Posted tagged ‘USA’

Former Saudi Ambassador to US: Gulf States Willing to Attack Iran

July 21, 2015

Prince Bandar said that “ObamaDeal” will “wreak havoc Prime Minister Netanyahu the Middle East.”

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: July 21st, 2015

via The Jewish Press » » Former Saudi Ambassador to US: Gulf States Willing to Attack Iran.

 

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Kingdom's former chief of intelligence and ambassador to Washington.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Kingdom’s former chief of intelligence and ambassador to Washington.

A Saudi prince’s reaction to the nuclear agreement with Iran makes last week’s White House’s rosy spin of official reaction by Saudi Arabia to “ObamaDeal” look like an act that should never have gone on stage.

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Ambassador to the United States, warned that the nuclear agreement with Iran “will wreak havoc in the Middle East” and that Gulf Powers are willing to attack Iranian nuclear sites, even if the United States is not interested.

One of King Salman’s first actions after taking the throne earlier this year was to yank Prince Bandar off the National Security Council, but he still is an advisor and an important voice, one that totally contradicts what President Barack Obama would like people to believe about Riyadh’s reaction the nuclear agreement.

White House Press Secretary, after a meeting between Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir and President Obama, glossed over Saudi skepticism of ObamaDeal and blah-blahed “about the important bilateral relationship that exists between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”

Believe that and then believe that President Obama has “an unbreakable bond with Israel.”

Prince Bandar’s comments to Beirut Daily Star and also reported by the Times of London were the first public criticism from Saudi Arabia, and he was straight to the point.

He warned that ObamaDeal will “wreak havoc” and then bluntly asserted:

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf powers are prepared to take military action without American support after the Iran nuclear deal

Prince Bandar is not a small voice. He was ambassador to Washington for 20 years, and MRC TV noted that it is unlikely that he would have conducted a major newspaper interview without King Salman’s blessing.
The prince’s view of the Obama administration sounds like Israel’s when it comes to relying on the United States.

“People in my region now are relying on God’s will, and consolidating their local capabilities and analysis with everybody else except our oldest and most powerful ally,” Prince Bandar told the Beirut newspaper.

He was even more candid in an article he wrote for the London-based Arabic news Web site Elaph, where he compared ObamaDeal with Bill Clinton’s agreement with North Korea, which supposedly would keep its word and not develop a nuclear bomb.

But Prince Bandar can forgive Clinton because “it turned out that the strategic foreign policy analysis was wrong and there was a major intelligence failure,” according to translation of interview provided by The Washington Post.

He said that he is “absolutely confident he would not have made that decision” if he had all the facts.
Prince Bandar said the case of Iran is different because:

The strategic foreign policy analysis, the national intelligence information, and America’s allies in the region’s intelligence all predict not only the same outcome of the North Korean nuclear deal but worse – with the billions of dollars that Iran will have access to.

He quoted a phrase first made by Henry Kissinger: America’s enemies should fear America, but America’s friends should fear America more.”

It sounds like Saudi Arabia and Israel are on the same page.

The Iranian Nuke Deal Depends on This One Myth

July 21, 2015

The Iranian Nuke Deal Depends on This One Myth

Iran just wants a lower electricity bill.

July 21, 2015

Daniel Greenfield

via The Iranian Nuke Deal Depends on This One Myth | Frontpage Mag.

Last year Iran was selling gasoline for less than 50 cents a gallon. This year a desperate regime hiked prices up to over a dollar. Meanwhile, Iranians pay about a tenth of what Americans do for electricity.

Unlike Japan, Iran does not need nuclear power. It is already sitting on a mountain of gas and oil.

Iran blew between $100 billion to $500 billion on its nuclear program. The Bushehr reactor alone cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 billion making it one of the most expensive in the world.

This wasn’t done to cut power bills. Iran didn’t take its economy to the edge for a peaceful nuclear program. It built the Fordow fortified underground nuclear reactor that even Obama admitted was not part of a peaceful nuclear program, it built the underground Natanz enrichment facility whose construction at one point consumed all the cement in the country, because the nuclear program mattered more than anything else as a fulfillment of the Islamic Revolution’s purpose.

Iran did not do all this so that its citizens could pay 0.003 cents less for a kilowatt hour of electricity.

It built its nuclear program on the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.”

Iran’s constitution states that its military is an “ideological army” built to fulfill “the ideological mission of jihad in Allah’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of Allah’s law throughout the world.”

It quotes the Koranic verse urging Muslims to “strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah”.

