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NYT:
"With a negotiating deadline just two days away, Iranian officials
on Sunday backed away from a critical element of a proposed nuclear
agreement, saying they are no longer willing to ship their atomic fuel
out of the country. For months, Iran tentatively agreed that it would
send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it
would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on
Sunday Iran's deputy foreign minister made a surprise comment to
Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a
stockpile that Iran has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.
'The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we
do not intend sending them abroad,' the official, Abbas Araqchi, told
the Iranian media, according to Agence France-Presse. 'There is no
question of sending the stocks abroad.' Western officials confirmed
that Iran was balking at shipping the fuel out, but insisted that there
were other ways of dealing with the material. Chief among those
options, they said, was blending it into a more diluted form... Ray
Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has
been critical of the emerging accord, said the development raised
serious questions about a possible deal. 'The viability of this
agreement as a reliable arms control accord is diminished by this,' Mr.
Takeyh said. 'One of the core administration arguments has been that
the uranium would be shipped abroad as a confidence building
measure.'" http://t.uani.com/1BJ7Dv3
Reuters:
"The foreign ministers of Iran and six world powers met on Monday
in a final push for a preliminary nuclear accord less than two days
before their deadline as Tehran showed signs of backing away from
previous compromise offers... Officials at the talks in the Swiss city
of Lausanne said attempts to reach a framework accord could yet fall
apart. A Western diplomat said there are three major sticking points
that must be resolved if Iran and major powers are to secure a
framework deal before a self-imposed end-March deadline and it is
unclear whether those differences will be bridged. The diplomat said
the most difficult issues were related to the duration of any limits on
Iranian enrichment and research and development activities after an
initial 10 years, the lifting of U.N. sanctions and restoring them in
case of non-compliance by Iran... Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov's spokeswoman said he was returning to Moscow later on Monday
though officials said he would return to Switzerland if there was
something to announce... Despite deep disagreements on several points,
Western officials said the two sides had previously been closing in on
a preliminary deal that could be summarized in a brief document which
may or may not be released. Officials said the talks could run at least
until the deadline of midnight on Tuesday or beyond. If there was a
deal in Lausanne, the parties might move to Geneva for a
ceremony." http://t.uani.com/19An014
WSJ:
"As negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal come down to the
wire, the White House is ramping up a yearlong campaign to persuade
lawmakers and the public to support an agreement. In recent days,
officials have tried to neutralize skeptical Democrats by arguing that
opposing President Barack Obama would empower the new Republican
majority, according to people familiar with the discussions. Meanwhile,
the Obama administration has lined up Republicans to try to tamp down a
likely political battle over any deal with Iran and scientists to
defend an agreement on its technical merits. Perhaps most significant,
White House officials have begun to express privately a willingness to
accept legislation that gives Congress some oversight of the nuclear
deal if talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne result in agreement on the
main outlines of a final nuclear deal before Tuesday night's
deadline... White House officials still oppose legislation that would
give Congress final approval of a deal with Iran or apply new
sanctions. And officials don't want lawmakers to vote on any Iran deal
until after the June 30 deadline for a comprehensive agreement. But
widespread opposition from lawmakers in both parties has forced the
White House to begin considering a potential compromise with Congress
if that helps Mr. Obama achieve his top foreign policy goal, officials
said." http://t.uani.com/1G1vr3Q
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Reuters:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned on Sunday the
framework Iranian nuclear agreement being sought by international negotiators,
saying it was even worse than his country had feared... 'This deal, as
it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more
than that,' Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem as the United
States, five other world powers and Iran worked toward a March 31
deadline in Lausanne, Switzerland. Noting advances made by
Iranian-allied forces in Yemen and other Arab countries, Netanyahu
accused the Islamic republic of trying to 'conquer the entire Middle
East' while moving toward nuclearization. 'The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis
is very dangerous to humanity, and must be stopped,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1BJcDzN
The Hill:
"Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
is accusing the Obama administration of moving away from Israel in
favor of stronger relations with Iran. He pointed to a range of issues,
from the administration's air strikes in Iraq to support Iraqi forces
fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, to the tense relationship
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and the
nuclear talks with Iran. Corker said he had concluded the
administration wanted to get the United States out of the Middle East.
