WarSclerotic

BBC News US President Barack Obama’s vision for Iran deal – YouTube.

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(His words speak for themselves. Unrealistic would be a euphemism… – JW )

Senate puts off Iran sanctions vote as nuclear talks in Geneva start – UPI.com.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate will put off a vote on new Iranian sanctions that could derail nuclear talks, senators said, as a crucial round of talks was to begin Wednesday.

“It makes sense not to add new sanctions while negotiations are going on,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was quoted by The New York Times as saying after he and nine other top Democratic and Republican leaders of Senate foreign policy and national security committees met with President Obama at the White House.

At the same time, the senators urged Obama to reject any nuclear deal with Iran that did not include a tangible rollback of its nuclear weapons program, the senators told reporters.

The talks in Geneva, billed as picking up where failed talks in the Swiss city left off 10 days ago, are to pursue what officials call a “first-step,” six-month agreement in which Iran freezes its nuclear program in return for a moderate letup of economic sanctions.

The proposed interim deal has met fierce opposition from Israel and Persian Gulf allies, as well as from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

Under the proposed deal, during the six months, the United States, Britain, France, Germany Russia and Germany — known as the P5-plus-1 because they’re the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany — would try to work out a comprehensive agreement that would end a 10-year impasse over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The United States, Israel and other allies maintain Iran is covertly trying to develop a capacity to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and other civilian uses.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to close a deal this week or next week,” Obama told a business leaders forum in Washington after meeting with the senators. “We have been very firm with the Iranians, even on the interim deal, about what we expect.”

In return for Iran agreeing to several concessions, including halting advances on its nuclear program and subjecting its plants to “more vigorous inspections” than the inspections already in place, “what we would do would be to open up the spigot a little bit for a very modest amount of relief that is entirely subject to reinstatement if, in fact, they violated any part of this early agreement,” Obama told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.

The administration estimates the proposed sanctions relief would be worth $5 billion to $10 billion to Iran, a participant in the White House meeting told the Times.

During the six months of negotiations, “we could see if they could get to the end state of a position where we, the Israelis, the international community, could say with confidence Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon,” Obama told the forum.

The most-recent three-day round of talks ended Nov. 10 after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius insisted the P5-plus-1 must not acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium and should demand Iran end construction at a plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor in Arak, a city 185 miles southwest of Tehran.

Plutonium can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said during the meeting he would have to consult with Tehran on the 11th-hour changes, and the talks broke up, British newspaper The Guardian reported.

On Sunday, Zarif was quoted by the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency as saying Tehran now saw no “necessity” for the P5-plus-1 to recognize Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium — a core demand Iran says is “non-negotiable” — since that right is already asserted and preserved in a U.N. treaty.

Zarif said in a video posted on YouTube Tuesday the P5-plus-1 should take advantage of the “historic opportunity” to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Also Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister David Cameron, in the first direct communication between the two countries’ leaders in a decade.

“Both leaders agreed that significant progress had been made in the recent Geneva negotiations and that it was important to seize the opportunity presented by the further round of talks,” Cameron’s office said after the call.

Rice Plays Down Iran Sanctions Relief – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Susan Rice

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Tuesday tried to play down the impact that a limited lifting of economic sanctions would have on Iran.

Rice told CNN that the deal being offered to Iran by the West is “a good one.”

Specifically, she said, it will roll back the Iranian nuclear program in key respects over a six-month period while increasing the transparency surrounding the program so that the Iranians “can’t sneak out or break out.”

Rice noted that what she called the “sanctions architecture” will remain in place so that the relief will be “limited, modest, temporary, and reversible.”

She insisted that the amount of Iranian assets that would be unfrozen under the deal would be less than $10 billion.

“We’re talking about a modest amount of money,” she told CNN.

The interview took place as negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are set to resume on Wednesday in Geneva.

The last round of talks ended without a deal after France presented a tougher position than its Western counterparts.

Rice said last week that the first phase of the deal being offered to Iran would involve six months of halting progress on Iran’s nuclear program and beginning to roll it back, while the U.S. would offer “limited, temporary and reversible economic relief” that leaves the “architecture of sanctions wholly in place.”

Israel has repeatedly warned against the deal being offered to Iran. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and many of his Cabinet ministers have noted that the deal allows Iran to get sanctions relief without it giving back to the West.

Israel’s warnings have resulted in a public war of words between Israel and America. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israel has “every right” to voice opposition to a potential nuclear deal with Iran but declared that Netanyahu’s fears were unfounded.

On Tuesday, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett told Arutz Sheva that a “good deal” with Tehran would dismantle Iran’s entire “nuclear weapon machine,” while a “bad deal” is one in which “we click the ‘pause’ button and stop the production for a few months.”

