assad
of Syria, the State Department said Friday in its annual report on
terrorism. The assessment suggests that neither the election of President
Hassan Rouhani nor the prospect of a nuclear accord with the United
States and its negotiating partners has had a moderating effect on Iran's
foreign policy in the Middle East. 'In 2014, Iran continued to provide
arms, financing, training and the facilitation of primarily Iraq Shia and
Afghan fighters to support the Assad regime's brutal crackdown,' the
report said. 'Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior Al Qaeda
members it continued to detain and refused to publicly identify those
senior members in its custody,' it added... it paints a picture of an
aggressive Iranian foreign policy that has often been contrary to the
interests of the United States. Even when the United States and Iran have
a common foe, as they do in the Islamic State, the Iranian role in Iraq
risks inflaming sectarian tensions." http://t.uani.com/1BwQham
Reuters:
"Iran's parliament overwhelmingly approved the outline of a bill on
Sunday that if passed would impose strict conditions on any nuclear deal
with world powers, potentially complicating negotiations aimed at
reaching an accord. The draft bill must still pass through parliament and
then the Guardian Council, an unelected body close to Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before becoming law. Khamenei has cautiously
supported a deal. The document also concedes the role of supervising any
nuclear deal to the Supreme National Security Council, a body effectively
controlled by Khamenei, meaning parliament would have no executive power
to stop a deal. Nevertheless the draft, published in full on the website
of state news agency IRNA, was approved by 199 of the 213 lawmakers
present, underlining significant domestic pressure on Iran's negotiating
team. The bill would require sanctions to be lifted immediately and bar
U.N. inspectors from military sites, a position that the United States
and France have said they will not accept. 'Access to all military,
security and sensitive non-nuclear sites, as well as scientists, is
prohibited,' the draft document said. 'The complete lifting of sanctions
... must take place on the day Iran begins implementing its
obligations.'" http://t.uani.com/1LfAlvA
Politico:
"When President Barack Obama first began negotiating a nuclear deal
with Iran, he was encouraged by the existence of an obscure religious
ruling from the country's Supreme Leader: in a fatwa, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei declared that developing or using nuclear weapons is against
Islam. Whether or not the edict was sincere or simply a cover story, a
senior administration official told POLITICO at the time, it could at
least provide the Iranian regime with cover to explain a nuclear deal to
hard-liners demanding to know why Iran was not relentlessly pursuing The
Bomb. But as a June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal closes in, Khamenei's
Islamic decree has emerged as a major obstacle to a nuclear deal, say
analysts and sources close to the talks. It turns out that the fatwa has
turned what was once a key western demand - that Tehran fully disclose
its past research into nuclear bomb technology - into a potential
deal-breaker... A central reason, sources say, is the humiliation such a
disclosure would cause for Khamenei, who issued the October 2003 fatwa
stating that Islam forbids the production, stockpiling or use of weapons
of mass destruction... 'Khamenei will never admit that Iran conducted
weapons related research,' said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Doing so, he said, would
'contradict the regime's longstanding assertion that nuclear weapons are
against Islam.'" http://t.uani.com/1K6RmZB
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Politico:
"Iran remains a state of nuclear 'proliferation concern,' has kept
up its support for terrorism in the Middle East and is trying to grow its
influence in regions as far away as Latin America, the State Department
said in its latest report on global terrorism... Iran, however, is of
special concern in Washington because the U.S. is currently engaged in
talks aimed at stopping the country's nuclear program, which the West has
long suspected is aimed at creating weapons." http://t.uani.com/1N0HvCe
The Hill:
"A senator is doubling down on concerns that the Obama
administration has lost the upper hand in the nuclear talks with Iran.
Earlier this week Secretary of State John Kerry said that a final
agreement between Iran and Western powers might not require Iran to
detail suspected previous efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. 'We are
not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one
point in time or another,' Kerry said Tuesday. The State Department has
since downplayed the comment, but Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) isn't about to gloss over it. 'Last year,
the administration assured our committee that the questions and concerns
regarding Iran's previous weaponization efforts would be resolved before
a final agreement is reached and any sanctions relieved,' Corker said
Friday in a statement. Kerry's remarks 'have only raised further doubts
about the administration holding firm on demands that Iran come clean
about past military aspects of its nuclear program,' Corker added. Corker
repeated a suggestion he made earlier this week that the 'administration
should walk away and make good on their promise that no deal is better
than a bad deal if there is anything less than full disclosure up front
from Iran and the ability to conduct inspections anytime,
anywhere.'" http://t.uani.com/1IZDVaI
Reuters:
"France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday it was
unclear whether an international deal could be reached on Iran's nuclear
program by a June 30 deadline. Fabius has said he would meet his Iranian
counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday to assess where Iran stands
ahead of the final round of talks on its nuclear program, which begin
later in the week. 'We need to be extremely firm, at the stage where we
are now, things are still not clear,' Fabius said in talks with Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Monday's bilateral meeting, on the
sidelines of an EU foreign ministers' summit in Luxembourg, will be
followed by a meeting between Zarif and all the European parties
negotiating with Iran." http://t.uani.com/1ft0Lxu
WSJ:
"U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Monday nuclear talks
with Iran could run beyond the June 30 deadline and that Tehran needed to
show more flexibility to seal a landmark deal with six major powers. Mr.
