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WashPost:
"The family of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who has
been detained in Iran for more than half a year, issued a statement
Sunday that was sharply critical of the Iranian government, after what
they called the 'very disturbing' development that Rezaian and his wife
will be tried by a judge known for imposing harsh sentences. Rezaian's
brother, Ali, and their mother, Mary Rezaian, questioned the rationale
for assigning the case to Judge Abolghassem Salavati, the head of a
Revolutionary Court branch where sensitive cases are tried. Salavati has
imposed long prison sentences, lashings and in some cases death for
defendants in a number of high-profile cases involving national security
and political offenses. He has been sanctioned by the European Union
since 2011. 'We find it very disturbing that the judiciary would select a
judge to oversee the case who has been sanctioned by (and barred from
entering) the European Union due to what it calls 'gross human rights
violations,' the family said." http://t.uani.com/1zuHb9q
JPost:
"Israeli officials told Channel 10 on Friday that they are convinced
the Obama administration has already agreed to most of Iran's demands in
the P5+1 negotiations over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
According to unnamed officials, Washington 'has given the Iranians 80
percent of what they want' out of the negotiations, Channel 10 is
reporting. Jerusalem officials appear alarmed at the prospect that the
United States will soon strike a deal with the Iranian regime that will
leave it with a 'breakout capacity' of months during which it can gallop
toward a nuclear bomb. The practical significance of the American
compromises in the talks is that Iran will be permitted to keep over
7,000 centrifuges, enough for the Iranians to produce enough enriched
material to sprint toward the bomb within a matter of months. These developments
have apparently fueled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's sense of
urgency in traveling to Washington and addressing Congress in hopes of
lobbying American lawmakers to pass tougher sanctions against the Islamic
Republic." http://t.uani.com/1z741Au
Al-Monitor:
"As the Iran nuclear negotiations continue, the president of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly, Elisabeth
Guigou, said in a recent interview with Al-Monitor that she sees France
playing the role of 'guardian' in the nuclear talks with Iran. Guigou,
who is the former French minister for European affairs (1990-1993),
justice (1997-2000) and employment and solidarity (2000-2002), told
Al-Monitor that the United States 'seems eager to reach an agreement'
quickly, and that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is also keen to reach
a resolution for political reasons, including the lifting of
sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1CScvS7
Nuclear
Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, growing frustrated with hardline
resistance to a nuclear deal with the West, accused opponents on Saturday
of effectively 'cheering on' the other side in Tehran's grueling
negotiations with world powers... Rouhani, faced with rising popular
concern over his unfulfilled election pledges to fix the economy, blamed
hardline interference in part for the talks' halting progress. 'The other
side applauds their own, but here in our country, it is not clear what
(the critics) are doing. It is as if they are cheering on the rival
team,' Rouhani he told a public gathering, quoted by the official IRNA
news agency. 'And when we ask them what they are going, they answer: We
are criticizing and criticism is a good thing ... This is not criticism,
it is sabotage of national interests and favor for partisan politics,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/18HrTph
AFP:
"Iran said Monday it had launched an observation satellite -- its
first since 2012 -- with President Hassan Rouhani declaring it safely
entered orbit and that he had personally ordered the mission. The Fajr
(Dawn) satellite was to be placed 450 kilometres (280 miles) above Earth's
surface, said Al-Alam television, an Arabic-language station owned by the
Islamic republic. It is the fourth such satellite launch by Iran, after
three others between 2009 and 2012. The satellite was locally made, said
the official IRNA news agency, as was its launcher, according to Rouhani
who noted that Iran's aim was to have no reliance on space technology
from abroad. 'Our scientists have entered a new phase for conquering
space. We will continue on this path,' Rouhani said in a short statement on
state television... The launch came as Iran started 10 days of
celebrations for the 36th anniversary of the Islamic revolution,
culminating on February 11, 'Victory Day,' when the US-backed shah's
reign officially ended in 1979." http://t.uani.com/1DwLeTA
Sanctions
Relief
WSJ:
"Iran's economy is now fundamentally incapable of recovery without a
nuclear accommodation with the West, increasing Washington's leverage in
final negotiations with Tehran, said the Treasury Department's outgoing
sanctions czar David Cohen . 'They're stuck. They can't fix this economy
unless they get sanctions relief,' Mr. Cohen said in an interview with
The Wall Street Journal about sanctions policy around the world. 'I think
they are coming to the negotiations with their backs to the wall.' Mr.
