Andrew Klavan: Obama’s Nuclear Disaster, Truth Revolt, May 1, 2015
Archive for May 1, 2015
Andrew Klavan: Obama’s Nuclear Disaster
May 1, 2015Clever new Rubio amendment to Corker’s Iran bill: The final deal must match this month’s WH “fact sheet”
May 1, 2015Clever new Rubio amendment to Corker’s Iran bill: The final deal must match this month’s WH “fact sheet” Hot Air, Allah Pundit, April 30, 2015
(Rubio has a good sense of humor. — DM)
Doesn’t matter which is true, says Marco Rubio. The White House gave us the “fact sheet.” They told us that Iran had agreed to those terms. Those terms should therefore be absolutely essential provisions in any final deal. If the White House is uncomfortable with that, it can only be because either (a) they lied on the “fact sheet” or (b) they told the truth but are prepared to cave to whatever new demands Iran’s come up with to wriggle free of its previously agreed-to obligations. In other words, Rubio’s going to make Obama and/or Iran live up to their own BS.
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You remember the “fact sheet,” don’t you? That’s the document the White House released on April 2nd, the day it reached a “framework” deal with Iran, describing the terms that Iran had allegedly agreed to. Snap nuclear inspections of all suspicious sites, a greatly reduced number of centrifuges, delayed sanctions relief until Iran satisfied its denuclearization obligations — it wasn’t half bad, and certainly better than what an Obama skeptic might have expected. The only problem: Apparently no one told Iran that this is the deal they had agreed to. Within a week, Iran’s supreme leader claimed the U.S. “fact sheet” was full of lies; Iran’s defense minister claimed the deal didn’t include inspection of military sites; and, most dramatically, Iran’s president claimed that all sanctions would need to be lifted on day one after a final deal, not gradually as Iran complied with its duties under the deal. Either Iran had suddenly gotten cold feet after the “framework” deal was struck and reneged on what it had promised John Kerry or … the “fact sheet” was itself filled with distortions about what Iran had actually agreed to, a political ploy designed to build support in the U.S. for a deal that was still secretly very much in flux.
Doesn’t matter which is true, says Marco Rubio. The White House gave us the “fact sheet.” They told us that Iran had agreed to those terms. Those terms should therefore be absolutely essential provisions in any final deal. If the White House is uncomfortable with that, it can only be because either (a) they lied on the “fact sheet” or (b) they told the truth but are prepared to cave to whatever new demands Iran’s come up with to wriggle free of its previously agreed-to obligations. In other words, Rubio’s going to make Obama and/or Iran live up to their own BS.
Rubio’s amendment simply quotes that fact sheet verbatim and says the president may not waive or lift any Congressional sanctions until he certifies Iran has met the White House conditions.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why that would be controversial,” Rubio said Wednesday. “Yet somehow, I was told this would box the White House in.”…
Rubio’s fact-sheet amendment is different [from other GOP amendments]. It doesn’t challenge the presidential authority to sign an executive agreement. Republicans supported that power when their party controlled the White House. Rubio’s fact-sheet amendment is also germane to the Iran legislation before the Senate. An argument used against other amendments–like Rubio’s one on recognizing Israel–is that it asks Iran to meet conditions not related to the nuclear negotiations.
Rubio’s fact sheet amendment only asks Democrats to vote on whether a final Iran deal should meet the conditions as described by the leader of their own party. If Democrats vote that it should, then Obama may be forced to issue a veto over his own fact sheet as he seeks to make a final agreement more palatable to Iran. If the Democrats vote that it shouldn’t, then they will appear to be conceding the White House either misled the public or bungled the negotiations earlier this month.
