Trita Parsi, the head the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another White House-allied group, hinted that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu might have forged the document himself. (Huh? — DM)
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Top White House allies are mounting a campaign to discredit recent reports Iran will be responsible for investigating its own military facility for evidence of nuclear activities under an agreement between international inspectors and Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency will rely on Iran to collect its own environmental samples and turn over photos and videos from its suspected nuclear military site Parchin, according to a draft of a secret side-deal between the agency and the Iranian government published by the Associated Press on Thursday.
White House allies rushed to denounce the report, accusing the AP of publishing a phony document and suggesting that the Israeli government forged it to undermine the Obama administration’s Iran deal.
J Street, one of a number of groups that has been meeting with White House officials as part of a lobbying push to support the nuclear deal, questioned the accuracy of the document obtained by the AP on Friday and suggested that it was forged by Israel.
“The AP report should be thoroughly investigated and verified,” J Street tweeted. “Very worrying if there is any doubt of authenticity.”
Obama administration officials and the IAEA have not disputed the authenticity of the document. The existence of the Parchin side deal was first mentioned publicly by Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho) at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last month.
Trita Parsi, the head the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another White House-allied group, hinted that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu might have forged the document himself.
Parsi noted that the draft document published by AP referred to the “Islamic State of Iran” in one instance, instead of the “Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“The only one who refers to Iran as ‘Islamic State of Iran’ is Netanyahu. And strangely, @AP‘s dubious ‘draft’ of the IAEA-Iran agreement…” wrote Parsi on Twitter.
Others also floated the idea that Israel fabricated the document and leaked it to the AP.
“Could it be that #Israel stands behind leaking this document to #AP?” tweeted Said Arikat, the Washington bureau chief for Al Quds daily newspaper.
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) who tweets under the name ArmsControlWonk, also questioned the accuracy of the report on Twitter.
MIIS, J Street, and NIAC have all received funding from the Ploughshares Fund, one of the top financers of the lobbying campaign to support the Iran deal.
The pushback against the AP story, and insinuations about Israeli sabotage, follow a months-long campaign to discredit Jewish lawmakers and others who have announced their opposition to the deal.
These attacks include charges of “dual loyalty” against Jewish politicians, which pro-Israel groups said crossed the line into anti-Semitism.
Vox blogger Max Fisher also argued that the AP story was “badly flawed,” noting that an ex-IAEA official questioned its authenticity and that some details were removed from the story after it was posted. The AP later added those details back into the article and said it had been shorted for brevity and not due to accuracy issues.
“As with many AP stories, indeed with wire stories generally, some details are later trimmed to make room for fresh info so that multiple so-called ‘writethrus’ of a story will move on the AP wire as the hours pass,” AP spokesperson Paul Colford told Fisher. “It was unfortunate that some assumed (incorrectly) that AP was backing off.”
AP reporters noted that the Obama administration and the IAEA have not disputed the document’s authenticity.
“If you don’t want to believe the report, so be it. But I would look for someone to actually deny what’s in it,” said AP diplomatic reporter Matt Lee in a tweet to Fisher.
“I am curious if you have managed to find a current official anywhere to back up the fraud claim,” Lee later added. As of Friday afternoon, Fisher had not.
The original AP article was written by Vienna bureau chief George Jahn.
According to the report, a draft of a side deal between the IAEA and Iran would allow the Iranian government to police its own military site for nuclear activities.
Iran has been accused of conducting nuclear detonations testing at the Parchin military facility, and supporters of the nuclear agreement said the site would be opened to international inspectors under the deal.
But according to the AP, the IAEA side agreement would not allow independent inspections of Parchin. Instead the Iranian government would turn over photographs and videos of the military site to the IAEA.
Under the deal, Iran would collect its own environmental samples from the Parchin military facility, which international inspectors would then test for nuclear residue.
Iran has been accused of conducting nuclear detonations testing at Parchin, and supporters of the nuclear deal said the facility would be opened to international inspectors under the recently signed agreement.
(The text of the draft is available here. According to an Associated Press preface to the agreement provided at the link,
Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to The Associated Press that this draft does not differ from the final, confidential agreement between the IAEA and Iran.
What other side deals are there and what facilities, if any, in addition to Parchin are thought to have worked on nuke weaponization? What facilities are thought to be doing so now?– DM)
If letting Iran inspect Parchin by itself is not enough to move undecided Democrats into the columns of those opposing the deal, then obviously nothing will. If we have learned nothing else from this debate, it’s that all of the lip service members of the president’s party have given to the danger from Iran and the need for tough inspections is just a lot of eyewash. The text that the AP has published shows that a vote for the deal now is clearly a vote not for postponing nuclear peril, as some Democrats say, but for indifference to it.
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On Wednesday when the Associated Press published a report claiming that the International Atomic Energy Agency had agreed to let Iran inspect the Parchin military site itself, critics of the nuclear deal were outraged. But the administration and its supporters weren’t rattled. They claimed there was nothing amiss and soon the IAEA itself issued a statement saying the story was “misleading,” though it wouldn’t say exactly what was misleading about it. The IAEA further asserted that it was obligated not to reveal the text of its agreement with Iran. That was enough to set media cheerleaders for President Obama, like those at the Vox website, into full spin mode, claiming that the AP’s reporting was flawed. They argued both that the claim about the Iranians being allowed to inspect their own site was unproven and that even if it were true it was no big deal. We’ll leave the latter claim aside for the moment, but the headline this morning is that doubts about the veracity of the original story are now gone. The AP has released the text of the draft agreement between the IAEA and Iran that is, according to all accounts, not different from the final version. One doesn’t need to be a nuclear expert to understand that the headline on the original story was entirely accurate, “UN to let Iran inspect nuke work site.” This is not only more damning evidence that the nuclear deal is a farce but that Democrats who are prepared to let it go through out of loyalty to President Obama are enabling a shocking betrayal of the nation’s security.
