WarSclerotic

Ya’alon: Israel boosting rocket defenses on Egypt border | JPost | Israel News.

Congress, Obama at odds over new Iran sanctions | The Times of Israel.

Opinions differ on how much time to give recently elected president Rouhani to prove he’s serious about changing nuclear policy

President Barack Obama, Monday, July 22, 2013. (photo credit:AP/Cliff Owen)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is considering a new series of hard-hitting Iran sanctions on everything from mining and construction to the Islamic republic’s already besieged oil industry, despite concern from the Obama administration that the measures could interfere with nuclear negotiations.

House and Senate bills are both advancing at a time President Barack Obama’s national security team is gauging whether Iranian President-elect Hasan Rouhani is serious about halting some elements of Tehran’s uranium enrichment activity. Those involved in the process said the administration wants to temper Congressional plans until Rouhani takes office in August and has an opportunity to demonstrate whether his government will offer concessions.

The legislation would blacklist Iran’s mining and construction sectors, effective next year, because they are seen as heavily linked to Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard corps. It also would commit the US to the goal of ending all Iranian oil sales worldwide by 2015, targeting the regime’s biggest revenue generator and prime source of money for its weapons and nuclear programs.

US penalties that went into effect last year already have cut Iran’s petroleum exports in half, but that still leaves billions of dollars coming in every month from Turkey, China and several other Asian countries.

The House’s bill may pass before Congress’ August recess. The Senate version won’t get a vote until at least September, said Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a leading advocate of tougher Iran sanctions. The Senate Banking Committee, which will put forward the package, is in ongoing consultations with the administration, according to one US official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the sanctions.

Republican Sen. John McCain said the US should immediately “plow ahead” with greater and tougher measures against Iran. “We’re running out of time,” he said.

The US and many other countries believe Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Obama has said Iran has until sometime next year to prove to the world its nuclear program is peaceful. If diplomacy fails, the stage may be set for a military intervention by the US or Israel, which sees an Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to its very existence.

In a report last week, David Albright and Christina Walrond at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security concluded that Iran will be able to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear explosive without being detected by mid-2014.

Iranians insist their program is solely for energy and research purposes.

The State Department wouldn’t comment specifically on new legislation while it said it was waiting for Rouhani to be sworn in. “We will see what he does once in office,” spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

A senior US official said the administration’s concerns were about the timing and content of the legislation.

If Rouhani is serious about compromise, setting new sanctions in advance of talks risks undercutting him, the official said. Even if the new Iranian leader isn’t serious, the oil measures in particular are problematic, turning a potential US diplomatic success into a failure.

If China or Japan, for example, decides to flout the US demand to stop all importing from Iran, the administration would then have to weigh enforcing the law by blacklisting Chinese and Japanese banks and companies at the risk of widespread economic harm — including for Americans. The likelier result is that the US does nothing, making the sanctions look hollow and eroding international solidarity on pressuring Iran.

Despite wide bilateral support in Congress for tougher sanctions, some Democrats and Republicans are embracing the administration’s cautious approach. In a letter last week to Obama, 18 Republican House members joined more than 100 of their Democratic colleagues in urging the president to “reinvigorate US efforts to secure a negotiated nuclear agreement” and give Rouhani a chance.

Rouhani’s election clearly has bolstered hope of compromise. A former nuclear negotiator and relatively moderate cleric, Rouhani has suggested a more accommodating approach than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has final say on nuclear issues.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said last week his country would be ready to resume talks once Rouhani, who takes office the first weekend in August, puts together a negotiating team.

World powers want the meeting “as soon as possible,” Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said last week. Ashton has served as the point of contact for the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia since talks with Iran restarted last year. They’ve yet to make significant headway despite four rounds of discussions.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an adviser to Congress and the administration on Iran sanctions, said moving forward with new measures made sense. “Iran’s nuclear ploys continue to beat Western economic pressure,” he said. “The administration must go into the next round of negotiations with significant, re-enhanced leverage.”

The administration has other options too. It could toughen enforcement of existing restrictions on Iran related to energy, shipping, port management and other sectors the US has blacklisted in recent months. Dubowitz estimated that stamping out gold flows to Iran that already are subject to US penalties could eliminate $20 billion a year in Iranian government revenue alone.