Cohen is leaving his post to assume the No. 2 spot at the Central
Intelligence Agency, where he'll continue to spearhead U.S. efforts to
contain Iran, Russia, North Korea and other American adversaries... Some
economic analysts disagree with Mr. Cohen, saying the decision by the
White House last year to suspend some sanctions to advance the diplomacy
has breathed new life into the Iranian economy. 'Iran's new budget shows
that the authorities see no urgent need for relief from the current sanctions,'
Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told a
congressional hearing this week. 'They correctly feel that they have
learned to live with those sanctions.'" http://t.uani.com/1z5ZFOI
Trend:
"Iran's Economy and Finance Minister says that internal entities
release more realistic estimations about the country's economic
performance than international bodies. The Economy and Finance Minister
Ali Tayebnia told Trend Jan.29 that 'we predict an economic growth rate
of 3 to 4 percent for the next fiscal year'. The figure announced by the
Iranian minister is at least 5 times more than optimistic estimations
released by international bodies. Iran's new fiscal year will start on
March 21. The latest report released by the World Bank, published Jan.29
estimated that Iran's GDP growth would be zero without achieving a
comprehensive nuclear deal in 2015. The International Monetary Fund also
estimated last week that Iran's GDP growth would decrease from 3 percent
in 2014 to 0.6 percent in 2015. The Central Bank as well as Statistic
Center of Iran hasn't released any estimation for the current fiscal
year's economic performance, but the latest statistics covering spring
and summer say that Iran's GDP growth stood at 4 percent in first half of
the current fiscal year (March 21, 2014 to September 22, 2014). The World
Bank estimated Iran's GDP growth for 2014 at two times less than the
IMF's 1.5 percent." http://t.uani.com/1JV5gLe
Terrorism
Al-Monitor:
"Mohammad Ali Jaffari, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC), has said that the attack by Hezbollah that killed two
Israeli soldiers was the 'minimum' response to Israeli strike that killed
an Iranian and six Hezbollah fighters. At a conference today called
'Jihad Will Continue,' Jaffari told reporters, 'Hezbollah's response to
Israel was a minimum response that was given to the Israelis, and I hope
this response will be a lesson not to make these mistakes anymore.' He
continued, 'The response the tyrant Israelis received for their ugly
actions, which our brothers in Hezbollah gave them along the
Lebanese-Syrian border, was a minimum response.' Jaffari said that the
Israelis knew their 'idiotic' actions would be answered and that the
Israelis 'should await a stronger response not only around their borders
but anywhere in the world where Zionist Israelis are.'" http://t.uani.com/16lmd3o
Human Rights
Radio Zamaneh:
"The Supreme Court has upheld the sentence issued to seven dervishes
by the Shiraz Revolutionary Court, according to media outlets linked to
Gonabadi Dervishes. The seven dervishes have been found guilty of 'enmity
with God' and 'corruption on earth'; three of them are sentenced to
lifetime exile and the other four are to spend 28 years in exile. The
Majzooban-e Noor website reported that the sentences for the seven
dervishes, all residents of Kavar, have now been confirmed by the Supreme
Court... Enmity with God and corruption on earth are usually charges that
the Islamic Republic judiciary brings against armed dissidents; however,
in recent years they have also been used against political dissidents and
some minority groups. The court's labeling of Gonabadi dervishes as an
illegal group is without precedent in the country's jurisprudence." http://t.uani.com/1EUQ4es
Radio Zamaneh:
"The Setareh Sobh weekly has been shut down by order of the Culture
and Media Court for publishing Ali Motahari's letter to the Head of the
Judiciary demanding action on the house arrest of opposition leaders.