The text of the agreement makes clear that international inspectors won’t get anywhere near Parchin. The Iranians will do all the inspecting and at the end of the process a UN official will be allowed to pay a courtesy visit followed by a “roundtable” discussion of the entire affair. In other words, Parchin and all that happened there will be swept under the rug along with U.S. and IAEA promises about exploring exactly how much progress Iran had made there.
The point of concern is that Parchin is where Iran did its work on the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear project. The work done there was not theoretical physics but on triggers for nuclear bombs. Supposedly, they stopped their work there a long time ago and the site has already been scrubbed. But that doesn’t mean its unimportant. As even Secretary of State John Kerry admitted, without knowing what was done there, we can’t understand how close Iran is to building a bomb. Any discussion about nuclear “breakout” times, which is crucial to the administration’s scenario for monitoring and preventing Iran from getting a bomb during the ten-year period when the deal is in effect, becomes pure speculation without this knowledge. And if Iran is doing the inspections, the IAEA and the U.S., and American allies won’t get it.
Let’s be clear about who the real culprits are here. The IAEA is a UN agency with a lot of responsibility but its power stems from the cooperation it gets from the nations it inspects. With the U.S. more interested in détente with Iran than in pressing the Iranians on difficult issues, the IAEA is in no position to push Tehran for more access to Parchin or any other military site. It should also be remembered, as we noted earlier this week, the Iranians have already threatened Yukio Amano, the director of the IAEA, and made clear to him that they will not tolerate his making public the details of the arrangements for inspections.
While the administration is telling us all to move along as there’s nothing to see here and their cheerleaders are assuring the country that this is a minor detail of no consequence, the story of the IAEA agreement on Parchin is deeply significant. By itself, it shows that the UN nuclear watchdog agency is being given the runaround by Iran and is forced to take it so long as the U.S. doesn’t pressure Iran to be more transparent.
But context is also everything here. The Parchin agreement provides the setting for the entire inspections process of Iran’s active nuclear facilities. Administration promises of “anytime, anywhere” inspections were as trustworthy as the president’s famous ObamaCare pledges about keeping your insurance and doctors if you liked them. As with the assurances about Parchin, we’re also told that the 24-day waiting period for inspections of active plants is not a big deal. But the message being sent to Iran is clear. It isn’t so much that the inspections regime is a farce as it is that the administration is demonstrating that it doesn’t consider these details to be a major concern. If you believe, as President Obama has repeatedly told us, that Iran is changing and that it is about to “get right with the world,” you don’t worry about inspections. You also don’t worry about Iran’s support for terrorism or its production of ballistic missiles (whose only purpose can be to attack the U.S. and Europe, not those recalcitrant and paranoid Israelis that the president falsely claims are the world’s only opponents of the deal).
That brings us back to the question of what members of the House and Senate are supposed to think about any of this. Democrats have been under a great deal of pressure to back the president on the Iran deal. He has made it clear that he regards this vote as a litmus test of their loyalty to both their party and to him personally. That seems to be enough for most of them, including those who have long professed to care deeply about stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But this sidebar to the general discussion about the merits of the pact with Iran is telling. It shows that when it is demonstrated that the terms of the deal are utterly inadequate even by the administration’s own standards, the bulk of the president’s party is unable or unwilling to draw the proper conclusions.
If letting Iran inspect Parchin by itself is not enough to move undecided Democrats into the columns of those opposing the deal, then obviously nothing will. If we have learned nothing else from this debate, it’s that all of the lip service members of the president’s party have given to the danger from Iran and the need for tough inspections is just a lot of eyewash. The text that the AP has published shows that a vote for the deal now is clearly a vote not for postponing nuclear peril, as some Democrats say, but for indifference to it.
Today the juicebox leftists at Vox and their fellow lefties elsewhere in the media took a stab at discrediting George Jahn’s August 19 AP story reporting the self-inspection provisions of the IAEA side deal with Iran applicable to the Parchin facility. The AP has now posted the text of the original draft of the side deal here. The side deal shows President Obama and administration officials to be voluble liars on critically important matters inherent in the deal with Iran. Omri Ceren emails to provide the relevant background and bring the story up to date as of tonight. Omri writes:
The Obama administration spent the last 2 years telling lawmakers and reporters that any deal with Iran would require the Iranians to provide IAEA inspectors robust access to the Parchin military base, where the Iranians conducted hydrodynamic experiments relevant to the detonation of nuclear warheads. The IAEA needs the access to determine how far the Iranians got as a prerequisite to establishing a verification regime. Sherman in 2013: the JPOA requires Iran to “address past and present practices… including Parchin” [a]; Sherman in 2014: “as part of any comprehensive agreement… we expect, indeed, Parchin to be resolved” [b]; Harf in 2015: “we would find it… very difficult to imagine a JCPA that did not require such [inspector] access at Parchin” [c]; etc.
Last month Sen. Risch suggested in an open SFRC hearing that the West had collapsed on the requirement, and that instead the Iranians had worked out a secret side deal with Iran under which the Iranians would be trusted to collect their own samples for the IAEA [d]. Kerry refused to confirm the arrangement citing classification issues, but the AP’s Vienna reporter locked it down anyway [e].
White House officials and validators continued to declare that no way would the IAEA ever agree to that kind of arrangement, since it would preclude the agency from securing a chain of custody over the evidence. But the administration refused to transmit the side deal to Congress – which would have resolved the debate – and instead claimed that the U.S. couldn’t get the text because it was a confidential Iran-IAEA bilateral agreement. Business Insider confirmed that in fact U.S. diplomats can call for the agreement at any time because Washington sits on the IAEA’s Board of Governors [f]. Nonetheless Kerry told Congress that not only did the U.S. not have the text, but that he hadn’t even seen the final wording, though he added that maybe “Wendy Sherman may have” (she subsequently clarified she hadn’t either [g]).
