WarSclerotic

Under the radar: Israel’s security establishment supports new Iran agreement | +972 Magazine.

( Leftist Larry Derfner cherry-picks a few sentences to prove that the IDF supports the Iran deal.  You have to be blinded by ideology to be convinced by this pap. – JW )

The Israeli brass’ stated view of the Geneva talks and Sunday’s accord is plainly at odds with the loud, sustained ‘gevalt!’ coming from the Prime Minister’s Office and cabinet.

The news from Israel is that Israel hates the Iranian nuclear deal struck in Geneva – but the news is not entirely accurate. It’s true, of course, that Netanyahu and his government ministers (with the exception of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni) think the agreement is bad, very bad, very very bad, and that Obama and the West sold the Jews out to Hitler again. But there are some other extremely powerful Israelis who don’t think the agreement is so bad, and who certainly prefer it to the no-agreement that Bibi and AIPAC were driving toward – and these Israelis make up the country’s military-intelligence establishment.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise; these are the same people who, with an assist from President Shimon Peres and the Israeli media, stopped Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak from bombing Iran like they wanted to last year. Israel’s generals don’t relish going head-to-head with the United States, they don’t live on paranoia, apocalyptic visions and scare-mongering, and right there you have enough to understand why they don’t go along with Netanyahu on Iran. The Israeli brass are certainly not peaceniks. They’re not sanguine at all about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. They are not opposed in principle to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities – in fact, like with most Israelis, their preferred solution is for the U.S. to bomb them. But unlike Netanyahu and the right, they don’t automatically see red when they look at Iran, and they don’t delude themselves that the West can force Iran to surrender outright, to give up its nuclear program, at the negotiating table, which is what Netanyahu has been demanding all along.

Unlike the prime minister and his followers, the Israeli military-intelligence establishment are a sober bunch, they deal in possibilities, and they are not denouncing this agreement or the negotiations that preceded it. Instead, their message has been that an agreement which slows down but does not dismantle Iran’s nuclear project is far preferable to the alternative – which is not, as Bibi would have it, more Iranian concessions, but rather Iran’s departure from the negotiations and no Iranian concessions.

Unfortunately, this dissent on the part of the brass is not coming through clearly in the news. But there have been a series of public statements by leaders of the military-intelligence establishment that are plainly at odds with the loud, sustained “gevalt!” coming out of the Prime Minister’s Office and cabinet.

After the Geneva agreement was signed on Sunday, retired Gen. Amos Yadlin, former head of Military Intelligence, deputy commander of the Air Force and now director of the country’s leading strategic think tank, told reporters,  “If this were the final agreement – then it would really be a bad agreement, but that’s not the situation.” The situation, he said, is that this is an interim, six-month agreement, and that it’s the final pact to be negotiated later that will be decisive. He said the final agreement must not only freeze Iran’s progress toward a bomb, like the current, interim one does, but reverse it. He also gave Netanyahu credit for getting the world powers to extract additional concessions from Iran. But Yadlin said Sunday’s agreement, which Netanyahu condemns for having “made the world more dangerous,” did just the opposite:

And Yadlin is a hawk in the security establishment; other members were more avid for an accord. Last week, a senior Israeli intelligence official told reporters that the country’s brotherhood of spooks was hoping a deal would be struck in Geneva because the easing of sanctions on Iran would help Rouhani in his battle against his country’s militants. The Christian Science Monitor reported:

Also last week, retired Gen. Giora Eiland, a former National Security Adviser whose voice remains very prominent here on matters of war and peace, was quoted in The New York Times using language that should have tipped people off about the brass’ discomfort with Netanyahu’s harangues against the Geneva talks:

A couple of months ago, the current head of Military Intelligence, Gen. Aviv Kochavi, wrote a report on Iran saying that Rouhani’s election in June signaled the country’s strong desire for an end to the impoverishment and isolation that the sanctions had brought, which presented an opportunity to Israel and the West. Kochavi wrote that under Rouhani, Iran’s nuclear goal hadn’t changed – but he didn’t say Iran’s goal was to annihilate Israel or even build a nuclear bomb. Instead, he said the Islamic Republic’s goal was to become a “nuclear threshold” state, one that maintained the capability to build a bomb in short order if it decided to. From Haaretz:

