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Steinitz: No need to be overly pessimistic on Iran

October 14, 2013

Steinitz: No need to be overly pessimistic on Iran | The Times of Israel.

Ahead of Tuesday’s nuclear talks, minister points to the dismantling of Libya’s program as model, warns world powers not to let Geneva 2013 become Munich 1938

By Raphael Ahren October 14, 2013, 4:41 pm Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz briefing reporters in Jerusalem, October 14, 2013. (photo credit: Raphael Ahren/TOI)

Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz briefing reporters in Jerusalem, October 14, 2013. (photo credit: Raphael Ahren/TOI)

Ahead of a new round of nuclear talks between Western powers and Iran starting Tuesday, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said a diplomatic solution was still possible, and said Tehran should discontinue its nuclear weapons program just as Libya did 10 years ago.

Israel will endorse any agreement that ensures Tehran’s inability to create nuclear weapons, including one that would grant the regime the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes, he said Monday. “We want the Geneva talks to succeed. We don’t close the door on a diplomatic solution,” he said.

But Steinitz, a close Likud ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also reiterated Israel’s position that the Islamic Republic must cease all uranium enrichment and ship out all already enriched material. Speaking to foreign media in Jerusalem, the minister warned the West against repeating the mistakes of 1938, drawing a direct comparison between Nazi Germany and Iran.

Rather than prematurely lifting sanctions on Iran, while the regime continues to work toward a nuclear weapons capability, the West should first insist on a complete end to Tehran’s enrichment activity and removal of already existing stockpiles of enriched material. Libya, which harbored nuclear ambitions but surprisingly abandoned them a decade ago, could serve as a model, he posited.

“Libya was trying to develop its military nuclear industry. It was discovered by the MI6, by the British intelligence service, in 2003, and soon after there was an agreement with Libya about its nuclear program,” Steinitz said.

Worried that the West might be ready to enter an agreement with Iran that would curb its military weapons program but allow it to continue low-level uranium enrichment, Steinitz pointed to North Korea. Over the last few years, the international community reached three agreements with the reclusive regime, all of which were violated and eventually allowed to Pyongyang to launch nuclear tests earlier this year.

There were vital lessons to be learned, he said, from the differences between the handling of the Libyan and North Korean crises. “All the agreements with North Korea were about stopping progress toward nuclear weapons, freezing the situation, stopping any further progress and improving supervision,” Steinitz said. “It didn’t work. The agreement with Libya was about dismantling the Libyan capacity to promote nuclear weapons, destroying the centrifuges or sending them to United States to be destroyed. Libya gave up its enrichment facility.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany — the so-called P5+1 — will meet with Iran in Geneva to negotiate over Tehran’s nuclear program. The talks mark the first round of high-level negotiations since the June election of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, which has led to a limited but rapid rapprochement between the regime and the West. The détente, viewed extremely skeptically in Jerusalem, culminated last month in a 15-minute phone call between Rouhani and US President Barack Obama, the first conversation on such a level since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.

‘Nuclear civilian energy: yes — uranium enrichment: no. It’s that simple’

Obama told Netanyahu he would be “clear-eyed” in the US’s engagement with Tehran but made plain his hope that the nuclear standoff could be resolved diplomatically and in the near future.

“Right now, the window for diplomacy is cracking open. But I want you to know that our eyes are open, too,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. “While we seek a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear program, words must be matched with actions. In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs… And I believe firmly that no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Israel insists than any agreement prohibit Iran from independently enriching uranium and require the regime to ship out its stockpile of already enriched material. “What we’re saying is a very simple thing: Demand the only rational, logical, satisfactory solution. Nuclear civilian energy: yes. Uranium enrichment: no. It’s that simple,” Steinitz said.