Yesterday the AP revealed that its reporters had – in contrast – seen a draft reflecting the final language, and that they were in a position to confirm the concessions made to Iran [h]. Instead of allowing IAEA inspectors to collect evidence from Parchin, samples will be collected by the Iranians using Iranian equipment. Instead of allowing the IAEA to collect everything it wants, only seven samples will be handed over from mutually agreed upon areas. Instead of giving inspectors access to facilities, photos and videos will be taken by the Iranians themselves, again only from mutually agreed upon areas.
After yesterday’s article was published someone – presumably an overeager AP editor – tried to save some space by cutting several somewhat redundant paragraphs from the original draft. That triggered a flood of conspiracy theories about the AP retracting the story, and this morning there were a flood of snarky attacks on the outlet: “The AP’s controversial and badly flawed Iran inspections story, explained” (Vox [i]), “BREAKING: Nuclear Stuff Really Complicated” (TPM [k]), “Revised AP report… overwrites some of the more troubling aspects” (Haaretz [l]), “Potentially Deal-Shattering Report About Iran Inspections Has Some Issues” (HuffPo [j), etc.
As the news cycle unfolded today it became clear that the AP had the goods on the collapse to Iran. The AP restored the cut paragraphs and added a Washington angle [n]. AP reporters started listing specific concessions confirmed by the document [o][p][q][r] – and publicly daring critics to deny them [s]. Meanwhile IAEA chief Amano put out a statement that sought to defend the deal, but very much did not deny the AP report [m]. Then the afternoon press briefing happened, and again – as with Amano – State Department spokesman Kirby pointedly declined to back the White House validators who had attacked the AP’s report [t]:
QUESTION: … The points in the article that Iran would take the soil samples, Iran would take the videos; there would be seven points within Parchin, two points outside; that there wouldn’t necessarily be any IAEA inspectors in the facility… you don’t challenge those per se?
MR KIRBY: Well, as I said yesterday, Brad, I’m not going to comment about the contents of a draft document between the IAEA and Iran. Even the director general wouldn’t go so far as to reveal the details of what is a confidential agreement…
…
QUESTION: … was there any specific item in the story that – factual item in the story that was wrong? I don’t want to know which one it is, but there are times when you guys will say this was inaccurate without saying specifically what because you can’t comment on the specifics. So was there anything you can specifically say without identifying it that was inaccurate…
MR KIRBY: Well, as I said to Brad, I’m not going to get into speaking about the details of a draft document between —
QUESTION: I’m not asking about the details.
MR KIRBY: Arshad, I know, if you’d just let me finish.
QUESTION: Yep.
MR KIRBY: I’m not going to get into speaking about the details between – of a draft document between the IAEA and Iran or any other nation for that matter…
Then finally the AP just published the full text of the side deal, confirming the previous reporting [linked above].
After you read the side deal – which is short – you should also read another article the AP published this afternoon, which is an explainer on the substance of the Parchin debate now that the side deal is public. I wanted to make sure you caught the part about some of the policy and policy angles that are going to get reported out over the next few days:
The document on Parchin…will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny — past work on nuclear weapons… Any indication that the IAEA is diverging from established inspection rules could weaken the agency… and feed suspicions that it is ready to overly compromise in hopes of winding up a probe that has essentially been stalemated for more than a decade. Politically, the arrangement has been grist for American opponents of the broader separate agreement to limit Iran’s future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Critics have complained that the wider deal is built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.
On a policy level, the side deal effectively trusts Iran to investigate its own violations, something that comes off as a bit absurd on its face (“will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny”). On a political level, that absurdity will confirm suspicions that the IAEA has been pressured by parties who want to put aside substantive concerns over the viability of the nuclear deal in order to preserve it at all costs.
The new twist in the controversy surrounding the nuclear agreement is an argument over the veracity of a report on a side deal giving Iran the right to inspect its own nuclear facilities for potential violations. The idea is so preposterous that it must be true, judging by the rest of the top-secret document on which the U.S. Congress is going to vote in September.
But as the debate heats up over whether the deal furthers or hinders Iran’s nuclear weapon capabilities, an equally serious issue keeps being marginalized. This is the more immediate and tangible danger posed by Iran’s terrorist proxies, and the sudden financial and ideological boost the deal is providing them.
The reason it is crucial to keep an eye on their activities is that they constitute Iran’s global army — the boots on the ground, so to speak — who perform the legwork necessary for the ultimate aim of regional and global jihadist hegemony. Their role is to set the stage for that time in the not-so-distant future when Iran’s power and reach are so extensive that its leaders won’t need to waste their nuclear warheads by firing them.
This is where Israel comes in. As the only democracy in the Middle East, an ally of the West and a Jewish state, it has key strategic value. It is like the central card in a house of cards, whose removal topples the whole structure.
It is also tiny and surrounded by rogue states with an endless supply of Muslim would-be “martyrs” willing to die in the “holy” endeavor to take it down.
On Thursday, Israel received its latest message to this effect, when four rockets, launched from Syria, landed in the Upper Galilee and the Golan Heights. The Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist organization was behind the attack, which spurred Israel to retaliate.
Also on Thursday, Israel deployed anti-missile Iron Dome batteries in the south of the country, in the areas between Ashkelon and Ashdod, as well as in Beersheba. This was in response to threats of rocket fire by Iran-baked terrorists in Gaza — whose excuse was the worsening condition of hunger-striking Palestinian terror suspect Mohammed Allan.
