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Archive for the ‘Kerry’ category
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July 6, 2015Contentions — Cementing the Bad Deal
July 6, 2015Contentions — Cementing the Bad Deal, Commentary Magazine, Noah Rothman, July 6, 2015
The following is a dispatch from The Israel Project’s Omri Ceren regarding the state of nuclear negotiations with Iran:
Happy Monday from Vienna. The EU’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini arrived yesterday and told reporters: “As you know I have decided to reconvene the ministers. They will be arriving tonight and tomorrow. It is the third time in exactly one week. That’s the end, the last part of this long marathon.” Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif already held an impromptu meeting this morning. The overarching consensus – which is almost certainly correct – is that whatever gets announced will be announced no later than tomorrow afternoon. It might very well happen tonight.
As to what that announcement might be, there are a few options. In order of increasing probability:
0% chance: Kerry might make good on the comments that he made yesterday to reporters, and walks away from a bad deal.
Very low probability: the parties might come to a full-blown agreement ready to be implemented immediately. This scenario was never likely by June 30, and became functionally impossible after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set out a range of new red lines a few weeks ago. Also, the Iranians gave a background briefing earlier today in Vienna where they provided their interpretation of an emerging final deal. Among other things they have some interesting views on what military-related restrictions will be lifted, which are in tension with how the Americans have been describing the deal. Those differences will have to be overcome, and they won’t be in the next few days.
Low-probability: the gaps might still be too significant to even colorfully announce a deal, and the parties would extend the interim agreement all the way through the summer. The option would be more attractive to the Obama administration than taking another 2 or 3 weeks. If the administration sends Congress a deal after July 9 then the Corker clock – how long a deal sits in front of Congress – goes from 30 days to 60 days. But if they get all the way through the summer, it goes back down to 30 days. The administration has obvious reasons to prefer that.
Most likely: there will be a non-agreement agreement. The parties will announce they’ve resolved all outstanding issues but they still have to fill in some details. Then the P5+1 and Iran would move in parallel to implement various commitments, and the Iranians would in particular have to work with the IAEA on its unresolved concerns regarding Iran’s weapons program (PMDs). In the winter the IAEA would provide a face-saving way for the parties to declare Iran is cooperating – IAEA head Amano said earlier this week that the agency could wrap up by the end of the year if Iran cooperates – and then a deal would officially begin. The option is attractive to the administration because it puts off granting Iran all of its anticipated sanctions relief until the IAEA makes some noises about the Iranians cooperating. The alternative would be poison on the Hill. This way the administration can tell Congress that of course PMDs will be resolved before any sanctions relief is granted; and after Congress votes, if the Iranians jam up the IAEA but demand relief anyway, lawmakers will have no leverage to stop the administration from caving.
The focus will then shift to Congress, where the debate on approving or disapproving of the deal will take place over the next month. Some of the questions will get technical and tangled – the breakout time debate is going to be mind-numbing – but lawmakers will also use a very simple metric: Is the deal the same one the President promised he’d bring home twenty months ago? Back then the administration was very clear about what constituted a good deal and emphatic that U.S. negotiators had sufficient leverage to secure those terms. The U.S. subsequently collapsed on almost all of those conditions, and lawmakers will want to know how the deal can still count as a good one.
In line with those questions, here is a roundup from the Foreign Policy Initiative on where the administration started and how dramatically it has moved backwards. From the overview of the analysis:
Over the past three years, the Obama administration has delineated the criteria that any final nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran must meet. In speeches, congressional testimony, press conferences, and media interviews, administration officials have also articulated their expectations from Tehran with repeated declarations: “No deal is better than a bad deal.” This FPI Analysis… compiles many of the administration’s own statements on nuclear negotiations with Iran over the past three years, and compares them with current U.S. positions. It also examines U.S. statements on a range of other issues related to U.S. policy toward Tehran, and assesses whether subsequent events have validated them.
The web version has embedded links for each of the statements, so if you need them just click through on the url at the top. You might just want to do that anyway, because the web version is more readable.
Kerry Threatens to Leave Nuke Talks With No Deal
July 5, 2015Kerry Threatens to Leave Nuke Talks With No Deal, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, July 5, 2015
John Kerry AP
VIENNA—Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that the United States and Iran may fail to reach a final nuclear agreement despite the talks being extended past their June 30 deadline so that the sides could hash out remaining differences over the scope and scale of the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program.
Western observers suggested the statement from Kerry was designed to provide cover for the administration if a deal with wide-ranging concessions to Iran is struck.
Kerry told reporters in a brief press conference Sunday afternoon that he is prepared to leave town without a deal that has been viewed as the Obama administration’s biggest foreign policy priority.
