Eye on Iran: US, Iran Discussing Nuclear Talks Compromise

Join UANI           Top Stories AP: "With time for negotiations running short, the U.S and Iran are discussing a compromise that would let Iran keep much of its uranium-enriching technology but reduce its potential to make nuclear weapons, two diplomats tell The Associated Press... Experts warn that any reduction in centrifuge efficiency is reversible more quickly than a straight decrease in the number of machines, an argument that could be seized upon by powerful critics of the talks in the U.S. Congress. The diplomats are familiar with the talks but spoke only on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss them. Ahead of a new round of negotiations this week, they said there is no guarantee that the proposal can be finessed into an agreement. According to the diplomats, the proposal could leave running most of the nearly 10,000 centrifuges Iran is operating but reconfigure them to reduce the amount of enriched uranium they produce. One of the diplomats said the deal could include other limitations to ensure that Tehran's program is kept in check. For one, Iran would be allowed to store only a specific amount of uranium gas, which is fed into centrifuges for enrichment. The amount of gas would depend on the number of centrifuges it keeps. Second, Iran would commit to shipping out most of the enriched uranium it produces, leaving it without enough to make a bomb. Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons and says its program is for peaceful uses such as nuclear power and medical technology." http://t.uani.com/16yOseV RFE/RL: "Iran's parliament voted on February 3 to speed up discussions of a motion that asks the government to resume all its nuclear activities if fresh sanctions are passed by the United States. Out of 205 lawmakers present, 173 voted in favor of giving the motion an emergency status, Iranian news agencies reported. It wasn't clear from the reports when the discussions would resume. The draft bill says that in the event of fresh U.S. sanctions, Iran is obliged to immediately resume all nuclear activities that have been frozen in exchange of sanctions relief under the Geneva interim nuclear deal Tehran reached with world powers in 2013. It says that Iran should activate its uranium enrichment centers 'without any restrictions on the type and number of centrifuges and the amount of enriched uranium' under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It also says that Iran would accelerate construction and operation of its controversial Arak heavy-water reactor." http://t.uani.com/1DxJEAD Reuters: "Iran is sidestepping Western sanctions and managing to sell hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fuel oil every month through companies based in the U.S.-allied United Arab Emirates, trading sources told Reuters. The U.S. and EU sanctions that came into force in 2012 prohibit the import, purchase and transport of Iranian petroleum products to pressure Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear programme. Washington has also pressed its allies around the world to clamp down on the shipping of Iranian oil products. But Tehran has been using innovative methods to circumvent the restrictions, several Middle East-based trading sources said. They include tankers switching off their tracking systems, ship-to-ship transfers, discharging and loading at remote ports, blending Iranian products with fuels from another source to alter the shipment's physical specification and selling them with Iraqi-origin documents, the sources said. The Iranian fuel oil is mainly offered from the UAE port and bunkering hub of Fujairah, through trading firms acting as middlemen for buyers who may not know the cargo is from Iran, the sources said. The middlemen are small firms - who buy the products at below-market prices, for a bigger profit margin - rather than larger traders who would not run the risk of falling foul of U.S. authorities and threatening their international operations." http://t.uani.com/1Cv9RmH     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Iran's President Hassan Rouhani berated the world's nuclear powers Wednesday, saying atomic weapons had not kept them safe and reiterating that his country was not seeking the bomb. Rouhani, in an unusually fiery speech, avoided explicit mention of ongoing nuclear talks between the West and Iran but accused atomic-armed states of hypocrisy. 'They tell us we don't want Iran to make atomic bombs, you who have made atomic bombs,' Rouhani said in Isfahan, a city 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of the capital Tehran. He then took aim at Israel, which has never acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons, dubbing the Jewish state a 'criminal'. 'Have you managed to bring about security for yourselves with atomic bombs? Have you managed to create security for the usurper Israel?' Rouhani said. 'We don't need an atomic bomb. We have a great, self-sacrificing and unified nation,' he said, referring to Monday's launch of an observation satellite into space by Iran. 