Article 3 of Iran’s Constitution calls for a foreign policy based on “unsparing support” to terrorists around the world.  Article 11, the ISIS clause, demands the political unity of the Islamic world.

Iran is not just a country. It is the Islamic Revolution, the Shiite ISIS, a perpetual revolution to destroy the non-Muslim world and unite the Muslim world. Over half of Iran’s urban population lives below the poverty line and its regime sacrificed 100,000 child soldiers as human shields in the Iran-Iraq War.

Iran did not spend all that money just to build a peaceful civilian nuclear program to benefit its people. And yet the nuclear deal depends on the myth that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Obama insisted, “This deal is not contingent on Iran changing its behavior.” But if Iran isn’t changing its behavior, if it isn’t changing its priorities or its values, then there is no deal.

If Iran hasn’t changed its behavior, then the nuclear deal is just another way for it to get the bomb.

If Iran were really serious about abandoning a drive for nuclear weapons, it would have shut down its nuclear program. Not because America or Europe demanded it, but because it made no economic sense. For a fraction of the money it spent on its nuclear ambitions, it could have overhauled its decaying electrical grid and actually cut costs. But this isn’t about electricity, it’s about nuclear bombs.

The peaceful nuclear program is a hoax. The deal accepts the hoax. It assumes that Iran wants a peaceful nuclear program. It even undertakes to improve and protect Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear technology.

The reasoning behind the nuclear deal is false. It’s so blatantly false that the falseness has been written into the deal. The agreement punts on the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program and creates a complicated and easily subverted mechanism for inspecting suspicious programs in Iranian military sites.

It builds in so many loopholes and delays, separate agreements and distractions, because it doesn’t really want to know. The inspections were built to help Iran cheat and give Obama plausible deniability.

With or without the agreement, Iran is on the road to a nuclear bomb. Sanctions closed some doors and opened others. The agreement opens some doors and closes others. It’s a tactical difference that moves the crisis from one stalemate to another. Nothing has been resolved. The underlying strategy is Iran’s.

Iran decided that the best way to conduct this stage of its nuclear weapons program was by getting technical assistance and sanctions relief from the West. This agreement doesn’t even pretend to resolve the problem of Iran’s nuclear weapons. Instead its best case scenario assumes that years from now Iran won’t want a nuclear bomb. So that’s why we’ll be helping Iran move along the path to building one.

It’s like teaching a terrorist to use TNT for mining purposes if he promises not to kill anyone.

But this agreement exists because the West refuses to come to terms with what Islam is. Successful negotiations depend on understanding what the other side wants. Celebratory media coverage talks about finding “common ground” with Iran. But what common ground is there with a regime that believes that America is the “Great Satan” and its number one enemy?

What common ground can there be with people who literally believe that you are the devil?

When Iranian leaders chant, “Death to America”, we are told that they are pandering to the hardliners. The possibility that they really believe it can’t be discussed because then the nuclear deal falls apart.

For Europe, the nuclear agreement is about ending an unprofitable standoff and doing business with Iran. For Obama, it’s about rewriting history by befriending another enemy of the United States. But for Iran’s Supreme Leader, it’s about pursuing a holy war against the enemies of his flavor of Islam.

The Supreme Leader of Iran already made it clear that the war will continue until America is destroyed. That may be the only common ground he has with Obama. Both America and Iran are governed by fanatics who believe that America is the source of all evil. Both believe that it needs to be destroyed.

Carter made the Islamic Revolution possible. Obama is enabling its nuclear revolution.

Today Tehran and Washington D.C. are united by a deep distrust of America, distaste for the West and a violent hatred of Israel. This deal is the product of that mutually incomprehensible unity. It is not meant to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. It is meant to stop America and Israel from stopping it.

Both Obama and the Supreme Leader of Iran have a compelling vision of the world as it should be and don’t care about the consequences because they are convinced that the absolute good of their ideology makes a bad outcome inconceivable.

“O Allah, for your satisfaction, we sacrificed the offspring of Islam and the revolution,” a despairing Ayatollah Khomeini wrote after the disastrous Iran-Iraq War cost the lives of three-quarters of a million Iranians. The letter quoted the need for “atomic weapons” and evicting America from the Persian Gulf.

Four years earlier, its current Supreme Leader had told officials that Khomeini had reactivated Iran’s nuclear program, vowing that it would prepare “for the emergence of Imam Mehdi.”

The Islamic Revolution’s nuclear program was never peaceful. It was a murderous fanatic’s vision for destroying the enemies of his ideology, rooted in war, restarted in a conflict in which he used children to detonate land mines, and meant for mass murder on a terrible scale.