“I want to be absolutely clear with everybody: We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues,” Kerry said. “And the truth is that while I completely agree with Foreign Minister [Javad] Zarif that we have never been closer, at this point, this negotiation could go either way.”
“If hard choices get made in the next couple of days and made quickly, we could get an agreement this week. But if they are not made, we will not,” Kerry said.
Critics of the administration were not impressed by Kerry’s tough stance.
Asked by the Washington Free Beacon about Kerry’s remarks, one Western observer present in Vienna visibly rolled his eyes and said, “If the State Department thinks they’re fooling anybody, they are literally the only ones who think that.”
U.S. officials and diplomats have been quiet in public, declining to brief reporters on record about the status of the talks and what a final deal could look like.
If a deal is not reached by July 7, it is expected that the world powers and Iran will not make one.
“If we don’t get a deal, if we don’t have a deal, if there’s absolute intransigence, if there’s an unwillingness to move on the things that are important, President Obama has always said we’ll be prepared to walk away,” Kerry said.
The secretary also defended a virtual news blackout that has left reporters with very little insight into the status of the critical talks.
“In the coming hours and days we’re going to go as hard as we can. We are not going to be negotiating in the press,” Kerry said. “We’ll be negotiating privately and quietly. And when the time is right, we will all have more to say.”
Asked if he thinks a deal in attainable in the announced time period, Kerry demurred.
“Right now we’re aiming to try to finish this in the timeframe that we’ve set out,” he said. “That’s our goal and we’re going to put every bit of pressure possible on it to try to do so.”
Shortly after Kerry’s remarks, he walked back into another meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif.
Iranian officials also remained quiet over the weekend, but have hinted that disagreements remain over the future scope of Iran’s nuclear program and the timetable in which international sanctions will be removed.
Wire reports have claimed in recent days that the United States and Iran are close to sorting out the sanctions issue, which has remained one of the most contested issues in the talks.
U.S. lawmakers and other critics have expressed repeated concerns that Iran will pocket billions of dollars in sanctions relief while doing little to stop its most controversial nuclear work.
Meanwhile, Iran announced on Sunday that Russia had agreed to supply it with a range of naval equipment.
“Talks between the Iranian delegation and the Russian side were held at the International Maritime Defense Show (IMDS) in St. Petersburg on Saturday. They spoke about boosting bilateral military-technical cooperation, including on deliveries of a wide range of naval equipment and armaments,” an Iranian military official was quoted as saying in the country’s state-run press.
Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal
July 2, 2015Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal, Washington Free Beacon,
(As the scorpion said to the frog, “that’s just what scorpions do.” Like the frog, Obama and Kerry are anxious to give the scorpion a ride, but on our backs.– DM)
John Kerry outside the hotel where the Iranian nuclear talks are being held / AP
Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.
Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.
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VIENNA—Senior Obama administration officials are defending Iranian nuclear violations in the aftermath of a bombshell report published Wednesday by the United Nations indicating that Iran has failed to live up to its nuclear-related obligations, according to sources apprised of the situation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed yesterday that Iran has failed to meet its commitments under the interim Joint Plan of Action to convert recently enriched uranium gas to powder.
While Iran has reduced the amount of enriched uranium gas in its stockpiles, it has failed to dispose of these materials in a way that satisfies the requirements of the nuclear accord struck with the United States and other powers in 2013.
Secretary of State John Kerry declared last summer that Iran would be forced to comply with such restrictions, and State Department officials were assuring reporters as recently as last month that the Iranians would meet their obligations.
Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.
Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.
One U.S. official who spoke with the Associated Press on Wednesday said that instead of converting its uranium gas into uranium dioxide powder as required, Iran had transformed it into another substance. The IAEA found that Iran had converted just 9 percent of the relevant stockpile into uranium dioxide.
The official went on to downplay concerns about Iran’s violation, claiming that Tehran was only having some “technical problems.”
The “technical problems by Iran had slowed the process but the United States was satisfied that Iran had met its commitments,” the AP reported the official as saying.
“Violations by Iran would complicate the Obama administration’s battle to persuade congressional opponents and other skeptics,” the AP continued.
David Albright, a nuclear expert and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), warned that the United States is weakening its requirements on Tehran as a final deal gets closer.
“The choosing of a weaker condition that must be met is not a good precedent for interpreting more important provisions in a final deal,” Albright wrote in an analysis published late Wednesday.
While Iran was not in compliance with the oxidation requirement, the IAEA found that it did get rid of uranium gas that surpassed a self-imposed benchmark of 7,650 kg.
The IAEA’s disclosures are in contrast to comments made by Kerry last summer when he assured observers that Iran would live up to the interim agreement.
“Iran has committed to take further nuclear-related steps in the next four months” and “these include a continued cap on the amount of 5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride and a commitment to convert any material over that amount into oxide,” Kerry said.