Iran says it is willing to talk about reducing the rate of enrichment but has ruled out the removal of its uranium stockpile. “Of course we will negotiate regarding the form, amount, and various levels of enrichment, but the shipping of materials out of the country is our red line,” Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said Sunday.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi. (screen capture: Youtube/PressTV)

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi. (screen capture: Youtube/PressTV)

If Iran’s nuclear program is not intended to produce a bomb, as Tehran insists, it need not insist on enriching uranium, or refuse to remove already enriched material, according to Steinitz. “If it’s for a purely civilian purpose, there is no real reason to keep enrichment facilities, or to keep the already enriched material. Let’s deliver it to France, or to Russia, or Holland, and you can get in return nuclear fuel,” he told reporters at Monday’s event, which was organized by The Israel Project.

The removal of “most of the already enriched material” is not exclusively an Israeli demand, but is anchored in several UN Security Council resolutions, the minister added. “And why should Iran escape from Security Council legal decisions that are already in place? If they really want to change their relations to the world, first they need to comply… with already existing Security Council resolutions. Once you comply, you can be accepted into the international community and we can discuss other things, including lifting of the sanctions.”

“We should all do our best to ensure that Geneva 2013 will not become Munich 1938,” Steinitz added, referring to Europe’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War II.

However, the minister made a particular effort not to sound too fatalistic, portraying Israel as optimistic regarding this week’s negotiations. “If you take the last few decades, there are many successful cases: Libya was trying to get nuclear weapons — failed. Syria failed. Iraq failed. South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave up some nuclear weapons that were in those territories.

“So if you look around,” he continued, “many countries gave up, willingly or unwillingly, their military nuclear projects and there is only one failure so far on behalf of the international community, and this is North Korea. And one case which is still open, and this is Iran. I don’t think that we have to be necessarily pessimistic. Sooner or later there might a positive solution. But it depends on us, and by ‘us’ I mean the West and not necessarily little Israel.”

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Netanyahu: Easing off sanctions against Iran now would be a ‘historic mistake’

October 14, 2013

Netanyahu: Easing off sanctions against Iran now would be a ‘historic mistake’ | JPost | Israel News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
LAST UPDATED: 10/14/2013 17:53

During Knesset speech, PM says the Iranian economy is on the verge of collapse as a result of sanctions; stresses Palestinians recognition of Israel’s right to exist as Jewish state is imperative to peace process.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Knesset

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Knesset Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Easing off sanctions against Iran at this point would be a “historic mistake,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at the opening of the Knesset winter session on Monday.

While Israel is successfully working to put international pressure on Tehran, which has resulted in bringing the Iranian economy to a “near-breaking point,” Netanyahu cautioned that easing the sanctions now could bring to the collapse of the sanctions regime.

Despite these sanctions, the prime minister said, Iran continues defying UN Security Council resolutions and carries on enriching uranium.

Netanyahu warned that Iran hasn’t changed its ways, merely its tactics by sending out a more moderate message to the West.

Tehran is offering to give up a little in order to gain a lot, Netanyahu said. It is willing to give up its lower-grade 20% enrichment, but it can now enrich uranium to weapons grade 90%, which will allow it to reach a nuclear bomb faster.

It is also continuing to develop missiles that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and can reach the entire Middle East, as well as Europe, the US and other parts of the world, he continued.

While Iran threatens the entire region, it is obvious it will primarily point its missiles at Israel, as Tehran previously stated it intends to do, Netanyahu said.

Despite that, the prime minister vowed that Israel will not allow Iran to achieve nuclear weapons.

Discussing the developments in the Syrian civil war, Netanyahu commended the move to disarm the regime of Bashar Assad of its chemical arsenal, saying this is an important, positive and essential move – so long as it is completed.

Comparing the situation in Syria to that in Iran, Netanyahu said the US military threat forced the Assad regime to give up its chemical weapons.

He added that had Syria offered to only get rid of 20% of its chemical arsenal, while striving to keep the rest, the world would not allow it, and should not allow a similar offer from the Islamic Republic.

Leaving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the end of his speech, Netanyahu stressed the need for a permanent agreement to enable a stable peace.

The prime minister further stressed that Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is imperative to the success of the peace process.

