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NYT:
"Secretary of State John Kerry sought Tuesday to rebut critics of a
potential nuclear deal with Iran, making his case on Capitol Hill just a
week before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to
deliver his broadside against the emerging accord in an address to
Congress. 'Anybody running around right now, jumping in to say, Well, we
don't like the deal, or this or that, doesn't know what the deal is,' Mr.
Kerry said. 'There is no deal yet. And I caution people to wait and see
what these negotiations produce.' At another point, Mr. Kerry asserted
that Mr. Netanyahu had been wrong about the Obama administration's policy
toward Iran in the past. The prime minister, Mr. Kerry said, had
denounced a 2013 interim accord to freeze much of Iran's nuclear program,
only to acknowledge belatedly that it was in Israel's interest. 'I don't
know anybody who looks at the interim agreement and doesn't say, Wow,
this has really worked - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who
would like to see it extended, having opposed it vehemently in the
beginning, calling it the deal of the century for Iran,' Mr. Kerry
said." http://t.uani.com/1BTEvGc
AFP:
"The European Union's foreign policy chief on Tuesday said an Iran
nuclear deal was 'at hand' and urged different sides to show political
will ahead of a new round of talks scheduled in Geneva next week. 'We
cannot miss this opportunity,' Federica Mogherini said at Chatham House,
a think tank in London. 'A good deal is at hand if the parties will keep
cooperating as they did so far and if we have enough political will from
all sides to agree on a good deal and sell it domestically,' Mogherini
said. 'We have a series of internal domestic political dynamics we have
to handle with care,' she said, listing 'tensions' in the US Congress,
Israel's elections and Sunni-Shiite rivalry in the Gulf region. 'A
comprehensive agreement would be mutually beneficial for all sides,' she
said. US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier on Tuesday said world
powers 'had made inroads' since reaching an interim deal with Iran in
November 2013 on reining in its suspect nuclear program. 'We expect to
know soon whether or not Iran is willing to put together an acceptable,
verifiable plan,' Kerry said after returning from talks in Geneva with
his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif." http://t.uani.com/1EQhku1
AP:
"Iran's Revolutionary Guard launched large-scale naval and air
defense drills near a strategic Gulf waterway on Wednesday in which
dozens of speedboats swarmed a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier. The
drill, named Great Prophet 9, was held near the Strait of Hormuz, through
which one fifth of the world's oil passes. Iran's regular army carried
out naval drills near the strait in December. State TV showed footage of
missiles fired from the coast and the fast boats striking the mock U.S.
aircraft carrier. The drills, which also included shooting down a drone
and planting undersea mines, were the first to involve a replica of a
U.S. carrier. 'American aircraft carriers are very big ammunition depots
housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else,' the
Guard's navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state TV, adding that a
direct hit by a missile could set off a large secondary explosion. Last
month Fadavi said his force is capable of sinking American aircraft
carriers in the event of war. The Guard's chief commander, Gen. Mohammad
Ali Jafari, said the drills send a 'message of (Iran's) might' to
'extraterritorial powers,' a reference to the United States." http://t.uani.com/1FXJkzP
Nuclear
Program & Negotiations
WashPost:
"An Iranian exile group on Tuesday accused Iran's government of
conducting secret research with the aim of developing nuclear weapons,
even as it is negotiating potential constraints on its ability to do so.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran said underground labs in
suburban Tehran have been used since 2008 to enrich uranium. It said the
plant, named Lavizan-3 after the neighborhood where many officers and
their families live, is reached through tunnels leading from under a
building ostensibly used to process passports and identity cards... The
Iranian opposition group said Iran has lied about its nuclear program
before, and no deal should be signed until Tehran agrees to inspections
of the Lavizan-3 facility. 'It's absolutely senseless to continue negotiations
and decide the number of centrifuges you're going to have if we have
these serious issues lingering out there,' said Alireza Jafarzadeh,
deputy director of the group's Washington office." http://t.uani.com/1zeRfQU
AFP:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he would do
'everything I can' to prevent a nuclear deal between world powers and
Iran, a week ahead of travelling to Washington. Netanyahu's government