The nuclear agreement has holes big enough to drive trucks through, but its biggest hole is the refusal of its supporters to acknowledge the history, ideology and agenda of Iran’s murderous tyrants. Like so many previous efforts at appeasement, the agreement assumes that Islam is a religion of peace.

The ideology and history of Iran’s Islamic Revolution tells us that it is an empire of blood.

The agreement asks us to choose between two possibilities. Either Iran has spent a huge fortune and nearly gone to war to slightly lower its already low electricity rates or it wants a nuclear bomb.

The deal assumes that Iran wants lower electricity rates. Iran’s constitution tells us that it wants Jihad. And unlike Obama, Iran’s leaders can be trusted to live up to their Constitution.

Iranian President Rouhani Describes Nuclear Deal, Says: The Superpowers Have Officially Recognized A Nuclear Iran

July 21, 2015

Iranian President Rouhani Describes Nuclear Deal, Says: The Superpowers Have Officially Recognized A Nuclear Iran

ByPamela Geller on July 20, 2015

via Iranian President Rouhani Describes Nuclear Deal, Says: The Superpowers Have Officially Recognized A Nuclear Iran | Pamela Geller.

ihadis with nukes, that’s Obama’s legacy. And remember, he was desperate for this surrender. He usurped Congress, the American people, and our allies — his name will go down in history as one of the most notorious enemies of freedom.
“Iranian President Rouhani Describes Nuclear Deal, Says: The Superpowers Have Officially Recognized a Nuclear Iran,” MEMRI TV, July 20, 2015

On July 14, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered a speech detailing the accomplishments of the new nuclear deal. President Rouhani declared that prayers of the Iranian nation had been answered and described the deal as a “win-win,” adding that Iran was not seeking a nuclear bomb.
Following are excerpts:

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Rouhani: “I hereby declare to the great Iranian people that their prayers have been answered. Today, we are at an important stage in the history of our state and of our [Islamic] Revolution, and in the history of conditions in the region – conditions that, I must say, have continued for the past 12 years, and which were accompanied by illusions on the part of the superpowers, which spread them throughout society and throughout public opinion. The page has been turned over, and a new page has begun.

[…]

“In order to resolve the nuclear issue, we had to take necessary steps in various areas. With regard to politics, we had to prepare the necessary preliminary political steps. With regard to [Iranian] public opinion, [we had to make] them realize that the negotiations were not a recitation of statements, but a give and take. Negotiations mean paying money and buying the desired house. We did not seek charity or to get something for free. We sought negotiations, and sought to advance a fair and just give and take, based on national interests. We have always stressed the point that these negotiations would not be a ‘win-lose’ situation, because such talks are not viable. If negotiations are ‘win-lose,’ they will not be lasting. Negotiations and agreements will be durable and lasting when they are win-win situations for both parties. We explained this to our society, and our negotiation team began the talks on this basis 23 months ago.

[…]

“From the day that I was sworn in [as president], I said that the West would be able to engage in talks with us if it abandons the path of threats and humiliation and embarks upon a path of respect. What was achieved today under the title of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is rooted in dialogue on the part of Iran and respect on the part of the P5+1. Without these two components, we would not have achieved a thing.

[…]

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“In the negotiations we sought to achieve four goals. The first goal was to continue the nuclear capabilities, the nuclear technology, and even the nuclear activity within Iran. The second goal was to lift the mistaken, oppressive, and inhumane sanctions. The third goal was to remove all the UN Security Council Resolutions that we view as illegal. The fourth goal was to remove the Iranian nuclear dossier from Chapter VII of the UN Charter and from the Security Council in general. In today’s agreement, in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, all four goals have been achieved.

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“At the beginning of negotiations, the other side used to tell us that during the period of restrictions – which today is set at eight years – Iran would be able to have only 100 centrifuges. After many deliberations, they have reached the figure of 1,000 centrifuges. Following much opposition on our part, they said: ‘4,000 centrifuges, and that’s final.’ Today, the agreement specifies that Iran will retain over 6,000 centrifuges, of which 5,000 will be at Natanz and over 1,000 at Fordo. All the centrifuges at Natanz will continue to enrich [uranium].

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“They said: ‘The period of your restrictions will be 20 years, in addition to 25 years.’ Later they said: ’20 years and 10 years.’ Then they said: ‘Our last word is 20 years, and we will not capitulate any further.’ In the final days of the negotiations, these 20 years shrank to eight years.