Netanyahu went on to say that while the official Palestinian media portrays Palestine as stretching “from Metula to Eilat,” no peace agreement will be signed without the Palestinians giving up the right of return, as well as any further territorial claims.

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Hamas leader Mashaal to visit Iran

October 14, 2013

Israel Hayom | Hamas leader Mashaal to visit Iran.

After two-year rift that stemmed from situation in Syria, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal will arrive in Tehran on Monday for an official visit during which he will discuss with his Iranian hosts ways to strengthen Gaza-Tehran ties.

Daniel Siryoti
Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal during a 2010 meeting with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Photo credit: AFP

In another sign of reconciliation between Hamas and Iran, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal will arrive in Tehran on Monday night for an official visit during which he will meet with Iranian leaders.

Mashaal’s trip is taking place after a two-year rift between Hamas and Iran during which Iran suspended economic aid to Hamas. The rift stemmed from the decision by the Hamas political bureau to abandon its Damascus headquarters and announce that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, an ally of Iran, was no longer legitimate.

Arab news agencies reported that Mashaal would discuss with his Iranian hosts ways to strengthen ties between Gaza and Tehran.

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Peace in our time, 75 years later

October 14, 2013

Israel Hayom | Peace in our time, 75 years later.

Richard Baehr

It is fitting that on the 75th anniversary of the appeasement at Munich, which enabled Adolf Hitler to seize parts of Czechoslovakia without a fight, the current presumed “leader of the free world,” President Barack Obama of the United States, has decided that the avoidance of war with Iran is now the principal goal of American foreign policy.

If that means Iran joins the nuclear weapons club, so be it. Obama may be the most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter, but that is only if one grades him on a traditional scale, assuming the president wants the country to continue its leadership role abroad, and remain strong economically at home. If, however, the president has different objectives — to pull America back from its overseas role, and to create a dependency nation at home, increasingly tied to government largesse, then the president’s term in office may be judged a wild success.

The current partial shutdown of the federal government in Washington has revealed the smallness, pettiness and mean-spiritedness of the man who occupies the White House. Cutting off death benefits to the families of those killed in Afghanistan, money needed for funerals among other things, might have been the most noxious decision, but using government employees to keep national parks and monuments closed, rather than open, was just as petty. The World War II Memorial was closed to 90-year-old veterans flown into town for almost certainly their last trip to their nation’s capital, and a group of older foreign visitors were prevented from even photographing the Old Faithful geyser from their bus windows in Yellowstone National Park, but the National Park Service was just happy to be helping out in a rally for illegal immigrants on the National Mall:

“At the same time as the National Park Service was holding legal foreign visitors under house arrest, it was also allowing illegal immigrants to hold a rally on the supposedly closed National Mall. At this bipartisan amnesty bash, the Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she wanted to “thank the president for enabling us to gather here” and Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart also expressed his gratitude to the administration for “allowing us to be here.”

The president has jumped at the opportunity provided him by the appearance of a more moderate Iranian leadership, to charge into a negotiating process that will inevitably result in more time for Iran to weaponize its nuclear program (it already has enough enriched uranium for seven to nine bombs). The president has put Congress on notice that he wants no new sanctions imposed on Iran during this “delicate” negotiating period. Sanctions have taken a toll on Iran, which is of course why the regime is willing to give the appearance of a new openness and moderation in order both to stave off new sanctions, and to get some existing ones removed. The removal of sanctions will likely require some Iranian concessions, but these too may be illusory. After all, the West, and particularly Obama, are anxious for a deal, to be able to throw Iran into the same pile as Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan of foreign problems “removed from sight since we don’t want to fight,” so illusion will trump reality here, just as it did with the rapid about-face on Syria.

There are many members of Congress, from both parties and in both the Senate and the House, who are highly skeptical of the president’s negotiating initiative on Iran. But already, the Senate has chosen to delay further consideration of a new sanctions bill, already passed in the House.