'Despite pressures and sanctions, this nation sent a new satellite into space,' added Rouhani, who personally ordered the launch -- Iran's first since 2012." http://t.uani.com/1DFgS1o Guardian: "President Hassan Rouhani has said that a nuclear deal with the west is getting closer, as a report emerged of a possible compromise between American and Iranian negotiators over uranium enrichment. After meeting the heads of the country's parliament and judiciary, Rouhani was quoted by the Mehr news agency as saying: 'We have narrowed the gaps,' adding that although 'some issues and differences remain ... The west has realised that it should recognise the rights of the Iranian people.' Even Ali Larijani, the parliamentary speaker and a noted hardliner on nuclear talks, declared himself 'not pessimistic' about the trajectory of the negotiations." http://t.uani.com/16h019B Al-Monitor: "Iran launched its fourth satellite into space yesterday, Feb. 2. The Fajr (Dawn) satellite - which was built domestically and launched using an Iranian Safir-e Fajr satellite carrier - is to be used for observational purposes, according to Iranian officials. However, US State Department officials, concerned about Iran's long-range missile program, condemned the move. During a press briefing yesterday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked by a reporter for the US reaction. She replied, 'As we've said before, Iran's missile program continues to pose a dangerous threat to the region and is an issue we monitor closely.' Psaki added, 'One of the issues we are taking up in the negotiations, as you know, is how to deal with the ballistic capabilities of delivering nuclear warheads. That issue has been discussed and will continue to be discussed as part of the negotiations.' ... Iranian nuclear negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied Psaki's claims, saying today, 'Iran's missile program has a completely defensive nature and the Islamic Republic of Iran in no way views the defensive matters of the country negotiable and we are not ready to discuss this matter with any foreigner.' Araghchi added, 'Therefore, never in the framework of the nuclear talks with the P5+1, whether in the past or currently, has Iran given permission to plan or negotiate the country's defensive and military abilities, and this permission will not be given in the future.'" http://t.uani.com/16gYJeQ Bloomberg: "Islamic State extremists are expanding their international footprint in the Mideast and North Africa, the U.S. military's top intelligence official said, offering a far bleaker security assessment than have President Barack Obama and his political appointees.  The Sunni extremist group is extending its reach beyond Iraq and Syria using 'ungoverned and under-governed areas' to establish affiliates in Algeria, Egypt and Libya, Marine Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in prepared testimony obtained in advance of a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. 'Iran and North Korea now consider disruptive and destructive cyberspace operations a valid instrument of statecraft, including during what the U.S. considers peacetime,' Stewart said in the testimony. 'These states likely view cyberspace operations as an effective means of imposing costs on their adversaries while limiting the likelihood of damaging reprisals.' ... On Iran, where the U.S. and other world powers are attempting to strike a deal limiting the country's nuclear program, Stewart said the regime 'faces no insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon, making Iran's political will the central issue.'" http://t.uani.com/1BUwThx Sanctions Relief Tehran Times: "Car production in Iran rose 61.4 percent in the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2014- January 20, 2015), compared to the same period in the previous year. Iranian carmakers manufactured 930,449 vehicles in the 10-month period, the Mehr News Agency reported on Tuesday. Car manufacturing in Iran dropped 20.2 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year. Iran manufactured 737,060 cars in the last Iranian year, while the figure was 924,051 in the preceding year." http://t.uani.com/1C0AsVX Iraq Crisis The Hill: "Ashton Carter, President Obama's nominee for Defense secretary, said he has concerns about Iran's activities in Iraq, which could undermine U.S. efforts there against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 'I have concerns about the sectarian nature of Iran's activities in Iraq,' Carter wrote in answers provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee in advance of his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. 