It’s a clever tactic by a guy who, I think, has a knack for clever tactics. But … does it have a chance of ending up in the final Corker-written Senate bill on Iran? Obama can only be boxed in if Congress passes the bill with Rubio’s amendment attached, and the odds of that happening seem, shall we say, modest. The takeaway from my earlier post about his amendment on Israelis that there’s a strong bipartisan consensus in the Senate, backed by none other than AIPAC, that’s determined to protect Corker’s bill as written by defeating any amendments that might split the bipartisan coalition of senators that are currently lined up behind it. Rubio’s amendment could do that. If it ended up passing, Democrats would probably vote no on the final bill to prevent the “fact sheet” from tying Obama’s hands during the final negotiations with Iran, even though O himself claims Iran already agreed to everything in it. Without those Democratic votes, the bill would fail and Congress would be left with nothing. In theory that would supply the GOP with a nice talking point about the bill’s defeat — “Senate Dems were afraid to make Obama live up to his own rhetoric” — but in practice there are various RINOs who would likely give Democrats political cover by voting with them to kill Rubio’s amendment. For some Republicans, like Corker and Lindsey Graham, the most important thing is to pass some sort of bill that would grant Congress a vote on the final deal, even if it means sacrificing each and every amendment that might potentially inconvenience President Precious in his negotiations.
All of which is to say, how you feel about Rubio’s amendment depends mainly on how you feel about Corker’s bill. There’s no denying, as Ace says, that it’s a sham: Even if a bunch of Democrats join with the GOP now to pass it, guaranteeing a vote on the final deal with Iran this summer, it’s a cinch that at least 34 Senate Dems will vote yes when the time comes to approve that deal, ensuring that it’ll take effect. There’s no way they’ll stab Obama in the back on his greatest foreign policy “achievement” by helping the GOP to block it, which means all the talk of “bipartisanship” right now is, to borrow Ace’s phrase, “failure theater.” It’s bipartisan only as long as it doesn’t create headaches for Obama during negotiations; once it does, as Rubio’s amendment threatens to do, Democrats will go back to voting a (mostly) party line. The whole process is a kabuki designed to make it look like Republicans are doing something meaningful to stop the deal with Iran when in reality it’s entirely up to Reid’s Democrats whether it ends up being blocked or not. The only thing that hinges on whether the Senate passes Corker’s bill is the sort of spin available to the GOP later once the deal with Iran is implemented. If Corker’s bill passes now, setting up a vote later on the final Iran deal, and that final deal draws, say, 66 “no” votes, then Republicans can say a heavy bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate disapproved of it. If Corker’s bill doesn’t pass now, Congress will effectively remain silent on the deal, which at least has the virtue of them not engaging in a sham vote that perverts the Treaty Clause in the Constitution. Either way, the deal takes effect despite Rubio’s best laid plans. Which outcome is better?
White House Looks to Ease Arab Fears Over Iran Nuclear Pact – NYTimes.com
May 1, 2015White House Looks to Ease Arab Fears Over Iran Nuclear Pact – NYTimes.com.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is scrambling for reassurances it can present this month at a Camp David summit meeting to persuade Arab allies that the United States has their backs, despite a pending nuclear deal with Iran.
Officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have been meeting to discuss everything from joint training missions for American and Arab militaries (more likely) to additional weapons sales to a loose defense pact that could signal that the United States would back those allies if they come under attack from Iran.
Over mahi-mahi at a dinner at the Pentagon two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter polled a select group of Middle East experts for advice on how the administration could placate Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all of which fear the nuclear deal, according to several attendees at the dinner.
Mr. Carter wanted to know “how do you make clear to the G.C.C. that America isn’t going to hand the house keys of the Persian Gulf over to Iran and then pivot to Asia?” said one Middle East expert at the dinner, using the acronym for the Gulf Cooperation Council. The council includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
On April 20, during lunch with President Obama at the White House, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, pressed for a defense pact with the United States, according to a senior administration official. The president in turn sought support from the Emirates for the Iran nuclear deal, which Secretary of State John Kerry is negotiating.
Administration officials said Mr. Obama had not settled on what to offer but that there were several possible options, most of them difficult to pull off. A security treaty with Saudi Arabia and the other countries is unlikely because that would have to be ratified by Congress and would probably run into opposition from Israel and its supporters on Capitol Hill.
But instead of a full-fledged security treaty — like the one the United States has with Japan ensuring that America will come to Japan’s defense — the administration is discussing offering a looser, less-binding defense pact. In the deal envisioned, American officials would put in writing, but not send to Congress, language agreeing to the defense of Arab allies if they come under attack from outside forces. Such a pact would not apply if the governments came under attack from political opponents within their own countries, since the last thing the administration wants is to get involved in future uprisings like the Arab Spring.