In all, this is a very different message than Netanyahu, Lieberman, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and AIPAC have been broadcasting about the negotiations and interim agreement with Iran. It’s even further away from the bleatings of “Munich!” by Alan Dershowitz and neocon William Kristol. But the Israeli brass’ message has largely gone “under the radar” as the political leaders, lobbyists and hasbaratists, with their constant, high-volume declarations, define for the mainstream media Israel’s reaction to the West’s opening to Tehran. That’s a shame, because it might change the debate on Iran if the world knew that the Israelis who may know the most about that country, and who are not known for their naiveté, don’t buy into Bibi’s hysteria.

Why Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal Is a Good Thing | FrontPage Magazine.

( “In a Post-American world; Israel stands alone. It will live or die based on what it does next.” )

Some fear nuclear deal with Iran may intensify sectarian tensions in Middle East | JPost | Israel News.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON

11/26/2013 05:01

Critics warn deal helps legitimize the government of Iran even though it is fomenting unrest in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon and Iraq: “The Iranian threat was never just about the bomb, it is Iran’s extremist ideology.”

The axis of Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, as well as Shi’ite-ruled Iraq basked in glory Monday over the deal reached between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program. The deal signaled a transformation of the regional strategic landscape in their favor.

Hezbollah lauded the success of the nuclear deal between its patron Iran and world powers.

“What was achieved through this agreement is a major victory for Iran and to all the people of the region and it is a defeat for the enemies of these people,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

“[It is] a model victory and world class achievement which the Islamic state adds to its record which shines with victories and achievements.”

According to Yigal Carmon, the president of the Washington based Middle East Media Research Institute, the deal changes the geo-strategic reality in the Middle East, granting it hegemony over other powers in the region.

What the US administration gave Iran in exchange for the deal “is something much more grave than a nuclear bomb,” said Carmon, a former chief counterterrorism adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. He pointed out that its real victory is its recognition as a nuclear threshold state.

“The Iranian threat was never just about the bomb, it is Iran’s extremist ideology which calls for ‘death to America,’ and ‘death to Israel,’ and engaged in insurgencies in neighboring countries,” he said adding that it also commits terrorist attacks abroad, “including an attempted terrorist attack in the heart of Washington.”

We are witnessing a “major change of historical proportions that is being led by the current US administration,” he said.

The sense from Iran and its allies is that the deal implicitly recognizes Iran’s nuclear right to enrich uranium and it essentially opens the door for Iran to continue its rapprochement with the West.

Furthermore, the deal helps legitimize the government of Iran even though it is fomenting unrest in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as using terrorism worldwide to promote its Islamic revolutionary agenda. These issues were not dealt with in the agreement.

Analysts believe that the deal comes at the expense of traditional US allies in the region, namely Israel, the Gulf states and Egypt.

Comments by some Arab states praising the deal could be viewed as more of a move meant for self-preservation.

They realize who the rising power is.

Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar told The Jerusalem Post, “My assessment” is that the agreement will “heighten the sense of uncertainty” and “lead to an intensification of the conflict in the region.”

“The Middle East resembles a pressure cooker about to blow,” Shaikh warned.

Carmon believes that US President Barack Obama has a vision, which he presented in his 2009 addresses in Ankara and Cairo, in which the US ceases to be an “imperialist” power with bases in the region and protecting the status quo of dictatorial regimes.

“Rather,” Carmon explained, “he wants a US that aligns with the peoples and revolutionary movements, over the head of current regimes that have been US allies for many years.”

He cited the US support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an example.

“What is happening now is that old alliances are being compromised and losing their importance as the US moves to accommodate new ones such as Iran,” said Carmon.

“I believe that many in Israel will find it a scary development since the traditional pillar of the alliance between the US and Israel is based on shared values and interests,” and this is being put into question by the hope of a new alliance with Iran, he said.

“How can these shared values and interests continue to exist while America is reaching out to a country which continues to work for the annihilation of Israel,” asked Carmon.