Motahari, a Tehran MP, has been calling for an end to the house arrest of
opposition leaders MirHosein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard,
saying it is unconstitutional to hold them without official indictments
from the judiciary. The Mehr News Agency reports that an unidentified
source says the magazine has been shut down based on Article 156 of the
constitution, which allows for appropriate steps to be taken to prevent
crime and reform criminals." http://t.uani.com/1vh6r4R
IranWire:
"'The Internet, Hollywood and Harvard University form an infamous
triangle for promoting Western lifestyles," Mohammad Hossein Nejat,
the cultural deputy for the Revolutionary Guards, told a crowd in
Khorammabad, Lorestan province in late January. Speaking at the closing
ceremony of the bi-annual festival of visual arts in Khorammabad, western
Iran, Nejat said that, despite the West using these powerful tools for
promoting its unsavory lifestyle, 'North Korea was able to counteract
this invasion by the art of resistance and war.' It was important, he
argued, to understand that the way the West appreciated the arts was
quite different from the Islamic Republic's appreciation of them. 'The
West uses the arts in an incorrect way and wants to transfer this
incorrect way onto other societies.' He said that the arts should
concentrate on topics such as 'the unity of Sunni and Shiite Islam, not
trusting America, American deception, economic sanctions and its
repercussions, and the message of the revolution.' 'The enemies try to
promote the Western way of living in the world,' he said, and warned that
Iranians should resist." http://t.uani.com/1Kk2ePa
Domestic
Politics
AFP:
"Iran's hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday
launched his official website, in a possible return to the political
scene a year before legislative elections. The site Ahmadinejad.ir,
showing Ahmadinejad with a big smile, was launched at the same time as a
Google+ page for the two-time former president and an account on
Instagram. The hardline conservative has stayed out of the public eye
since his mandate ended in June 2013 and the election of Hassan Rouhani,
his moderate successor as president of the Islamic republic." http://t.uani.com/1HL3crF
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Advisory
Board Member Michael Singh in WashPost: "If only the
United States negotiated as ruthlessly with Iran as it does with itself.
The interim nuclear accord - formally the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) -
between Iran and the United States and its five negotiating partners
(known as the P5+1) offers moderate benefits to both sides: It limits
Iran's nuclear activities in certain respects, while giving Iran time and
space for economic recovery. Given these benefits, both sides appear to
view the JPOA as essentially their second-best option - not as good as a
final accord on terms they prefer but better than the escalating crisis
it replaced. Perversely, however, this makes a final accord less likely.
Achieving one will require painful compromises, particularly for Iranian
hard-liners who view any accommodation with the United States as contrary
to the Islamic Republic's core ideology. One might make those compromises
if the alternative was dire. But the prospect of further extensions of
the talks means that it is not... When Iran has made significant foreign
policy shifts - such as ending the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 and suspending
elements of its nuclear program and engaging in diplomacy in 2003 - it
has been because the cost of not doing so outweighed the benefits. If
Iran consents to a nuclear accord, it will be because the cost of
withholding that consent is unacceptably high, especially compared with
the prospect of sanctions relief and removal of Iran's pariah status. A
veto of sanctions legislation would indicate to Iran that no further
pressure is forthcoming, reducing the incentive to compromise.