There is not much time left to come up with something. Mr. Kerry is to meet next week with the foreign ministers of the Arab countries to prepare for the Camp David summit meeting on May 14, and he will be expected to foreshadow what kind of package the administration is willing to offer. If he does not have anything that satisfies the gulf allies, they may downgrade their attendance at the Camp David meeting. Saudi Arabia, for example, could send its crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, instead of King Salman, in what would widely be interpreted as a rebuff of Mr. Obama.
Another option the administration is considering is whether to make Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “major non-NATO allies,” a designation that would loosen up restrictions on weapons sales. The designation falls short of a defense pact but does grant a number of military advantages that are available only to NATO allies.
Bahrain and Kuwait are already designated as such allies. Former President George W. Bush gave Kuwait the status in 2004 after it supported the American-led invasion of Iraq and served as a staging ground for United States troops. Bahrain, the home of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, got the designation in 2002.
But neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates has the designation that could help soothe Arab fears, said Kenneth M. Pollack, an expert on Middle East political and military affairs at the Brookings Institution.
“The gulf states are very concerned about this nuclear deal with Iran,’’ Mr. Pollack said. “Some of them believe this is the start of an Obama administration bid to trade them away.” Administration officials, he said, were “trying to think creatively about how they can assuage those fears.”
Increased weapons sales could help, but there is a major roadblock: maintaining Israel’s military edge. The United States has long put restrictions on the types of weapons that American defense firms can sell to Arab nations, which are meant to ensure that Israel keeps a military advantage against its traditional adversaries in the region. That is why the administration has so far not allowed Lockheed Martin to sell the F-35 fighter jet, considered to be the jewel of America’s future arsenal of weapons, to Arab countries. The plane, the world’s most expensive weapons project, has stealth abilities and has been approved for sale to Israel.
Defense analysts say that with the balance of power in the Middle East in flux, that could change. One possibility would be to wait three years after delivering the F-35 to Israel and then approve it for sale to the United Arab Emirates — the Arab ally most likely to get the first chance to buy the stealth fighter — which would give Israel a three-year head start.
If the Arab allies “could push a button and have anything, they want a security pact, a Japan-style treaty,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “ But they’re cognizant of the fact that that’s too big of an ask. So at the very minimum, it’s weapons sales.”
Vali R. Nasr, a former special adviser to Mr. Obama who is now dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that the administration had already made moves to reassure the Arab allies — most notably by supporting Saudi-led airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and by moving an aircraft carrier group to the Yemeni coast. The warships were meant as a show of force to turn back an Iranian convoy, which American officials said they suspected was trying to deliver weapons to the Houthis.
“Remember, our dog in the fight in Yemen is Al Qaeda, not the Houthis,” Mr. Nasr said. Moving the carrier group to back the Saudis “wasn’t about Yemen. It was about alliance management. “
Biden: War with Iran Will Happen If Required
May 1, 2015Biden: War with Iran Will Happen If Required – News from America – News – Arutz Sheva.
Statement may be the most direct public threat ever made by a US administration of war against Iran.
First Publish: 5/1/2015, 3:11 PM
Joe Biden
Thinkstock
US Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday the United States is willing to go to war to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as he defended the deal being hammered out with Iran over its nuclear weapons program.
“As we pursue this deal, we’re also deepening our cooperation with Israel and our other regional partners,” he said as he addressed the 30th anniversary dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“There’s nothing simple, minimal or predictable about a war with Iran,” he added, but “if required, it will happen. It is a risk that we may yet have to take should Iran rush to a bomb.”
Biden’s warning may be the most direct public threat made by any US administration of war against Iran in case it pursues a nuclear weapon.
“The finest military in history remains at the ready,” Biden said. “Don’t underestimate my friend Barack Obama. He has a spine of steel and he is willing to do what it takes to keep our allies safe.”
“We’re prepared to use the force, just listen to the news tonight about what we’re doing in the straits,” Biden said, referring to the deployment of US Navy warships to accompany US vessels in the Persian Gulf following Iran’s seizure of a cargo ship this week..