Over the past few days, Bennett has been in the U.S. where he has been speaking with media and congressmen in an effort to exert pressure on the Obama administration not to relax sanctions on Iran unless Iran agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Israel starting to consider ‘day after’ Iran agreement | JPost | Israel News.

By HERB KEINON

LAST UPDATED: 11/20/2013 00:27

PM meeting Wednesday with Putin in Moscow to discuss Iran.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as Israel begins preparing its “day after” scenario in expectation of an imminent interim agreement between the P5+1 and Iran.

Netanyahu continued on Tuesday to implore the P5+1 – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – to improve the conditions of the deal shaping up. But as he did so, others began talking about strategy for the eventuality that a deal is signed when the sides meet on Wednesday in Geneva for the third time this month.

According to the general contours of the deal, Iran would freeze its nuclear program for six months in return for sanctions relief. This six month period would then be used to try and negotiate a permanent accord.

Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi, a Netanyahu confidant, said on Tuesday that Israel would not see itself bound by an agreement that does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

But at a briefing organized by The Israel Project, he said that Jerusalem understands this is “a first step toward a final agreement, and will go forward” in its efforts to convey its concerns and convince the world of what is needed to keep Iran from getting nuclear arms.

“We are not going on strike,” he said. “We will not do a sit-in. We will be more frustrated than before, because we were more optimistic that we would be able to convince some of the countries [in the P5+1] that this is the wrong path to follow, but we will go forward in our efforts to convince as many as possible.”

Israel’s main problem with the proposed deal is that it freezes Iran’s program but does not dismantle it or significantly roll it back, in exchange for sanctions relief that Jerusalem believes severely weakens the pressure on Tehran. Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Tuesday that in accepting this agreement, the world would be demonstrating that it “is willing to deceive itself.”

Netanyahu, meanwhile, showed no sign of letting up on his public diplomacy campaign against the deal.

Accompanying visiting French President François Hollande to an innovation conference and exhibit in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said, “What we are seeing is the future. I think where radical Islam is trying to take us is the past.

We are for modernity. They are for a dark medievalism.

We’re for opening up our societies for everyone – men, women, minorities and the right to be different. They’re for uniform suppression [by the dictates] of a rigid doctrine, and they want to back it up with weapons of death.”

Netanyahu repeated that it would be a “grave mistake” to ease the pressure on Iran at this time. “It would be a great mistake to capitulate before Iran when they have every reason right now to respond to the pressures that have been put on them. Rather than surrendering to their charm offensive, it’s important that they surrender to the pressure that can be brought to them to have them abandon their nuclear program.”

Hanegbi emphasized the importance of Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin, though the Geneva talks are set to resume before the two leaders meet.

“Russia is a very important player, a key player, because out of the six countries [in the P5+1] it is the one with the most intimate relations with Iran. They built the reactor at Bushehr and are supplying Iran with weapons.

They are very influential. Even though it might not have an effect on Geneva, we feel the dialogue between us and the Russians on this is enormously important,” Hanegbi said.

This will be Netanyahu’s fifth visit to Russia since he became prime minister again in 2009, and he continued a dialogue with the Russians that was also carried out by his predecessors, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

Hanegbi said that dialogue has proven effective, and pointed to the fact that the Russians have kept their state-of-the-art S300 anti-aircraft missiles out of the Syrian arena.

Netanyahu will be accompanied on his trip by Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, a native Russian speaker who has served as an interpreter in the past during Netanyahu-Putin meetings.

Israel, meanwhile, was not the only actor engaging in aggressive public diplomacy ahead of Wednesday’s talks in Geneva.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who heads Iran’s delegation at the Geneva talks, issued a five-minute video on Tuesday, with subtitles in various languages. In it, he said that the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program could be solved as long as the Western powers treated Iran as an equal and did not seek to impose their will.

“This past summer, our people chose constructive engagement through the ballot box, and through this, they gave the world a historic opportunity to change course,” he said. “To seize this unique opportunity, we need to accept an equal footing and choose a path based on mutual respect.”

According to Brig.-Gen (res.) Michael Herzog, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, one of the problems was that the P5+1 nations did not seem to agree on an “endgame” for the permanent agreement.

“I’m not sure the P5+1 knows where they want to go,” he said.

He noted that there was no agreement among the countries on basic questions such as how far they want to set Iran back from “breakout capacity” and whether the heavy water reactor at Arak needed to be totally decommissioned or not.

Herzog, who over the past decade held senior positions in the Defense Ministry, said in a conference call organized by the Clarion Project that there were several open issues that still needed resolution in Geneva.