Additionally, it would vitiate the JPOA's negotiating deadline by
signaling that an extension of the interim accord is the most likely
alternative if no deal is inked. But it would also, by further souring
relations between the White House and Congress, make it harder for the
president to eventually gain Congress's support and deliver whatever
sanctions relief he promises Iran, thus undermining the negotiating
credibility that the administration purports to be protecting. Yet
Obama's veto threat also creates a conundrum for Congress, because it
risks undercutting the very pressure that lawmakers are trying to
increase. Even if Congress had the votes to override a veto, the
effectiveness of the sanctions threat depends on the executive branch's
cooperation. If the White House indicates its refusal to implement
sanctions, or rushes to make what Congress would consider an unacceptable
deal to avert them, legislative action could have the opposite effect
from what is intended... Given that Congress's primary concern appears to
be that the administration will make a bad deal, a good first step would
be to stop offering Iran nuclear concessions - which have heightened
congressional alarm without bringing Tehran around - and instead seek
agreement with congressional leaders on what would constitute an
acceptable deal... At the same time, Iran must be convinced that the
alternative is even greater pressure than it is experiencing now. To
accomplish this, the United States and its negotiating partners should
commit to no further extensions of the JPOA, warn that concessions will
be rescinded and sanctions re-imposed if no deal is reached by a date
certain, and counter rather than accommodate destabilizing Iranian activities
in the Middle East. The president is right that if we are going to
negotiate, we should negotiate in good faith - but not forever. If
Iranian leaders believe that the alternative to making a strategic choice
to give up nuclear weapons is just more talks - and with them, more
Western concessions - we should not be surprised if those talks stretch
on inconclusively." http://t.uani.com/1Aj1FVB
David Rothkopf in
FP: "With President Barack Obama's welcome and
warmly received trip to India this week, commentators have dusted off the
well-worn platitudes associated with the administration's once-vaunted
'pivot to Asia.' The week's other events, however - from the president's
decision to cut his stay in Delhi short to attend King Abdullah's funeral
in Riyadh to the chaos in Yemen, from ongoing nuclear diplomacy with Iran
to Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to ensure his relationship with Obama
will be seen as the most toxic in the history of Israel and the United
States - suggest this administration's foreign-policy legacy may
ultimately center on a different 'strategic rebalancing.' This one will
benefit, however, in ways once unimaginable in U.S. foreign-policy
circles, the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is quite possible that, by the
time Obama leaves office, no other country on Earth will have gained
quite so much as Iran. Not all of this will be the doing of the United
States, of course, and in fact some of it may prove to be the undoing of
our interests in the long run. But there is no doubting that some of the
remarkable gains that seem to be on the near horizon for Tehran will have
come as a result of a policy impulse that was far closer to the heart of
the president than is the on-again, off-again Asia initiative (which was
really much more the product of the ideas and efforts of a bunch of his
first-term aides and cabinet members than it was of his own impulses or
those of his innermost circle). Consider the gains. First, there's the
issue of legacy. With negotiations continuing at a high simmer behind the
scenes, the Obama foreign-policy team sees a nuclear deal with Iran as
the one remaining brass ring that is there for them to claim. Elsewhere,
there is the possibility of some progress on the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade deal, but promotional rhetoric surrounding it aside,
it's just not as big a game-changer as its proponents suggest. It'd
certainly be a welcome development, but it's incremental and, of course,
doesn't really improve our relations with Asia's biggest long-term
players, China and India. And beyond that, there's not much else in the
pipeline. A deal with Iran, if it could be translated into action, would
in theory produce a freeze on Iran's nuclear program. That would
certainly be a good thing. But it provides no guarantee that Tehran could
not reverse course in the future, break its terms, or do as it has done
for the past 30 years - namely, stir up mayhem in the region without the
benefit of nuclear weapons. What it would provide - even in the midst of
a congressional tug of war over Iran policy, with new sanctions coming
from the Hill and presidential vetoes pinging and ponging up and down
Pennsylvania Avenue - would be some White House-directed relief for
