Caroline Glick speaks at Stop Iran Rally in New York City #StopIranRally
VISIT SITE HERE: http://stopiranrally.org/
(This event was virtually blacked out by the media. Listen to Caroline’s message. Listen to her declaration of America’s support. Listen to our great alliance. May God bless America and Israel. – LS)
UPDATE:
Another moving speech at the rally:
Here’s a view of the rally:
Iran’s Prison Archipelago, The Gatestone Institute, Lawrence A. Franklin, July 23, 2015
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s human rights record is among the earth’s worst. Iran’s horrific treatment of its own citizens, however, has long been obscured by headlines of the ongoing nuclear negotiations, from which human right issues have been excluded.
Lost in the daily detailed reporting about nuclear talks is the regime’s increased rate of executions of its own citizens during the negotiations. Iran now has overtaken China as having the highest per capita rate for inflicting capital punishment.
While the Islamic Republic dons a reasonable and sophisticated face to the world as it negotiates with P5+1 powers in Switzerland, the authoritarian theocracy’s intelligence services continue to arrest journalists, Bahai and Sunni religious minorities as well as ethnic minorities like Kurds from Kordestan Province and Arabs from Khuzestan Province.[1]
The regime runs such a vast network of prisons and detention centers, many of them still secret, that it has taken on the dimension of a state within a state.[2] This “Prison Archipelago,” similar in relative size and brutality as the network once run by the Soviet KGB, is the primary instrument of terror that keeps the Iranian ruling class in power.
To grasp the magnitude of this domestic terror apparatus, one has only to consult the semi-annual reports on the human rights record of Iran published by United Nations Special Rapporteur Ahmad Shaheed.[3] While Westerners are treated to the smiling countenance of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and the sophisticated, reasonable, Westernized image of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s citizens must contend with the visage of the real Iran: the face of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) storm-trooper.
The IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) run their own network of prisons, detention centers and separate wards within certain jails. Ward 209, for instance, of Iran’s infamous Evin Prison in Tehran, is run by the MOIS.[4] Prison 59, also known as Detention Center #59, in Tehran, is run by the IRGC.
In facilities under their control, both the IRGC and the MOIS are permitted to execute prisoners without trial or effectively any judicial proceeding. Hundreds of extra-judicial executions have been carried out by the regime at Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison.[5] Although many of those executed at Vakilabad are reported to be drug offenders and smugglers, some are ethnic Baluch irredentists and Sunni Muslims living in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, in Iran’s Far East.[6]Moreover, occasionally, regular prison guards initiate raids in which prisoners are beaten and sometimes killed — especially those inmates who have managed to embarrass the regime by secretly passing information to the Western media concerning human rights violations. [7]
In contrast to the media’s “soft image” portrayal of Hassan Rouhani since his election to Iran’s presidency in June 2013, the rate of executions in Iran has increased dramatically.[8] Moreover, among those executed last year were human rights campaigners, political activists, and religious and ethnic minorities.[9]
Eyewitness accounts, many of them testimonies by former “citizens” of the prison archipelago state, have attested to the use of widespread torture in Iran’s prisons. One type of torture noted by a former victim of the technique is called “the chicken” (jujeh kabob): an individual’s arms are bent back and tied to his ankles while being suspended in mid-air. Karaj’s Gohardasht Prison has a suite of cells called Section 1, referred to by veterans of Iran’s Prison Archipelago as “Khane Sag” or the “Dog House,” where prisoners are usually subjected to constant torture, sometimes resulting in death. [10]
Gohardasht Prison, Karaj, Iran. (Image source: Ensie & Matthias/Flickr
Rape of female prisoners increased after the arrests young people who protested the results of the 2009 presidential elections, which returned former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office for a second term.[11] Rape in Iranian prisons is also visited upon young males, a practice referred to as “under-bedding.” Homosexual males in Iranian prisons are referred to as “vach” a slang word that connotes sexual slavery.[12]
In the archipelago, the prisons are overcrowded, with many inmates forced to sleep on the floors of hallways outside the filthy cells. Detention centers, meant only to hold people for a few days while they are processed to prisons, often have only a couple of toilets for hundreds of detainees. Moreover, access to medical care is usually denied, leading to many unnecessary deaths of prisoners whose offenses may have only been minor.[13] Conditions were so bad in Ghezel Hasr Prison in Karaj — with cells holding four times their capacity — that inmates staged a revolt in March 2011, resulting in as many as 50 deaths.[14]
Iran’s Prison Archipelago reflects the core of the true nature of the Islamic Republic — not the Javad Zarif tableau that Kerry & Co. and the compliant media would evidently have us imagine,
If Congress wants to insert itself more effectively in defining what U.S. policy should be toward the Islamic Republic, it might borrow a page from the era that produced the Jackson-Vanik legislative initiative of 1975, which promised economic trade benefits to the USSR that were linked to the Soviets allowing their captive citizens to leave the country. This legislation helped liberation of hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews.