The first is whether the preamble to the agreement will say that Tehran has the right to enrich uranium, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As of a few days ago, the Islamic Republic was demanding that this right be spelled out, while the P5+1 position was that the NPT does not grant a right to enrich uranium, but only the right to a civilian nuclear program for peaceful purposes. Uranium enrichment is not needed for a civilian program.

Herzog speculated that that preamble will be kept vague and say that Iran will enjoy the rights under the NPT, but leave open to interpretation by both sides whether that includes the right to enrich uranium.

Herzog said that the agreement will most likely stipulate that the Iranians cannot enrich uranium to 20 percent, but then the question will arise of what to do with uranium already enriched to that level. While the Iranians will want to oxidize it, something they can convert back if they so decide, the P5+1 wants to see it converted into fuel rods, which is irreversible.

Another major issue has to do with the heavy water reactor at Arak, and whether – as the Iranians are demanding – they will be able to continue work on the project but not make it operational for the next six months, or – as the French are demanding – all work must stop on that plant.

Finally, he said, agreements will have to be reached on the type of supervision regime to be put into place, and what kind of inspections the International Atomic Energy Agency will be able to carry out. So far, the Iranians have refused to allow inspection at the Parchin facility, believed to be where military components of the nuclear program are being worked on.

Iranian political figures, meanwhile, have lined up to accuse Paris of jeopardizing chances to reach a deal after Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned against accepting “a fool’s game” – lopsided concessions to Tehran.

On Monday, Hollande set out a tough stance during his visit to Israel, saying he would not give way on nuclear proliferation with respect to Iran.

His remarks received criticism on Tuesday from an Iranian parliamentary official.

“We advise the president of France to comment on the basis of facts, not assumptions, and beyond that, not to be the executor of the Zionist regime’s [Israel’s] plan,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the assembly’s national security and foreign affairs committee, told Iran’s official news agency.

On Tuesday, Iranian parliamentarians gathered signatures to demand that the government continue enriching uranium to levels of 20 percent and finish building the Arak reactor.

“The government is obliged to protect the nuclear rights of Iran in the forthcoming negotiations,” Mehr news agency quoted MP Fatemeh Alia as saying.

Sharon Udasin and Reuters contributed to this report.

Sunni-Shi’ite battles may be diverting Islamic rage from Israel | JPost | Israel News.

LAST UPDATED: 11/20/2013 06:27

The radical Sunni group the Azzam Brigades who claimed responsibility for the Beirut Iran embassy attacks, detests Shi’ites, Iran, Hezbollah and Assad, leaving Israel as mostly a sideshow for the time being.

“The Syrian war has come knocking on Iran’s headquarters in Lebanon, and it is being targeted directly by Sunni extremists,” an expert on Iranian politics told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

He spoke after a suicide bomb ripped through Iran’s embassy compound in Beirut.

“This bodes badly for Iran’s efforts to portray itself as a protector of Muslims, since it is increasingly becoming involved in a sectarian war between Shi’ites and Sunnis,” said Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iranian politics at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

No friend of Israel, the al-Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades decided to exert its energies instead on attacking the “near enemy” – Shi’ites in Lebanon.

The group has been responsible for numerous rocket attacks against Israel.

Saleh al-Qarawi founded the group in 2009. Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, a Saudi citizen, has led it since June 2012.

Radical Sunni groups such as the Azzam Brigades detest Shi’ites in general, and Iran and Hezbollah in particular, because of their support for the Alawite regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Sunni-dominated opposition in Syria is fighting to topple Assad from power, partly because it does not see Alawites as true Muslims.

Hence, in their eyes, Assad has no legitimacy to rule.

The group also dislikes Jews, and after rocket fire on Israel that it claimed responsibility for in August, it said that it was ready for a holy war against the Jews.

Sheikh Sirajuddin Zureiqat, a member of the Azzam Brigades, at the time tweeted a link to a statement which said that Jews were benefiting from the Syrian revolution.

According to the statement, Israel and the West were giving Hezbollah a green light to fight in Syria so as to protect Israel’s security by keeping the Golan border quiet.

The Azzam Brigades is named after Abdullah Azzam (1941- 89), a Palestinian and leading jihadist figure who was close to Osama bin Laden.

According to the US State Department website, the organization was created in 2009 and is based in Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula.

Qarawi fought against US forces in Fallujah, Iraq, working with then-head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to the State Department.

US forces killed Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006, and a US drone reportedly severely wounded Qarawi in Pakistan, with him losing his legs, a hand and his left eye before returning to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

Shi’ites are long-time ideological foes of Sunnis, with the origins of the clash going back to the question of political leadership and the succession of Muhammad in the seventh century.