The New York Times, the newspaper that is the official voice of the administration’s appeasement policy on Iran, described the congressional role this way in a “news” article this week:

“With a tough, new Iran sanctions bill teed up in the Senate, following the overwhelming passage of similar legislation by the House in July, lawmakers are poised to do one of two things: They could tighten the screws on Iran’s leaders in a way that helps produce a nuclear deal. Or they could foul up delicate diplomacy at a crucial moment.”

The president could not have said it better — Congress will foul up delicate diplomacy at a crucial moment if it toughens sanctions, which seem to have successfully brought Iran to a posture of “making nice” to seek their removal. So what exactly is the president’s stick in the upcoming negotiations? One carrot is to offer to remove existing sanctions in exchange for some Iranian concession. A second carrot is not to pursue any more sanctions since the Iranians have already presumably offered something- namely a willingness to talk directly to the United States. The third carrot may be the pressure the Obama administration has placed on Israel to do nothing about Iran and allow more time for negotiations.

Repeatedly during his near five years in office, the president has spoken of “all options remaining on the table with regard to Iran.” Of course, for this president, even saying the words “military option” is unbecoming, so the preferred vernacular is “all options” (hint, hint). But no one at this point in Iran is probably remotely concerned about an American military strike against their nuclear program. The pullback from even the threat of an inconsequential one or two day cruise missile strike against Syria for their use of chemical weapons, makes it plain enough that an attempt to deliver a consequential blow to Iran’s nuclear program is not and never was in the cards.

Israel, the nation most threatened by an Iranian nuclear weapons program, has undoubtedly been told in straightforward language by Obama, that any Israeli military action may be unnecessary if diplomacy is successful, and Israel had best not even think about screwing up our new diplomatic initiative before it has had a chance to bear fruit. The campaign to isolate Israel as a nation seemingly unaware of all the good things Obama will soon deliver is also being carried out in the pages of The New York Times.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already blasted by The Times for his tough talk at the United Nations General Assembly, wherein he expressed skepticism about any new Iranian willingness to forgo its nuclear weapons program, is now derided as “messianic” and alone in his obsession about Iran. Too bad the Israeli prime minister can not just toss foreign problems aside, as president Obama does, so he can get back to his primary goals of ending the sequester, increasing spending, taxing the wealthy, and moving millions of people onto government programs, such as Obamacare, which unfortunately seems unable to get them signed up.

“Ten days after publishing a front-page editorial blasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly as ‘combative’ and sarcastic, The New York Times has published an interview-profile that portrays Netanyahu as a ‘shrill’ voice on a one-man ‘messianic crusade’ against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

There we have it — only Israel has a different idea of what to do about Iran. The rest of the world knows that we can have peace in our time, the kind of peace Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier brought home from Munich. If negotiations fail or continue on with no end or resolution in sight (the best result for Iran, which continues to enrich uranium while they go on), the Western powers and Obama can applaud themselves for their good faith effort. At some point, Israel may strike with its own military resources, or other means, or Iran will have the bomb, assuming they don’t already. Iran’s single-minded pursuit of a nuclear weapons program for more than a decade will not be negotiated away. Hitler’s appetite for Czechoslovakia and the rest of Europe could not be either.

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Treading heavy water

October 14, 2013

Israel Hayom | Treading heavy water.

Boaz Bismuth

Nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers, which restarted in Geneva in October 2009, accomplished little more than filling participants’ passports with stamps.

Over the last four years representatives of Iran and the West have become that much better acquainted with Geneva, Istanbul, Baghdad, Moscow and Almaty. Instead of working toward dismantling the Iranian military nuclear program, these trips turned into nuclear tourism, which the participants were happy to take part in as long as progress was being made. Progress towards an Iranian nuclear weapon, that is.

Some of the talks were a farce (Istanbul), while the most recent talks in Kazakhstan were utterly pointless. Over time, international media coverage has grown scant.

But in the meantime, in June, Hasan Rouhani was elected president of Iran and U.S. President Barack Obama even conversed with him in a historical phone conversation on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. If we figure into this equation the severe sanctions with their serious impact on the Iranian economy and society, we can understand how life was suddenly breathed into the corpse known as negotiations.