Tehran. Presumably, a nuclear deal would further the thaw in the
relations between the United States and Iran, while providing a great
incentive for other countries to resume normal trading relations (to the
extent they don't have them already). Iran would gain stature. Iran would
have a better seat in the councils of nations. Iran would gain economic
benefits. And Iran's enemies would be furious... Iran is the one country
in the Middle East that seems to be racking up material gains as a result
of the unrest that has beset the region. The Houthi coup in Yemen has
brought an Iranian-backed Shiite group to power - at least, in a large
part of that country. Baghdad is now more directly dependent on Tehran
than ever before; Iran is providing a substantial number of the ground
troops fighting the Islamic State and protecting Shiite Iraq from the
terrorist fighters. Even in Syria, Iran's ally Bashar al-Assad has been
receiving a steady stream of signals that Washington is increasingly
willing to let him remain in place. Meanwhile, Hezbollah remains strong
in Lebanon and has carved out gains in southern Syria... But if Iran
receives much-needed economic relief and yet still continues to make
mischief in the region, if it cheats on a deal, if it further
institutionalizes the spread of Iranian influence threatening the Saudis
and other important Gulf allies, if Washington's empowerment of Shiite
Iran becomes a recruiting tool for groups like the Islamic State or al
Qaeda, if Israel so distrusts U.S. diplomacy that it triggers conflict
with Iran, if key U.S. relationships in the Gulf continue to deteriorate,
if American disengagement (or desultory, strategically impaired
engagement) stimulates rather than contains the rise of new strongholds
of terror, then this pivot to Iran is going to seem like a great blunder.
And America is going to feel like its 44th president got played. I will
leave it to you, dear reader, to determine which is more likely given the
lessons of recent history. One thing seems certain, though. When you look
up Barack Obama's foreign policy in the history books, far more attention
will almost certainly be devoted to his outreach to Iran and his actions
and inaction in the volatile Middle East than to his efforts at strategic
rebalancing to Asia - or his now poignantly unsuccessful efforts to
declare an end to America's war on terror." http://t.uani.com/1yuP38c
Michael Weiss in
The Daily Beast: "It was August 2007, and General
David Petraeus, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was
angry. In his weekly report to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates,
Petraeus wrote: 'I am considering telling the President that I
believe Iran is, in fact, waging war on the U.S. in Iraq, with all of the
U.S. public and governmental responses that could come from that
revelation. ... I do believe that Iran has gone beyond merely striving
for influence in Iraq and could be creating proxies to actively fight us,
thinking that they can keep us distracted while they try to build WMD and
set up [the Mahdi Army] to act like Lebanese Hezbollah in Iraq.' There
was no question there and then on the ground in Iraq that Iran was a very
dangerous enemy. There should not be any question about that now, either.
And the failure of the Obama administration to come to grips with that
reality is making the task of defeating the so-called Islamic State more
difficult-indeed, more likely to be impossible-every day. There are
lessons to be learned from the experience of the last decade, and of the
last fortnight, but what is far from clear is whether Washington, or the
American public, is likely to accept them because they imply much greater
American re-engagement in the theater of battle. As a result, what we've
seen is behavior like the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the
desert sand, pretending this disaster just isn't happening. But at a
minimum we should be clear about the basic facts. In Iraq and Syria, as
we square off against ISIS, the enemy of our enemy is not our friend, he
is our enemy, too... At one point, in the summer of 2007, Petraeus
concluded that the Mahdi Army, headed by the Shiite demagogue Muqtada
al-Sadr, posed a greater 'hindrance to long-term security in Iraq' than
al Qaeda did. As recounted in The Endgame, Michael Gordon and Bernard E.
Trainor's magisterial history of the Second Iraq War, two-thirds of all
American casualties in Iraq in July 2007 were incurred by Shiite
militias. Weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs,
were especially effective against the U.S. forces. They were Iranian
designed and constructed roadside bombs that, when detonated, became
molten copper projectiles able to cut through the armor on tanks and
other vehicles, maiming or killing the soldiers inside. So it came as a
surprise to many veterans of the war when Secretary of State John Kerry,
asked in December what he made of the news that Iran was conducting
airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, suggested 'the net effect is positive.'