A review of recent Iranian rhetoric and activity, released by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, puts all of the above in context.<
Last month, the General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema (scholars) held a weekend conference titled “Unity for Palestine.”
At the gathering, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said, “We believe with certainty that Israel, this cancerous tumor, is headed for extinction, and that Palestine and Jerusalem will be returned to their people. It is only a matter of time and is linked to the will, action, jihad, and sacrifices of the Ummah [Islamic nation], according to the principle: If you achieve victory for Allah, Allah will lead you to achieve victory.”
From Iran, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, secretary general of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, agreed.
“Annihilation of the Zionist regime is a sure thing and Quranic pledge,” he said, adding that it is important to unify “Muslims in countering the regime of Zionism and the arrogant world.”
Muhammad Hasan Zamani, a former Iranian cultural attache in Egypt who heads the Department of International Islamic Madrasas (educational institutions) for the General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema, reiterated this position.
“Israel must be erased from the map of the world,” he said. “These are the golden words Imam Khomeini, may God have mercy on him, uttered.”
Sheikh Abdel Halim Qadhi, a professor at Zahedan University in Iran, said, “The holy Quran makes it known that Jews are the enemies of Islam and the Muslims and their holy places and rites. … Jihad is the most powerful and only way to liberate Palestine and defend Jerusalem. … God loves those who fight in his way.”
Earlier this month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published “Palestine,” a 416-page tome devoted to the issue of Israel’s inevitable demise, with a blurb on its back cover calling the author the “flagbearer of jihad to liberate Jerusalem.”
This week, Khamenei gave an abbreviated version of this on Twitter: “We spare no opportunity to support anyone #FightingTheZionists,” he wrote.
At the same time, a clip produced by the Islamic Revolution Design House, a media outlet associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, began to circulate on YouTube. The minute-and-a-half animated video depicts an Islamist invasion of Jerusalem.
The brief silent film shows soldiers from the Revolutionary Guards, Shia Badr, Hezbollah, Hamas and Qassam Brigades, clad in military gear and keffiyehs, marching to and standing on a hill overlooking the Temple Mount, as thousands upon thousands of additional terrorists amass.
An inscription in Farsi on a black screen at the end says: “Israel must be erased from the annals of history, and the youth will definitely see that day when it comes.”
Lest anyone imagine the mullahs pulling the strings in Iran don’t mean business, all one has to do is observe how they are executing their grand plan, part of which is the nuclear deal with the “Great Satan” and the other P5+1 countries. Among these is Russia, which confirmed on Wednesday that it will supply Iran with four upgraded batteries of S-300 surface-to-air missiles as soon as the deal is finalized.
Such missiles give Iran the extra benefit of being able to stave off attack. At that point, will it really matter if Iran is in charge of its own inspections?
The attack ordered by Iran comes after a report in April, when Iranian officials reportedly told the Syrian regime to strike Israel and open a war front on the Golan Heights.
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PM warns ‘we’ll harm those who try to harm us,’ slams world powers for nuclear deal after ‘Iranian commander ordered rocket strike.’
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a statement on Friday, shortly after the IDF airstrike that took out the Islamic Jihad terror cell backed by Iran that launched four rockets into Israel from Syria the day before.
“I said this week that those who try to harm us – we will harm them. And that’s what we did,” said the prime minister.
“The IDF struck the cell that conducted the (rocket) fire, and the Syrian forces that enabled it. We don’t intend to escalate the incidents, but our policy remains as it was,” he said. At least 14 targets were hit by the IDF overnight, including a strike on an army post which Syria said killed one soldier.
Turning his attention to the IDF reports that Iranian military sources funded and directed the Islamic Jihad cell, Netanyahu condemned the world powers that sealed a nuclear deal with Iran just last month and are now advancing economic trade and diplomatic ties.
“The countries that rush to embrace Iran need to know that an Iranian commander is the one who gave the cover and direction to the cell that fired on Israel,” he said.
As noted by Netanyahu, the one who gave the order for the rocket strike was said to be the head of the Palestinian department in Iran’s Al-Quds force, the covert foreign operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Netanyahu on Friday ordered the Foreign Ministry to send an official letter to Western governments, saying Israel has “reliable information that this attack was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ordered directly by the Iranian terrorist Said Izadhi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”
“This is further clear indication of Iran’s increasing involvement in attacks against Israel in particular and against regional targets in general. The ink on the nuclear agreement has not yet dried, and this attack shows clearly how Iran plans to act the moment after the international sanctions are removed.”
The attack ordered by Iran comes after a report in April, when Iranian officials reportedly told the Syrian regime to strike Israel and open a war front on the Golan Heights.
President Obama purports to have a sophisticated theory of international relations supporting his catastrophic deal with Iran.
Dealing with the world’s foremost sponsor of state terrorism and an avowed enemy of the United States, Obama is lavishly funding the regime and leaving Iran’s nuclear program on the path of development to nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
He proclaims the deal a famous victory, but with the AP’s report on the, ah, unusual arrangement for the self-inspection of the Parchin research facility, it has descended into self-evident farce. Even Stevie Wonder could see that.
Why self-inspection? With the death of Peter Sellers, Inspector Clouseau was unavailable.
For the United States, the self-inspection is one more humiliation among a long train of humiliating concessions. It represents a sort of reductio ad absurdum, a piece of black humor in the style of Joseph Heller. The secret side deal could be a sequel to Catch-22. From President Obama’s perspective, the humiliation of the United States must be an added advantage of the deal.
The revelation of the terms of the Parchin side deal prompts me to think back to the comments of senior Iranian presidential adviser and former intelligence minister Ali Younesi this past fall. The comments were offered for domestic political consumption to the official Iranian news agency.