Further, the fact that the deal was preceded by months of secret negotiations that began when former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in power, he said, demonstrates that the approach towards Iran “was not based on the election of [President] Hassan Rouhani, but on the ideology of Barack Obama.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Bipartisan scorn for the interim deal.

By Jennifer Rubin, Updated: November 25 at 9:45 am

© The Washington Post Company

News Outlets Held Off On Reporting Secret Iran Talks.

The Huffington Post  |  By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 11/25/2013 8:28 am EST  |  Updated: 11/25/2013 11:19 am EST

Multiple news outlets held off on reporting the news of secret talks between the United States and Iran, it was revealed on Sunday.

After news broke of a nuclear deal between Iran and the West on Saturday night, the Associated Press and Al-Monitor both disclosed that the US and Iran had been engaged in unannounced negotiations since at least March.

The AP then revealed that it had known something about the talks for about that long, but did not feel it had nailed down the story enough to report it:

The AP was tipped to the first U.S.-Iranian meeting in March shortly after it occurred, but the White House and State Department disputed elements of the account and the AP could not confirm the meeting. The AP learned of further indications of secret diplomacy in the fall and pressed the White House and other officials further. As the Geneva talks between the P5+1 and Iran appeared to be reaching their conclusion, senior administration officials confirmed to the AP the details of the extensive outreach.

Paul Colford, director of media relations for the AP, told The Huffington Post that the wire service had sought “the kind of confirmation that we obviously received over the weekend” before publishing its story.

“We had to meet our own standards,” AP Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee told HuffPost.

Al-Monitor wrote that it had learned of the secret diplomacy earlier in November, but had “agreed to hold the story at the administration’s request until the conclusion of the third round of nuclear talks that ended here in a breakthrough tonight.”

Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen tweeted that the AP had also agreed to hold the story until a deal was reached, something reporters from the AP did not confirm.

Holding a story at the request of government is, of course, nothing new. Recently, the New York Times and Washington Post did not report the location of a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia for over a year. The Times and other outlets were also involved in a dispute with McClatchy over whether or not to publish details about an intercepted al Qaeda communication.

Reports: U.S. Unfreezes $8 Billion in Iranian Assets | Washington Free Beacon.

November 25, 2013 10:35 am

The United States released $8 billion in frozen assets to Iran on Sunday in a move meant to ensure Tehran’s compliance with a nuclear pact signed over the weekend, according to top Iranian officials.

Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht confirmed on Monday morning that the U.S. government had unfrozen $8 billion in assets that had been previously blocked by the Obama administration.

The confirmation followed multiple reports of the release on Sunday in the Arab and Iranian news outlets.

Iran will be provided with about $7 billion in sanctions relief, gold, and oil sales under a nuclear deal inked late Saturday in Geneva with Western nations.

Iranian officials lauded the deal as a path to opening up greater trade relations between Iran and the world.

“The agreement will open a new path towards Iran,” Alinaqi Khamoushi, the former head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce said on Sunday as he announced the release by the United States of some $8 billion in assets, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Nobakht confirmed the figure early Monday during a briefing with reporters in Tehran.

“The agreement will ease the anti-Iran sanctions, which will have significant impacts on the Iranian economy,” the state-run Fars News Agency quoted him as saying.

One senior GOP aide on Capitol Hill was not pleased with the reports.

“It’s pretty clear the White House and State Department have been lying to the American people since the beginning of this process so it wouldn’t shock me to learn they are lying about how much sanctions relief they’re giving Iran now,” said the aide.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) criticized the deal on Sunday, when he said to a Jewish audience that both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate were united in opposition.

“Democrats and Republicans are going to work to see that we don’t let up on these sanctions … until Iran gives up not only all of their weapons but all nuclear weapon capabilities,” Schumer said. “I want to leave you with that assurance.”

A State Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment on the reported assets relief.

Additionally, Iran announced on Sunday that its nuclear work will continue despite the deal, which aimed to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon.

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, who helped ink the deal, praised it for recognizing Iran’s right to enrich uranium, a key sticking point that had delayed the deal until Saturday evening.