Tomorrow in Geneva, the talks will recommence, and the world believes, or at least chooses to believe, that this time it will work out, less for reasons of substance than a smile. In the era of Rouhani, Iran will come to Switzerland all smiles and even with a clear plan and schedule. This is the Islamic republic’s new tactic. During the negotiations, Rouhani’s new strategy will be discernible. The road to a bomb is paved with good intentions.

There is a limit to how far Iran will go, even in this seemingly new era. Iran’s deputy foreign minister explained on Sunday that Iran will not agree to remove the enriched uranium it has accumulated from its territory because this is “a red line for Iran.” Iran has a red line? Apparently the country is still not on its knees. The sanctions may be severe, but Iran knows how to correctly read the zeitgeist and arrives in Switzerland as an equal among giants.

In other words, even before the start of talks, Iran has stated that it is unwilling to compromise on uranium enrichment in its territory. Nor will it remove the uranium it has already accumulated from the country. Nor is Iran willing to shut down its underground enrichment facility in Fordo. And it is not willing to stop building its reactor in Arak which is scheduled to become operational at the end of 2014.

And all this, of course, is for “civilian purposes.” If the Iranians weren’t so transparent, we too might want to believe that the delegations will depart Geneva with more than just chocolate and watches.

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Iran, world powers set to resume nuclear talks in Geneva

October 14, 2013

Israel Hayom | Iran, world powers set to resume nuclear talks in Geneva.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says window for diplomacy with Iran is “cracking open” • Kerry: In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs.

News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry: No deal with Iran is better than a bad deal

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Photo credit: AP

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the window for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program is “cracking open,” but that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Kerry made the comments in a speech Sunday via satellite from London to a foreign policy conference in California by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Earlier Sunday, Kerry and European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, held talks on Iran, Syria, Egypt, the Mideast peace process and other matters. The State Department said Kerry’s session with Ashton was “very productive.”

The focus on Iran’s nuclear program comes before the start of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany that are set for Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva. The nuclear talks will be the first between Iran and world powers since the election of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, who has tried to improve relations with the West to pave the way for lifting economic sanctions.

“Right now, the window for diplomacy is cracking open. But I want you to know that our eyes are open, too,” Kerry said in his remarks to AIPAC.

Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

“While we seek a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear program, words must be matched with actions. In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs. We are mindful of the need for certainty, transparency, and accountability in the process. And I believe firmly that no deal is better than a bad deal,” according to the excerpts of Kerry’s speech.

“In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs,” Kerry said.

International penalties over Iran’s nuclear program have damaged Iran’s economy, and Iran wants to ease them in exchange for some concessions. The West contends Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon.

Iran rejected on Sunday the West’s demand that it send sensitive nuclear material out of the country but signalled flexibility on other aspects of its atomic activities that worry world powers.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi’s comments on Sunday may disappoint Western officials, who want Iran to ship out uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, a short technical step away from weapons-grade material.

However, Araqchi, who will join the talks in Geneva, was less hard-line about other areas of uranium enrichment.

“Of course we will negotiate regarding the form, amount, and various levels of (uranium) enrichment, but the shipping of materials out of the country is our red line,” he was quoted as saying on state television’s website.

In negotiations since early 2012, world powers have demanded that Iran suspend 20% enrichment, send some of its existing uranium stockpiles abroad and shutter the Fordo underground site, where most higher-grade enrichment is done.

In return, they offered to lift sanctions on trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemicals but Iran, which wants oil and banking restrictions to be removed, has dismissed that offer. It says it needs 20% enriched uranium for a medical research reactor.

However, Araqchi’s statement may be “the usual pre-negotiation posturing,” said Middle East specialist Shashank Joshi at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“It is easy to imagine a compromise whereby Iran would ship out only some of its uranium, allowing the negotiating team to claim a victory. There are many potential compromises that will be explored,” Joshi told Reuters.