has always opposed a deal with Tehran over its nuclear programme, and he
is to address the US Congress on March 3 on the subject, in a move that
has angered the White House. 'The information which has reached me in
recent days greatly strengthens our concerns regarding the agreement
being formulated between the major powers and Iran,' said a Netanyahu
statement. 'This agreement, if indeed it is signed, will allow Iran to
become a nuclear threshold state. It is my obligation as prime minister
to do everything that I can to prevent this agreement. Therefore, I will
go to Washington... because the American Congress is likely to be the
final brake before the agreement.'" http://t.uani.com/1JLHTau
Press TV (Iran):
"Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has dismissed as a 'big lie'
Western allegations that the country has been pursuing a secret nuclear
program, saying that Tehran has shown the transparency of its peaceful
nuclear work to the word. 'That they say Iran has had secret activities
in this respect is a big lie; We first turned to Europeans to get the [
uranium enrichment] technology; If we wanted to conceal [our activities]
we wouldn't raise these issues with a Western country,' Rouhani said at a
conference marking National Engineers' Day in Tehran on Monday. He said
the European country refused to give Iran the technology to enrich
uranium for peaceful purposes." http://t.uani.com/1DmciFP
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters:
"At least $1 billion in cash has been smuggled into Iran as it seeks
to avoid Western sanctions, a bigger figure than previously reported,
Iranian officials and Western intelligence and diplomatic sources
say. Sanctions imposed by the West over Iran's nuclear program have
shut Tehran out of the global banking system, making it hard to obtain
the U.S. dollars it needs for international transactions... Interviews by
Reuters with Iranian officials and Western diplomatic and intelligence
sources show a bigger smuggling effort by Tehran, as well as the routes
and methods used -- details not previously reported. These sources said
at least $1 billion in U.S. bank notes had been smuggled into Iran in
recent months, with the Iranian central bank playing an important role...
The sources said the cash was hand-carried by couriers on flights from
Dubai or Turkey, or brought across the Iraq-Iran border. Before it
reached Iran, the cash was passed through money changers and front
companies in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, they added. A
Western diplomat who follows Iranian affairs said the central bank was a
driving force in efforts to obtain dollars." http://t.uani.com/1FXJlnd
Press TV (Iran):
"Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says his economic team has done
what he described as 'a miracle' to bring the country from the brinks of
economic collapse to the positive territory. 'We were able to bring down
inflation from 40 percent to well below 16 percent,' he told an economic
forum in Tehran. 'Iranian and foreign experts say what the government has
done is more like a miracle from the economic viewpoint'. Rouhani said he
had promised to take measures to decrease Iran's inflation from the
record highs of above 40 percent to as low as 15.5 percent. 'This
is while we had promised to bring down inflation to 25 percent before
April 2015,' he said. The Iranian president further said Iran's economic
growth was -9 percent in 2012 and 2013. 'Who knew that we would be able
to push the economy from -9 percent into the positive territory within
two years?' Rouhani said. 'Iran's economic growth over the second and
third quarters of 2014 was 4 percent higher than the same period in 2013.
And we expect this to continue toward positivity before this coming
April,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1affRnN
Press TV (Iran):
"Latest official figures show the value of Iran's non-oil exports
increased by about a quarter since March 2014 thanks to a surge in the
country's trade of petrochemicals. Figures released by the Customs
Administration of Iran show that the value of Iran's total non-oil
exports over a period of 11 months starting 21 March 2014 stood at $46.3
billion dollars. The figure was higher than that for the same period last
year by 22 percent. A majority of exported products were petrochemical
products such as liquefied propane, liquefied methane, and methanol and
the key destinations have been China, Iraq, the UAE, Afghanistan and
India. Meanwhile, Iran's imports over the same 11-month period stood at
$48.2 billion, showing an increase of 12.3 percent compared to the same
period last year." http://t.uani.com/1D8FtcZ
Trend:
"A direct Tehran-Berlin flight re-launched after 10 years during a
ceremony attended by Iran's Ambassador to Germany Ali Majedi at Berlin's
Schoenefeld Airport, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Feb. 23.