“The [nuclear] program has been recognized and the Iranian people’s right to use the peaceful nuclear technology based on the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] and as an inalienable right has been recognized and countries are necessitated not to create any obstacle on its way,” Zarif told reporters over the weekend.

“The program will continue, and all the sanctions and violations against the Iranian nation under the pretext of the nuclear program will be removed gradually,” he added.

Iran’s most well-known nuclear sites will remain operational under the deal, according to Zarif, who presented a very different version of the agreement than that described by the White House on Saturday.

Over the next six months, Iran will see “the full removal of all [United Nations] Security Council, unilateral and multilateral sanctions, while the country’s enrichment program will be maintained,” Zarif said.

The Fordo and Natanz nuclear sites will also continue to run, he said.

“None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordo and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water [nuclear reactor] program will continue in its present form and no material [enriched uranium stockpiles] will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country,” Zarif said. “The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return.”

America recognized Iran’s right to enrich uranium up to 5 percent under the deal, according to both the Iranians and a White House brief on the deal.

The United States agreed to suspend “certain sanctions on gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petrochemical exports, potentially providing Iran approximately $1.5 billion in revenue,” according to a fact sheet provided by the White House.

Iran could earn another $4.2 billion in oil revenue under the deal.

Another “$400 million in governmental tuition assistance” could also be “transferred from restricted Iranian funds directly to recognized educational institutions in third countries to defray the tuition costs of Iranian students,” according to the White House.

Iran nuclear deal: Saudi Arabia warns it will strike out on its own – Telegraph.

Saudi Arabia claims they were kept in the dark by Western allies over Iran nuclear deal and says it will strike out on its own

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in Riyadh Photo: REUTERS/Jason Reed

Shifting gears, Israeli team heading to US to try to shape final nuclear pact | The Times of Israel.

After speaking with Obama on Sunday, Netanyahu dispatching national security adviser to Washington; says permanent deal must dismantle Iran’s program

By Times of Israel staff November 25, 2013, 4:44 pm

Benjamin Netanyahu at a prize ceremony Sunday night. (Photo credit: Emil Salman/POOL/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced that he was dispatching his national security adviser to Washington to discuss the particulars of a permanent agreement with Iran. That permanent deal, he said, must ensure “the dismantling of Iran’s military nuclear capability.”

“I spoke last night with President [Barack] Obama. We agreed that in the coming days an Israeli team led by the national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, will go out to discuss with the United States the permanent accord with Iran,” Netanyahu told members of his Likud party.

The two heads of state on Sunday evening discussed the deal reached by the P5+1 states and Iran, less than 24 hours after the agreement was signed.

The prime minister reacted to the news of the interim deal between world powers and Tehran by calling it a “historic mistake.” In their phone conversation, initiated by Obama, Netanyahu asked the president — who kept Israel in the dark for months about the back-channel US-Iran negotiations that helped shape the deal — to begin US-Israel consultations on the permanent deal right away, and Obama consented, Israel’s Channel 2 reported. Hence the dispatch of Yossi Cohen.

On Monday, Netanyahu reiterated his commitment to keeping Iran from acquiring a bomb but started to shift his focus from the interim deal to the intended permanent one, saying, “This accord must bring about one outcome: the dismantling of Iran’s military nuclear capability.”

“I would be happy if I could join those voices around the world that are praising the Geneva agreement,” Netanyahu remarked. “It is true that the international pressure which we applied was partly successful and has led to a better result than what was originally planned. But this is still a bad deal. It reduces pressure on Iran without receiving anything tangible in return. And the Iranians who laughed all the way to the bank are themselves saying that this deal has saved them.”

The six-month pact signed early Sunday rolls back some sanctions on Iran in return for limits on nuclear enrichment, the shuttering of certain sites and an agreement by Tehran to allow some international oversight.

The White House on Sunday said that Netanyahu and Obama “reaffirmed their shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” and Obama told Netanyahu that he wants the two sides “to begin consultations immediately regarding our efforts to negotiate a comprehensive solution.”

Obama also asked Netanyahu not to lobby allies in Congress to push legislation for more sanctions on Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported.