'As you see what the White House is doing - they're obviously moving
away from Israel towards a relationship with Iran,' Corker said during
an interview on CNN's 'Wolf.' 'It's very apparent to me that what
they're trying to achieve is a balance of power between the Shia sides
and the more Sunni-oriented sides, and a way for them to extract themselves
out of the Middle East,' Corker said... The Tennessee Republican said
he didn't mean to imply the U.S. was completely shifting from the
relationship with Israel, but he said he believed the administration's
policies would result in giving more influence in the Middle East to
Iran. 'I'm not saying totally turning its back, but it's moving more
towards an Iranian-dominated relationship to create a balance of
power,' Corker said, referring to the Obama administration, when
pressed to clarify his remarks on CNN. 'While in a textbook that might
be interesting, what you're not seeing from Iran's standpoint is a
change in behavior. Just the opposite,' Corker said." http://t.uani.com/1NyIKK5
NYT:
"Mr. Moniz, 70, understands his role well: He is providing not
only technical expertise but also political cover for Mr. Kerry. If a
so-called framework agreement is reached in the next few days, it will
be Mr. Moniz who will have to vouch to a suspicious Congress, to Israel
and to Arab allies that Iran would be incapable of assembling the raw
material for a single nuclear weapon in less than a year. 'It wouldn't
mean much coming from Kerry,' said a member of the administration
deeply involved in the strategy who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. 'The theory is that Ernie's judgment on that matter is
unassailable.' ... They have spent much of their time in recent days
arguing about the type and power of the advanced centrifuges Iran says
it wants to continue developing during the 10 or more years of an
agreement - one of the last stumbling blocks in the talks. 'We spend a
lot of time on SWU,' Mr. Moniz said, referring to separative work units
- the acronym is pronounced 'swoo' in nuclear-speak - which underlie
all the calculations about how long it would take Iran to produce a
single bomb's worth of enriched uranium... Mr. Moniz has also reached
out to his vast network of nuclear scientists in the United States,
giving them classified briefings about the details of the talks. His
hope is that they will provide technical validation to Congress and
nervous allies that the plan negotiated with Tehran will give enough
warning time to head off an Iranian race for a nuclear weapon with
economic pressure or, if need be, a bombing run." http://t.uani.com/1IfC9k7
Daily Telegraph:
"A close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has
sought political asylum in Switzerland after travelling to Lausanne to
cover the nuclear talks between Tehran and the West. Amir Hossein
Motaghi, who managed public relations for Mr Rouhani during his 2013
election campaign, was said by Iranian news agencies to have quit his
job at the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA). He then
appeared on an opposition television channel based in London to say he
no longer saw any 'sense' in his profession as a journalist as he could
only write what he was told. 'There are a number of people attending on
the Iranian side at the negotiations who are said to be journalists
reporting on the negotiations,' he told Irane Farda television. 'But
they are not journalists and their main job is to make sure that all
the news fed back to Iran goes through their channels... In his
television interview, Mr Mottaghi also gave succour to western critics
of the proposed nuclear deal, which has seen the White House pursue a
more conciliatory line with Tehran than some of America's European
allies in the negotiating team, comprising the five permanent members
of the UN security council and Germany. 'The US negotiating team are
mainly there to speak on Iran's behalf with other members of the 5+1
countries and convince them of a deal,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1xsJvQO
AFP:
"Iran and six world powers have reached tentative agreement on key
parts of a deal sharply curtailing Tehran's nuclear programme, Western
diplomats said Sunday while cautioning that the pact is by no means
done. One of these diplomats in talks in Switzerland said Iran had
'more or less' agreed to slash the number of its centrifuge machines by
more than two-thirds and to ship abroad most of its stockpile of
nuclear material... Iranian diplomats denied that any tentative
agreement on these points has been struck, saying that reports of a
specific number of centrifuges and exporting its stockpiles were
'journalistic speculation'. 'The fact is that we will conserve a
substantial number of centrifuges, that no site will be closed, in
particular Fordo. These are the basis of the talks,' the Iranian
diplomat said." http://t.uani.com/1ysyZEm
Reuters:
"The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China
want more than a 10-year suspension of Iran's most sensitive nuclear
work. Tehran, which denies it is trying to develop a nuclear weapons
capability, is demanding an immediate end to international sanctions
that are crippling its economy. A Western diplomat said duration could
be traded off if there were real efforts on some key parameters. 'We
all want it to be 15 years, but there will be different durations for
various aspects of the deal,' the diplomat told reporters. Iranian
negotiator Hamid Baidinejad said '15 years is out of question for Iran
but 10 years is being discussed.'" http://t.uani.com/1aaI0gd
Fars (Iran):
"Director General for Political Affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry
and nuclear negotiator Hamid Baeidinejad said on Wednesday that the
western powers have withdrawn from their previous positions in nuclear
talks with Tehran. 'The other side has withdrawn from its positions
compared with the past, otherwise we wouldn't have stood at this point
and stage in the talks at all,' Baeidinejad told reporters in Tehran on
Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/19AiXBM
Sanctions
Relief
WashPost:
"The headlines in Tehran have been trumpeting some good news for
Iran's economy lately. In the first 11 months of the Iranian fiscal
year, car production climbed 58 percent and pistachio exports shot up
71 percent. Inflation is high but easing, and after a sharp contraction
in 2012 and 2013, the economy is growing again. But the Iranian economy
is still a shadow of what it could be if international sanctions were
lifted. There is virtually no foreign investment. Unemployment is
rampant, especially among the young. Some of the country's banks are in
precarious positions. Corruption is common among politically connected
groups that profit by circumventing international sanctions. 'The
economy is not healthy,' said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, a professor of
economics at Virginia Tech University. 'It is a bit like a sick man
whose leg breaks and then the leg is repaired, but the other stuff is
still there.'" http://t.uani.com/1CCP2EK
Regional
Destabilization
WashPost:
"The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Sunday
described President Obama's Middle East policy as one of 'willful
ignorance,' saying the administration needs a clearer strategy for
dealing with conflicts emerging across the region. Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn said during an interview on 'Fox News Sunday' that recent
developments in the Middle East are moving in a bad direction for the
United States, with Iran 'clearly on the march' to influence events in
a 'regional sectarian war.' Critics of the administration have pointed
out that the United States appears to be siding with Iranian-backed
rebels against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but opposing such
fighters in Yemen. 'At the end of the day, we have just this incredible
policy confusion - never mind what our strategy is to execute that
policy,' Flynn said. 'We have to stop what we're doing and take a hard
look at everything going on the Middle East because it's not going in
the right direction.'" http://t.uani.com/1CD34Gw
NYT:
"The Arab states said on Sunday that they had agreed to form a
combined military force to counter both Iranian influence and Islamist
extremism, a gesture many analysts attributed in large part to their
drive for more independence from Washington. The agreement came as
American and other Western diplomats in Lausanne, Switzerland, were
racing to beat a self-imposed deadline of Tuesday to reach a deal with
Iran that would restrict its nuclear program in exchange for the
removal of economic sanctions. In response, Saudi Arabia and other
American allies in the region have made clear that they are seeking to
bolster independent regional security measures because they see the
proposed accord as a betrayal of Washington's commitment to their
security. Regardless of Iran's nuclear program, they complain, the deal
would do nothing to stop Iran from seeking to extend its influence
around the region by backing favored factions, as it has done in
Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen." http://t.uani.com/1xsMtF8
WSJ:
"Sunnis across the Middle East greeted the Saudi-led intervention
in Yemen as an overdue opportunity to reverse the tide of Iranian-led
Shiite influence, an enthusiasm that contrasted starkly with the
difficulty the U.S. faced in persuading Arab allies to join a coalition
against Sunni extremist group Islamic State. Saudi Arabia assembled a
coalition of Sunni states to battle Iranian-linked Houthi rebels in
Yemen, inflaming the region's already festering sectarian divides.
Nevertheless, it drew an instant outpouring of support from ordinary
Sunnis, their political leaders and clerics, and the range of Sunni
radical groups. In media coverage, mosque sermons, and social-media
postings, the fledgling campaign was hailed as a chance to roll back
Iran's reach in places such as Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, as well as
Yemen. The excitement reflected how leaderless and fragmented the
region's Sunnis have grown over the past decade. 'Iran seeks hegemony,
and the Arabs can't tolerate this,' said Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian
foreign minister. 'This is a message that enough is enough. Sowing
chaos across the Arab world is not acceptable and we can no longer
accept this humiliation and fragmentation of our society.'" http://t.uani.com/1CCJr1k
Yemen Crisis
Reuters:
"The United States is increasingly concerned about training by
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, where
the Shi'ite militias continue to make territorial gains despite
airstrikes by neighboring Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials said Tehran's
direct involvement with the Houthis was limited but that U.S.
intelligence assessments had concluded that Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps personnel were training and equipping Houthi units. The
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security
matters, expressed concern that the IRGC's mission could include
training the Houthis to use advanced weaponry they acquired after
seizing Yemeni military bases. Saudi Arabia, which launched aerial
bombardments of Houthi forces this week, has said the militia was
receiving extensive backing from Iran, the kingdom's regional rival.