German company Germania Airlines, which has signed an agreement with
Iran's Civil Aviation Organization to launch five weekly flights to Iran
from Germany, inaugurated its first direct-flight from Berlin to Tehran
on the evening of Feb. 22. Majedi said that re-launching direct flights
between Iran and Germany capitals is an important development, adding there
has been growing demand for flights between the two countries as a result
of the expansion of German-Iranian economic ties. Germania Airlines is
going to conduct two weekly flights from Berlin to Tehran and two from
Dusseldorf to Tehran as well as one flight per week from Hamburg to
Mashhad." http://t.uani.com/1LAxQR3
Press TV (Iran):
"Iran says it has concluded three contracts with US aviation giant
Boeing after it signed the Geneva nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group
of countries in late 2013. Farhad Parvaresh, the CEO and Chairman of the
country's flagship airline Iran Air, said on Saturday that the contracts
with Boeing mostly involve repairing plane motors. 'Iran Air has so far
received seven motors of its planes after they were repaired as the
result of the contracts with Boeing,' Parvaresh said. 'There are several
other motors that are being repaired by Boeing in a foreign country,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1A45BUd
Domestic
Politics
IranWire:
"Iranians have taken to social networks to protest against the
rising cost of chicken and to initiate a campaign to stabilize the
poultry market. Using Viber, WhatsApp and other social media sites,
Tehran-based campaigners expressed their anger over inflated prices,
urging people to stop buying chicken in an attempt to bring the price
down... The price of poultry rose significantly to 8,000 Tomans ($2.5)
per kilogram and 'will most probably increase to 10,000 Tomans ($3.5) by
Nowruz [Iranian New Year],' reported Hamedan Press. The paper also
concluded that the increase in prices is due to a 'lack of suitable
governmental policies.'" http://t.uani.com/1BTziyh
Reuters:
"Iran will withdraw up to $4.8 billion from its sovereign wealth
fund to spend on developing its oil and gas fields next fiscal year under
a proposal approved by parliament on Tuesday. The decision to dip into
the National Development Fund underlines the heavy financial pressure
which Iran faces from low oil prices and international economic sanctions
over its disputed nuclear programme. The hard currency allocation, which
will supplement other budgetary allocations for the sector, also shows
the large sums which Iran needs to spend to modernise its ageing oil
fields and crumbling energy infrastructure." http://t.uani.com/18l5Ip5
Opinion &
Analysis
David Ignatius in
WashPost: "The administration's response is that the
agreement is better than any realistic alternative. Officials argue it
would put the Iranian program in a box, with constraints on all the
pathways to making a bomb. Perhaps more important, it would provide
strict monitoring and allow intrusive inspection of Iranian facilities -
not just its centrifuges but its uranium mines, mills and manufacturing
facilities. If Iran seeks a covert path to building a bomb, the deal
offers the best hope of detecting it. If the current talks collapsed, all
these safeguards would disappear. The Iranians could resume enrichment
and other currently prohibited activities. In such a situation, the
United States and Israel would face a stark choice over whether to attack
Iranian facilities - with no guarantee that such an attack would set
Tehran back more than a few years. The deal taking shape would likely
allow Iran about 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz. The Iranians
apparently wouldn't install IR-2s, which operate twice as fast, and they
would limit research on future models, up to IR-8s, that are on the
drawing board. How these research limits would be monitored and enforced
is a key bargaining issue. Another critical variable is the size of the
stockpile Iran could maintain; U.S. officials want a very low number,
with additional enriched material shipped out of Iran. One official
argues that the United States would be better off with 9,000 IR-1s and a
small stockpile than with 1,000 IR-2s and a large stockpile. Netanyahu
probably won't address this issue in his speech to Congress, since he
insists the only acceptable number of centrifuges is zero. Another key
technical issue is how non-permitted centrifuges would be dismantled.