Similarly, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin
Dempsey-formerly the commander of the 1st Armored Division in
Baghdad-told reporters last month, 'As long as the Iraqi government
remains committed to inclusivity of all the various groups inside the
country, then I think Iranian influence will be positive.' Whatever the
Iraqi government says it is committed to, 'inclusiveness' is not what's
happening on the ground... 'Iran has used Iraq as a petri dish to grown
new Shia jihadist groups and spread their ideology,' says Phillip Smyth,
an expert on Shia militias. By Smyth's count, there are more than 50
'highly ideological, anti-American, and rabidly sectarian' Shia militias
operating in Iraq today, and recruiting more to their ranks, all with the
acquiescence of the central government... 'The American approach is to
leave Iraq to the Iraqis,' Sami al-Askari, a former Iraqi MP and senior
advisor to former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told Reuters last
November. 'The Iranians don't say leave Iraq to the Iraqis. They say
leave Iraq to us.' For the White House, that ought to define the problem,
not the solution." http://t.uani.com/1z683Om
Sen. Tom Cotton in
WSJ: "A nuclear-capable Iran is the gravest threat
facing America today. The Obama administration's nuclear negotiations
with Iran, the so-called P5+1 talks, were supposed to stop Iran's rush to
a nuclear bomb. Regrettably, what began as an unwise gamble has descended
into a dangerous series of unending concessions, which is why the time
has come for Congress to act. Our negotiating 'partner,' Iran, is not a
rational or peaceful actor; it is a radical, Islamist tyranny whose
constitution explicitly calls for jihad. Iran's ayatollahs have honored
the call: Iran has been killing Americans for more than three decades. In
1983 Iran helped finance and direct the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and
Marine barracks in Beirut, killing hundreds of American military,
diplomatic and intelligence personnel. Iran has also been implicated in
the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings, which killed 19 American troops stationed
in Saudi Arabia. More recently and personally for me, Iran has been
responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American troops
in Iraq and Afghanistan. During my tour in Baghdad leading an infantry
platoon, Iran supplied the most advanced, most lethal roadside bombs used
against coalition forces. My soldiers and I knew that Iranian-supplied
bombs were the one thing our armored vehicles couldn't withstand. All we
could do was hope it wasn't our day to hit one. My platoon was lucky; too
many others were not. Iran also continues to terrorize the civilized
world. It is the worst state sponsor of terrorism on the planet, according
to President Obama's State Department. Iran is a lead financier and arms
supplier of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, terrorist
organizations dedicated to destroying Israel. Iran and its proxies also
have a nasty habit of blowing up Jews around the world, from Argentina to
Bulgaria to Israel. Consider, too, what has happened in the past few
weeks. Iranian-aligned Shiite militants have seized the capital of Yemen.
Iran continues to prop up Bashar Assad 's outlaw regime in Syria. An Iranian
general was discovered near Israel's border preparing offensive
operations with Hezbollah against Israel-fortunately, he was discovered
by an Israeli missile. Iran signed a new defense pact with Russia. And
Iran proceeded with a sham prosecution against an American journalist
held hostage there. President Obama, citing the sensitivity of nuclear
negotiations and Iran's continuing participation, has asked Congress to
postpone new legislation dealing with the Iranian threat. One has to ask:
If this is the cooperation that our forbearance has achieved, can America
afford any more cooperation from Iran? The answer is no. It is the nature
of Iran's regime to kill Americans, export terror, destabilize the Middle
East and foment world-wide Islamic revolution. If Iran commits these
crimes against the West now, imagine what Iran would do with a nuclear
umbrella. Yet the nuclear negotiations have become an endless series of
concessions to Iran. As it stands, American negotiators have conceded to
Iran the right to enrich uranium, for which Iran has no legitimate need,
much less a right. The negotiators have also conceded to Iran its
plutonium-producing reactor and possession or development of thousands of
advanced centrifuges. Nor are the negotiators even addressing Iran's
ballistic-missile program. In return, Iran has received billions of
dollars in sanctions relief." http://t.uani.com/16lwsos
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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