“On the issue of research and development, they used to say that Iran would be allowed only [first-generation] IR-1 [centrifuges]. This was ridiculous and unrealistic. Research and development under such conditions is meaningless. Then they said: ‘IR-2 at most.’ Eventually they said: ‘IR-8 is impossible.’ What Iran sought was IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges. We wanted an agreement in which we would begin, on the very day of its implementations, to inject UF-6 gas into [advanced] IR-8 centrifuges. That is exactly the agreement that we achieved today.

“On the issue of Arak, they used to say: ‘The reactor can remain, but not as a heavy water facility. This is an absolute red line for us.’ Today, according to the terms agreed upon, the joint agreement explicitly mentions the Arak heavy water reactor. This reactor will be completed with the same heavy water nature, and with the characteristics specified in the agreement.

“On the issue of Fordo, they used to say: ‘It is hard to pronounce the name Fordo, even harder to hear it, so you will not say it and we will not hear it.’ Then they said: ‘At Fordo there should not be a single centrifuge, and it will be a center for isotope research.’ After months of bargaining they said: ‘Only one cascade of 164 centrifuges will remain at Fordo.’ Let me say, in a nutshell, that today, over 1,000 centrifuges will be installed at Fordo, and that part of Fordo will be used for research and development of stable isotopes.

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“On the issue of sanctions they used to say: ‘The lifting of all the sanctions all at once – never. As for the gradual lifting of the sanctions, first you need to gain our trust over the course of months, and even then, the sanctions will be gradually frozen, not lifted. Do not use the term “lift the sanctions.” We will freeze them.’ [They further said]: ‘In the years to come, if the IAEA issues a positive report and you gain our trust, the sanctions will be gradually lifted.’ Today I declare before the honorable Iranian nation that according to the agreement, on the day of its implementation, all the sanctions – even the embargo on weapons, missiles, and [dual-use technology] proliferation – will be lifted, as is stated in a [Security Council] resolution. All the financial sanctions, all the banking sanctions, and all the sanctions pertaining to insurance, transportation, petrochemical [industries], and precious metals, and all the economic sanctions will be completely lifted, and not frozen. Even the arms embargo will be stopped. There will be a kind of restriction [on arms] for five years, after which it will be lifted. With regard to proliferation [of dual-use technology], a committee will examine goods with a dual use. With regard to the revocation of the UN [Security Council] resolutions, they used to say: ‘You have not implemented any resolution, so how can we revoke the resolution? At the very least implement it for six months.’

[…]

“According to today’s agreement, which will be approved in the coming days by the UN Security Council, all six previous resolutions [against Iran] will be revoked. With regard to the permanent removal of the Iranian nuclear dossier from the Security Council, they used to say: ‘The IAEA must report for 20 years,’ then ‘for 15 years.’ In today’s [agreement], regardless of the IAEA, after 10 years of implementation of the agreement, the nuclear dossier will be completely removed from the Security Council.

[…]

“This agreement is, of course, reciprocal.

[…]

“Today, [we are talking about] the implementation of a reciprocal agreement. If they adhere to this agreement, we will too. Throughout history, the Iranian nation has always stood behind the treaties to which it committed itself. We will stand firmly behind the current treaty, provided the other side also strictly adheres to it.

[…]

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“This is the most important day in the past 12 years. Historically, this is the day on which all the large countries and the superpowers in the world have officially recognized Iran’s nuclear activities.

[…]

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McFarland on Kerry’s Iran Inspections Claim: ‘It’s A Lie’

July 20, 2015

McFarland on Kerry’s Iran Inspections Claim: ‘It’s A Lie’

BY:
July 20, 2015 10:20 am

via McFarland on Kerry’s Iran Inspections Claim: ‘It’s A Lie’ | Washington Free Beacon.

KT McFarland offered a blunt appraisal Monday of Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that the U.S. had never sought “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iran’s suspected nuclear sites.

“It’s a lie,” McFarland, a former State Department official for Ronald Reagan, said. “The reason anytime, anyplace inspections are crucial is because Iran in the past has cheated, so you really need ironclad inspections.”

“You think he was lying?” Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked.

“I think he wants this deal so badly he’s willing to stretch the truth around this,” McFarland responded.

Several of Kerry’s close confidants during the Iran negotiations, including Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, are on record earlier in the year assuring reporters that the U.S. would insist on “anytime, anywhere” inspections as part of any deal.

McFarland said the inspections process that the U.S. ultimately agreed to gives Iran the ability to stall inspectors for almost a month before they can visit a suspicious site.

“When the president said that we have 24-hour access to key nuclear installations, no you don’t—you have a 24-day period to request to look inside, and Iran has 24 days to say yes you can or no you can’t,” McFarland said.