Cliff Kupchan, a director and Middle East analyst at risk consultancy Eurasia Group, took a similar line, saying Iran was seeking to gain leverage ahead of negotiations.

“Still, it is sobering that a lead Iranian negotiator is setting red lines so early. These are going to be tough talks.”

Since Iran started making 20% enriched uranium gas in 2010, it has produced more than the 240 to 250 kilograms (530 to 550 pounds) needed for one atomic bomb.

Iran has kept its stockpile below this figure by converting some of it into oxide powder for reactor fuel, potentially buying more time for diplomacy, U.N. watchdog reports show.

But it has also amassed stocks of low-enriched uranium gas that experts say would be enough for several bombs if processed much further to weapons-grade material. It has also sharply expanded its enrichment capacity in recent years.

Israel, which has threatened preemptive military action if it deems diplomacy a dead end, has demanded the total removal of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles along with a dismantling of its enrichment facilities.

Iran says it will never give up its right to refine uranium and Western experts acknowledge it may no longer be realistic to expect Iran to suspend all such work, as demanded by a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Instead, they say, Iran’s enrichment capacity should be scaled back in order to make it more difficult for the country to launch any weapons bid without being detected in time.

R. Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that merely capping Iran’s nuclear program was unlikely to provide enough confidence in the West.

“Some rollback of the program … is really the only path to confidence and stability,” Kemp wrote in a blog last week.

David Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, told a U.S. Senate committee in early October, referring to machines used to refine uranium: “Any future nuclear agreement must include a limit on the number and type of centrifuges Iran can install.”

In a sign that the U.S. may be re-evaluating its sanctions policy, the American delegation in Geneva will include Adam Szubin, the director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces sanctions.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, wrote an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph on Sunday titled “Appeasement won’t reduce the peril of a nuclear Iran.”

In the article, Kirk called on British Prime Minister David Cameron to follow the example of Winston Churchill’s strident opposition to the 1938 Munich Agreement and demand that Iran completely abandon its nuclear program.

“For Britain’s sake, for America’s sake, and for the world’s sake, I pray that the prime minister stands with us, and rejects the policy of appeasement being peddled in Geneva,” Kirk wrote.

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Unity against Iran

October 14, 2013

Unity against Iran | JPost | Israel News.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
10/13/2013 22:21

It is bound to happen. Disputes will inevitably emerge over how best to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly, September 24, 2013.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly, September 24, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

This week, an Iranian delegation is slated to meet in Geneva with representatives of the P5+1 (the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany). The Iranians will reportedly bring with them a compromise proposal for their nuclear program. And as the details of Iran’s offer become known, differences of opinions both within the P5+1 and outside it will develop over what precisely should be demanded of the Islamic Republic as a condition for the easing of sanctions.

Without receiving a single Iranian concession, Russia and China have pressed the US and the EU to begin scaling back sanctions on Tehran. The rationale behind such a move, apparently, is to “build confidence.”

Thankfully there are no signs Western countries are ready to cave in to the foolish Russian and Chinese demand. Even the Europeans have stood tough so far. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague announced last week that Iran must take concrete steps to set aside its nuclear ambitions before London rolls back sanctions.

However, few are calling to step up sanctions. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who is also America’s lead negotiator with Iran, urged the US Senate “to hold off on imposing additional sanctions on Iran.” Conceivably, Britain, France and German, not to mention China and Russia, would agree.

Some of the more clear-thinking members of Congress are not playing along. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, declared “the State Department should not aid and abet a European appeasement policy by pressuring the Senate to delay sanctions while the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism races toward a nuclear weapons capability.”

Kirk and other US lawmakers – both Republicans and Democrats – argue convincingly that as long as Iran pursues nuclear weapons capability, builds longrange ballistic missiles and sponsors terror around the world, maximum economic pressure will give diplomacy the best chance of succeeding.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent the same message to his French and British counterparts over the weekend.