JTA reported that Biden also said that President Barack Obama had authorized military preparations in the event of a decision to strike Iran.
“No such policy existed before president Obama uttered it, that all instruments of American power to prevent — not contain — a nuclear armed Iran would be used ,” Biden said. “He made sure that our military had the capacity and the ability to execute the mission if required.”
“Those who say the deal ‘paves Iran’s path to a bomb’, respectfully, they don’t get it,” Biden said, in a veiled reference to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Biden promised that the Obama administration would not sign a deal that ended sanctions against Iran up front, and that did not allow for intrusive measures that would extend Iran’s breakout period to a year. He also pledged that a deal would require Iran to reveal its past nuclear weapons research. Iran’s leaders have rejected such a formula.
Column One: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale
May 1, 2015Column One: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, April 30, 2015
Iranian navy ship.. (photo credit:REUTERS)
There is a thread that runs between Obama’s policy toward Iran and his policy toward Israel.
On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forcibly commandeered the Maersk Tigris as navigated its way through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran controls the strategic waterway through which 40 percent of seaborne oil and a quarter of seaborne gas transits to global markets.
The Maersk Tigris is flagged to the Marshall Islands. The South Pacific archipelago gained its independence from the US in 1986 after signing a treaty conceding its right to self-defense in exchange for US protection. According to the treaty, the US has “full authority and responsibility for security and defense of the Marshall Islands.”
Given the US’s formal, binding obligation to the Marshall Islands, the Iranian seizure of the ship was in effect an act of war against America.
In comments to Bloomberg hours after the ship was seized, Junior Aini, chargé d’affairs at the Marshall Islands Embassy in Washington, indicated that his government’s only recourse is to rely on the US to free its ship.
Immediately after the incident began, the US Navy deployed a destroyer to the area. But that didn’t seem to make much of an impression on the Iranians. More significant than the naval movement was the fact that the Obama administration failed to condemn their unlawful action.
If the administration continues to stand by in the face of Iran’s aggression, the strategic implications will radiate far beyond the US’s bilateral ties with the Marshall Islands. If the US allows Iran to get away with unlawfully seizing a Marshall Islands flagged ship it is treaty bound to protect, it will reinforce the growing assessment of its Middle Eastern allies that its security guarantees are worthless.
As the Israel Project’s Omri Ceren put it in an email briefing to journalists, “the US would be using security assurances not to shield allies from Iran but to shield Iran from allies.”
But President Barack Obama apparently won’t allow a bit of Iranian naval piracy to rain on his parade. This week Obama indicated that he feels very good about where his policy on Iran now stands. And he has every reason to be satisfied.
With each day that passes, the chance diminishes that his nuclear deal with the mullahs will be scuppered.
On the one hand, the Iranians are signaling that they are willing to sign a deal with the Great Satan. And this makes sense. For them the deal has no downside.
First there’s the money. Last week the State Department indicated that it won’t rule out paying Iran a $50 billion “signing bonus.”
The $50b. would be an advance on Iranian funds that have been frozen in Western banks under the terms of the sanctions regime that would be lifted in the event a deal is concluded.
Iran can do a lot with $50b.
Iran is spending $3b. a month to finance its war in Syria. With $50b. in their pockets the ayatollahs can fight for another year and a half without selling a barrel of oil.
According to a report earlier this week on Channel 10, during Syrian Defense Minister General Fahd al-Freij’s visit to Tehran this week, he was instructed to enable Hezbollah to open a front against Israel on the Golan Heights. Iran’s “signing bonus” would pay for Iran’s new war against Israel.
As for their nuclear weapons program, even Obama admitted that when his deal expires in 10 years, Iran will have the capacity to build nuclear weapons at will.
Iran can get around the ideological issue of signing with its theological foe by focusing its hatred on the US Congress, something Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did effortlessly at a press conference in New York on Wednesday.
At home as well, Obama no longer faces serious opposition to his Iran policy. The Iranian Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the bill now being debated on the Senate floor, ensures that Congress will have no ability to stand in the way of the deal. In contrast to the provisions of the US Constitution that require a two-third Senate majority to approve an international treaty, the Senate bill requires a two-third majority of senators to block the implementation of Obama’s nuclear deal with the greatest state sponsor of terrorism.