Hammond and his French and German colleagues will meet Iranian Foreign
Minister Jvad Zarif Monday afternoon in Luxembourg after a meeting of
European Union foreign ministers. Speaking at his arrival in Luxembourg
for the foreign ministers' meeting, Mr. Hammond said 'there will need to
be some more flexibility shown by our Iranian partners if we are going to
reach a deal. 'But look, this is a negotiation. We always expected it
would go right to the line and maybe beyond the line. So I think the
serious negotiation is now getting under way and over the next week or so
I hope that we will start to see some real progress,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1IZzvke
Bloomberg:
"Iranian officials gave their strongest hints yet that talks over
the Islamic Republic's nuclear program may stretch beyond a self-imposed
June 30 deadline. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his deputy,
Abbas Araghchi, both said on Monday that differences with a group of
world powers were unresolved and that a deal by the end of the month
might not be possible. 'Political and technical differences remain,'
Zarif said ahead of discussions with European diplomats at an EU summit
in Luxembourg. 'We've always tried to channel all our efforts into
finalizing a deal at the first possible opportunity, but it's more
important that we reach a good agreement.' Talks with envoys from the
group of six world powers haven't 'progressed as much as we expected,'
Araghchi was reported as saying by the semi-official Iranian Students'
News Agency. An extension may be needed to reach an 'acceptable and
desirable' accord, he said." http://t.uani.com/1dZgiUW
Sanctions
Relief
FT:
"This year's opening of a four-star Axis hotel in Tehran under the
management of France's Accor, with a five star Axis Prime set to open
soon nearby, is an indication of how fast things could change. Not since
the Islamic revolution has a western company managed a hotel in Iran...
Still it is not clear how Accor - Europe's largest hotel group by number
of rooms - secured the contract given continued sanctions. While the
sanctions do not directly target the tourism industry, they prohibit the
transfer of money to or from Iran unless for basic commodities or
medicine... Accor is now poised to benefit from the doors opening to one
of the world's biggest untapped tourist destinations, home to huge and
historic attractions such as Persepolis and Isfahan. Rumours are rife
that other French groups are negotiating with Iran about the construction
and management of hotels. Bouygues, the French construction, media and
telecoms conglomerate, declined to comment, as did the UAE-based Rotana
hotel management group, understood to be planning hotels in Tehran and
the holy city of Mashhad." http://t.uani.com/1K6iZAg
Regional
Destabilization
LAT:
"In 2012, President Obama made it plain in a letter to Iranian supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that any attempt to close the strategic
Strait of Hormuz would be met with American force. Yet when Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats seized the Marshall Islands-flagged
container ship Maersk Tigris near the strait April 28, sending a shudder
through global markets, U.S. officials held their fire. They condemned
the move, dispatched naval escorts for some U.S.- and British-flagged
vessels, but didn't challenge the Iranian military during the nine days
it held the vessel in what Iran called a legal dispute. Administration
officials said their response was prudent. But critics in the region and
the United States saw it as more evidence that the administration is
sidestepping conflict with its longtime adversary in Tehran to avoid
undermining negotiations that U.S. officials hope will produce a landmark
nuclear agreement with Iran at the end of this month. 'They want to
appease the Iranian regime,' said Ahmad El Assaad, a prominent Lebanese
political leader who opposes the U.S. lowering its guard against Iran or
its proxies. 'They've invested so much in this deal they want to do
everything possible to get it done, even if it means turning their back
on friends.' ... The anxiety among U.S. allies in the Middle East is real,
and it suggests strains on core U.S. alliances are likely to remain a
challenge for the administration if a nuclear deal is completed, as
expected." http://t.uani.com/1BGRqfM
Human Rights
AFP:
"Iranian authorities denied women ticket holders entry to Friday's
volleyball match between Iran and the United States despite their having
the necessary permission, the sport's association said. The Iranian
Volleyball Federation had provided special accreditation to 200 women
handpicked to attend the men's Volleyball World League match in Tehran.