Observers have expressed grave concern about the complicated bureaucratic mechanism that the U.S. will have to fight through at the U.N. to gain approval for an IAEA inspection.

By the time inspectors reach a suspected site, they may find only “elaborate cleanup efforts” like those that have been found at Iran’s Parchin military complex during past inspections.

 

 

Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran’s red lines

July 20, 2015

Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran’s red lines

via Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran’s red lines – Middle East – Jerusalem Post.

 

A UN Security Council resolution endorsing Iran’s nuclear deal that passed on Monday is unacceptable, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammed Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

“Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic republic’s red lines, especially in Iran’s military capabilities. We will never accept it,” he was quoted as saying shortly before the resolution was passed in New York.

The United Nations Security Council on Monday endorsed the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, but it will be able to re-impose UN penalties during the next decade if Tehran breaches the historic agreement.

The 15-member body unanimously adopted a resolution that was negotiated as part of the agreement reached in Vienna last week between Iran and the world’s major powers.

In return for lifting US, EU and UN sanctions, Iran will be subjected to long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West suspected was aimed at creating an atomic bomb, but which Tehran says is peaceful.

Passage of the resolution triggers a complex set of coordinated steps agreed by Iran during nearly two years of talks with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union.

It says that no sanctions relief will be implemented until the International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report to the Security Council verifying that Iran has taken certain nuclear-related measures outlined in the agreement.

Under the deal, the major powers don’t need to take any further action for 90 days. Then they are required to begin preparations so they are able to lift sanctions as soon as the IAEA verification report is submitted.

The European Union approved the Iran nuclear deal with world powers on Monday. US President Barack Obama’s administration has sent the nuclear agreement to Congress, which has the next 60 days to review it.

Once sanctions relief can be implemented, seven previous UN resolutions will be terminated and the measures contained in the resolution adopted on Monday will come into effect.

The resolution allows for supply of ballistic missile technology and heavy weapons, such as tanks and attack helicopters, to Iran with Security Council approval, but the United States has pledged to veto any such requests.

The restrictions on ballistic missile technology are in place for eight years and on heavy weapons for five years. The resolution leaves in place an arms embargo on conventional weapons for five years.

The resolution places restrictions on the transfer to Iran of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes for a decade.

It allows all UN sanctions to be re-imposed if Iran breaches the deal in the next 10 years. If the Security Council receives a complaint of a breach it would then need to vote within 30 days on a resolution to extend sanctions relief.

If the council fails to vote on a resolution, the sanctions would be automatically re-imposed. This procedure prevents any of the veto powers who negotiated the accord, such as Russia and China, from blocking any snap-back of Iran sanctions.

All the provisions and measures of the UN resolution would terminate in a decade if the nuclear deal is adhered to.

However, the six world powers and the EU wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to inform him that after 10 years they plan to seek a five-year extension of the mechanism allowing sanctions to be re-imposed.

Iran Dictator Calls For Muslim World to Unite and Destroy Israel, Says USA Created ISIS

July 20, 2015

Iran Dictator Calls for Muslim World to Unite and Destroy Israel, Says USA Created ISIS

By Jordan Schachtel19 Jul 2015

via Iran Dictator Calls For Muslim World to Unite and Destroy Israel, Says USA Created ISIS.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei went into a conspiracy-laden tirade on Saturday, blaming the “arrogant powers” for getting in the way of the Muslim world’s mission to unite and destroy Israel.

“If the Islamic Ummah were united and relied on their own commonalities, they would certainly be a unique power in the international political scene but big powers have imposed such divisions on the Islamic Ummah to pursue their own interests and safeguard the Zionist regime [of Israel],” Khamenei said in remarks to commemorate the end of Ramadan.

Khamenei also defended Iran’s support for its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and the Assad regime in Syria.

“The Americans dub the Lebanese resistance as terrorist and regard Iran as a supporter of terrorism because of its support for the Lebanese Hezbollah, while the Americans, themselves, are real terrorists,” Khamenei said. Hezbollah was originally created by Tehran’s first “Supreme Leader” with the mission to “turn Lebanon to a graveyard for Jews,” according to its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Iranian dictator claimed that al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terror group were created by the United States, according to Iran’s state-controlled media. The U.S. “have created al-Qaeda and Daesh [ISIL]” and “support the wicked Zionists [Israel],” he said.

The U.S. cannot criticize Iran’s support for Hezbollah’s “resistance” movement because the U.S. supports the “Zionist, terrorist and infanticidal” Israelis, added Iran’s ruler.