“Therefore there are many among the Sunnis, especially the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, who consider Shi’a as a kind of fundamental heresy,” wrote Mordechai Kedar, director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation) and a research associate at the Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, in a post on his blog.

“The Saudi regime forbids the Shi’ite minority to recite the call to prayer aloud, because even in the [Shi’ite] muezzin’s call to prayer there is an extra part praising Ali,” Kedar said.

Shi’ites regard Ali (died 661) and his descendants to be the rightful successors to Muhammad.

Thus, radical Sunnis throughout the region direct their burning rage at Shi’ites, the Assad regime and their fellow Sunni opponents, leaving Israel as mostly a sideshow for the time being.

Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria from the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told the Post on Tuesday that he does not necessarily see the main players in Lebanon as interested in avoiding escalation.

“We can presume that this situation will continue, according to which terrorist attacks will be followed by a little bit of quiet and then more attacks – in short, terror on a low flame,” Zisser said.

Articles: Obama’s Iran Moves Could Start World War III.

By Noah Beck

Saudi, allies boost strike capabilities with U.S. systems – UPI.com.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 19 (UPI) — Amid mounting Arab concerns about a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies that are Tehran’s greatest opponents are looking to acquire precision-guided weapons and other advanced systems to enhance their strike capabilities.

That has been their main focus at the biannual Dubai Air Show, one of the aerospace industry’s major showcases in the region. It opened Sunday and closes Friday.For decades, the United States has been wary of selling Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council — the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain — such hardware.

This is largely because Washington has pledged to ensure that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge over its regional adversaries — even if some of the lines are blurring, with both Israel and Saudi Arabia finding common cause in blocking any compromise deal between Washington and Tehran on Iran’s nuclear program.

The Europeans have been less constrained in what they sell Arab states, and given the difficulties in marrying the European weapons to the U.S.-built combat jets that make up the air forces of Saudi Arabia and most of its GCC allies, that could influence the new fighters these states are planning to acquire.

That, plus the pressures on U.S. defense companies to ramp up exports to compensate for shrinking defense budgets, could be motivating a change in attitude in Washington on the unofficial ban on precision-guided munitions.

U.S. State Department officials say there’s no hard-and-fast policy rule on whether to sell Arab states powerful new advanced systems.

But it’s been noticeable that recent arms deals with Arab states in the Persian Gulf in particular have included advanced missile and targeting systems.

This is largely because Washington wants to build up GCC defense capabilities against an expansionist Iran, and the best way to do that is give those states advanced systems that will enhance their capabilities to knock out Iranian missile sites, air-defenses, air bases and naval warships.

All this ensures U.S. defense companies’ production lines keep rolling.

Middle Eastern air forces, in particular, “do play a big role in keeping things going,” Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group of Virginia, said at the Dubai Air Show.

“They tend to have very diverse fleets with multiple capabilities and multiple arms sources and they tend to pay for the latest and the best.”

The Americans have in the last two to three years begun greenlighting the sale of missile defense systems like Lockheed Martin’s recent sale of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, to the United Arab Emirates as part of a $3.9 billion deal.

That’s not a system that boosts the Emirates’ offensive capabilities, but it’s indicative of how the Americans are loosening their self-imposed technological restrictions because it’s in their interests to do so to ensure Iran is contained to some degree by regional forces.

Israel, too, appears to be less demanding about what U.S. weapons systems go to the gulf states because it sees Iran and its nuclear project, plus its ballistic missile program, more and more as an existential threat.

In October, the Pentagon announced sales to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia of precision systems that had long been unofficially restricted.

The $6.8 billion arms package for the Saudis, without doubt the biggest buyer of U.S. weapons outside the U.S. armed forces, included 650 Boeing AHM-84H standoff land attack missiles-expanded response, or SLAM-ER systems, that until then had pretty much been a no-no.

The Emirates deal, worth around $4 billion, included 300 SLAM-ERs, which are essentially cruise missiles.

Others systems long sought by the key gulf states may now be within reach, U.S. Defense News reported.

It said the Saudis are now hopeful a 2-year-old request for the Paveway IV laser-guided bomb manufactured by Raytheon may soon be met.

Defense News said there are still hurdles to be overcome before the approval process reaches the U.S. Congress, which must approve such sales, but there’s growing optimism all round.

If cleared, the weapons would be deployed with Tornado strike jets built by Britain’s BAE Systems and the Typhoon built by the Eurofighter consortium of BAE, European defense giant EADS and Finmeccanica of Italy.

What Happened to Bombing Iran? | The Weekly Standard.

How the “hardline” American position on the Islamic Republic got farmed out to Israel.

Lee Smith