'We see ... Iran playing a large role in supporting the Houthis,' Saudi
ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir told reporters on Thursday.
'There are Iranian advisers advising them and Hezbollah operatives
advising them,' Jubeir said. Lebanon-based Hezbollah is closely allied
with Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1bIZMaR
Human Rights
CBC:
"A Toronto-based filmmaker is being held in a notorious Iranian
prison, after his family says he was arrested shortly after returning
to his home country. Mostafa Azizi, 52, had been a permanent resident
in Canada for several years before deciding to return to Iran in
January. Soon after he arrived, Azizi was arrested. He is being held in
Tehran's Evin prison. Azizi has been charged with insulting Iran's
supreme leader and spreading propaganda against the Islamic
establishment. His son Arash told CBC News that the specific
allegations against his father are unclear, but he said they appear to
do with things Azizi posted to social media." http://t.uani.com/1EUwVYc
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI Advisory
Board Member Olli Heinonen in WINEP: "With reports
that Washington and its partners may reach a nuclear accord with Iran
in the coming days, a former senior IAEA safeguards official answers
the most pressing questions about Tehran's program and how the
agreement might affect its capabilities.
What is the commonly
accepted definition of 'breakout time'?
This is the time required to produce enough weapons-grade uranium (WGU)
for one nuclear weapon. To produce WGU, uranium needs to be enriched
(e.g., with centrifuges) to more than 90 percent of its fissile isotope
U-235. The amount of WGU required for one weapon is defined by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as about 27 kg of uranium.
This amount is often called a 'significant quantity' (SQ).
What is Iran's
current breakout time?
Natural uranium has only 0.7 percent of the isotope U-235, and the
effort required to enrich it to one SQ of WGU is about 5,000 Separative
Work Units (SWUs). Iran currently has about 9,000 functioning
first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, with another 9,000 not in operation.
The IR-1s installed in the Natanz and Fordow facilities have been
performing at an average per unit rate of 0.75 to 1 SWU per year. Using
the 1 SWU/year performance of the latest IR-1 model, the breakout time
with 9,000 machines using a natural uranium feed would be six to seven
months. However, Iran also has substantial stocks of 3.5 percent
enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that can be used as an alternative
feed, shrinking the breakout time to three months.
If Iran brought online its other nearly 9,000 IR-1s, breakout time
would be about three months with natural uranium feedstock and four to
six weeks with 3.5 percent UF6 feedstock. Iran has also developed the
more advanced IR-2m centrifuge, rated at 5 SWU/year. If the 1,000
IR-2ms installed at Natanz were used in conjunction with all 18,000
IR-1s, the respective breakout times would be cut by a third.
According to media
accounts, the proposed nuclear agreement would lower the number of
operating centrifuges to around 6,500. In that circumstance, what would
Iran's breakout time be?
Using IR-1s with natural uranium as a feed, the breakout time for 6,500
centrifuges would be about nine months. A crucial question will be how
much 3.5 percent enriched UF6 will remain in Iran. Yet even if UF6
stocks are reduced from their current 7.5-8 tons to 500 kg, a breakout
time of between seven and eight months would still be possible given
the program's enrichment capabilities with natural uranium feed. Since
these breakout times are less than the goals set by the U.S.
administration, it is important to know what parameters Washington used
for its estimates.
The administration
says that one of the main achievements of an agreement would be to
increase breakout time to at least a year. What else would have to be
in the agreement to reach that goal?