Iranian-Americans possess the potential to mobilize to achieve the same result for thousands of political prisoners in Iran, while educating American citizens about the real nature of the Islamic Republic.
Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran — until it completely changes its behavior, should not be permitted to pursue nuclear research that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon or the capability to deliver one. The deal made with Iran will give it permission to import or develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) with the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to other continents, including to the United States.
Such an outcome would leave in tatters any worthy legacy of the current U.S. administration and of the politicians who support the deal.
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[1] Iran Human Rights 6 March 2014, “Arab-Iranian Sunni Converts arrested.” Human Rights Watch: Summary and Recommendations 1997; “Sunni Persecutions in Iran,” by Neda Shakiba 30 Nov 2010.
[2] “Rights Disregarded: Prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” 18 March 2015 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.p.1.
[3] March 2015 Report on the Situation on Human Rights in Iran by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Ahmad Rasheed. See Rasheed’s exhaustively detailed reports on Human Rights in Iran published every six months as commissioned by the UN Secretary General.
[4] Ward 209, Former Inmate Report that it is run by VEVAK-the MOIS. See also report of journalists and bloggers Faribah Pajoh and Nafiseh Zareh Kohan, both of whom were arrested in August 2009 and who have been subsequently released.
[5] The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Reporting on Executions in Vakilabad Prison. See testimony of former inmates, such as that of Ahmad Ghabel. Executions carried out in Vakilabad Prison have been primarily for drug-related crimes.
[6] Sistan-Baluchistan Province is where Sunni Religious and Baluch ethnic minorities are most concentrated in Iran. But it is also the center of drug smuggling routes into Iran from Afghanistan’s vast expanse of opium poppy fields.
[7] “Letters from Iran’s Hellish Prisons” by Jason Shams, 19 September 2010. On 17 April 2014, guards at Evin Prison in an event described as “Black Thursday,” Evin Prison guards attacked prisoners in Ward 350.
[8] See Amnesty International Statistics for 2013 and 2014.
[9] Report of Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Human Rights Council 11 March 2014.
[10] New List of Political and “Security Risk” Prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajaishahr) Prison in Iranby Sayeh Hassan.
[11] PBS/News Hour 10 June 2012 “Center for Investigative Journalism.”
[12] Surviving Rape in Iranian Prisons, Paper published by Iran’s Human Rights Violation Documentation Center. http://www.iranhrde.org/english/pulications/reports/3401-surviving-rape-in-iran-s-prisons.html#.U59ifZRdV8E.
[13] Advance Unedited Version of the 11 March 2014 Report of the Secretary General on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. P.6. Rights Disregarded: Prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[14] Rahana Human Rights News Agency 17 March 2011. Report on Massacre of Inmates in Zaidan-e-Ghezel Hesar.
Springtime for America’s Enemies, The Daily Beast, Garry Kasparov, July 22, 2015
(This is from The Daily Pest Beast. — DM)
Dangerous and short-sighted U.S. diplomacy has empowered no one except state sponsors of terrorism and fascistic regimes.
There has never been a better time in history to be an enemy of the United States of America. While America’s traditional allies in Europe and the Middle East express confusion and frustration, Obama’s White House delivers compliments and concessions to some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. In the span of a single week, the U.S. has restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, pressured Ukraine to accept Vladimir Putin’s butchering of its eastern region, and brokered a deal to liberate Iran from sanctions.
These actions would represent a tremendous series of diplomatic triumphs if they improved human rights in these repressed nations, saved lives in conflict regions, or improved global security. That is, in fact, what the White House says these deals will do, despite copious evidence to the contrary. These negotiations represent willful ignorance of the fundamental nature of the regimes in question, especially those of Iran and Russia. Cuba is a political hotspot in the U.S. and remains a potent symbol of totalitarianism, but despite its regional meddling, especially in Venezuela, it isn’t on the scale of the global threats represented by Iran’s terrorism and nuclear ambitions and Putin’s nuclear-backed expansionism. Regardless of the wishes of the Iranian and Russian people, their leaders have no interest in peace, although they are very interested in never-ending peace negotiations that provide them with cover as they continue to spread violence and hatred.
The vocabulary of negotiation is a pleasant and comforting one, especially to a war-weary America. It’s difficult to argue against civilized concepts like diplomacy and engagement, and the Obama administration and the pundits who support it have made good use of this rhetorical advantage. In contrast, deterrence and isolation are harsh, negative themes that evoke the dark time of the Cold War and its constant shadow of nuclear confrontation. No one would like less a return to those days than me or anyone else born and raised behind the Iron Curtain. The question is how best to avoid such a return.