There is a range of options, from simply unplugging the equipment to
pulverizing it altogether. The United States wants a formula that would
require at least a year for the Iranians to restart the shelved
equipment. As for the planned Iranian plutonium reactor at Arak, negotiators
seem to have agreed on a compromise that will halt construction well
before Arak becomes 'hot' with potential bomb fuel. The length of the
agreement is a crucial variable. U.S. officials have always spoken of a
'double-digit' duration period, somewhere between 10 and 15 years.
Negotiators are also exploring the possibility of different phases of the
timeline, with inspection provisions having a longer life span than, say,
limits on the number of centrifuges. The deal-breaker for the
administration is if Iran balks at U.S. insistence that sanctions will
only be removed step by step, as Iran demonstrates that it's serious
about abiding by the agreement. In the U.S. view, Iran has to earn its
way back to global acceptance. The Iran deal is imperfect. As Count
Metternich observed in 1807 about negotiations with the rising powers of
his day, 'Peace does not exist with a revolutionary system.' But U.S.
officials make a compelling case that this agreement is a start toward a
safer Middle East." http://t.uani.com/1Dps5UA
Thomas Joscelyn in
The Weekly Standard: "Not long after his
inauguration in January 2009, President Barack Obama penned a letter to
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. As a presidential
candidate, Obama had promised to conduct 'tough, direct diplomacy' with
the Iranians. And Obama figured, correctly, that all diplomatic
entreaties would end up on Khamenei's desk. So, the newly elected
president decided to write Iran's ultimate decision-maker directly. And
he has written several letters since. According to the Wall Street
Journal, which first reported on the correspondence, Obama sent his
latest letter to Khamenei in October of last year. The president was
hoping to find common ground with the Iranians in Iraq, where the Islamic
State, an offshoot of al Qaeda, has made stunning advances since early
2014. Obama believes that the United States and the Shiite jihadists of
Iran have a common interest in pushing back the Sunni jihadists of the
Islamic State. If the two sides can just resolve the thorny issue of
Iran's nuclear program, Obama reportedly thinks, that will pave the way
for détente, and possibly a de facto alliance against our mutual enemies.
Indeed, the president entertains the idea that Iran can be America's
partner in combating Sunni extremism throughout the region. President
Obama's assumption is grossly mistaken. The president's own State and
Treasury Departments have repeatedly exposed Iran's ongoing sponsorship
of al Qaeda. Moreover, terrorists directly tied to al Qaeda's Iran-based
network have plotted attacks in the West on three occasions since Obama
took office. Most recently, in September, the Obama administration
launched missile strikes against al Qaeda's so-called Khorasan Group in
Syria. The administration pointed to intelligence indicating that this
cadre of 'core' al Qaeda operatives was planning mass killings in the
West, and possibly even in the United States. Two of the terrorists who
lead the Khorasan Group formerly headed al Qaeda's operations in Iran. Tellingly,
Iran allowed this pair to continue their fight against the West, even as
they have battled Iran's chief allies in Syria. Obama's Treasury
Department first publicly recognized the relationship between the Iranian
regime and al Qaeda on July 28, 2011. Treasury added six al Qaeda
operatives to the U.S. government's list of designated terrorists. The
principal terrorist among them is known as Yasin al-Suri, 'a prominent
Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator' who operates 'under an agreement between
al Qaeda and the Iranian government.' Treasury described al Qaeda's
presence in Iran as a 'core pipeline' and 'a critical transit point for
funding to support al Qaeda's activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.'
Treasury made it clear that other high-level al Qaeda members were
actively involved in shuttling cash and recruits across Iran. On December
22, 2011, the State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million
for any information leading to Suri's capture. The reward is one of the
largest offered by the U.S. government in its 'Rewards for Justice'
program, which is designed to help hunt down terrorists. 'Operating under
an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian Government, al-Suri moves
money and al Qaeda recruits from the Middle East through Iran and on to
Pakistan and Afghanistan,' Foggy Bottom said in its announcement.