Obama has successfully bullied centrist Democrat senators into abandoning their concern for US national security and supporting his deal.
They in turn have convinced centrist Republicans – and AIPAC – to push forward the legislation and so turn Congress into partner in Obama’s nuclear gambit.
Attempts by Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, to attach amendments to the bill that would require Congress to either treat the deal as an international treaty, or at the very least require a simple majority to reject it, have been strenuously opposed not only by the Democrats, but by the Republican leadership as well.
Obama’s confidence that his deal will go through has freed him up to mark the next target of his foreign policy in what he recently referred to as the “fourth quarter” of his presidency: Israel.
According to a report in Foreign Policy, the administration is now seeking to delay anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council – including a French draft resolution that would require Israel to surrender all of Judea and Samaria and northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians – until after the deal with Iran is concluded at the end of June. According to the report, the administration doesn’t want to upset pro-Israel Democrats while it still needs them to approve the deal with Iran.
But Obama has no problem with marking the target.
And so, on Monday, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman did just that.
In an address before Reform Jews, Sherman issued a direct threat against Israel.
In her words, “If the new Israeli government is seen to be stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution, that will make our job in the international arena much tougher… it will be harder for us to prevent internationalizing the conflict.”
In an apparent attempt to soften the harsh impression Sherman’s statement made on the Israeli public, on Wednesday US Ambassador Dan Shapiro gave an interview to Army Radio.
Although his American-accented Hebrew is always a crowd pleaser, Shapiro’s statements were simply a more diplomatic restatement of Sherman’s threat.
As he put it, “We are entering a period without negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians] and this leads us to two important challenges.
One – how do we make progress toward the two-states for two-peoples solution, and two – negotiations have always been critical to preventing the delegitimization of Israel.”
In other words, Shapiro signaled that the Obama administration expects Israel to make significant concessions to the Palestinians in return of nothing, in the absence of negotiations.
And if we fail to make such unreciprocated concessions, we will have no legitimacy and the US will have no choice but to act against Israel at the UN.
That is, by Shapiro’s and Sherman’s telling, Israel’s unwillingness to bow to Palestinian and US demands for concessions to the Palestinians is what has caused and what feeds the international campaign to delegitimize its right to exist.
For anyone who entertains the thought that Shapiro and Sherman are correct to blame Israel for the movement to delegitimize it, this week we received new proof of its falsity.
This week, the leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement condemned Israel not for failing to make concessions to the Palestinians. This week they condemned the Jewish state for helping Nepal earthquake victims.
Ever since the Israeli humanitarian aid mission set off for Nepal earlier this week, leading figures in the BDS movement have been working overtime to attribute ill and even demonic intentions to their mission.
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted on his Twitter account, “Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade!” Max Blumenthal, a Jewish anti-Semite who has risen to prominence in the BDS campaign, tweeted, “For a country responsible for so many man-made catastrophes, natural disasters can’t come often enough.”
Ali Abumiah, the editor of Electronic Intifada, intoned that Israel was racist to evacuate newborn infants born to surrogate mothers in Nepal and leave the surrogates behind. He also tweeted, “Propaganda operation goes into high gear to exploit Nepal earthquake to improve Israel’s blood-soaked image.”
These assaults, which attribute malign, exploitative designs to Israel’s humanitarian relief efforts, make clear that there is no connection between Israel’s actions and hostility toward Israel.
The purpose of the BDS movement is not to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
Its purpose is to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and delegitimize support for Israel’s right to exist.
If Israel is evil for sending hundreds of soldiers and relief workers to Nepal to rescue earthquake victims, clearly Israel will be attacked as evil for making concessions to the Palestinians that the Palestinians and the Obama administration will insist are insufficient.
Shapiro’s claim that negotiations between Israel and the PLO, or Israeli unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, protect Israel from its Western detractors is totally unfounded.
There is a thread that runs between Obama’s policy toward Iran and his policy toward Israel.
That common threat is mendacity. Obama’s actual goals in both have little to do with his stated ones.