The favorite straw man of the “peacemongers” is that the only alternative to appeasement is war, which makes no sense when there is already an escalating war in progress. The alternative to diplomacy isn’t war when it prolongs or worsens existing conflicts and gives the real warmongers a free hand. Deterrence is the alternative to appeasement. Isolation is the alternative to years of engagement that has only fueled more aggression.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a Communist country that I cannot so casually ignore the suffering of the people being left behind as these treaties are signed. Ronald Reagan was called a warmonger by the same crowd that is praising Obama to the skies today and yet Reagan is the one who freed hundreds of millions of people from the Communist yoke, not the “peacemakers” Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
Diplomacy takes two while capitulation is unilateral. Diplomacy can fail and there is real damage, and real casualties, when it does. Putin’s dictatorship was immeasurably strengthened by the catastrophe known as “the reset,” an Obama/Hillary Clinton policy that gave Putin a fresh start as an equal on the world stage just months after he invaded Georgia. Years that could have been spent deterring Putin’s crackdowns and centralization of power while he still needed foreign engagement were instead spent cultivating a partnership that never really existed. Time that could have been used to establish alternate sources of gas and oil were squandered, leaving Europe vulnerable to energy blackmail.
By 2014, Putin had consolidated power at home completely and, with no significant domestic enemies left and sure he would face little international opposition, he was confident enough to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea. The thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Ukraine are Putin’s victims, of course, but they must also weigh on the conscience of the bureaucrats, diplomats, and leaders whose cowardice—well-intentioned or not—emboldened Putin to that point.
As recent days and past decades past have shown us, it is easy to paint the critics of nearly any diplomatic process as warmongers. Again, the language of peace and diplomacy is soothing and positive. If we just talk a little longer, if we just delay a little more, if we just concede a little more… To make the peacemonger position even more unassailable, every outbreak of violence large or small can be blamed on the failure of the diplomats to talk, delay, and concede more. And sometimes, to be fair, acceptable compromises are reached and, if not win-win, mutually satisfactory lose-lose agreements can defuse conflicts and avoid bloodshed. Diplomacy is supposed to be the modern way, the civilized way, and it should always be considered first—and second.
But diplomacy also requires a measure of good faith by all parties. It assumes that one side (or both) isn’t lying and cheating. It assumes that there is sufficient coercion and/or self-interest for the deal to hold. A peace treaty assumes that both sides actually want peace; a ceasefire assumes that both sides will cease firing. When these things cannot be assumed, any deal is a likely to be a bad deal. At best it will be meaningless and the regimes operating in bad faith will be quick to exploit the delays and concessions. By signing agreements with regimes that have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted and have no interest in peace or ceasefires, the Obama administration has turned the great game of diplomacy into Russian roulette.
Keeping a firm grip on power is the only thing that matters in a dictatorship. The consequences of losing power in an authoritarian regime rarely involve peaceful retirement and a long life. (Gorbachev is a notable exception, mostly due to his cleverly taking credit for the Soviet collapse he fought so hard to avoid, as well as to the shameful lack of appetite in Russia and the international community for holding Communist leaders accountable.) Both Khamenei and Putin have brutally cracked down on their own people to remove any challenges to their authority. Both rely on vicious propaganda to drum up nationalism and hatred for foreign enemies and “traitors” at home, i.e. anyone who opposes or criticizes the regime. Both wage war and terror on their borders and beyond. Both hold sham elections to provide a distraction for their citizens and fodder for the global press to blather on about the potential for liberalization. And this week, both Putin and Khamenei have been rewarded by President Obama with negotiations that will aid them in causing further suffering to their people and in making the world far less safe. Obama gets his “peace for our time” fanfare and the dictatorships continue with business as usual.
A remark made by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Dayan is much repeated by the peacemongers in times like these. In a 1977 interview the renowned military man said that “if you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends.” This is both clever and true, but what has been forgotten is that Dayan continued, “But the question is whom do we want to make peace with—not just who are our enemies.” It’s delusional to think you can make peace with an unrepentant state sponsor of terror like Iran or a Russian regime that is sending tanks across a European border and adopting fascist propaganda.
It is clear that the Obama administration thinks it should and can make peace with anyone, whether they like it or not, and whether or not they actually change their odious behavior. These terrible deals with Cuba, Russia, and Iran—it’s like the old joke about the businessman who sells each unit at a loss but says he’ll make it up in volume. Cuba continues to jail journalists and dissidents. Putin’s forces are still illegally occupying Crimea and waging war in Eastern Ukraine while Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bullies the Ukrainian government into the concessions that Putin demanded in the latest Minsk ceasefire accord (which his troops ignore, of course).
Iran will dramatically upgrade its ability to support the military wings of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen it has been supplying with weapons for years. There is little doubt Iran will also continue its attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, and even if it fails it is sure to spark a nuclear arms race in the region. Iran’s hardliners have been cemented in power by escaping sanctions while giving up nothing. Calling all of this a triumph for diplomacy is perverse. By the time Obama is polishing his Nobel Peace Prize in his presidential library, the next president will be left facing two aggressive despotic regimes that are stronger and more confident of their invincibility than ever.