The rough parameters of any larger nuclear deal with Iran are clear. It would have to include the West scaling back some of the sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy over the past few years. In return, the Iranians probably would be allowed to continue producing low-enriched uranium for fuel but would be required to halt production of any higher-enriched material that comes closer to warhead-grade, and send existing stockpiles of such material out of the country for safekeeping. Western powers also would surely demand tougher monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Iran: EU blacklisting of Hezbollah benefits ‘Zionist regime’ | JPost | Israel News.

Russia ‘committed’ to delivering S-300 missiles to Damascus – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

In an attempt to bolster Syria’s war-battered economy, Russia is considering extending a loan to Damascus and is still committed to delivering S-300 missiles in defiance of the West, a top Syrian official said Monday.

Visiting Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said after meeting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow that the issue of a Russian credit was discussed at the talks and Damascus hoped for an agreement by the end of the year.

“We discussed it, although it is still early to talk of concrete figures,” Jamil said, quoted by Russian news agencies. “We hope that the question will be solved by the end of the year, experts are now discussing it.”

The Syrian official added that all arms agreements with Russia, including Moscow’s controversial contract to deliver S-300 missile systems to Damascus, were still in place.

“All agreements between Russia and Syria in the area of arms deliveries are in place,” the Syrian deputy prime minister said.

“Relations between Syria and Russia are strengthening for the good of peace in the region,” he added.

Lavrov said the Syrian government and opposition must work together to expel all “terrorists and extremists from Syria.”

“We are continuing to meet with the government and all opposition groups to convince them all to accept the initiative to convene the international conference as soon as possible,” Lavrov said at the start of talks with Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil.

“Unfortunately, most of the opposition, in contrast to the government, is not showing this readiness,” he added, according to AFP.

Jamil is meeting Lavrov, in an effort to seek ways of ending the 28-month Syrian conflict after clashes with rebels left dozens dead.

The move comes as Russia and the United States seek to convene an international conference on Syria but amid differences over its parameters.

The Syrian government has expressed its willingness to participate in such a meeting as it seeks to subdue the rebels.

Meanwhile, deadly violence raged across Syria on Sunday as regime shelling killed at least 18 civilians in the northwest while 28 rebels died in Damascus battling government forces, a monitoring group said.

EU puts Hezbollah on terror list | The Times of Israel.

( “This comes one week after the EU declared the sky to be blue.  Agreement has yet to be reached on the issue of the world being round.” – JW )

Council of foreign ministers declares military wing of Lebanese Islamist group a terrorist organization

By Gavriel Fiske and AP July 22, 2013, 1:14 pm

Hezbollah fighters hold party flags during a parade in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: AP/Hussein Malla/File)

The European Union declared Monday that the military wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah was a terrorist organization, which could have far-reaching implications for European-Lebanese relations.

A council of EU foreign ministers reached the decision at their monthly meeting Monday. Putting the organization on the terrorist blacklist was decided by a unanimous vote from the EU’s 28 foreign ministers, a French diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Hezbollah was expected to issue a statement Monday afternoon. The Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union was expected to hold a press conference later in the day.

Ahead of the vote, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that “the great majority” of the EU member states supported the plan, and hoped for the necessary unanimity.

The EU has long avoided a vote to declare Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization, despite US pressure, for fear that such a move would destabilize Lebanon and its neighbors.

“It is good that the EU has decided to call Hezbollah what it is: a terrorist organization,” Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said after the decision.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni welcomed the EU decree. “Finally, after years of discussions and deliberations, [they] have failed, and rightly so, in their attempt to claim that they are a legitimate political party,” she said.

Now the world knows that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, added Livni, a former foreign minister. The “just and correct decision” shows that even if Hezbollah also functions as a political party, it can’t launder its terrorist activities behind that, she said.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin praised the decision and told Israel Radio that the vote was the result of many years of work by the Foreign Ministry.

Observers said there had been a steady change of heart within the EU, particularly in Germany, which has in the past resisted calls to list the Islamist group.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said before the vote that evidence from last year’s attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas in Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian, should provide enough impetus for the move. Westerwelle said that “we have to answer this, and the answer is” blacklisting Hezbollah’s military wing.

Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, right, talks with Italy’s Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, during the EU foreign ministers meeting, at the European Council building in Brussels on Monday. (photo credit: AP/Yves Logghe)

The attack on EU territory plus a Cyprus criminal court decision in March finding a Hezbollah member guilty of helping to plan attacks on Israelis on the Mediterranean island has galvanized EU diplomacy in moving toward action.

“We should name names because time comes to tell the truth,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Antanas Linkevicius, who chaired Monday’s meeting. “What was done by the military wing in the region and elsewhere I would say, there should be some reaction.”

In February, an official Bulgarian report said investigators had “well-grounded reasons” to suggest that two men suspected in the attack belonged to the militant wing of Hezbollah, and on Wednesday, Bulgaria’s prime minister said that new evidence has bolstered its case implicating Hezbollah in the deadly bombing, which targeted a group of Israeli tourists arriving at the Burgas airport.

Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Burgas attack.

On Thursday, Lebanon said that it would formally request that the EU not name Hezbollah a terrorist organization. A statement released by President Michel Suleiman’s office said Hezbollah is a “main component of Lebanese society.”

The Iranian-backed group plays a pivotal role in Lebanese politics, dominating the government since 2011, and has since sent its members to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in their assault of rebel-held areas.

While some EU officials have said that a decision to blacklist Hezbollah’s military wing would be solely based on concerns over terrorism on European soil, several EU nations also have pointed to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria as a reason for the move.

The blacklisting means imposing visa bans on individuals and asset freezes on organizations associated with the group. But the implementation will be complicated since officials will have to unravel the links between the different wings within Hezbollah’s organizational network and see who could be targeted for belonging to the military wing.

Hague said that blacklisting Hezbollah’s military wing would not “destabilize Lebanon or have serious adverse consequences.”

“It is important for us to show that we are united and strong in facing terrorism,” Hague said.

Iran opposes Israeli-Palestinian peace talks – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson predicts ‘Zionist regime’ will not agree to withdraw from territories, not ready to pay price for peace

AFP

Iran on Sunday voiced opposition to a US-mediated resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, predicting the Jewish state would never agree to withdraw from occupied territories.

Tehran “along with Palestinian groups expresses its opposition to the proposed plan and it’s certain that the occupying Zionist regime will utterly not agree to withdraw from the occupied lands,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said, quoted by Iranian media.

“Past experience shows that the occupying Zionist regime is basically not ready to pay the price for peace since war mongering and occupation lie at its very core,” he added.

US Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Friday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had agreed to meet to prepare a resumption of direct peace talks, stalled since 2010. The exact basis for Kerry’s plan remains unknown.

The last round of direct talks between the two sides nearly three years ago broke down over the issue of Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned ministers on Sunday that renewed peace talks with the Palestinians would be tough, and he said any draft treaty would be put to a referendum.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly stressed that his demands for a freeze to Israeli settlement building and the release of prisoners held by Israel must be met before talks can resume.

The Iran-backed Islamist movement Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip rejected a return to talks, saying Abbas had no legitimate right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people.

Iran rules out a two-state solution and has its own vision of how to resolve the six-decade-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The end of occupation … self-determination for the Palestinians, the return of all refugees to their ancestral land, and the creation of an integrated Palestine with Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital,” Araqchi reiterated.

Germany backs away from EU settlement directives | JPost | Israel

News.

New Egyptian government to reevaluate Syria, Iran ties | The Times of Israel.

Foreign minister rejects Islamists’ calls for Jihad, but stresses his country still supports overthrowing Assad regime

By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF July 20, 2013, 6:10 pm

Egyptian Salafis shout slogans against Syrian President Bashar Assad as one waves a Syrian revolutionary flag during a rally after the Friday prayers at Amr Ibn Al As mosque, in Cairo, Egypt, on Friday, June 14, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt is reevaluating its relationship with Syria following the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, the country’s foreign minister said Saturday.

In his first public comments since becoming Egypt’s top diplomat, Nabil Fahmy said Cairo continues to support the Syrian uprising but that Egypt has no intention of supporting a jihad — or holy war — in Syria.