“The President underscored that the United States will remain firm in our commitment to Israel, which has good reason to be skeptical about Iran’s intentions,” US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro wrote on Facebook.

“Consistent with our commitment to consult closely with our Israeli friends, the president told the prime minister that he wants the United States and Israel to begin consultations immediately regarding our efforts to negotiate a comprehensive solution,” said a statement by the White House. “The president underscored that the United States will remain firm in our commitment to Israel, which has good reason to be skeptical about Iran’s intentions,” it said.

Israeli TV news reported late Sunday that Netanyahu was “extremely angry” with Obama over the deal, that he fears the international sanctions regime will now crumble, that the US had not come clean to Israel over a secret back channel of talks with Iran, and that Israel’s military option for intervening in Iran is off the table for the foreseeable future now that the interim deal is done.

“The president provided the prime minister with an update on negotiations in Geneva and underscored his strong commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which is the aim of the ongoing negotiations,” the White House said.

According to the Associated Press, Obama updated Netanyahu on the secret talks channel in September.

Ilan Ben Zion and Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.

Netanyahu: Israel to send team to US to work on final Iran nuclear deal | JPost | Israel News.

LAST UPDATED: 11/25/2013 16:07

PM says at Likud faction meeting that he agreed with Obama that Israeli team would be sent to US next week; says that Iran interim deal is bad but would have been worse without Israeli diplomatic efforts.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at the Likud faction meeting on Monday that an Israeli team led by his national security adviser would be sent to the US next week to work on a final status nuclear deal with Iran. An interim deal was signed last week between world powers and Iran over its controversial nuclear program.

Netanyahu said that he agreed with US President Barack Obama to send the Israeli delegation to the US when the two leaders spoke about the interim Iran deal on Sunday.

“I spoke last night with President Obama. We agreed that in the coming days an Israeli team led by the national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, will go out to discuss with the United States the permanent accord with Iran,” the prime minister said.

“This accord must bring about one outcome: the dismantling of Iran’s military nuclear capability,” he said

Netanyahu added that the interim deal reached with Iran was bad but it would have been worse without Israel’s diplomatic efforts.

A lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud faction told an Israeli television station earlier on Monday that the premier rebuked US President Barack Obama over the interim agreement agreed upon by the Western powers and Iran on Sunday.

“The prime minister made it clear to the most powerful man on earth that if he intends to stay the most powerful man on earth, it’s important to make a change in American policy because the practical result of his current policy is liable to lead him to the same failure that the Americans absorbed in North Korea and Pakistan, and Iran could be next in line,” Likud Beytenu MK Tzachi Hanegbi told the Knesset Channel.

Obama called Netanyahu on Sunday from Air Force One to discuss the interim agreement struck between world powers and Iran.

In the call, Obama told Netanyahu that the P5+1 — the US, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany — would use the next several months to forge a “lasting, peaceful and comprehensive” solution to the slow-motion nuclear crisis causing consternation throughout the Middle East.

“The president told the Prime Minister that he wants the United States and Israel to begin consultations immediately regarding our efforts to negotiate a comprehensive solution,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

“The President underscored that the United States will remain firm in our commitment to Israel, which has good reason to be skeptical about Iran’s intentions.”

While the White House said both leaders expressed their mutual desire to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, it did not acknowledge any disagreement voiced in the phone call.

Netanyahu on Sunday called the deal, hailed by the US, a “historic mistake” that would make the region more dangerous tomorrow than it was before.

After a hard series of negotiations, Iran agreed late Saturday night to pause much of its nuclear program, including construction on its heavy-water plutonium reactor in Arak and the installation of advanced centrifuges made to efficiently enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. Iran also agreed to allow unfettered access to its nuclear sites and to dilute stockpiles of uranium already thoroughly enriched.

In exchange, the Islamic will attain relief from financial sanctions from the international community valued at up to $7 billion.

Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

▶ Joe Scarborough calls Iranian deal ‘terrible” – YouTube.

Joe gets it right while Richard Haass makes excuses.  Even Haass says Kerry is “overselling” the deal.

Nobody (including Andrea Mitchell !) has anything good to say about it.

Poor Mika Brzezinski sits there quietly looking down…