Expansionist dictatorships never transform quietly. They most often end in collapse or violent revolution. Comparisons of the Iran agreement to the opening of China in the 1970s are absurd. China would have starved had they not abandoned Mao’s catastrophic plans and built an export economy, something that required formal relations with the free world. In contrast, petro-dictatorships like Iran don’t need their people or to be on good terms with the West—especially not now that the economic sanctions will be lifted.
The casualties that have resulted from weakness masked as diplomacy far outnumber those stemming from being too hasty to confront and deter aggression. The peacemongers should keep that in mind as Iran uses some of its $100 billion in newly unfrozen assets to arm its terror proxies. Before applauding the next ceasefire in Ukraine as progress they should recall what Putin did during the last two. More than anything, before Obama again praises the tyrannical leaders of Cuba, Iran, and Russia for their cooperation, he should remember that some enemies are worth having.
The emperor is stark naked, Israel Hayom, Judith Bergman, July 22, 2015
It did not take the Europeans long to approve the Iran nuclear deal. On Monday, less than a week after the deal was finalized, the European Union had already given its blessing. Given the fact that the EU is a massive body consisting of 28 countries that rarely agree on any foreign policy issues, certainly not those of such a magnitude, it is rather noteworthy that they could find such sweet unison over the most infamous political deal since Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler.
”It is a balanced deal that means Iran won’t get an atomic bomb,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, “It is a major political deal.”
Sure it is.
Especially for the likes of France and Germany, which can barely contain themselves at the prospect of doing business with the Iranian regime. It has been 12 years since the Europeans could legally engage in trade with the genocidal, misogynistic, homophobic and generally murderous regime of the mullahs and they are not wasting any time, now that the opportunity has resurfaced.
In fact, the ink was barely dry on the nuclear deal when German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel — who also happens to be economy and energy minister and is therefore as senior a German official as Germany could get without actually sending Angela Merkel herself — rushed himself and a group of representatives from German companies and industry groups onto a plane for a three-day visit to Iran.
Trying, yet utterly failing, to make the trip appear a little more dignified than the simple naked greed that it represents, the vice chancellor “urged Iran at the start of [the] three-day visit to improve its relationship with Israel if it wanted to establish closer economic ties with Germany and other Western powers,” according to Reuters.
If Germany wanted Iran to take that poor show of accommodating Israeli concerns seriously, it might have tried to contain itself just a little longer to at least see whether the U.S. Congress approves the deal. However, as we all know, time is money and the Germans are well known for being efficient.
Yet, the Germans are far from the only ones lining up for immediate business with the Iranians. Fabius is due to visit Iran next week. “I find it completely normal that after this historic deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations,” Fabius said. Before the sanctions took effect, French companies Peugeot and Renault were making billions of euros from their involvement with the Iranian auto industry. Similarly, French company Total was heavily involved in the oil sector. France is not missing a beat in bringing this lucrative trade back into la République.
The French employers’ federation, MEDEF, is due to visit Iran in September. So is Austria. The EU, which is eager to find alternative suppliers of energy at a time when relations with Russia are rather tense, may reopen an EU delegation in Tehran.
Notice how the European political elites consider it, in the French foreign minister’s words, “completely normal” to do business with a heinous regime like Iran, which breaks every single rule in the book of human rights, the bible from which the Europeans pedantically lecture Israel on every possible occasion. It is ostensibly in the name of those very same human rights that the EU wants to boycott Israeli products in order to avoid choking on an Israeli orange from beyond the Green Line.
Yet these days the streets of Europe are eerily quiet and completely devoid of protests, as the citizens of Europe demonstrably could not care less about the fact that their countries will now once again be trading in a major way with the Iranian regime.
Where is the outrage, as it becomes increasingly clear that the EU, out of commercial considerations for the lucrative trade and oil flowing from such a deal, has supported the agreement with Iran? Where are the boycotts, divestment and sanctions? Where are the flotillas?
What European lawmaker, bureaucrat or ordinary citizen cares at all that women and children, political prisoners and homosexuals are tortured and summarily executed in Iran, when Iranian oil and money will now flow freely into the EU? Is it of any concern to any of the European that Iran is a regime with genocidal intentions toward Israel and cares for nothing but its own survival?
The hypocrisy and the double standards have become so thick and obvious that Hans Christian Andersen’s proverbial emperor is walking stark naked through the streets of Europe. However, should a child appear to point out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes, no one would care to listen.
(Please see also House Republican: Obama Administration Won’t Release Full Iran Deal to Congress and State Spokesman Repeatedly Refuses to Answer Whether There Are ‘Side Deals’ Between Iran and Nuclear Watchdog. The questions now appear to have been answered.– DM)
Secretary-general Amano (left) with AEOI’s Salehi (Image: IAEA)
The technical issues are now being resolved in a political framework. They have set a time frame and, God willing, the issue must be resolved by December 15.”