The Israel Project (TIP), which has sent officials to Vienna to track the deal, wrote in an email to reporters that the administration looked like it was “playing Tehran’s lawyer” in a bid to defuse potential fallout from the IAEA’s report.
This is not the first time that Iran has been caught by the IAEA cheating on past nuclear arrangements.
As negotiations between the sides slip past their June 30 deadline and stretch into July, Iranian officials have become more insistent that the United States consent to demands on a range of sticking points.
President Hassan Rouhani also threatened to fully restart Iran’s nuclear program if negotiators fail to live up to any final agreement.
One Western source present in Vienna said the administration is scrambling to ensure that nothing interferes with a final deal.
“Once again, the White House will go to any length needed to preserve the Obama-Iran deal, even if it means covering up Iran’s failure to convert all of the nuclear material as promised,” said the source.
“If they had admitted Iran failed to live up to the letter of the JPOA—as is the case—this one-week extension period of the JPOA would be totally invalidated and the talks would be over,” the source added. “Like they have for months, the administration continues to hide violations and is acting more like Iran’s advocate than the honest broker the American people deserve. “
Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout
July 2, 2015Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout, Commentary Magazine, Michael Rubin, July 2, 2015
Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders . . . to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.
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Where brinkmanship is in the blood of Iranian negotiators, careerism and obsession about legacy appears to be in the blood of their American counterparts. By playing good cop, bad cop with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by quibbling over every understanding previously reached, and by increasingly threatening to walk away, the Iranians appear to be wringing the Americans dry. Obama and Kerry have voided their own red lines, and prepare to normalize an Iranian path to a bomb whenever the Iranian government makes a decision to pursue that option.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is part and parcel of Iran’s brinkmanship. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency in Persian, he declared: “…If they do not fulfill their commitments, the government will be ready to immediately reverse the path in a more severe way than they can ever dream of.”
If Iran’s program has always been peaceful—as repeated Iranian officials have maintained—then reverting to Iran’s previous behavior would mean what exactly? Threats from Rouhani, the supposed moderate, should get the attention of Congress.
Increasingly, Iran is tripping upon its own internal inconsistencies. First, there was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s (as yet unseen) sacrosanct nuclear fatwa that forbids nuclear weaponry and yet the Iranian leadership refuses to come clean on past nuclear work for fear it would show nuclear weaponry work. There has also been Iran’s insistence that it seeks a completely indigenous program, yet it doesn’t possess enough natural uranium to fuel an expanded civilian energy program. Now, Rouhani has more or less threatened to build a nuclear bomb, the same threat made previously by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a number of clerical associates of Khamenei himself. On May 29, 2005, for example, Hojjat ol-Islam Gholam Reza Hasani, the Supreme Leader’s representative in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran’s top goals. “An atom bomb …must be produced as well,” he said.
Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders, however, to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.
The Iranian negotiations that never end
June 29, 2015The Iranian negotiations that never end, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 28, 2015
(Please see also, On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief — DM)
The negotiations will drag on endlessly until a nuclear bomb test is televised complete with chants of “Death to America”. And the appeasers who got us into this will assure us that they don’t really mean it.
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It is quite possible that no matter how many concessions Obama makes, there will never be a final agreement with Iran. The deadlines have already been extended so many times that the only reliable thing about the negotiations is that somewhere near the edge, the negotiators will declare that they are close and extend the formerly final deadline some more. And then some more again.
There is currently disagreement over the last agreement that was agreed to in order to extend the deadline. If you find that confusing, so does everyone else.
According to the British Foreign Minister, “There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne.”
We are no longer negotiating the issue; instead we’re negotiating the negotiations. The last attempt at getting the PLO to negotiate with Israel collapsed at the negotiating the negotiations stage when the Israeli pre-negotiation appeasement was deemed insufficiently appeasing by the PLO and John Kerry.
Obama will have to offer the Iranians even more concessions, on and under the table, to get them to negotiate the negotiations. Iran’s past nuclear work won’t be looked at and now even nuclear inspections may be off the table. At this rate, we’ll soon be negotiating how many bombs Iran gets, how many bombs it gets to use and then how many countries it gets to nuke.
We’ve already gone from an agreement to shut down Iran’s nuclear program to an agreement to temporarily slow it down to a probable short term agreement with sanctions relief and no inspections. Obama has officially disavowed a military solution so the only thing for Iran to negotiate is how to extract the most sanctions relief without actually conceding anything that matters.
And each time it looks like there’s progress, the Supreme Leader winks and pulls the rug out from under Kerry. Everyone from the Viet Cong to the Sandinistas to Assad has learned how easy that is, so that the more we concede, the more Iran demands. The negotiations approach a finish line and then stall.
Or as an anonymous official put it, “It feels like we haven’t advanced on the technical issues and even gone back on some.”