Ahead of negotiations with the Iranians Tuesday, the P5+1 should be sending out a message that additional sanctions are imminent unless real headway is made. The Iran Export Embargo Act, for instance, which seeks to further curtail the purchasing and transferring of goods and services tied to the Iranian government, should be set in place for implementation before negotiations begin, so that the Iranians know they have something to lose if negotiations breakdown.

Unfortunately, it does not look like this will happen.

What will happen, according to The Wall Street Journal, is that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif will offer a “package of proposals.”

How will the P5+1 react? Inevitably, pressure will build to compromise with the Iranians. Arguments will be made in favor of accepting Iran’s proposals and counterarguments will be made against. In the process, a real danger exists that the coalition organized against Iran’s nuclear weapons program will fall apart.

That must not be allowed to happen. Western nations must stay united against Iran’s push for nuclear weapons capability.

Sanctions are close to achieving the desired result of forcing Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons program peacefully. They must be allowed to run their course. And a new round of sanctions should be prepared now, in case Iran offers less than the minimum required to set the Islamic Republic on the path to a full dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.

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Iranian FM lowers expectations ahead of nuclear talks with world powers

October 14, 2013

Iranian FM lowers expectations ahead of nuclear talks with world powers | JPost | Israel News.

By REUTERS
10/14/2013 14:50

Iranian Foreign Minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif says that following the upcoming meeting in Geneva, another meeting at the ministerial level will likely be required to make real progress.

US Secretary of State Kerry (L) and Iran's FM Zarif (2nd R) at nuclear talks in NY, Sept 26

US Secretary of State Kerry (L) and Iran’s FM Zarif (2nd R) at nuclear talks in NY, Sept 26 Photo: REUTERS

DUBAI – Iranian Foreign Minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced hope that Tehran and world powers can agree in talks this week on a road map towards resolving their nuclear stand-off, but warned the process would be complex.

The negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program, to start in Geneva on Tuesday, will be the first since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who wants to thaw Iran’s icy relations with the West to get harsh economic sanctions removed.

“Tomorrow is the start of a difficult and relatively time-consuming way forward. I am hopeful that by Wednesday we can reach an agreement on a road map to find a path towards resolution,” Zarif said in a message posted on his Facebook account late on Sunday.

“But even with the goodwill of the other side, to reach agreement on details and start implementation will likely require another meeting at ministerial level.”

Western nations believe Iran’s uranium enrichment program is an attempt to achieve a nuclear weapons capability, a charge Tehran denies, saying it only wants the master the technology to generate electricity and carry out medical research.

Rouhani’s election in June to succeed conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has raised hopes of a negotiated solution to a decade-old dispute over the program that could otherwise trigger a new war in the volatile Middle East.

Zarif’s deputy, Abbas Araqchi, on Sunday rebuffed the West’s demand that Iran send sensitive nuclear material out of the country but signaled flexibility on other aspects of its atomic activities that worry world powers.

Middle East analyst Cliff Kupchan of risk consultancy Eurasia group in an analysis expressed his views on the unlikely deal between Iran and the US, saying “we continue to believe that while there is a significant chance of a deal by the end of the second quarter of 2014, an agreement on balance remains improbable.

“Iran will likely offer a new proposal in which it sets out a road map, possibly including concessions on medium-enriched uranium in return for sanctions relief,” he said. “The US will agree to study the proposal but probably insist on more severe near-term constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.”

On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that he was hopeful that the “window for diplomacy is cracking open with Iran.”

However Kerry was quick to reassure the group of the importance the US places on Israel’s security.

“But I want you to know that our eyes are open, too. While we seek a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear program, words must be matched with actions,” Kerry said. “In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs.”

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US to Iran ahead of Geneva: Carry on enriching uranium, but cut down on advanced IR-2 centrifuges

October 14, 2013

US to Iran ahead of Geneva: Carry on enriching uranium, but cut down on advanced IR-2 centrifuges.