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The PMD (Possible Military Dimensions) issue that includes an investigation of suspicions that Iran previously conducted a military nuclear program, was one of the main stumbling blocks between Iran and the P5+1 group and primarily between Iran and the United States and the EU3. These suspicions are based inter alia on a November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that the agency had information on Iran’s performance of activities related to nuclear weapons development until 2003 and that some of these activities were possibly continuing.[1] Iran persistently refused to respond to all the IAEA’s questions and due to its refusal to cooperate fully with the IAEA the UN Security Council passed six anti-Iran resolutions demanding that Iran cooperate immediately with the IAEA on this topic in order to disclose the truth.
On July 14, 2015, the day the Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action agreement between Iran and the P5+1 was declared, IAEA Secretary-General Yukio Amano and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Ali Akbar Salehi, one of the lead Iranian negotiator, signed a “roadmap agreement” in which Iran committed to provide the IAEA with clarifications and explanations on the PMD. Amano announced that if Iran would cooperate fully with the IAEA (as opposed to its conduct up to now) he could submit his conclusions by December 15, 2015. Under the agreement the lifting of sanctions enters into effect only following the IAEA report’s submission.
In an interview to the Iranian channel IRIB on July 21, 2015, Salehi disclosed that Iran has reached an understanding with the IAEA regarding the PMD; that now problems are solved on the political level and since political backing exists, the IAEA cannot do whatever it wants as it did in the past when such political backing did not exist. Therefore, the IAEA’s PMD investigation would be most positive for Iran. Salehi explained that the IAEA had to act reasonably otherwise it would be the loser.
Below is the transcript of Salehi’s IRIB interview:
Salehi: “By December 15, at the end of the year, the issue (of the PMD) should be determined. The IAEA will submit its report to the board of governors. It will only submit it. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will continue independently of the results of this report. We have reached understandings with the IAEA. God willing, there will be very positive results. We do not accept the PMD issue, the (suspicions against) Iran’s past (military nuclear) activity. We are resolving this in a political-technical framework, in order to deny them any pretext. Look, if it was decided that the (IAEA) will not be convinced no matter what… As the saying goes: If someone pretends to be asleep, you cannot wake him up. If someone does not want to be convinced, it does not matter how hard you try. You tell him that it is daytime, and he tells you that it’s night. If the IAEA was not meant to be convinced in the regular track, it would never be convinced, regardless of what we did. They presented 18 questions, we answered them (but couldn’t convince them), and there is nothing more that could be done. Now that the technical issues are being resolved on the political level, the pace has picked up. The technical issues are now being resolved in a political framework. They have set a time frame and, God willing, the issue must be resolved by December 15.”
Interviewer: “But considering the IAEA’s bad record regarding…”
Salehi: “In short, they will be the losers. As I have said, the issue has received political backing. The work of (the IAEA) must be reasonable. They cannot do anything unreasonable. When there is no political backing, they do whatever they want, but now there is political backing, and the issue should be resolved, and God willing, it will be.”
Endnote:
[1] Iaea.org, July 14, 2015.
State Spokesman Repeatedly Refuses to Answer Whether There Are ‘Side Deals’ Between Iran and Nuclear Watchdog, Washington Free Beacon, July 22, 2015
(Please see also, House Republican: Obama Administration Won’t Release Full Iran Deal to Congress. — DM)
State Department spokesman John Kirby repeatedly refused to answer direct questions from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough Wednesday over whether he knew about reported “side deals” between Iran and the nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would not be subject to scrutiny by Congress or the American public.
“I won’t speak for the IAEA,” Kirby said. “What I can tell you is that all relevant documents to this deal, certainly all those in our possession, have been delivered to Congress. They were delivered over the weekend, and they’ll have access to everything that we have access to.”
The U.N. nuclear watchdog plays the critical role of verification in the agreement by seeking to ensure Iran is not violating it with illicit nuclear activity.
National Review reported on two Republicans issuing a press release that they’d discovered these deals while meeting with IAEA officials in Vienna
Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressmen Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) issued a press release today on a startling discovery they made during a July 17 meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna: There are two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public.
One of these side deals concerns inspection of the Parchin military base, where Iran reportedly has conducted explosive testing related to nuclear-warhead development. The Iranian government has refused to allow the IAEA to visit this site. Over the last several years, Iran has taken steps to clean up evidence of weapons-related activity at Parchin.
The other secret side deal concerns how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program. In late 2013, Iran agreed to resolve IAEA questions about nuclear weapons-related work in twelve areas. Iran only answered questions in one of these areas and rejected the rest as based on forgeries and fabrications.