The “Supreme Leader” declared victory over the United States in Tehran’s recent nuclear agreement with world powers, saying, “This is the outcome of the Iranian nation’s resistance and bravery and the creativity of dear Iranian scientists.”

He predicted that in the case of war with the United States, The U.S. “will emerge loser,” PressTV reported.

Khamenei swore to never engage the Americans in dialogue over regional differences, asking, “Our policies and those of the US in the region are 180 degree different, so how could it be possible to enter dialogue and negotiations with them (Americans)?”

In declaring victory over the U.S. in nuclear negotiations, he added, “today, they [world powers] have been forced to accept and stand the spinning of thousands of centrifuges and continuation of research and development in Iran, and it has no meaning but the Iranian nation’s might.”

Noticeably, Khamenei’s more-controversial comments were left out of a CNN story on his remarks.

Netanyahu: No way to compensate Israel if Iran deal goes through

July 19, 2015

Netanyahu: No way to compensate Israel if Iran deal goes through

By Roi Kais

via Netanyahu: No way to compensate Israel if Iran deal goes through – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In divergent appearances on US media, PM says ‘There are many things to be done to stop Iran’s aggression and this deal is not one of them,’ while Kerry hits back: ‘If the Congress turns this down, there will be conflict in the region because that’s the only alternative’.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to do battle against a pro-deal media campaign Sunday, urging US lawmakers to hold out for a better Iran deal, and saying there was no way to compensate Israel if the nuclear agreement goes through.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz also gave competing interviews Sunday, contesting Netanyahu’s point of view.

“I think the right thing to do is merely not to go ahead with this deal. There are many things to be done to stop Iran’s aggression and this deal is not one of them,” Netanyahu said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” as he continued a string of US media interviews denouncing the deal reached on Tuesday between Iran and six major powers.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo:Reuters)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo:Reuters)

Netanyahu said he felt obligated to speak out because the deal endangers his country, the region and the world and there was no way Israel could feel safe if it takes effect.

The strain in US-Israeli relations was further evident over the weekend, when it was revealed that Kerry spoke with Netanyahu on Thursday, saying that the idea of reaching a better deal with Iran over its nuclear program is a “fantasy.”

As part of media offensive launched by President Barack Obama after the signing of the deal, Kerry has given several interviews with the intent of explaining the agreement to the public – an agreement that Congress lawmakers have up to 82 days to review.

The secretary of state rejected Netanyahu’s position that the West should maintain pressure until Iran entirely capitulates its nuclear ambitions. “They won’t be crushed by sanctions; that’s been proven. We’ll lose the other people who are helping to provide those sanctions. They’re not going to do that if Iran is willing to make a reasonable agreement.

“If the Congress turns this down, there will be conflict in the region because that’s the only alternative,” said Kerry. “The Ayatollah, if the United States says no, will not come back to the table to negotiate and who could blame him under those circumstances?”

Kerry also addressed Netanyahu’s concerns that Iran will use its newly recovered financial capabilities to fund its proxies throughout the region and increase its military influence, directly endangering Israel’s security interests.

“They’re not allowed to do that, even outside of this agreement. There is a UN resolution that specifically applies to them not being allowed to transfer to Hezbollah.”

 

Kerry with the deal in hand. (Photo: AFP)
Kerry with the deal in hand. (Photo: AFP)

 But according to Kerry, Iran will struggle to find additional cash for its proxies for the next several years at least. “President Rouhani needs to deliver to the Iranian people. They have high expectations from this deal for a change in their lifestyle. Iran needs to spend $300 billion just to bring their oil industry capacity back to where it was five years ago.

 

President Barack Obama has promised to exercise his veto if Congress rejects the deal. Overriding the veto will require a two-thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and Senate, so the administration is working to win over enough of Obama’s fellow Democrats to offset strong Republican opposition.

 

Rueters contributed to this article.

 

First Published: 07.19.15, 12:01

Steinitz slams Kerry claim that better Iran deal was ‘fantasy’

July 19, 2015

Steinitz slams Kerry claim that better Iran deal was ‘fantasy’

Likud minister calls assessment by top US diplomat ‘baseless,’ says Tehran must be accountable for past actions

By Tamar Pileggi and Times of Israel staff July 19, 2015, 4:53 pm

via Steinitz slams Kerry claim that better Iran deal was ‘fantasy’ | The Times of Israel.