“Everything will be re-evaluated,” Fahmy told reporters in Cairo.

Fahmy’s comments signaled a shift from Morsi’s approach. The former president had made supporting the Syrian opposition in its fight against President Bashar Assad a cornerstone of his foreign policy. Cairo also is the official headquarters of the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group.

Just weeks before Morsi was deposed on July 3, a senior presidential aide said authorities would not prevent Egyptians from traveling to Syria to join the rebel cause.

Morsi also attended a rally on June 15 in which hard-line clerics called on Sunni Muslims to join the fight in Syria. Speaking at the rally, Morsi announced he was severing diplomatic ties with Damascus.

Fahmy said Egypt is seeking a political solution to the three-year crisis in Syria, which has killed more than 90,000 people, according to the United Nations.

“Egypt supports the (Syrian) revolution and the Syrian people’s right to live in dignity within the framework of a democratic system and we will work to achieve that goal,” he said.

While in office, Morsi launched an initiative with the aim of finding a regional political solution.

Since Morsi’s ouster, his critics have accused Syrians living in Egypt of participating in the protests calling for him to be reinstated. Television networks critical of Morsi aired allegations that his Muslim Brotherhood backers were paying Syrian refugees to take part in pro-Morsi protests.

Cairo’s new military-backed interim government swiftly imposed travel restrictions on Syrians, who for decades were able to enter Egypt without a visa.

The main Syrian opposition coalition has criticized the shift toward those seeking refuge in Egypt from the war, calling on authorities to ensure that “Syrian people living in Egypt, under such dire circumstances, are not used to achieve certain political ends.”

The arrest of at least six Syrians accused of taking part in violent street clashes further fanned the flames.

Clashes have erupted into violence several times since Morsi’s ouster, killing more than 60 people. The most recent incident occurred Friday night in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when unidentified assailants opened fire at a Muslim Brotherhood-led march, sparking a melee that killed three female protesters, authorities said.

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi and Vice President Mohammed ElBaradei condemned the incident in separate posts on Twitter, vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice.

El-Beblawi described it as “a reprehensible crime that shames humanity.” ElBaradei asked: “When will we learn that violence aggravates problems and does not solve them?”

No arrests in the shooting had been announced Saturday. Senior health ministry official Khaled el-Khatib said that doctors were examining the bodies of the slain protesters Saturday.

The Brotherhood identified the victims and said they ranged in age from 20 to 45 years old. The group says two were killed by gunshot and one died after suffocating on tear gas.

The Brotherhood said the assault “sheds light on the bloody nature of dictatorship and the police state under a military coup.” The group had called for Friday’s protests to demand Morsi be reinstated and to increase pressure on the new leadership.

Among the policy changes in post-coup Egypt, the new foreign minister said Cairo is also “seriously assessing” its relations with the Syrian regime’s key regional backer Iran. Morsi moved to improve diplomatic ties with Iran when he reached out to Tehran in a bilateral deal to promote tourism and improve relations between the two countries.

“We are neither enemies nor allies with anybody,” Fahmy said of Cairo’s ties with other nations.

The foreign minister said Egypt is also looking at its relationship with Ethiopia and Turkey. Some Brotherhood officials have close business ties with Turkey and the country’s prime minister, wary of the pro-secular Turkish military’s intervention in politics, has condemned Morsi’s ouster as “unacceptable”.

The ministry’s spokesman Badr Abdel-Aaty said Saturday Egypt is “very concerned” that Ethiopia has not replied to requests to take part in technical consultations in Cairo over its construction of a Nile dam. The project could leave Egypt with a dangerous water shortage. Before his ouster, Morsi had vowed “all options are open” in dealing with the dam’s construction.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

Was Israel’s Latest ‘Air’ Attack on Syria from a Submarine? | The Weekly Standard.

Tom Gross

Israel Awaits Rouhani’s Next Move – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) sits next to armed forces chief Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz (L) and Gilad Erdan, minister of communications and home front protection, during a drill simulating a chemical rocket attack in Jerusalem, May 29, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Abir Sultan)