'The United States must continue to make clear to the Iraqi government that Iran's approach in Iraq undermines the needed political inclusion for all Iraqi communities, which is required to ultimately defeat ISIL,' he added, using an alternate name for the terror group." http://t.uani.com/16gZS62 Human Rights Al-Monitor: "Mehdi Karroubi, the two-time speaker of parliament, was among the closest members of the inner circle of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After serving prison sentences during the regime of the former shah of Iran, in 2011, he was again detained and imprisoned following a demonstration of members of the Iranian opposition in support of the people of Egypt and Tunisia. This month marks his fourth year under house arrest as he approaches his 80th birthday. Karroubi's followers consider him a leader of the Green Movement, the movement that was born out of opposition to the 2009 presidential elections, in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared victor. Fatemeh Karroubi, who answered Al-Monitor's questions via email, spent a period in detention alongside her husband but was later released. This is her first interview in four years. A former member of parliament herself, she revealed previously unpublicized details of the house arrest and said that while some aspects of her husband's house arrest have improved slightly (such as access to newspapers and a visit by Iran's new health minister), Mehdi Karroubi remains steadfast and continues to demand an open trial, something he so far has not been granted." http://t.uani.com/16gZ9ll RFE/RL: "The website of conservative Iranian lawmaker Ali Motahari has been filtered by Iran's judiciary, according to the hard-line Fars news agency. The report says no official explanation has been provided for the decision to block Motahari's website, which is also inaccessible from outside the country. The official IRNA news agency says 'unconfirmed reports' suggest the judiciary is behind the filtering. The move appears to be part of attempts by hard-liners to silence the outspoken Motahari, who has criticized the house arrest of opposition figures Mir Hossein Musavi; Musavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard; and reformist cleric Mehdi Karrubi." http://t.uani.com/1zJsQaR IHR: "Four prisoners convicted of drug-related charges were hanged in the prison of Rasht (Northern Iran) reported the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Gilan Province... The executions were carried out on Saturday January 31. The Iranian daily newspaper reported that a 21 year old man was hanged in the prison of Mashhad (Northeastern Iran) Monday morning 2 February." http://t.uani.com/1zRBR3m Opinion & Analysis Tom Nichols in TNI: "It's time to walk away from the Iran negotiations. They have failed in their purpose, and they are putting stress not only our alliances but on our own politics beyond whatever worth there may be in a nominal deal at this point. We had one goal - to extinguish Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon - and we will not achieve it. Is the 'process' really worth the price now? Let's review the bidding. Remember how the Western powers reached an 'interim deal' with Iran over its nuclear weapons program in 2013? Our deal-to-make-a-deal agreement back then, the White House assured us, 'halts the progress of Iran's nuclear program and rolls it back in key respects.' We recognized no sovereign right, as Iran demanded, to enrich uranium, and we had a hard limit of six months to get the whole business nailed down. Almost immediately, the Iranians were openly gloating over what they saw - rightly - as the defeat of the Western effort to cage their nuclear program... Meanwhile, the American debate has sunk into a morass of false choices. Concerned U.S. legislators in both parties warn that without more sanctions, we'll face an Iranian bomb. The president retorts that additional sanctions will actually lead to the same Iranian bomb - or in the worst case, war. Passionate advocates of negotiation promise that a deal to avert an arms race in the region is at hand, while opponents of further negotiation believe that we are doing nothing but deceiving ourselves with naïve faith in the magical powers of meetings in Geneva. None of these outcomes is likely. As long as the current regime of terror-supporting mullahs is in power, Iran is not going to give up its nuclear program. And no, we're not going to war in Iran anytime soon; it's not only a bad idea, but for two more years we have a president who has all but vowed never to do it. (With Iran, the Obama White House continues its strange practice of saying 'all options are open' and then opening negotiations by publicly reiterating all the things we won't do.) And while Iran will never give up its nuclear option, it will not build a bomb next week, next month, or even next year.If we're going to think seriously about the future of our negotiations with the Iranians, then we should start by being honest: the negotiations have already failed.  