There was something to offend everyone in Younesi’s comments. Most striking to me, however, was Younesi’s perception of Obama. Younesi had Obama’s number. Younesi’s contempt for Obama shone through his comments and it surely reflects the consensus of the regime. Obama has worked hard to earn it.
The fact that Younesi made these comments on the record for public consumption was striking and newsworthy. The Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo had the story:
The Iranian president’s senior advisor has called President Barack Obama “the weakest of U.S. presidents” and described the U.S. leader’s tenure in office as “humiliating,” according to a translation of the highly candid comments provided to the Free Beacon.
The comments by Ali Younesi, senior advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, come as Iran continues to buck U.S. attempts to woo it into the international coalition currently battling the Islamic State (IS, ISIL, or ISIS).
And with the deadline quickly approaching on talks between the U.S. and Iran over its contested nuclear program, Younesi’s denigrating views of Obama could be a sign that the regime in Tehran has no intent of conceding to America’s demands.
“Obama is the weakest of U.S. presidents, he had humiliating defeats in the region. Under him the Islamic awakening happened,” Younesi said in a Farsi language interview with Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
“Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama’s era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran,” Younesi said.
Younesi followed up with comments that were somewhat offensive to conservatives like us, but the substance wasn’t unflattering. We believe Israel is our friend and Iran has been our mortal enemy since, you know, around about 1979. In assessing Iran our enemy, we have taken them at their word and judged them by their actions. They have a voluminous amount of American blood on their hands.
Younesi is to some extent on the same page with President Obama. He said of American conservatives: “Conservatives are war mongers, they cannot tolerate powers like Iran. If conservatives were in power they would go to war with us because they follow Israel and they want to portray Iran as the main threat and not ISIS.”
Well, Iran is the main threat. ISIS doesn’t have a nuclear program or the trappings of a state and I would like to think we would support military action against Iran if necessary, though a president whose strength they respected would make it unnecessary.
Younesi also had the Democrats’ number. He deemed them “no threat.” He got that right, though you don’t have to be a former intelligence minister to figure that out.
Younesi’s comments foretold our rendezvous with destiny, Obama style: “We [the Islamic Republic] have to use this opportunity [of Democrats being in power in the U.S.], because if this opportunity is lost, in future we may not have such an opportunity again.”
Photo by: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 8/11/15 John Kerry participates at a discussion on Iran.(NYC)
Two leading U.S. senators are calling on the Obama administration to release secret letters to foreign governments assuring them that they will not be legally penalized for doing business with the Iranian government, according to a copy of a letter sent Wednesday to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) disclosed in the letter to the State Department that U.S. lawmakers have been shown copies of several letters sent by the Obama administration to the Chinese, German, French, and British governments assuring them that companies doing business with Iran will not come under penalty.
The Obama administration is purportedly promising the foreign governments that if Iran violates the parameters of a recently inked nuclear accord, European companies will not be penalized, according to the secret letters.
Congress became aware of these promises during closed-door briefings with the Obama administration and through documents filed by the administration under a law requiring full disclosure of all information pertaining to the accord.
The issue of sanctions on Iran has become a major issue on Capitol Hill in the weeks since the Obama administration agreed to a deal that permits Iran to enter the international community in exchange for temporarily constraining its nuclear program.
Iran will receive more than $150 billion in sanctions relief as part of the deal and many of its military branches will be removed from international sanctions designations.
“The documents submitted by the Administration to Congress include non-public letters that you sent to the French, British, German, and Chinese governments on the consequences of sanctions snap-back,” Kirk and Rubio wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry.
“These letters appear to reassure these foreign governments that their companies may not be impacted if sanctions are re-imposed in response to Iranian violations of the agreement,” they claim. “While Administration officials have claimed that this is not the case, we think it is important for the American public to be able to read your assurances to foreign governments for themselves as their elected representatives review this deal in the coming weeks.”
Kirk and Rubio are demanding that the Obama administration release these letters to the public so that the full nature of the White House’s backroom dealings are made known.
“We therefore request the Administration to publicly release these letters, which are not classified, so that the full extent of the Administration’s non-public assurances to European and Chinese governments can be discussed openly by Congress and analyzed by impartial outside experts,” they write.
“Given the conflicting interpretations hinted at by the deal’s various stakeholders, it would also ease congressional review of the deal if you were to receive assurances from the other members of the P5+1 about the guidance they will provide to companies about the inherent risks of investing in Iran due to Iran’s ongoing support for terrorism and use of its financial system for illicit activities and the potential for sanctions to snap back if Iran violates the nuclear agreement,” the letter states.
As Iranian companies and government entities are removed from sanctions lists, they will be permitted to do business on the open market. A number of governments, including the Russia and Italy, have already expressed interest in partnering with Iran.
U.S. lawmakers remain concerned that if Iran violates the nuclear accord, sanctions will not be reimposed in a meaningful way.
“The conditions under which foreign investment in Iran would proceed under the nuclear agreement remain unclear,” Kirk and Rubio wrote. “On July 23, 2015, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that companies that have invested in Iran would ‘not be able to continue doing things that are in violation of the sanctions’ if sanctions snap back.”
“Foreign investment in Iran will involve long-term contracts in many cases, however, and some interpretations of the Iran agreement indicate these contracts might be protected from the snap-back of sanctions by a so-called ‘grandfather clause,’” they write.
Under the terms of the agreement, sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a paramilitary force known to commit acts of terrorism across the globe, will be lifted.
A multi-billion dollars financial empire belonging to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also will be removed from sanctions lists, according to the parameters of the deal.
Khamenei depends on the U.S. Congress to save his regime. Congressional members may want to think about that long and hard before voting on this disastrous deal next month.