Scarborough was unsatisfied with Kirby’s answer and pressed him repeatedly to give a definitive answer to whether the U.S. had knowledge of these details or whether such “side deals” existed at all. The exchange went on:
SCARBOROUGH: But Admiral, does the State Department know of secret side deals between Iran and the IAEA? Do you know of secret side deals between Iran and the IAEA? Does Secretary Kerry know of secret side deals between Iran and the IAEA?
KIRBY: What we know is that the IAEA will be working with Iran to make sure that they have the information and access that they need to be able to verify Iran’s commitments to this deal.
SCARBOROUGH: But that’s not the question I asked. That’s not the question I asked, Admiral. Are you all familiar with side deals between the IAEA as it pertains to Iran’s nuclear program that we don’t know about?
KIRBY: This isn’t about side deals, Joe. This is about making sure the IAEA gets the access they need to verify Iran’s commitments, and they’re going to do that. I can’t speak for the IAEA. What I can do is speak for the State Department, and I can say definitely that every relevant document –
SCARBOROUGH: But you certainly can speak to your knowledge and Secretary Kerry’s knowledge and the State Department’s knowledge and the White House’s knowledge. Do you all have knowledge of these side deals?
KIRBY: We know that the IAEA is going to work with Iran to make sure they get the access they need. How they do that and what manner they do that, I’m going to let them speak to that.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski cut in.
“It sounds like there’s side deals,” she said.
“I’m just trying to get a yes or a no,” Scarborough said.
Kirby looked perturbed at this point.
“I can’t really answer it any better than I did,” he said. “I mean, the IAEA needs to get the access to verify Iran’s compliance and they’ll do that. How they work with Iran on that is really for them to speak to. What I can you tell you though is every relevant document in this deal, and there’s a lot of them, everything has been delivered to Congress, and they’re going to get ample time to speak to Secretary Kerr and Secretary Moniz to answer all their questions.”
Scarborough concluded the exchange by saying Kirby actually could have answered better with a simple yes or no, but he moved on.
Op-Ed: Obama’s Deception Set Off a New Era, Israel National News, Dr. Joe Tuzara, July 22, 2015
Not surprising, the Obama administration considers both the US and Israel to be key threats to peace in the world.
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President Barack Obama’s strange self-delusion for Iran to become a more “formidable regional power” has already triggered an undeclared new era for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
Despite this established ignominy of an emboldened Iran strengthened by Obama’s naive policies at the expense of Israel and Sunni Arab allies, the White House suggestion that they “sought to pursue diplomacy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon that could set off a nuclear arms race” is based on fantasy.
Whichever way they try to spin it, Obama’s rhetoric that the deal “cut off every pathway to nuclear weapons, prevented a nuclear arms race in the Middle East” doesn’t match reality.
The deal explicitly acknowledges that Iran is gaining benefits no other state would gain under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In terms of its nuclear development, instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, that program is now protected.
Such a deal, one that allows a leading state sponsor of terror to retain the ability to develop nuclear weapons, threaten Israel, continue their hegemonic ambitions and support for terrorism is a historic nadir of the Obama presidency.
As Obama’s secret letter to Ayatollah Khamenei makes clear, securing the deal simply legitimizes Tehran, a de facto regional US ally standing on the threshold of a nuclear weapon.
It is a shame that the Obama administration’s total capitulations were made in areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The fake Iran deal does confirm Israeli and Sunni Arab Muslims fears that they can no longer depend on the Obama administration to protect their vital national security interests.
Even worse, Obama had given up on its stated goals of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and his dumb promise to fight a bad deal while underwriting the expansion of Iranian hegemony unquestionably was not just only reckless but cynical.
As it turned out, “détente” with Iran is the main goal of the Obama’s pretend diplomacy. In essence, Obama’s “appeasement” is not diplomacy and his secret back-channel negotiations with the fanatical, corrupt and Machiavellian terrorist regime is treason.
The moment Obama become an advocate for the “Islamic State of Iran” that enjoys the benefits of no real verification regime and no real consequences for serial violations of UN nuclear weapons resolutions, he has lost all credibility to govern our great nation. Similarly, when Obama negotiated away Israel’s existence, he became the real enemy of Israel.
Not surprising, the Obama administration considers both the US and Israel to be key threats to peace in the world. Given that Obama has done all it can to [prevent an Israeli preemptive strike, from leaking Israeli attack scenarios to denying Israel air space over Iraq, the fact that he] coordinated with the Iranian regime –and attempted to cut off weapons shipments to Israel in the midst of its war with Iranian proxy terror group Hamas, his statements about the strength of this deal carry no weight at all.
On the other hand, Obama’s flawed perspective and deception on a grand scale significantly risks the collapse of 50 year US alliance structure in the Middle East, contravenes 70 years of US nonproliferation policy and endangers 45 years of a landmark international treaty (NPT) whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.