Now, we need to think about how much more of our credibility we're willing to spend on the process of negotiation itself. This process has become humiliating, not least because our diplomatic body language is telegraphing an eagerness for a deal - any deal - with such clumsy obviousness that only the dumbest opponent could fail to notice it. We're arguing with each other more than with the Iranians, who already have what they want and are more than happy to watch us all carp at each other.The problem of credibility is especially pressing because the Obama administration - the guardian of the legendary Syrian red line - has already mortgaged American credibility through inattention and half-measures elsewhere. From Ukraine to the Middle East and beyond, the Obama administration has made it clear that foreign policy is little more than a distraction and an annoyance. If credibility were money, our account has been mismanaged worse than Greece's pensions. So let the talks end. Tell the Iranians that we've given up on the hopes that propelled us into this round back in 2013, and that they - and their Russian enablers - have convinced us this is futile. Make clear we will now return this problem to our internal democratic processes for further action. In the meantime, enough talk about votes in the Senate: after all, why give Iran a pretext for walking away when it should be our idea to leave in the first place? ... Talking isn't always better than silence, especially if neither side has anything useful to say. (Recall, for example, that the president wisely skipped a summit with Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine.) And it's better than a bad deal that burns up what little credibility we have left just to get a piece of paper. There's an outside chance that a walkout could set the stage for a better round of more realistic talks. That's not likely, but if not, so be it: we're no worse off than we were a year ago. The president, like many of his predecessors, is using his last two years to shore up his legacy, but there has to be a limit to the costs the nation endures. The sad fact, however, is that we already tanked our own position long ago: there is no better way to doom talks, whether over nuclear weapons or buying a used car, than to make plain that you fear the collapse of talks more than anything else. The mark who walks into a showroom and says 'I absolutely must buy a car today' is the dream customer of every ruthless salesman. If there is any hope of getting an actual deal that meets the goal we set for ourselves two years ago, it's by walking away from this mess. We might start again later, or leave it all for a new administration that might be less encumbered by our current failures. Either way, the process has failed, and we'd best get past our denial about it." http://t.uani.com/1F5KZ2S Eli Lake in Bloomberg: "On the front lines of Iraq's war against Islamic State, it's increasingly difficult to tell where the Iraqi army ends and the Iranian-supported Shiite militias begin. Official U.S. policy has been to support the Iraqi Security Forces as both a hammer against the Sunni jihadists and also as a way to absorb the the Shiite militias that threaten to drive Iraq's Sunni minority to support anti-government terrorism. But in an interview this week, Hadi al-Amiri, the founder and leader of Iraq's oldest and most powerful Shiite militia, the Badr Organization, told me the U.S. ambassador recently offered air strikes to support the Iraqi army and militia ground forces under his command. This has placed the U.S. in the strange position of deepening an alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran for its war against Islamic extremists. Late last year, the U.S. formally committed to train and equip three divisions of the Iraqi army. While some senior U.S. officials have had positive words for Iran's role in the fight against Islamic State warriors, official U.S. policy is to support the integration of Iraq's sectarian militias into the Iraqi Security Forces. In Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, however, it's the other way around. On a tour of areas recently liberated from Islamic State control, General Ali Wazir Shamary told me that ultimately his orders came through a chain of command that originated with Amiri. In other words, the Iraqi army is integrating into Amiri's Badr Organization in Diyala as opposed to integrating the militias into the army... When asked about the commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, Amiri said he meets with him whenever he is Baghdad. 'He advises us. He offers us information, we respect him very much,' he said. Asked to elaborate, Amiri said Soleimani's experience fighting Islamic State warriors in Syria was invaluable. 'No country has experience like Iran in dealing with terrorists,' he said about the country the U.S. State Department considers the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. He added that Lebanon's Hezbollah has also provided the Badr Organization with important lessons learned from fighting Israel and Sunni jihadists in Lebanon and Syria. One might think Amiri is exactly the kind of person U.S. policy makers would seek to marginalize as it attempts to rebuild an Iraqi army that will help unify a country divided along sectarian lines. But Amiri told me that late last month he met with U.S. ambassador Stuart Jones at his home, where the ambassador made the offer of U.S. air support to his ground campaign... Michael Flynn, a retired special operations general who served for three years in Iraq and until last year was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the prospect of U.S. air power supporting the Badr Organization would put the U.S. in a 'very delicate alliance with Iran.' 