But that’s typical for the Middle East where no agreement is final and negotiations are just a means of taking the temperature of the other side while keeping them off guard. Agreements are not solemn arrangements, they are a theatrical display. What we take absolutely seriously, they view as a farce.
The Iranian negotiations with an agreeable lackey who pulls back at the last minute and a dictator behind the scenes who denounces the whole thing are a repetition of the disastrous Israel-PLO peace process which have been going on and off for decades with no actual peace or even much of a process.
The only purpose of such negotiations is to extract concessions without actually giving anything in return. Countless preliminary agreements can be negotiated, but no final agreement comes into being. The entire process runs on misleading claims of success by Western negotiators. The terrorist leaders tell their own people that they are committed to destroying the infidels, but this is dismissed as “appeasing the hardliners” by our own negotiators who are desperately invested in their credibility.
The more Iran acts out, the more the negotiators are forced to misrepresent the scale of the disaster to keep the negotiations going. The Iranians lie to the negotiators. The negotiators lie to us. Then the Iranians recant the possible concessions that they dangled as bait in front of the negotiators and the negotiators tear out their hair and promise us that the whole thing will be settled with an extension.
Of course the only way that anything will actually be settled is with Iran getting nuclear weapons.
The negotiations are just tools for getting cash and wearing out the nerves and sanity of the West. After enough years of aimless negotiations, an actual Iranian nuke will seem like a relief. The warnings of Netanyahu and the Republicans will be ignored as the appeasers who promised that sanctions and then sanctions relief would stop Iran’s nuclear program, who assured us that Iran did not want weapons, will cross their hearts and swear that Iran won’t actually use the nukes they swore it would never get.
Obama’s rhetoric is already tipping in that direction. Iran is a rational actor, he insists. And of course it is. But what’s rational by the standards of a theocracy that believes it’s ushering in an age of supreme Shiite rule on earth may differ from the standards of reason for a progressive who believes he’s ushering in an age of supreme liberal rule on earth. And neither Obama nor the Supreme Leader are any good at tests of reason such as eschewing magical thinking and understanding that words mean something.
Iran’s apocalyptic theology and power games require nukes. Obama has chosen to ignore its missile program while pretending to believe that a country swimming in oil needs a civilian nuclear program.
And once he ignored those, it was easy not to sweat the small stuff.
Like the PLO, Iran has responded to the negotiations by escalating its violence, seizing parts of Yemen, attacking ships in international waters and becoming more blatant in its defiance of America. But that’s how dictators even outside the Middle East respond to appeasement. No regime that is built on force can possibly view a show of weakness as anything except an admission of enemy impotence.
Peace negotiations with terrorists are terrorism by another means. The negotiations are a confession of weakness that destabilizes the region. And even when they do succeed in their goal of splitting supposed moderates from hardliners, the hardliners tend to win out making everything even worse than it was before. But the moderates are usually just hardliners in suits with a college degree.
When Obama announced that there was no military solution to Iran’s nuclear program, he had stated out loud that he would not stop the program and that the negotiations were a face-saving measure. The admission came after Obama refused to stop Iranian attacks on Persian Gulf shipping.
Obama expects that Iran will oblige him with a meaningless agreement that he can show off to the cameras, but Iran’s leaders understand the theater of diplomacy better than he does. Their goal is to humiliate the United States so as to show their own dissidents and the region that America can’t protect them. And that is the real purpose of the prolonged and pointless negotiations.
It is quite possible that there will never be an agreement. That Iran will force Obama to make countless concessions, not only on the sanctions or on its nuclear program, but on its presence in Yemen and Iraq, as he already appears to have done, using the promise of a final agreement that will never come.
Obama’s desire for a deal has allowed Iran to roll him not only on sanctions and nukes, but on regional dominance. After all the prestige he has invested in the negotiations, he can’t allow them to collapse.
The negotiations will drag on endlessly until a nuclear bomb test is televised complete with chants of “Death to America”. And the appeasers who got us into this will assure us that they don’t really mean it.
On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief
June 29, 2015On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief, DEBKAfile, June 29, 2015
Obama and Kerry upbeat over concessions to Iran
Nothing is therefore left of the original US pledges to link sanctions relief to Iran’s compliance with its commitments or President Obama’s solemn vow to “snap back” sanctions any time for any Iranian violations. The IAEA is virtually left without teeth.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, June 28: “We are seeing a clear retreat from the red lines that the world powers set recently and publicly.” Addressing the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem and later the Knesset, he added: “There is no reason to rush to sign this bad agreement which is getting worse every day.”
Netanyahu was referring to three major concessions approved by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry in the final stage of negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear accord with Iran.