The tickets were reserved for 'family members of players, supporters of
the visiting team and executive officials,' said Reza Hassanikhou, head
of security at the sports ministry. But a federation official told AFP
the accreditations had not been validated by security services at the
arena, meaning the women were barred from entering. Rules prohibiting
women's access to stadiums have been in place since Iran's 1979
revolution, officially to protect them from obscene behaviour among male
fans." http://t.uani.com/1H6m56q
Foreign Affairs
WSJ:
"Saudi Arabia tried to stoke unrest in Iran and undermine its
interests in the region, according to a trove of documents purportedly
obtained from the kingdom's foreign ministry and published by
WikiLeaks... Cables purportedly from Saudi intelligence and the Saudi
embassy in Tehran, suggest ways that popular discontent with the regime
could be harnessed. The leaked documents couldn't be independently
verified. 'It is possible to use the Internet and social media sites like
Facebook, Twitter and others to expose Iranian practices,' the cable
said. 'Members of Iranian opposition abroad must be embraced and
coordinated with and encourage them to organize exhibits to feature
images of torture committed by the Iranian regime against its people and
other peoples in the region,' it added... The documents on WikiLeaks
published on Friday show Saudi Arabia seeking in ways big and small to
channel its animosity toward Iran. A 2012 cable by former foreign
minister Prince Saud Al Faisal to the royal court of then- King Abdullah
said the prince strongly supports a proposal by a Saudi media executive
to establish a Persian-language television channel to challenge Iran's
'hostile media policies and fake news.'" http://t.uani.com/1H8Kdal
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Advisory
Board Member Olli Heinonen in Iran Task Force:
"Unfettered access to sites, facilities, material, equipment,
people, and documents is imperative to the credible long-term
verification of any nuclear agreement with Iran. This 'anywhere, anytime'
access and short notice inspections must not be subject to a dispute
resolution mechanism, which would delay the International Atomic Energy
Agency's (IAEA) access. Procedures in a final deal, which provide Iran
with the ability to define or control access, undermine the verifiability
of the agreement and affect the IAEA's ability to reach timely
conclusions. Additionally, the resolution of the IAEA's outstanding
concerns regarding the possible military dimensions of Iran's program
must be resolved prior to the provision of substantial sanctions
relief... The JCPOA Parameters published on April 2, 2015 still require
agreement on various fundamental aspects of the verification regime if
the JCPOA is to be effective. The administration's goal to keep Iran at
least a year away from being able to produce enough fissile material for
one nuclear device demands robust and effective verification and
monitoring-by no means an easy task given Iran's nuclear infrastructure,
capabilities, and history. And in some other areas such as R&D on
more advanced centrifuges, attention will have to go into monitoring
Iran's manufacturing of centrifuges and acquisition of key raw materials.
In order to contain Iran within agreed limitations, the provisions worked
out on a verification system need to measure up to the task at hand. This
involves requiring additional provisions to ensure that Iran's enrichment
capacity and stocks of uranium and spent fuel remain capped; unfettered
access to all relevant sites, facilities, material, equipment, people,
and documents in Iran to maintain a robust verification scheme; ensuring
monitoring starts from a well-defined verified baseline, which means the
IAEA's questions related to the military dimension and Iran's past and
potentially ongoing activities are addressed in advance; and constructing
a mechanism to monitor Iran's procurement activities, including any
potential outsourcing of activities that should be proscribed... As past
history demonstrates, small as any future Iranian infractions may seem at
the time and however difficult it may be to quantify the impact of these
infractions on Iran's breakout time, judicious and corrective actions
need to be expeditious in order to prevent slippage and a creep of de
facto baselines in Iran's favor. Intelligence will also complement the
role of verification and monitoring in providing early indications of
things going off-track. To garner sufficient confidence on the
effectiveness of these systems, they need to be backed by an effective
enforcement mechanism." http://t.uani.com/1K6mabj
Eli Lake &
Josh Rogin in Bloomberg: "Contrary to the contention
of Secretary of State John Kerry, leading lawmakers and other experts
tell us the U.S. intelligence community does not have 'absolute
knowledge' about past military aspects of Iran's nuclear program. During
a video conference with reporters Tuesday, Kerry was asked whether Iran
had to address outstanding questions about past nuclear weapons work from
the International Atomic Energy Agency as a condition for the West
lifting or easing sanctions. With the deadline for concluding an Iran
agreement less than two weeks away, the secretary's response raised
eyebrows. 'We're not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what
they did at one point in time or another,' he said. 'We know what they
did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the
certain military activities they were engaged in.' Instead of dwelling on
the past, Kerry said, the agreement he was negotiating would stop Iran
from acquiring a nuclear weapon in the future. Representative Devin
Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, was incredulous this week when asked about Kerry's remarks.
He told us, 'My only thought here is that the secretary misspoke or did
not understand the question.' He added that he didn't understand what
Kerry meant. 'We clearly don't have the picture that we need of Iran's
capabilities. It remains one of the big concerns with any agreement,' he
said. Kerry's remarks are important because U.S. officials, including
Kerry, have previously said that as a condition of sanctions relief, Iran
would have to answer the IAEA's outstanding questions about efforts to test
and develop a nuclear weapon. On Wednesday, State Department spokesman
John Kirby said this was still the U.S. position, but described that
position in more conciliatory terms. 'We've said we're not looking for a
confession,' Kirby said, 'We've already made judgments about the past.