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For those who have only experienced either democracy or dictatorship, it is difficult to grasp the complexities of Iran’s political system, which is an autocracy that has adopted some democratic features. A careful reading of the Iranian constitution, however, clarifies for the reader that the Supreme Leader is the one and only person who wields ultimate power in that system, including appointment power for a vast number of positions.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily widely viewed as the regime outlet for the Supreme Leader’s ideas and policies, is one of those appointed to his job directly by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Thus, it was no surprise that Shariatmadari’s 15 August 2015 editorial, claiming that Khamenei opposes the nuclear deal, drew immediate attention. Obviously, Shariatmadari would not have written that without Khamenei’s consent. The confusing part, however, is that Hamid Reza Moghadam Far, top advisor to MG Mohammed Ali Jafari, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander, then harshly criticized Shariatmadari and warned him not to ascribe to the Supreme Leader his own ideas and understandings.
Given that Jafari is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader (just like Shariatmadari), and that there’s little history of this Iranian regime sending out such mixed messages from its own top ranks, the only conclusion possible is that sowing confusion is a calculated move at this time, intended to serve a regime objective.
For over three decades, the Islamic regime of Iran has made implacable enmity toward the U.S. and Israel the foundation of its official foreign policy, reflecting its leaders’ ideological dedication and fervor. Generations of young people have been indoctrinated to Islamic beliefs and recruited to the IRGC, Qods Force, and Basij on the basis of commitment to these beliefs. A blood-soaked litany of terror attacks instigated by this mullahs’ regime stretches from the ruins of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut through Khobar Towers, the East Africa Embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, 9/11 and hundreds of American troops killed and maimed by Iranian and Hizballah explosives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tehran’s support for Islamic terror groups has left a global trail of murder and mayhem. “Resistance” is what the Ayatollahs call it. “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are the slogans, chanted in endless repetition. America is the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.” Never did the Supreme Leader imagine negotiating, much less reaching an actual agreement, with such hated enemies.
But the sanctions took their toll and financial collapse had to be avoided, even if it meant coming to the table to negotiate with the world’s superpowers, however noxious that was for Khamenei personally. Getting the West to believe Iran was desperate enough to obtain relief from sanctions that it would agree to limit its nuclear weapons program was only a clever ruse, of course, but it worked. The first step was allowing Hassan Rouhani, an old regime hand who’d served as negotiator in earlier talks, to become president. Khamenei needed Rouhani’s smiling demeanor to smooth international impressions of the Islamic Republic. The years-long cultivation of Secretary John Kerry by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also would pay off big time. The clincher was bringing in Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, an old friend of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, to push through to the final agreement. Intelligence services like Iran’s are willing to invest lots of time and effort with targets at this level.
The American collapse on every single key issue—from enrichment (a stipulation demanded—and obtained—even before the first secret talks began in Oman in 2011) to centrifuges, the Arak plutonium-producing reactor, off-limits facilities, Iran’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), sanctions relief, and P5+1 technical assistance with nuclear development and site protection—surprised and delighted the Iranians. Contrary to Shariatmadari’s claims, the Supreme Leader is in fact quite satisfied with the nuclear deal; but, he cannot show that publicly, for two key reasons. If the U.S. Congress should vote against the deal, potentially leaving in place even some sanctions that President Obama could neither waive nor lift, Khamenei would find himself the public supporter of a failed deal. The powerful IRGC and Basij militia might hold him responsible for compromising the blood of martyrs and values of the Islamic Revolution for which the Iranian people sacrificed their economy and lives. And that would spell the end of the regime.
What to do? Khamenei wants the benefits of this deal without any of the possible liabilities. So, even as his trusted Iran Lobby pulls out the stops to make sure the deal goes through, he tries to find a way to support it without disappointing the guns that keep him in power. Solution: in public, Khamenei has spoken in general, nebulous phrases that convey no certain position. But in private, to certain audiences among the IRGC, Qods Force, and Basij, he pretends to oppose the deal. To others, he expresses support. Each group is allowed to go out and express its understanding of the Supreme Leader’s position with the media. Meanwhile, Khamenei plays the game safely and waits to see which way the deal will go.
If something goes wrong with the deal, Khamenei will be the one who warned Rouhani’s negotiating team not to trust the Americans. Publicly, then, he can discredit Shariatmadari and claim the media misstated his position (even though everyone knows that without Khamenei’s prior permission, neither Jafari nor Kayhan’s editor-in-chief would even discuss the subject). The regime is trapped in a web of its own making. It has radiated hatred toward Israel and the West for so long and so insistently that it cannot now just stop chanting “Death to America” or calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map. Nor can it abandon its terror proxies across the region. Disappointing the IRGC and Basij that are the backbone of this regime would shake the very foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran: unthinkable.
Khamenei depends on the U.S. Congress to save his regime. Congressional members may want to think about that long and hard before voting on this disastrous deal next month.
This piece was co-written by Daniel Akbari, a lawyer certified to practice before the Supreme Court of Iran, holds a master’s degree from Texas State University and a graduate certificate in homeland security from the Bush School of Government and Public service.
(The views expressed in this post — which for the most part consists of links to and quotations from recent articles posted at Warsclerotic — are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Over the past few days, Iranian officials have confirmed that international inspections of its nuke sites will be severely limited if permitted at all. This post provides excerpts from recent articles quoting them.
Iran’s nuke sites
The restrictions noted in this post are in addition to previously disclosed prohibitions on access by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to military sites, which Iran itself will inspect instead. Even The Daily Beast has mentioned this problem in reliance on an Associated Press article which states,
All IAEA member countries must give the agency some insight into their nuclear programs. Some are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations— like Iran — suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections. [Emphasis added.]