Yuval Steinitz (Photo credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

Yuval Steinitz (Photo credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

National Infrastructure Minister Yuval Steinitz on Sunday slammed remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who over the weekend dismissed as “fantasy” an Israeli claim that it was possible to have penned a better nuclear deal than the one signed by world powers and Iran last week.

“To the best of our professional assessment, these remarks are baseless,” Steinitz, a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Army Radio on Sunday.

“One can easily think of a better agreement in which, as is the international practice in such cases, Iran must reveal everything it has done in the past and not simply answer questions of procedure, which really ignores the issue,” he said.

Speaking on US television Friday, Kerry insisted that Israel that “will be safer” under the terms of the nuclear deal, and that the concept of a more stringent nuclear deal was unrealistic.

Kerry said that Netanyahu and other detractors of the deal had not offered an alternative, and promised to increase US support to Israel and America’s other Mideast allies.

“American security cooperation and help will only increase,” he promised. “President [Barack] Obama is prepared to upgrade that,” he told PBS.

John Kerry speaks to Judy Woodruff of PBS's "Newshour" on the Iranian nuclear deal, July 17, 2015. (screen capture/PBS/YouTube)

John Kerry speaks to Judy Woodruff of PBS’s “Newshour” on the Iranian nuclear deal, July 17, 2015. (screen capture/PBS/YouTube)

 

Obama, he said, would be willing “to work to do more to be able to address specific concerns” Israel has over the details of the agreement, intended to curb Iran’s nuclear drive in exchange for sanctions relief.

“But we still believe that Israel will be safer with a one-year breakout [to a nuclear weapon] for the ten years [of restrictions stipulated by the deal], than two months,” Kerry said. The assessment that it would currently take two months for Iran to “break out” to a nuclear weapon is based on many Western intelligence estimates.

Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog, Yesh Atid head MK Yair Lapid and other political leaders have slammed the deal, which leaves much of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure and offensive missile programs intact, and, they say, depends on trusting the Iranian regime to adhere to the agreement despite a long record of breaking previous promises.

Those worries are shared by many US lawmakers working to pass congressional resolutions and bills that might stymie the deal, or at least curtail America’s implementation of its part of the agreement.

“Now there’s no alternative being provided by all these other people,” Kerry charged.

“There’s a lot of fantasy out there about this – quote – ‘better deal.’ The fact is we spent four years putting together an agreement that had the consent of Russia, China, France, Germany, Great Britain and Iran. That is not easy, and I believe the agreement we got will withstand scrutiny and deliver an Iran that cannot get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter was scheduled to arrive in Israel Sunday to discuss the deal and American help in countering Iranian actions in the region. He will also visit Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states sharing similar concerns over the regional repercussions of the agreement.

Kerry will follow him to the region a week later, meeting with Israeli officials as well as Persian Gulf Arab leaders in Doha.

AP contributed to this report.

State Dept. Ignores Question on Iran’s Wanting to Wipe Out Israel [video]

July 17, 2015

The US refused to condition ObamaDeal on Iran’s stopping its threat to destroy Israel. State Dept.: “That’s a question for Iran’s leaders.”

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: July 17th, 2015

via The Jewish Press » » State Dept. Ignores Question on Iran’s Wanting to Wipe Out Israel .

Indian Globe reporter "Goyal" and Sate Dept. spokesman John Kirby.

Indian Globe reporter “Goyal” and Sate Dept. spokesman John Kirby.

 

The U.S. State Dept. fumbled a golden opportunity Thursday to ask, beg or insist that Iran stop threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

Indian Globe reporter Raghubir Goyal asked State Dept. spokesman John Kirby:

In the past, Iranian president said that Israel will be wiped off the world map. Are they going to turn back this and – this as far as this renouncing Israeli – Israel’s existence?

Kirby asked, for clarification, “Who going to turn back what?,” and Goyal, as he is called in Washington, asked again, until he was cut off, “If they are going to denounce terrorism and also what they said in the past that Israel will be wipe –”

Kirby answered by not answering:

Will Iran? Well, I think you’d have to – I mean, that’s a question for Iran’s leaders.

It would seem that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry never asked Iran during the marathon talks with Iran if the Islamic Republic might at least tone down, just for a bit of good public relations, its constant threat to annihilate Israel, as was reiterated on the eve of the agreement.

But Kirby reassured everyone that the United States is “not going to turn a blind eye to Iran’s other destabilizing activities in the region, to include the state sponsorship of terrorists and terrorist networks. Nothing’s going to change about our commitment to continuing to press against those kinds of activities through a broad range of methods, whether it’s our unilateral sanctions, UN sanctions which will stay in effect, or U.S. military presence in the region.”