Quite unfortunately, the Iran deal set a dangerous precedent that allows rogue states and radical fundamentalist elements in particularly issuing veiled threats to quickly go nuclear. With Iran getting active on the borders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, those regimes would be foolhardy not to attempt to develop a nuclear capacity –especially given that Obama has shown there are no detriments to doing so.
Equally disturbing, Obama has given all the Sunni Arab Gulf countries the pathways to build civilian nuclear energy programs with possible military dimensions.
Ironically, Obama has created a major void allowing an opening for many potential benefits, that it holds for Russia. In the last six months, Russia has struck three significant nuclear deals with long-time US Middle East allies: Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
An unnamed sources told the Al Arabiya TV network that Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to build 16 nuclear reactors that Russia would play a significant role in operating. France became the first country to sign feasibility studies to build two nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia potentially worth more than $10 billion.
Now we all know that Sunni Arabs will not sit idly as the world’s largest state-sponsor of terror becomes a nuclear-threshold state. The regional powers know this. Saudi Arabia has already said it will “match the nuclear capabilities Iran is allowed to maintain,” and it is an open secret that the Saudis have a nuke on the shelf in Pakistan.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) also noted that “the Arab Gulf states have acquired and are acquiring some of the most advanced and effective weapons in the world.”
One of many unintended outcomes of the nuclear talks is the emergence of covert Saudi and Gulf State alliance with their former archenemy, Israel. The Saudis and the Israelis have had five “secret” meetings to discuss common defense and intelligence issues related to Obama’s policy of strengthening Iran economically while permitting the terror state to become a potential nuclear power with a breakout capacity that is unknowable.
Tehran’s shocking nuclear bravado aside, the Middle East is going to experience another historic moment with the visit of Saudi Prince Talal bin Waleed to Israel in what could be the most significant move toward peace between the Arabs and Israelis since Egypt’s Anwar Sadat’s iconic trip to Israel.
Saudi Prince Talal denounced the growing waves of anti-Semitism in the region and praised Israel as the region’s sole democratic entity. Calling for Muslims in the Middle East “to desist from their absurd hostility toward the Jewish people,” the prince went on to announce that Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has instructed him to open a direct dialogue with Israel’s intellectuals in pursuit of amicable ties with all of Israel’s Arab neighbors.
Amid the despair in the region generated by Obama’s Iran policy, this could be the most promising breakthrough toward peace between Arabs and Israelis.
In arrogantly thinking he alone could decide the future of the Middle East, Obama has unleashed the unintended consequences that frequently shape great events: in this instance for the betterment of all the peoples of the Middle East but ultimately to the detriment of America’s interests.
Now, the moment of decision had finally come, Israelis must accept the risks and unintended consequences of preventive war rather than wait until Iran’s nuclear bombs are built.
Either way, for as long as the highly imperfect Iranian accords have not been ratified or rejected by Congress, a preemptive strike of Iran’s nuclear facilities is not an option.
Unless, Iran’s magical collaboration with the Obama administration ends up restocking its Iranian proxies with sophisticated radars and weapons from Russia, China and the United States, or facing the imminent threat of a nuclear attack- Israel will not hesitate to deploy the “Samson option”.
And as long as the imminent proxy wars in the Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza or Lebanon remain conventional, Israel’s response would remain reciprocally non-nuclear.
Iran becomes more aggressive after Obama’s ‘historic’ nuclear deal, American Thinker, Amir Basiri, July 22, 2015
The lack of interest of the U.S. and the UN in addressing this issue sends a bad signal to Tehran, one that implies the international community has let its guard down and Iran is free to increase its transgression at its leisure. In particular, the U.S. government is both morally and legally responsible to take action in this regard and prevent another disaster from coming to pass. But on the broader scale, the idleness of the Obama can have dire implications on its own efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear and terrorist venturing.
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The massive giveaways to Iran in the nuclear deal it struck with the P5+1 on July 14 were premised on the false assumption that concessions would render Tehran more docile. U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken on several accounts on how economic regrowth would convince the Iranian regime to shift away from its nuclear and regional ambition and to become a more constructive actor in the region and across the globe. But there are already indications that the mullahs ruling Iran are becoming bolder in their regional venturing and meddling in neighboring countries, with the first signs appearing in Iraq.
According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, simultaneous with the declaration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) in Vienna, elements of the Iranian regime in the Iraqi government ratcheted up repressive measures against Camp Liberty, an obsolete U.S. military compound in the adjacency of the Baghdad International Airport which houses thousands of Iranian refugees.
The residents of the camp, members of the Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MeK), have been living under harsh, prison-like conditions by the orders of Faleh al-Fayyadh, National Security Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, a holdover from the cabinet of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a staunch ally of the Iranian regime.