The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied — trying to develop nuclear weapons. [Emphasis added.]
Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession with any other country.
A senior Iranian official declared on Monday that international nuclear inspectors would only be permitted into the country once they receive approval from the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry, putting another roadblock between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran’s contested nuclear sites.
Sayyed Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and one of the top negotiators in talks that led to the recently inked nuclear deal, told the country’s state-controlled press that Iran’s intelligence apparatus must approve of any inspector who is issued a visa to enter Iran. [Emphasis added.]
International nuclear inspectors will only be permitted into the country after offering proofs of suspicious activity at the sites to be inspected, Iran’s Defense Minister Brig. Gen Hossein Dehqan said Tuesday. DEBKAfile: This condition is not contained either in the nuclear deal Iran signed with the six world powers last month or in its contract with the IAEA. How will the international watchdog obtain proofs if it is denied visits for inspections? [Emphasis added.]
Iranian leaders prevented a top International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official from disclosing to U.S. officials the nature of secret side deals with the Islamic Republic by threatening harm to him, according to regional reports. [Emphasis added.]
Yukiya Amano, IAEA director general, purportedly remained silent about the nature of certain side deals during briefings with top U.S. officials because he feared such disclosures would lead to retaliation by Iran, according to the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI).
Amano was in Washington recently to brief members of Congress and others about the recently inked nuclear accord. However, he did not discuss the nature of side deals with Iran that the United States is not permitted to know about.
Iran apparently threatened Amano in a letter meant to ensure he did not reveal specific information about the nature of nuclear inspections going forward, according to Iranian AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi.
“In a letter to Yukiya Amano, we underlined that if the secrets of the agreement (roadmap between Iran and the IAEA) are revealed, we will lose our trust in the Agency; and despite the US Congress’s pressures, he didn’t give any information to them,” Kamalvandi was quoted as saying Monday during a meeting with Iranian lawmakers, according to Tehran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.
“Had he done so, he himself would have been harmed,” the official added. [Emphasis added.]
If these analyses are correct, and they appear to be, there will be no meaningful “anytime anywhere” international inspections of Iranian military sites. Although Obama has repeatedly said that the current nuke “deal” is not based on trust, that appears to its only basis, an absurd one.
Shortly before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Qatar Monday, Aug. 3, Iran’s highest authorities led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday launched a public campaign to support Tehran’s noncompliance with the Vienna nuclear accord and UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of July 20, on its ballistic missile program. The campaign was designed by a team from Khamenei’s office, high-ranking ayatollahs and the top echelons of the Revolutionary Guards, including its chief, Gen. Ali Jafari. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
The Security Council Resolution, which unanimously endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Vienna nuclear accord) signed by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, called on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic technology until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day.” [Emphasis added.]
Tehran retorted that none of its ballistic missiles were designed to deliver nuclear weapons, and so this provision was void. Shortly after its passage, the foreign ministry in Tehran issued an assurance that “…the country’s ballistic missile program and capability is untouched and unrestricted by Resolution 2231.”
On July 30, Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s senior adviser on international affairs and member of the Expediency Council, told reporters, “The recent UNSC Resolution on Iran’s defensive capabilities, specially (sic) its missiles, is unacceptable to Iran.”
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi underlined that there are not any obstacles to the country’s missile program. [Emphasis added.]
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s missile activities, as planned inside the country, will not face any obstacles,” the senior officer stressed on Sunday.
The general also reiterated that Iran’s missile tests are going to be carried out in a timely manner according to the plans endorsed by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
Iran – North Korea nuke nexis
Nuke cooperation between Iran and North Korea was not considered during the P5+1 “negotiations.” The text of the current “deal” is silent on the subject. Kerry’s State Department has limited media contact with Douglas Frantz, his Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs, to avoid releasing information on the Iran – North Korea nuke nexus. Mr. Frantz, formerly a highly respected journalist, had written extensively on North Korea’s nuclear program.
An honest accounting would quite likely reveal something that many press reports have alleged, but U.S. administration officials have never publicly confirmed: A history of nuclear weapons collaboration between Iran and nuclear-proliferating North Korea.
. . . .
Drawing on “previously secret reports, international officials, independent experts, Iranian exiles and intelligence sources in Europe and the Middle East,” Frantz wrote that “North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials.”
. . . .
Perhaps Frantz should recycle that article to Secretary of State John Kerry, who while testifying to a congressional panel last month was asked about its allegations by Rep. Christopher Smith, and ducked the question.
. . . .
[I]t appears that as a State Department advocate of a free and well-informed press, Frantz himself is not free to answer questions from the press about his own reporting on North Korea’s help to Iran in designing a nuclear warhead. The State Department has refused my repeated requests to interview Frantz on this subject. Last year, an official at State’s Bureau of Public Affairs responded to my request with an email saying, “Unfortunately Assistant Secretary Frantz is not available to discuss issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Of course, the real problem for the Obama administration is that an officially confirmed story of Iran-North Korea collaboration on nuclear warheads could spell further trouble for winning congressional approval of this nuclear deal.
Conclusions
Assuming (a highly dubious assumption) that Kerry and Obama’s other P5+1 “negotiators” wanted to limit Iran’s Uranium enrichment to peaceful purposes, to terminate its nuke weaponization and to restrict its missile development and use they failed. It might have been entertaining to have watched Obama instruct Kerry on how to negotiate for magic carpets in a Persian market. The Persians saw Obama’s P5+1 “negotiators” as suckers and took all of their cash. They then took whatever honor they may once have had.
With international inspections permitted, if at all, only at Iran’s whim, and international sanctions “snap back” a fantasy, Iran has been given a bright green light to do whatever it pleases. What pleases Iran should not please even Obama, who envisions a new era of Middle East stability as a major fruit of His victory in getting the July 2015 “deal.”