Obama claims that he wishes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But as we see from his willingness to allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state while running wild in the Straits of Hormuz, committing mass slaughter in Syria, building an empire that includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and threatening its Arab neighbors and Israel, the purpose of the administration’s negotiations with Iran is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
The purpose of the negotiations is to build an American-Iranian alliance on Iran’s terms.
So, too, Obama says his goal is to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
But his pressure and hostility toward Israel does nothing to achieve this goal. The goal of a policy of acting with hostility toward Israel is not to promote peace. It is to distance the US from Israel and align America’s Israel policy with Europe’s preternaturally hostile treatment of the Jewish state.
Three days after a ship sailing under their flag was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, citizens of the Marshall Islands discovered that their decision to place their security in America’s hands is no longer the safe bet they thought it was 29 years ago.
Anyone who entertains the belief that Israel will gain diplomatic acceptance or even a respite from American pressure if it makes concessions to the Palestinians is similarly making a high risk gamble.
Part II: Is Iran Playing Games With the US Navy?
May 1, 2015First on CNN: Navy to escort U.S. commercial ships near Iran
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Updated 7:28 PM ET, Thu April 30, 2015
(Here’s the second article. Is Iran drawing the attention of the US Navy away from the Yemen strait? The Iranians are pretty sneaky. Escalation seems to be their dangerous game for now. – LS)
Washington (CNN)U.S. Navy warships accompanied four U.S. flagged vessels through the Strait of Hormuz Thursday, beginning a new military operation to offer armed protection from potential harassment by Iran’s navy, a U.S. defense official tells CNN.
The ships transiting the strait were both inbound to the Persian Gulf and also outbound into the North Arabian Sea and they occurred without incident. All four unarmed vessels were military supply and survey ships either operated by the U.S. Military Sealift Command or under contract to the command.
The official said the Pentagon will not be providing daily details on transits or the warships in the area because the US “does not want to establish a pattern of life,” for observers in the area.
CNN first reported Thursday that U.S. Navy warships would accompany U.S.-flagged commercial vessels that pass through the Strait of Hormuz due to concerns that ships from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps navy could try to seize a U.S. cargo ship.
Pentagon officials provided clarification Thursday afternoon that not every ship will necessarily be accompanied by the Navy. But this is still a significant change in the U.S. military posture in the Strait.
The classified plan was approved by the Pentagon earlier Thursday, according to a senior defense official.
While the Navy maintains a routine ship presence in the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea, this new effort specifically requires an armed warship to be in the narrow channel between Iran and Oman when a U.S. commercial vessel passes through.
The decision to go ahead with this plan comes as Iran Revolutionary Guard ships harassed a U.S.-flagged vessel, the Maersk Kensington, on Friday and then later seized another cargo ship, the Maersk Tigris, flagged in the Marshall Islands.
The worry is that with the uncertainty around Iran’s intentions, any seizure of a U.S.-flagged vessel could provoke an international incident with Iran.
(Internation incident? How about an act of war. – LS)
“This is a way to reduce the risk of confrontation,” the official told CNN.
The official emphasized the Navy is not trying to “play up” the current situation, but said the orders were approved “based on tensions in the region.”
A second U.S. official said if it becomes necessary, U.S. warships are prepared to escort U.S. commercial vessels throughout the entire Gulf.
There are a number of U.S. ships and aircraft in the immediate vicinity, including four ships and several aircraft monitoring the status of the Marshall Island vessel, which remains in Iranian custody allegedly over a 2005 financial dispute. U.S. Navy ships will be moved in and out of the area depending on the transit schedule of U.S. cargo vessels.
Iranian officials said the seizure of the Marshall Islands-flagged ship Maersk Tigris was due to a court decision.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday that the ship had “some rather peculiar activity” in its past that resulted in court action, according to lawyers with whom his ministry has been in touch.
“Simply, our naval forces implemented the decision of the court,” he added.
Rickmers Shipmanagement, the company managing the Maersk Tigris, a Maersk Line ship, said in a statement Thursday that the apparent issue dates back to 2005, when another Maersk Line vessel delivered a shipment to Dubai that was later disposed of when no one collected the containers.