They are outlined here by DEBKAfile:
1. After barring International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of suspect sites for years, Tehran will now be allowed to submit a paper with answers to queries about its past clandestine activities at those military sites, such as suspected tests of nuclear bomb detonators and explosives. That document would effectively draw a line on Iran’s suspect past
DEBKAfile: Iran has submitted countless documents to the IAEA, none of which gave specific replies to specific questions. The UN Security Council accordingly passed a number of resolutions requiring Tehran to come clean on the military aspects of its nuclear program. Tehran ignored them. Now Obama and Kerry are letting Tehran off the hook on its past secrets.
2. Obama and Kerry have withdrawn the “any time, anywhere” stipulation for snap inspections of suspect nuclear facilities, as mandated by the Additional Protocol signed by Iran. They now agree that international monitors must first submit a request to an “Iranian Committee” (not even a joint US-Iranian committee) for advance permission to inspect nuclear facilities.
This would leave Tehran free to approve, deny, or delay permission for inspections.
3. Washington has backed down on its insistence on predicating sanctions relief on Iran’s compliance with its obligations under the final accord. After Tehran countered with a demand for the sanctions to be lifted immediately upon the signing of the accord, the Obama administration agreed to remove them in three stages:
a) Straight after the deal is signed.
b) After ratification of the accord by the US Congress and Iranian Majlis.
This process is expected to take place by the end of 2015, and so Iran will win two multibillion windfalls this year without being required to meet any obligations beyond its signature
Obama counts on the support of 34 US senators. In any case, Congress is not empowered to reject or delay the deal
c) All remaining sanctions will be lifted when implementation of the accord begins.
Nothing is therefore left of the original US pledges to link sanctions relief to Iran’s compliance with its commitments or President Obama’s solemn vow to “snap back” sanctions any time for any Iranian violations. The IAEA is virtually left without teeth.
Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program and the Failure of Obama’s “Hope and Change Foreign Policy”
June 28, 2015Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program and the Failure of Obama’s “Hope and Change Foreign Policy,” ISIS Study Group, June 27, 2015
US Secretary of State John Kerry will be spending this weekend in Vienna in an attempt to salvage the deal the Obama administration is trying to land with the Iranian regime. The reason for his sense of urgency is that Ayatollah Khameini publicly rejected the deal and came out with some new terms just before the 30 JUN deadline. The Obama administration and the US mainstream media are trying to spin this as if the “reformers” are somehow being derailed. That would be true if there were any actual reformers in the Iranian regime. The truth is that this is all by design and that so-called “reformers” like President Rouhani are in on the joke – and the US is the punchline.
John Kerry mounts last push for Iran nuclear agreement
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11701690/John-Kerry-mounts-last-push-for-Iran-nuclear-agreement.html
Source: Jon McNaughton
So what did Khameini say? He demanded the following:
1. Iran would only dismantle their program if sanctions were lifted first. In other words, we’d simply have to take them at their word.
2. Inspections and placing a freeze on research and development for 10 yrs is thrown out of the deal.
Huh. So if the key things agreed to back in APR 15 are now “null and void” (which were pretty weak to begin with), then what’s left of this deal? Absolutely nothing. And like we said earlier, this is all by design. The Iranian negotiation team is fully on the same page as Khameini – otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to be on the team to negotiate with the US State Department (DoS).
Iran nuclear talks: Khamenei rejects key US demands
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33253488
Our loyal readers are fully aware of the Iranian regime’s designs for these negotiations and the Middle East in general. If you’re new to our site, then you will want to check out the following articles:
Today’s Middle East: The Burning Fuse of the 21st Century’s “Great Game”
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=6193&
The Persian Hustle: Iran Dupes Clueless US State Dept in Nuke Talks and Moves to Dominate the Middle East
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=5978
Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=5316
Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Nuclear Weapons Program
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2640
Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Charm Offensive
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2676
Khameini is large and in-charge despite his failing health – don’t ever forget that
Source: Associated Free Press
The original deal both sides agreed to back in APR didn’t allow for inspectors to have full access to key installations nor would we have had any visibility on projects that can improve Iran’s ability to produce a testable nuke. It also wouldn’t keep Iran from converting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to metal or conducting work that enhances their metallurgy skills. As we previously stated in “Today’s Middle East: The Burning Fuse of the 21st Century’s Great Game,” if asked about it, the regime would simply say that it was for “radiation shielding” or conventional depleted uranium munitions. In fact the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be inclined to do anything about these indicators of increased proliferation. For instance, the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has been in the business of supplying Iranian medical research organizations for several years now. In fact, our sources connected to the opposition have informed us that AEOI personnel known to be involved with uranium enrichment manufacturing have set up an entity called the “Persian Health Equipment and Development Company” or “PHEDCO” back in FEB 15. Apparently the company was set up to produce medical-use centrifuges. We assess that the company isn’t capable of enriching uranium itself, but we do think that it can be used to acquire certain components of nuclear suppliers group-controlled aluminum 7075 and quite possibly carbon-fiber.