But the sanctions lifting will only occur as Iran takes the steps agreed,
including addressing possible military dimensions.' Kirby's remarks
represent a subtle but nonetheless important shift in the
administration's position. Kirby said sanctions would be lifted as Iran
takes certain measures. The Joint Plan of Action signed in November 2013
says Iran would address the outstanding questions about its program
before a final agreement is reached... Since the end of 2007, U.S. spies
have had some success in uncovering Iran's clandestine nuclear work. In
2009, for example, the Obama administration forced Iran to acknowledge an
enrichment facility burrowed into a mountain near Qom known as Fordow.
One former U.S. intelligence official who worked on Iran proliferation
told us that U.S. intelligence agencies today maintain lists of several
suspected sites that may be part of Iran's undeclared nuclear
infrastructure. Kerry himself acknowledged that the U.S. has a list of
such facilities, in February during a hearing in Congress when he was
queried about claims from a Marxist-Islamist Iranian opposition group
about such an undeclared nuclear facility. So if Kerry has acknowledged
that the U.S. government suspects some sites may be part of an Iranian
nuclear network, how could he claim the U.S. has 'absolute knowledge' of
Iran's past military activities?" http://t.uani.com/1IZKkmj
Michael Hayden in
WT: "Not long ago, I was being interviewed by Erin
Burnett on CNN about the fall of Ramadi. It was a dark conversation. Late
in the interview, though, Ms. Burnett offered a modest ray of hope.
Secretary of State John Kerry had said that, 'I am absolutely confident
in the days ahead that (the fall of Ramadi) will be reversed.' Asked for
my views, I responded that that statement had no relationship with
reality as I knew it to be. I could have added that the Secretary of
State was understandably trying to put the best face on a bad situation,
but he was letting the political and policy needs of the moment out run
the facts... We should keep these incidents in mind as we approach the
June 30 deadline on the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the UN Perm
Five plus Germany. After all, when this all began in November 2013, the
secretary claimed that, 'We do not recognize the right (of Iran) to
enrich.' Of course, conceding enrichment was the very premise of the
Iranian-American bargain that got the talks underway (which the Iranians
correctly pointed out). If we get an agreement this summer, the Congressional
review period that a deal will trigger must be used to ensure that what
we say and understand about the agreement comports with what the Iranians
have agreed and with facts on the ground. In an April interview this year
on PBS, Mr. Kerry outlined maximalist goal. This is 'about denying them a
nuclear weapon,' he said. 'This is a guarantee that for the next 15 to 20
years they won't possibly be able to advance that program.' A fair
question might be how that comports with President Obama's description
that 'in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich
uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have
shrunk almost down to zero.' ... One of the remaining issues in the
current negotiations is what to make of PMDs, the possible military
dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program. One could argue that assessing
the adequacy of an agreement about the future of the Iranian nuclear
program might be dependent on thorough knowledge about the past of that
program. To date, the Iranians have stiffed the International Atomic
Energy Agency that has for years been trying to delve into this subject.
In his PBS interview, Mr. Kerry guaranteed that the Iranians would be
transparent. 'They have to do it. It will be done. If there's going to be
a deal, it will be done.' No it won't. The Iranians will never come clean
on PMDs. Watch to see if the agreement papers this over with some sort of
language about future processes to resolve outstanding issues (which will
not be honored in any meaningful way). If you want a litmus test, demand
that the IAEA get to conduct the interviews it has been demanding with
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the J. Robert Oppenheimer of the Iranian nuclear
program. It's not going to happen. Mr. Kerry conceded as much on Tuesday
when he declared that focusing on PMDs was now misplaced since we already
had 'absolute knowledge' of past Iranian activities. I know of no
American intelligence officer who would ever use that description to
characterize what we know and do not know. I fear we will see something
similar with regard to 'anytime, anywhere' inspections. We never expected
the Iranians to create the fissile material for a weapon at Natanz, their
declared facility. What they were creating there was technology and confidence,
not HEU. The HEU would be created at another, secret site, away from the
prying eyes of the IAEA. Hence, the need for anytime, anywhere
inspections. Mr. Kerry has promised 'a very robust inspection system.'
When pressed, he said that we will 'have a means of dispute resolution
that will permit us to be able to resolve questions if there are any
unresolved issues of access.' If the dispute resolution system is what
one consults when there are issues after the agreement has been signed
and sanctions lifted (as it appears to be), you can write off 'anytime,
anywhere.'" http://t.uani.com/1Lw0Sm4
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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