A spokesperson for Rickmers Shipmanagement also said that 24 people — none American — are on board the Maersk Tigris and that they are all doing well. However, the company continues to “insist that the crew and vessel are released as soon as possible.”
The two recent incidents come after the U.S. last week sent warships to the vicinity of Yemen after concerns were raised that an Iranian convey was attempting to supply arms to Houthi rebels who have deposed the Western-backed government in Sanaa.
Multiple U.S. officials said the American ships had been deployed to the region to dissuade the Iranian convoy, which included armed ships, from docking in Yemen. The Iranian ships turned away from Yemen on Thursday.
The U.S. hope is that by deploying the naval accompaniment for cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s much less likely that Iran would cause trouble for them. Rather, like in the case of Yemen, they would be more inclined to turn back.
Still, the move comes amidst U.S.-Iran tensions in the region over competing interests in Yemen and elsewhere. And it also coincides with delicate nuclear talks in the which the United States and five other world powers are trying to seal a final deal with Iran curbing the latter’s nuclear program.
Part 1: Is Iran Playing Games With the US Navy?
May 1, 2015Iran says warships at entrance to key Yemen strait
Via AFP May 1, 2015
(I have two articles that seem to interrelate. Is Iran drawing the attention of the US Navy away from the Yemen strait? Of course, I have no evidence that such a thing is in the works, but you have to admit, it is kind of fishy. – LS)
Tehran (AFP) – Two Iranian destroyers, sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect commercial ships, have reached the entrance of Bab el-Mandab, a strategic strait between Yemen and Djibouti, Iran’s navy said Thursday.
“We are present in the Gulf of Aden in accordance with international regulations to ensure the safety of commercial ships of our country against the threat of pirates,” said the head of the Iranian navy, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
The navy has sent the Alborz and Bushehr destroyers to patrol the entrance to the strait, he added.
Bab el-Mandeb, a narrow body of water, is the key strategic entry point into the Red Sea, through which around four million barrels of oil pass each day on ships headed to or from the Suez Canal.
Last week, US officials said an American aircraft carrier and a cruiser left the waters off Yemen and headed back to the Gulf after an Iranian naval convoy also turned back from the area.
Washington suspected the convoy of carrying weapons destined for Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen.
“The information that the Iranian ships received warnings and left the area is not correct,” Sayari said, insisting that Iran will not enter “the territorial waters of other countries” in reference to Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, which heads a Sunni Arab coalition conducting air strikes on Yemeni rebels since March, has imposed an air and sea blockade.
Sayari said the two destroyers would stay posted around Bab el-Mandab until late June.
Iran denies having armed Huthi rebels and has called for the immediate end of coalition air strikes as a condition for resuming dialogue aimed at ending the crisis in Yemen.
The Iranian navy has deployed warships in the Gulf of Aden and in the Indian Ocean for a number of years to stave off the threat of hijacking for commercial vessels.
(Look who’s doing the hijacking now. – LS)
In Tehran, the top Saudi diplomat posted in Iran was summoned Thursday to the foreign ministry which “strongly protested” over an incident in which Saudi warplanes bombed Sanaa airport runway to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.
Tuesday’s action “endangering the lives of the crew and members of the Iranian Red Crescent, who brought medical aid to Yemenis and wanted to transfer the wounded, is unacceptable,” said a senior Iranian diplomat, quoted by IRNA.
It was the fourth time in a month the Saudi charge d’affaires was summoned.
Obama to veto any bill that would undermine Iran talks
May 1, 2015Obama to veto any bill that would undermine Iran talks | The Times of Israel.
After lawmakers vote against making nuclear accord a treaty, US president warns against interfering legislation
April 30, 2015, 2:18 am
President Barack Obama pauses while speaking at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) 10th anniversary at ODNI headquarters in McLean, Va., Friday, April 24, 2015 (photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
US President Barack Obama plans to veto any legislation that would depart from a deal between the White House and US lawmakers over Congress’ role in the Iranian nuclear negotiations, an administration official said Wednesday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest also said Obama also would not support any bill that would interfere with the negotiations between Iran, the US and other world powers over its nuclear program, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate turned back an attempt to elevate any nuclear deal with Iran into a treaty, a vote that gave momentum to lawmakers trying to pass a bill giving Congress a chance to review and possibly reject any agreement with Tehran.