DEBKAfile Special Report October 14, 2013, 11:48 AM (IDT)
High-speed R2 centrifuges in Iran

High-speed R2 centrifuges in Iran

US Secretary of State John Kerry briefed EU foreign policy executive Catherine Ashton Sunday night, Oct. 13, on the areas of accord and discord quietly settled between the US and Iran. She had to be brought up to speed before meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif the next day, ahead of the P5+1 talks with Iran which she chairs in Geneva  on Tuesday, Oct 15.

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Both Kerry and the leading Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi set out their government’s official positions in public statements Sunday night. Neither can guarantee which or any parts of those statements will survive all the way to the end of the formal or the backdoor diplomatic processes.
The Secretary of State spoke of a window for diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program “cracking open” and said:“ …we believe no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Kerry will not have forgotten how his ringing pledge of an American military strike against Syria over its use of chemical weapons segued into the Pesident Barack Obama’s decision to back down.
Araghchi ruled out Tehran sending any of its enriched uranium abroad as part of any deal to ease sanctions. In so saying, he directly contradicted an earlier comment by parliament Speaker Ali Larijani that Iran has more enriched uranium than it needs and should use it as a bargaining chip in talks with the West.

debkafile’s sources in Washington and Tehran report that 24 hours before the Geneva forum, no hard and fast decisions have been reached on final areas of accord and the proposals to be put on the table  – either in Barack Obama’s tight circle of intimate advisers headed by chief of staff Denis McDonough, or in Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s bureau.

Both are held back by last-minute internal differences and uncertainties in their home bases. Major issues are expected to move up from Geneva to higher levels. Monday, Zarif confirmed the perception that no consensus was to be expected at the Geneva forum and the six foreign ministers would have to be convened to push a resolution forward.

As matters stand, debkafile can throw some light on five outstanding aspects:

1.  As his contribution to bringing negotiations to a successful conclusion, i.e. an accord signed by all six powers, Barack Obama agreed in principle in backdoor exchanges that Iran’s nuclear program can continue, including the enrichment of uranium up to 20 percent purity.

Where the two sides parted ways was on quantities of enriched material and the type of centrifuges used for its manufacture.
2.  President Obama is willing to accept the Iranian regime’s declaration that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and the country has never engaged in weapons activity. He is even willing to fall for Iranian propaganda’s claim that Khamenei had issued a fatwa prohibiting nuclear weapons, even through every Shiite authority says that Iran’s supreme leader is not competent to issue religious edicts.
3.  Khamenei himself is challenged by controversy at the top of his regime between hard-liners standing out for more concessions from the West and factions more amenable to compromise.
The influential Larijani was most likely talking for Khamenei when he offered the first authoritative signal that Tehran would consider the removal of part of its enriched uranium stocks from the country for the sake of an accord.

No sooner was his comment welcomed in Washington and European capitals as the first major breakthrough in nuclear diplomacy with Tehran, when senior negotiator Araghchi dumped a cold shower on their heads.

4. debkafile’s Iranian sources report that, for now, the hardliners are up in the seesaw rocking the Iranian regime. Their faction argues that since the United States has already agreed to let Iran continue to enrich uranium up to 20 percent, all that remains to be settled is a cap on the number of advanced high-speed  IR2 centrifuges Iran is allowed to use. This ace, they say, is powerful enough to trump any arguments about the quantities of enriched fissile material Iran is allowed to retain and keep in the country.
5.  Nothing remains of the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s four stipulations for accepting a nuclear accord with Iran. Not a  vestige will reach the Geneva conference agenda after Washington brushed aside every one of those stipulations, which were: to halt uranium enrichment, remove enriched uranium stocks from Iran,  shut down the Fordo underground enrichment plant and suspend construction of the heavy water reactor in Arak for the production of plutonium.

Secretary Kerry threw a bone to the Israeli government in his comment Sunday via satellite to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee summit in California:  “I want you to know that our eyes are open, too. While we seek a peaceful resolution to Iran’s nuclear program, words must be matched with actions. In any engagement with Iran, we are mindful of Israel’s security needs.”
Israelis strongly doubt whether any of the parties to a future deal on Iran’s nuclear program will match their words with actions.

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