He is right. The United States is not turning a blind eye to Iranian terror. It is looking at it straight in the eye and figuring it will go away by freeing up to $150 billion for Iran.

President Barack Obama said at his press conference Wednesday night:

Do we think that with the sanctions coming down, that Iran will have some additional resources for its military and for some of the activities in the region that are a threat to us and a threat to our allies? I think that is a likelihood that they’ve got some additional resources. Do I think it’s a game-changer for them? No.

They are currently supporting Hezbollah, and there is a ceiling — a pace at which they could support Hezbollah even more, particularly in the chaos that’s taking place in Syria.

Out of $150 billion, President Obama says Iran will have “some” additional funds. Then he assumes there is a “ceiling” of how much Iran can support Hezbollah.

ObamaDeal raised the ceiling sky-high.

But President Obama is not worried that Iran will “only” pocket “some” of $150 billion to wipe out Israel, which makes its procurement of a nuclear weapon less urgent.

The video below. at 0:42 seconds, shows Goyal and Kirby’s exchange:

 

Iran Bans U.S. Inspectors from All Nuclear Sites

July 17, 2015

Iran Bans U.S. Inspectors from All Nuclear Sites

No Americans permitted under final nuclear deal

BY:
July 16, 2015 4:20 pm

via Iran Bans U.S. Inspectors from All Nuclear Sites | Washington Free Beacon.

U.S. and Iranian officials confirmed Thursday that no American nuclear inspectors will be permitted to enter the country’s contested nuclear site under the parameters of a deal reached with world powers this week, according to multiple statements by American and Iranian officials.

Under the tenants of the final nuclear deal reached this week in Vienna, only countries with normal diplomatic relations with Iran will be permitted to participate in inspections teams organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The revelation of this caveat has attracted concern from some analysts who maintain that only American experts can be trusted to verify that Iran is not cheating on the deal and operating clandestine nuclear facilities.

The admission is the latest in a series of apparent concessions made by the United States to Iran under the deal. Other portions of the agreement include a promise by the United States to help Iran combat nuclear sabotage and threats to its program.

“Iran will increase the number of designated IAEA inspectors to the range of 130-150 within 9 months from the date of the implementation of the JCPOA, and will generally allow the designation of inspectors from nations that have diplomatic relations with Iran, consistent with its laws and regulations,” the deal states, according to text released by the Russians and Iranians.

Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, confirmed this in an interview with CNN.

“There are not going to be independent American inspectors separate from the IAEA” on the ground in Iran, Rice said. “The IAEA will be doing the inspections on behalf of the U.S. and the rest of the international community.”

Rice said that the Obama administration trusts those countries whose relations with Iran are normalized to carry out inspections of the Islamic Republic’s sensitive nuclear sites.

“The IAEA, which is a highly respected international organization will field an international team of inspectors, and those inspectors will in all likelihood come from IAEA member states, most of whom have diplomatic relations with Iran,” Rice said. “We of course are a rare exception.”

Elliott Abrams, a former White House National Security Council director under George W. Bush, criticized the administration for consenting to Iranian demands.

“It’s ironic that after Wendy Sherman told us about how Kerry and Zarif had tears in their eyes thinking about all they had accomplished together, we learn that the Islamic Republic won’t allow one single American inspector,” Abrams said, referring to John Kerry and Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister. “No member of the P5+1 [negotiating team] should be barred, and this is another example of how badly the administration negotiated.”

“We should have insisted that the ‘no Americans’ rule was simply unacceptable,” Abrams said. “But there was no end to U.S. concessions.”

One American source who was present in Vienna for the talks said the ban on all U.S. inspectors is the result of Iranian demands in the negotiating room.

“The administration promised the American people and their lawmakers that we would be implementing the most robust inspection regime in the history of the world and that we would know what’s happening on the ground,” the source said. “Now they tell us America can’t have anything to do with the inspection regime because we don’t have diplomatic relations with Iran. I guess we should be grateful they’re not solving this problem by opening up a U.S. embassy in Tehran.”

Obama administration officials also admitted recently that promises for “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites were a rhetorical flight of fancy.

“I think this is one of those circumstance where we have all been rhetorical from time to time,” lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman told reporters this week. “That phrase, ‘anytime, anywhere,’ is something that became popular rhetoric, but I think people understood that if the IAEA felt it had to have access, and had a justification for that access, that it would be guaranteed, and that is what happened.”

U.S. concessions on the structure of the inspections regime have allowed Iran to delay inspections of sensitive sites for at least 24 days.