Iran plans to “stabilize” Israel first. Israel is the only free and democratic nation in the Middle East; America was once her most reliable ally. No longer, but perhaps one fine day she will be again.
A conference of religious scholars features speaker after speaker calling Israel’s annihilation inevitable and promising that a “new phase” in that effort is about to begin. [Emphasis added]
While some in the United States and among its Western allies may hope that a nuclear weapons deal with Iran might steer the Islamic Republic in a new, more responsible direction, hardliners draw new lines and issue new threats.
On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took to social media to attack the United States and Israel. “We spare no opportunity to support anyone #FightingTheZionists,” wrote the ayatollah, whose regime supplies Hizballah and Hamas with rockets and other weapons of terror.
Here’s a recent video from Iranian television showing how Iran plans to eliminate Israel.
The July 2015 “deal” remains a mystery shrouded in secrecy and deception. Obama has tried to mislead the the American public and the Congress. He has threatened members who have voiced opposition and characterized them as disloyal. Congress should kill the “deal.” Those members whose ultimate loyalty is to America rather than to Obama will vote to do so and then to override his veto.
To appreciate the key paragraph in Senator Bob Corker’s Washington Post op-ed opposing the Iran deal, you need to review his extemporaneous remarks at the August 5 hearing of the Senate Banking Committee – addressed to both the witness, Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, and to his Democratic colleagues. Corker was one of the few Republican senators who did not sign Senator Tom Cotton’s letter to Iran, and he worked across the aisle to craft the Congressional review of the deal. On August 5, he spoke first to the Democratic senators sitting there: “I want to say that I think Senator Donnelly, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Warner, Senator Tester, Senator Schumer, Senator Menendez all know that I have been very open to supporting an agreement.” Then he recounted a Saturday phone conversation he had had the previous month with Secretary of State Kerry, when “I actually thought he was listening to what I was saying.”
I was standing in my driveway, and I emphasized the importance of these last pieces [of negotiations]. And I’m talking about the inspections. I’m talking about the … possible military dimensions [PMD]. We all know they’re involved militarily. And how important that was, not just from the standpoint of what it said, but the indication to us — that we were really going to apply these things, that we were really going to be tough and make this agreement stand.
And when I got the documents – and I’ve been through all of them extensively – I have to say my temperature rose very heavily. And then when I saw that we were lifting the conventional ban in five years, the missile ban in eight years, and on the front end, lifting the missile test ban on top of what these agreements said, I was very troubled. …
I was very discouraged with the final round … But I worked with Senator Cardin, my friend – I began with Senator Menendez – over an excruciating period of time to make sure that the way this agreement, the Iran Review Act, we got the documents, and we got them in a way that was acceptable to y’all. We spent all weekend with you, the White House, and others on this Iran Review Act, and we were to get all agreements, including the side agreements. Now, the very entity that we’re counting on to do the inspection – we can’t even get a copy of the side agreement that lays out how we’re gonna deal with Parchin. And I would say to everyone here, if you haven’t been down to the Intel area you ought to see what Iran is doing today, while we’re sitting here, in Parchin. …
We can’t even see the agreement that relates to how we’re gonna deal with the PMD. By the way, all sanctions relief occurs regardless of what they do with the PMD. All the IAEA has to write is a report. But if they “D-Minus” it, meaning they don’t tell us much … sanctions relief still occurs. … [T]hese issues that we have been so concerned about, we saw they were just punted on, negotiated away, issues that we, with great sincerity, talked with the administration about, and yet they were just punted on.
At that time, Senator Corker had not yet met privately with IAEA Director General Amano, or in executive session with Under Secretary Sherman, where he was promised oral explanations – but no documents – regarding the IAEA agreements with Iran. Corker’s statement today contains a revealing conclusion about what senators learned from those sessions:
[T]he inspections process is deeply flawed. Through verbal presentations regarding possible military dimensions, many in Congress are aware of the unorthodox arrangements agreed to by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the administration and our negotiating partners to keep from upsetting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Those actual agreements remain secret, but we know that at best they are most unusual and speak to the P5+1’s low commitment to holding Iran’s feet to the fire.
At the same hearing, Senator Cotton questioned Under Secretary Sherman about why the documents are classified: “This is not a U.S. government document, it’s not a covert action, it’s not subject to sensitive collection methods of our intelligence community, Iran knows what they agreed to, you know what’s in [them] … [and] U.S. law that was in fact signed in the middle of these negotiations required Congress to receive the text of all agreements, to include agreements to which the United States was not a party.” Sherman emphasized how important it is to safeguard confidential IAEA agreements with all countries. But the real reason may have been revealed in this colloquy:
COTTON: How long are these documents?
SHERMAN: Very short.
COTTON: Like the Roadmap itself?
SHERMAN: I’d have to stop and think back, but it’s very short.
Perhaps what is most noteworthy about the side agreements is not the allegedly confidential nature of them, but the fact that they are scandalously short. At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on August 4 regarding the Iran deal, there was this colloquy between Ambassador Robert Joseph, who headed the negotiations with Libya in 2003 that dismantled Libya’s nuclear program, and Senator Corker:
JOSEPH: [I]n terms of what may or may not be in these secret agreements, my sense is that if these agreements did provide for a real way forward on PMD and on Parchin you’d see them.
CORKER: They’d be on the table.
JOSEPH: You’d see them. Why, you know, after four years of stonewalling on these issues by Iran, we for whatever reason could think that these are going to be resolved by a couple of side agreements and they’re going to be resolved by mid-December? My view is that’s just sheer fantasy.
Sheer fantasy, but under the Roadmap the fantasy will play out until the IAEA issues its report on December 15 – two months after Congress must vote on the deal.
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