While temperatures in Iraq are soaring at around 50 degrees Celsius (122 deg. Fahrenheit), Iraqi security forces are preventing the entrance of vital necessities into the camp, including food, fuel, medical, and logistical supplies. Given the camp’s worn infrastructure and lack of facilities for storage, the blockade is threatening to trigger a humanitarian crisis in the camp as life in the camp will soon come to a halt. It is noteworthy that the forces ostensibly in charge of the camp’s protection are deeply affiliated with the Iranian regime and are responsible for a number of attacks and massacres against the residents.
In 2013, similar measures undertaken by Iraqi forces eventually culminated into the mass-slaughter of 52 of the camp’s residents, an operation carried out by special forces under the strict orders and control of the Iraqi Prime Ministry Office and in coordination with the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. There is grave concern that a similar atrocity will occur if quick action is not taken to prevent further violation of the rights of the residents.
The residents of Camp Liberty have been recognized as “persons of concern” by the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and designated as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention by U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and the UN (which happen to be the only bodies that have direct access to the camp aside from the Iraqi government) are effectively sitting out the disaster while it develops and while Iran-backed forces tighten the noose around the camp.
The intensification of persecution of Camp Liberty takes place in the backdrop of increased Iranian influence in Iraq as Tehran moves to strengthen its proxy militia units and expand its influence over Iraqi soil and politics, an endeavor that has driven a wedge through the sectarian divide plaguing the country and has effectively deadlocked the U.S.-led effort to roll back the advances of the Islamic State, an extremist group that has rampaged through Iraq and Syria in the past year. Regrettably, the Obama administration is taking the issue lightly and is giving tacit approval to Iranian meddling in Iraq.
The MeK was the first party to sound the alarm on Iran’s covert nuclear program in 2002 — the focus of a standoff between Tehran and the international community which has lasted to this day — and has since been the source pertinent information regarding secret aspects of Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. The plots being carried out against the group are a worrying sign of Tehran might be trying to neutralize the opposition in order to pave its way for cheating on the nuclear accord without fear of being exposed.
The lack of interest of the U.S. and the UN in addressing this issue sends a bad signal to Tehran, one that implies the international community has let its guard down and Iran is free to increase its transgression at its leisure. In particular, the U.S. government is both morally and legally responsible to take action in this regard and prevent another disaster from coming to pass. But on the broader scale, the idleness of the Obama can have dire implications on its own efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear and terrorist venturing.
John Kerry is “disturbed” that Iran remains Iran, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, July 21, 2015
To view Khamenei’s statements on Iran’s regional policy as disturbing is like being disturbed by feeding habits of sharks. What’s disturbing here is the combination of naivety and wishful thinking that led the Obama administration to reach this agreement with Iran.
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Towards the end of the nuclear negotiations with Iran, the mullahs’ negotiators talked about the possibility of cooperating strategically with the U.S. on regional matters, in the event the sides reached a deal. Even “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei joined in, declaring that “if the other side avoids its ambiguity in the talks, it’ll be an experience showing it’s possible to negotiate with them on other issues.”
This was an enticing prospect to dangle before Barack Obama. For him, the hope of U.S.-Iran cooperation on “other issues” has always been a major incentive for reaching a deal.
But now that the deal has been reached, the mullahs have changed their tune. Last Friday, Khamenei threw cold water on the idea of cooperating with the U.S., making it clear that Iran will continue to be our deadly adversary. Khamenei stated:
Our policy toward the arrogant U.S. government won’t change at all. We have no negotiations with America about various global and regional issues. We have no negotiations on bilateral issues.
We will always support the oppressed Palestinian nation, Yemen, Syrian government and people, Iraq, and oppressed Bahraini people, and also the honest fighters of Lebanon and Palestine.
Khamenei also reiterated Iran’s support for Hezbollah:
Americans can support the child-killing Zionist government, and call Hezbollah terrorist? How can one interact, negotiate, or come to an agreement with such a policy?
The instinct of the liberal foreign policy establishment in cases like this is to dismiss such talk as being for domestic political consumption. But John Kerry knows the Iranian regime is serious and, fearful of being made to look like an idiot when Iran makes good on Khamenei’s promises, he declined to take the liberal default position.
Instead, though raising the possibility that the statement might not reflect policy, Kerry stated: “I don’t know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that’s his policy.”
It’s encouraging to see Kerry taking what the “Supreme Leader” says at face value. Unfortunately, it’s also late in the day.
Kerry went on to state that if Khamenei’s statement really is Iran’s policy, “it’s very disturbing, it’s very troubling.”
It is, to be sure. But Kerry acts like Khamenei’s statement came out of the blue. Absurd!
As noted, Iran forbore to some extent on such pronouncements as the parties to the nuclear negotiations closed in on an agreement. But how could Kerry have believed that this obvious negotiating tactic reflected a change in Iran’s fundamental regional aims?
To view Khamenei’s statements on Iran’s regional policy as disturbing is like being disturbed by feeding habits of sharks. What’s disturbing here is the combination of naivety and wishful thinking that led the Obama administration to reach this agreement with Iran.
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