'Members of the Badr Corps are responsible for killing many American Soldiers and they will likely do it again if given the chance,' Flynn told me. 'We built an Iraqi military to defeat all the enemies of Iraq and groups like the Badr Corps represent enemies of a stable, secure, and inclusive Iraq. As soon as we get done helping them with ISIS, they will very likely turn on us.' Already U.S. air strikes have supported Shiite militias and even Iranian trainers. In late August and early September, American pilots helped break the siege of the highway town of Amirli, supporting a ground campaign that included the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and also militias supported by Iran. The Islamic State's siege of Amirli was barbaric. The town was subject to mortar fire daily, its residents were starved and drinking wells were contaminated. But the aftermath of the siege was was ugly as well. Human Rights Watch is documenting accounts of local families who say that, in the aftermath of the liberation, the Shiite militias indiscriminately burned the homes of Sunni families. Erin Evers, the Human Rights Watch Iraq researcher, said she found 'reprehensible' that the Badr commander is in charge of all military operations in Diyala. 'As an individual I don't know what human rights violations I can attribute to him,' she said of Amiri. 'The amount of people we have documented complaining of the Badr organization kidnapping and killing them, driving them from their homes, setting homes on fire, the list goes on and on.'" http://t.uani.com/1HWfqOd Phillip Smyth in WINEP: "In 2012 and early 2013, media sources were widely reporting the imminent fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime to Sunni rebel groups. But not long thereafter, it began to show resilience, holding off further rebel advances and even retaking lost ground. This turnabout was fueled largely by Iran-backed Shiite proxy groups fighting on Assad's behalf. While these groups often invoked the defense of the Sayyeda Zainab shrine as their rallying cry, their influx into Syria was far from a spontaneous expression of Shiite unity. Indeed, it reflected instead a highly organized geostrategic and ideological effort by Iran to protect its Syrian ally and project power across the Middle East. When fighting spread to neighboring Iraq, many of the Iraq-based proxies regrouped across the border to defend their homeland against advances by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The web of Iran-backed Shiite proxies is exceedingly complex, with much overlap and many changing aliases. In this new Institute study, Phillip Smyth -- a prominent blogger and University of Maryland researcher -- deftly navigates these many groups, exploring topics such as the narrative of pan-Shiite jihad, the range of Shiite clerical views on the jihad, recruitment techniques, and weapons used. His discussion compellingly shows why pursuing U.S. regional interests must involve targeting not only ISIS but also its Shiite adversaries." http://t.uani.com/1AshObs Mehdi Khalaji in WINEP: "The Houthi coup and other recent developments in Yemen have raised many questions about the country's religious fabric, especially the relationship between its large Zaidi community and Twelver Shia Islam, the main religion of Iran. The complex links connecting the two religious traditions have significant implications for the Houthis' internal politics, as well as their relations with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and other Shiite entities in the Middle East... The Iranian regime's regional policy is not purely sectarian. In his address to the attendees of the January 9 Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei stated, "The Islamic Republic's assistance to its Muslim brothers has mostly been given to Sunnis. We have stood beside the Palestinians. We have helped Hamas and Islamic Jihad and will continue to help" (interestingly, the last sentence was deleted from the transcription of the speech on Khamenei's official website). In general this seems to be true -- Iran tends to conduct its foreign policy based on ideology, not theology. But this does not prevent the regime from using Shiism as a soft-power tool or mobilizing Shiites in the Middle East to threaten the West's interests and allies. The receptiveness that many Zaidi leaders have shown toward Iran's foreign policy and its practice of Twelver Shiism gives Tehran a ready means to expand its influence in Yemen." http://t.uani.com/1u8wGJG         Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.