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
http://www.iranwatch.org/iranian-entities/atomic-energy-organization-iran-aeoi
We’re also very much aware that the regime is interested in developing uranium metal-based reactor fuels that would improve their ability to produce uranian-based nuclear weapons. These fuels are currently being used in “civilian research reactors.” So what is it, exactly? In a nuclear reactor, the uranium fuel is assembled to where a controlled fission chain reaction can be achieved. The heat created by splitting the U-235 atoms is then used to make steam, which in turn spins a turbine to drive a generator that produces electricity. The chain reaction that take place in the core of a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods which absorb neutrons, enabling the chain reaction to continue. Water, graphite and heavy water are used as moderators in different types of reactors. Due to the kind of fuel being used, if there’s a major malfunction in a reactor, the fuel may overheat and melt – but won’t explode like a bomb. The type of uranium used for bombs is different from what you’d find in a regular nuclear power plant. Military-grade uranium is highly enriched (>90% U-235, instead of up to 5%). Since the 1990s, a lot of otherwise military-grade uranium has become available for producing electricity as the result of the global disarmament effort.
What is Uranium? How Does it Work?
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Introduction/What-is-Uranium–How-Does-it-Work-/
We assess that the regime’s efforts will enable their nuclear technicians to gain enough experience with uranium metal production processes that could shorten the weaponization timeline. That said, we see the timeline accordingly:
1. They may master uranium metal production within the next 6 months.
2. Another 2-3 months will be needed to learn how to fabricate uranium metal components for a weapon.
3. 4-5 months will likely be required to test components and assemble a nuclear device.
This timeline has probably already been shortened due to the collaborative work taking place between Iran and the DPRK (North Korea) that the Obama administration has also failed to address during these negotiations. The two rogue nations have been engaged in a series of joint-projects in both the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile fields. Perhaps the most important part of stopping the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon is to deal with their intercontinental ballistic missile program, since that’s where the delivery system of said weapon will come from. Unfortunately, the Obama administration doesn’t seem to think that’s important. Perhaps one of the American media outlets should pose the question in the next press conference with the President or DoS? We won’t hold our breath.
How the North Korean Regime Affects the Middle East
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=3038
The two rogue nations have been able to circumvent sanctions at every turn thanks to their collaborative efforts and impotence that’s endemic throughout the UN and US government in particular
Source: The Business Insider
This brings us to another problem: The Obama administration’s failure at the issue surrounding our European allies’ refusal to actually enforce the UN sanctions already on the books. As you would guess, the regime has been in the market for procuring military-grade blast valves. What the UN, US government and several other allied nations are aware of (and hoping that the public remain ignorant to) is that one of the top sellers of those valves to the Iranians is Finnish company Temet Oy. This company is a global leader in blast protection and special ventilation technology applied in protective constructions such as civilian shelters and hardened military facilities. In addition to the nuclear and defense industries, Temet is also involved in the energy sector – which is the reason why they’re so keen to help the Iranian regime with its “peaceful” nuclear program. If you don’t believe us see for yourself:
About Temet
http://www.temetprotection.com.ar/about_temet.html
Temet Blast Valves
http://www.temetprotection.com.ar/blast_valves.html
FYI, Temet’s blast valves are specifically designed to protect facilities from munitions strikes – such as a potential Israeli Air Force Operation, for instance. The civil-grade blast valves that they’re publicly selling to the regime for its oil and gas sectors are designed to mitigate the effects of smaller explosions at industrial facilities. Despite Finland’s strong track record in the counter-proliferation arena, they’re likely fully aware of what this company has been up to for some time. If they’re not, then the government should fire all of their most senior intel officials because they’re clearly incompetent. They should be aware and continue tracking Temet’s activities after the 2012 attempt by the company to circumvent EU sanctions by shipping products to Iran and receiving payment via third parties. The problem is Temet is just one of several European companies that have been cashing in big on the poorly-enforced sanctions. Finland isn’t the only government guilty of trading in their morals to make a quick buck – the Germans are just as guilty. Here’s some other incidents over the years that put some cold water on any hopes that even sanctions can be enforced:
German firms sold sensitive equipment to Iran even during sanctions regime
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.562287
German firms still ship dual-use goods to Iran
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/German-firms-still-ship-dual-use-goods-to-Iran
A mysterious Iranian-run factory in Germany
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-mysterious-iranian-run-factory-in-germany/2013/04/15/92259d7a-a29f-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html
Germans Say 6 Companies Sold Nuclear Parts to Iran Network
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/europe/29germany.html?_r=0
Special Report: How foreign firms tried to sell spy gear to Iran
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/05/us-huawei-iran-idUSBRE8B409820121205
As you can see, the Obama administration’s much-hyped nuclear “deal” with the Iranian regime was a failure from the get-go. Ayatollah Khameini knows the US government is weak because they’ve already caved into earlier demands – so why not raise the stakes and milk an already flaccid Obama administration for even more concessions? Iran’s true intentions for its program isn’t in doubt – its primary function is to produce a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration and the EU are fully aware of this as well – but they still won’t do anything about it. Europe lacks any real convictions and are now a shriveled corpse of what they used to be. People talk about the US in the same breath as “blood money” for oil, but the truth is the European nations are directly responsible along with China and Russia for propping up an increasingly belligerent Iranian regime who interprets “peace” as all opposing voices being silenced – by force. Their refusal to actually enforce sanctions and then turn around and circumvent them – sometimes openly – has led us to where we are. So President Obama isn’t the only one who will have a tarnished legacy.