The amendment, filed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, failed 39 to 57.
Supporters want the bill passed free of controversial add-ons they claim could scuttle negotiations with Tehran, draw a presidential veto or leave lawmakers with no say on a national security threat.
As written, the legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days while lawmakers weigh in on any final deal the US and five other nations can reach with Iran. And it would stipulate that if senators disapprove the deal, Obama would lose authority to waive certain economic penalties — an event that would certainly prompt a presidential veto.
The bill has gained tacit approval from Obama. He says he will sign it as written, but the White House warns that he will reconsider if the measure is substantially changed. Sen. Bob Corker, a lead sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the measure in its current form, has 67 backers, enough to override a presidential veto.
Corker and his supporters are trying to bat down more than 50 amendments have been introduced so far — all by Republicans.
Earlier in the day, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid warned Republican presidential hopefuls in the Senate not to use it as a “platform for their political ambitions.” He said the full Senate should pass the bill with the same bipartisanship that occurred in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which unanimously approved the measure 19-0.
The alternative to the bill is not a better bill, he said, “it is a deal without any meaningful congressional input.”
Johnson’s failed amendment would have turned any final nuclear agreement with Tehran into a treaty, requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate.
The amendment failed just hours after former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser under President George W. Bush, said any Iran nuclear deal is an executive agreement that doesn’t need to be a treaty. “The proposed Iranian nuclear agreement is classically an executive agreement and doesn’t need to be a treaty with advice and consent of the Senate,” she said. “But Congress should be able to opine, given that congressionally mandated sanctions would have to be lifted.”
Iran swings behind escalated Syrian-Hizballah anti-Israel terror offensive on the Golan
May 1, 2015Iran swings behind escalated Syrian-Hizballah anti-Israel terror offensive on the Golan, DEBKAfile, May 1, 2015
Israeli tanks on the Golan
The Syrian and Hizballah military delegations visiting Tehran this week achieved their purpose: DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources report that in three days of talks up until Friday April 30, Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij procured from his Iranian counterpart Hussein Dehghan, approval for a stepped up terror campaign against Israeli forces and civilians on the Golan, to be executed by terrorist surrogates. Iran pledged its support for this campaign and promised to make the Revolutionary Guards and Afghani Shiite forces present in Syria available, in the event of an Israeli counter-attack.
A stamping ground, designated “the open area,” was to be provided for all terrorist militias willing to attack Israel. It would stretch from Damascus to the Golan – a distance of 60 km by road – and take in the Syrian Hermon and Lebanese Chebaa Farms. Syrian and Hizballah military intelligence services will take responsibility for coordinating their operations and providing them with arms and intelligence.
According to the plan approved in Tehran, Syria and Hizballah will establish new militias for their campaign as well as deploying existing terrorist groups.
One such framework, made up of Syrian Druzes, was set up in recent weeks. Its first attack last Sunday April 26 – an attempt to plant a bomb near an Israeli Golan border position – was a flop. All four bombers were killed in an Israeli air strike and the device did not detonate.
The commander of the new Druze militia is Samir Kuntar, a name familiar to Israelis as the murderer of the Haran family of Nahariya and two police officers, who got out of prison in 2008 after serving 36 years of a life sentence. Kuntar is a rare Lebanese Druze who joined Hizballah in his youth.
Our sources note that President Bashar Assad many times suggested setting up a special Syrian-Palestinian “resistance movement” for taking back the Golan, which Israel captured during Syria’s 1967 invasion and later annexed.
However, the terrorist attacks on Israel were left until now mostly to Palestinian squads created ad hoc for single operations. They were often drawn from Ahmed Jibril’s PFLP-General Command group or recruited in the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus.
But now, Assad and his Hizballah ally are set on a serious escalation by different tactics, DEBKAfile’s sources report. For a major terror offensive, they are building new frameworks with local recruits mustered in South Lebanon and the Syrian Golan. Some of those militiamen have been seen moving about in the Druze villages scattered over Jabal Druze and the Hermon up to the Chebaa farms.
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