'Iranian authorities maintain a relationship with al-Suri and have
permitted him to operate within Iran's borders since 2005.' Just a few
months later, on February 16, 2012, Treasury designated the Iranian
Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) a terror-sponsoring
organization. 'MOIS has facilitated the movement of al Qaeda operatives
in Iran and provided them with documents, identification cards, and
passports,' Treasury explained. 'MOIS also provided money and weapons to
Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) ... and negotiated prisoner releases of AQI
operatives.' The Islamic State is the successor to Al Qaeda in Iraq and
grew out of the organization. Obama, therefore, seeks Iran's cooperation
against an entity the Iranian regime has supported." http://t.uani.com/1ajpxxL
Emily Landau &
Shimon Stein in TNI: "There is a group of academic
and think tank researchers and disarmament and nonproliferation
advocates-that we collectively refer to in this article as the
'professional arms controllers'-who place arms control and nuclear
disarmament high on the agenda of their professional activities. One
would think that this group of professionals would be at the forefront of
those arguing against what seems to be emerging as a bad nuclear deal
with Iran. Curiously enough, they are not, even though they know-as we
all do-that this deal will very likely keep Iran at a dangerous nuclear
threshold, enabling it to move to a nuclear weapons capability at a time
of its choosing. This is because there is unlikely to be enough time,
political will, and/or means to stop Iran from doing so, even if it is
caught violating the deal. Worse still, the deal will legitimize this bad
situation, including Iran's enrichment program, for the duration of the
deal. Furthermore, when the deal expires-and regardless of any strategic
reversal regarding Iran's military ambitions-even the restrictions of
this nuclear deal will be lifted, allowing Iran to further enhance its
already vast nuclear infrastructure. This deal will render irreversible
Iran's ability to quickly build a nuclear bomb, all with the blessing of
the international community.Has Iran done anything to deserve these
benefits? After all, over the past year, all we have heard from Iran is
continued defiance - everything it will not do in the context of a deal.
Significantly, it continues to claim that there is no evidence of any
wrongdoing on its part, even as it continues to stonewall the IAEA
investigation into the weaponization aspects of its program. For years,
Iran has been deceiving the international community about its military
activities and intentions in the nuclear realm, and refuses to budge
regarding its breakout potential. The emerging deal-which would enable Iran
to remain at the nuclear threshold-has dire implications in two main
respects: for regional and global security, and for the nuclear
non-proliferation regime. For the arms controllers, both should be a
grave concern because nuclear weapons are as dangerous as the states that
hold them. And Iran is an aspiring regional hegemon with a Supreme Leader
who feels totally comfortable saying that the only solution for Israel is
its annihilation. For disarmament diehards, this argument probably holds
little weight because they focus only on the weapons, not the states that
possess them. One can imagine, however, that in closed forums even they
might admit that there are differences between nuclear weapon states.
That, for example, a nuclear Britain or France is much less concerning
than a nuclear Pakistan. But what about the implications for the
nonproliferation regime? This is surely the bread and butter of the arms
controllers. Why are we not hearing their outrage that after years of
fruitless negotiations, the P5+1 seems poised to agree to a deal that
will give Iran a breakout capability? Why do they not say that this is a
very hard blow to the NPT regime that purports to stop nuclear
proliferation, and that it is likely to spur additional proliferation in
the region? Why are the professional arms controllers not expressing
concern that this Iran deal will create new realities on the ground,
which will inspire other potential proliferators? For example, why should
the United Arab Emirates agree to the so-called gold standard in the
nuclear realm when Iran's enrichment is legitimized? ... The facts are
that instead of remaining true to their noble goals, these arms control
advocates are now supporting an approach to Iran that will likely end up
encouraging proliferation rather than stopping it. In this manner, they
are in fact betraying their own stated agenda, at everyone's risk." http://t.uani.com/1FXJyH7
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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