Regarding our illustrious President, his “Hope and Change Foreign Policy” has been such a miserable failure that he’s now desperate for anything that he can claim as a “victory.” He certainly isn’t going to get that “victory” from his nonexistent strategy to combat the Islamic State (IS), so he’s forced to get a deal – any deal – signed with the Iranians, regardless of how bad it is for America and our allies in the Middle East. The saddest thing about all this is that the deal will empower the regime even more. When that happens – and it will – the biggest losers will be the average Iranian citizen who doesn’t share the regime’s militant ideology. How so? Once the regime is able to produce a nuclear weapon, they know the west won’t do anything to stop them. Period. When that occurs, they will be able to put the final nail in the coffin against the remaining opposition groups in the country. And so it goes…
If you want to know what this regime is all about, then check out the rest of our Inside Iran’s Middle East series:
Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Kurdish Insurgency
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=4068
Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Southeastern Insurgency
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2689
Inside Iran’s Middle East: The “Reformers”
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2635
Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil
June 28, 2015Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil, Israel Hayom, Elliott Abrams, June 28, 2015
(Obama sees evil only where he wants to see it, starting with his position that Islam is the religion of peace. — DM)
See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear deal.
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The slaughter in Syria and the awful human rights violations in Iran cannot be denied by the Obama administration, but they sure can be downplayed and ignored.
On the Iran point, consider the release yesterday, four months late, of the State Department’s annual human rights reports. The reports were presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Tom Malinowski. The Iran report is tough. Here’s an excerpt:
The most significant human rights problems were severe restrictions on civil liberties, including the freedoms of assembly, speech, religion, and press; limitations on the citizens’ ability to change the government peacefully through free and fair elections; and disregard for the physical integrity of persons, whom authorities arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, tortured, or killed.
“Other reported human rights problems included: disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputation and flogging; politically motivated violence and repression; harsh and life-threatening conditions in detention and prison facilities, with instances of deaths in custody; arbitrary arrest and lengthy pretrial detention, sometimes incommunicado; continued impunity of the security forces; denial of fair public trial, sometimes resulting in executions without due process; the lack of an independent judiciary; political prisoners and detainees; ineffective implementation of civil judicial procedures and remedies; arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, and correspondence; severe restrictions on freedoms of speech (including via the internet) and press; harassment and arrest of journalists; censorship and media content restrictions; severe restrictions on academic freedom; severe restrictions on the freedoms of assembly and association; some restrictions on freedom of movement; official corruption and lack of government transparency; constraints on investigations by international and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into alleged violations of human rights; legal and societal discrimination and violence against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity; incitement to anti-Semitism; trafficking in persons; and severe restrictions on the exercise of labor rights.”
Iran is of course an important country, so how much of this did Kerry and Malinowski mention in their own opening remarks? Not a word. Not one. Kerry mentioned about 10 countries and “the LGBTI community,” but not Iran. Malinowski mentioned about 20 countries, but not Iran (until pressed by reporters). Do we think this is accidental, that neither man mentioned Iran? How likely is that?
Yesterday also brought another superb analysis of events in Syria, and U.S. policy there, from Fred Hof of the Atlantic Council — once the administration’s lead man and “special adviser” on Syria. It is titled “Syria: Civilians Pay the Price,” Hof quotes from the June 23 report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. And here are the excerpts he quotes:
“The government continues to direct attacks towards locations where civilians are likely to congregate, among them, bus stations, marketplaces, and bakeries.”
”In particular, the continuing use of barrel bombs in aerial campaigns against whole areas, rather than specific targets, is in violation of international humanitarian law and, as previously documented, amounts to the war crime of targeting civilians.”
“The larger strategy [of the regime] appears to be one of making life unbearable for civilians who remain inside armed-group controlled areas.”
“The previously documented pattern of attacks indicating that government forces have deliberately targeted hospitals, medical units, and ambulances remains an entrenched feature of the conflict.”
“Government sieges are imposed in a coordinated manner. … In particular, government forces have refused to allow aid deliveries of essential medicines and surgical supplies. … Government authorities act in direct breach of binding international humanitarian law obligations to ensure that wounded and sick persons are collected and cared for, and to ensure the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief.”
“Everyday decisions — whether to go visit a neighbor, to send your child to school, to step out to buy bread — have become, potentially, decisions about life and death. Large numbers of children have been killed in bombardments of their homes, schools, and playgrounds.”
What’s the link to Iran? Hof explains:
“The administration also knows that Iran is the principal foreign facilitator of regime war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the Iranian factor that accounts, in large measure, for the administration’s decision to leave Syrian civilians entirely at the mercy of Tehran’s Syrian client. The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran. So Syrian civilians get to pay the price.
“One searches White House and State Department press conferences in vain for any systematic examination of this issue. Even though Russian leverage is as limited as its good intentions, one wonders how prominently civilian protection is featured in Secretary of State John Kerry’s periodic encounters with his Russian counterpart. Even though nuclear talks are important, one wonders if Tehran’s facilitation of Assad regime criminality arises at all in official U.S.-Iranian exchanges. Has there been a systematic diplomatic campaign aimed at persuading Tehran and Moscow to oblige their client to respect pertinent United Nations Security Council resolutions? Is Iran being asked to force its client to stop barrel bombing and lift starvation sieges?”
See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear deal.
This is disgraceful, as Hof states with restraint but with force:<
“The indelible stain that can mark the Obama legacy forever on this issue is nothing compared to the terror and suffering that can be mitigated if the president elects to try. Whether the motivation to act springs from legacy concerns, degrading and destroying ISIL, or profound revulsion over what is happening to children and their parents, is unimportant. The Iranians can negotiate while facilitating mass murder. No doubt, they can do so if the greatest power on earth pushes back a bit. President Obama should act now to protect Syrian civilians.”
Or as he puts it more angrily, what do those who complain about this policy want? “They want … to persuade the president of the United States to give a damn about suffering, terrified human beings.”
Let’s stop protecting, ignoring, and downplaying the murderous role Iran is playing in Syria and the terrible human rights violations taking place in Iran itself.
Iran’s supreme leader is laughing, for good reason
June 25, 2015Iran’s supreme leader is laughing, for good reason, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, June 25, 2015
Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Photo credit: AP
In Tehran on Tuesday, Khamenei spoke about his country’s “red lines.” Red lines? Can someone maybe explain what those are to the Obama administration?
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Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei feels confident enough, only a few days before June 30 (the deadline for a final-status nuclear deal with world powers), to thumb his nose at the international community, including the American government, and declare Iran’s three noes: no to freezing its nuclear program, no to international oversight at its nuclear facilities, no to a phased lifting of sanctions (as proposed by the French). In other words, Khamenei is telling the world: Dear superpowers — bite me.
Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, we have received an Associated Press report from Vienna that the U.S. and its partners conducting the negotiations with Iran are prepared — for the sake of reaching a deal — to even provide the Iranians with advanced nuclear reactors and equipment. This isn’t a joke.
It’s possible, perhaps, to imagine Khamenei rejecting this generous offer outright because the Americans aren’t also including ballistic missiles in the package. If you’re going to be generous, then you might as well go all the way.
Truth be told, this entire business to this point seems quite like a joke. The problem is that it’s coming at our expense. And it’s also not that funny.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met on Wednesday with his Saudi counterpart and promised him a “tough deal.” The Saudis are no less worried than we are about a bad deal. But who is promising us a “tough deal?” The French, who ultimately always fall in line with the Americans, whose help they need for more burning issues closer to home (Ukraine)? Who? The Russians? The Chinese? The Americans? The Germans? The British? The truth is, it would be best to trust the Iranians to torpedo the deal on their own, but Khamenei’s and even Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s promulgations from two weeks ago aren’t enough to scare anyone off.
In November 2013, as a reminder, we were just several days before the interim agreement. I remember how the Iranian and Western delegations leaked information about the many difficulties in the negotiations, but that in the end, in the middle of the night, the deal was born (how shocking). Eventually, we saw virtually the same scenario unfold in Lausanne this past March — the numerous problems were made public, the deadline was extended by a few days, and finally on April 2 we received the framework deal.
We can assume that in the coming days we will get to see “the best show in town,” at the end of which, in contrast to the previous rounds, we can expect a final status deal with an Iran that is not only slated to become a nuclear power but a stabilizing force in our crumbling Middle East.
In Tehran on Tuesday, Khamenei spoke about his country’s “red lines.” Red lines? Can someone maybe explain what those are to the Obama administration?
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
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