The maximum allowed breakout time should be viewed as a combination of
detection time and action time -- that is, the time required to get
Iran back in compliance with the agreement. Both of these times are
difficult to estimate precisely because administrative delays and
efforts to resolve disagreements could easily take several
months." http://t.uani.com/1EquqSx
UANI Advisory
Board Member Olli Heinonen in the Iran Task Force:
"P5+1 negotiators are reportedly nearing an agreement with Iran
that would dismantle some elements of Iran's nuclear program while only
providing limits on all other parts of the program. It also would
maintain meaningful parameters that assure-at a minimum-a one-year
breakout capability. The Iran Task Force has raised concerns about
numerous aspects of the current trajectory of negotiations and the
P5+1's concessions to Iran throughout the negotiations. The following
memo addresses one such area of concern, namely the 'sunset' of
enhanced verification requirements. Although we don't yet know what a
final deal will look like, a robust and intrusive verification regime,
and in particular the details about the inspections conducted by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is of utmost importance. And
these international verification efforts in Iran cannot simply end when
the comprehensive agreement sunsets. Supplementary safeguards measures
that extend beyond the Additional Protocol (called AP-plus) are
essential if the IAEA is to monitor verifiably a comprehensive nuclear
agreement. The IAEA can only return to 'routine' inspections under the
AP when the IAEA is certain that all nuclear material and activities in
Iran are being used exclusively for peaceful purposes. Since AP-plus
access is negotiated by the P5+1, and enforced by a U.N. Security
Council (UNSC) resolution, the UNSC also has to conclude that Iran has
fully restored its non-proliferation credentials before these
supplementary safeguards measures are reduced... Six thousand operating
centrifuges is-when looking from a technical perspective, given the
known enriched uranium needs of Iran-an excessive and odd number. With
current IR-1 centrifuge performance, Iran's 6,000-plus machines could
produce annually about two metric tons of low-enriched uranium
hexafluoride, that is, 3.5% U-235. However, to fuel the Bushehr reactor
for one year, it would take 15 times that amount. At the same time,
Iran has secured a long-term agreement to purchase fuel for Bushehr
from Russia. Moscow has also offered those services for future Iranian
reactors. It would be less expensive for Iran to purchase enriched
uranium and nuclear fuel from international markets than to build an
enrichment program of the scale needed to fuel Bushehr and future
nuclear power plants. On the other hand, if the argument is that Iran
needs 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges to produce 20% enriched research reactor
fuel, which serves for medical purposes, the number of centrifuges is
way too high. Iran may make a patriotic argument for domestic
production, but the fact remains that the international market
currently supplies the world's needs for enriched uranium required to
produce radioisotopes for medical purposes. Both developed and
developing countries buy their medical isotopes on the international
market because it is easiest and most cost effective. In addition,
there is currently a significant excess of highly enriched uranium
stocks left over from the Cold War, which can be blended down for
reactor fuel for the international market. There really is no need for
additional uranium enrichment of 20% U-235 for decades to come. Third,
Iran might want enrichment in order to maintain domestic knowledge and
skills regarding the front end of the fuel cycle. However, operating
6,000 IR-1 centrifuges is too large for an enrichment demonstration
plant, which typically houses some 1,000 centrifuges or half a dozen
parallel cascades." http://t.uani.com/1MnImkl
WashPost
Editorial: "As the Obama administration pushes to
complete an agreement-in-principle with Iran on its nuclear program by
Tuesday, it has done little to soothe concerns that it is rushing too
quickly to settle, offering too many concessions and ignoring glaring
warning signs that Tehran won't abide by any accord. One story incorporates
all three of those worries: Iran's failure to deliver on multiple
pledges to answer questions about its suspected research on nuclear
warheads. The United States believes that, prior to 2003, Iran
conducted extensive studies and tests on building a bomb and mounting
it on a long-range missile - belying its claims that it has pursued
nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes. U.S. intelligence was
long ago turned over to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and
multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, starting in 2006, have
ordered Iran to cooperate with the IAEA in clarifying these 'possible
military dimensions.' ... An appropriate response to this blatant
violation of agreements would be to insist that Iran complete the IAEA
work plan before any long-term accord is signed or any further
sanctions lifted. Inspectors need their questions answered so that they
will be able to determine later whether Iran has violated the controls
on its nuclear research expected to be part of a deal. Furthermore, it
is vital to establish that Tehran will deliver on its commitments and
that it will be held accountable if it does not. Remarkably, however,
negotiators - including the supposedly hard-line French, who have taken
the lead on the 'military dimensions' issue - have reportedly agreed to
let Iran's noncompliance slide. The IAEA's unanswered questions will be
rolled over and rebundled into the new agreement, with a new time line.
That means that Iran will have some sanctions lifted before it complies
with a commitment it first made eight years ago. The question this
raises was articulated months ago in congressional testimony by nuclear
weapons expert David Albright: 'If Iran is able to successfully evade
addressing the IAEA's concerns now, when biting sanctions are in place,
why would it address them later when these sanctions are lifted?' In
its rush to complete a deal, the Obama administration appears eager to
ignore the likely answer." http://t.uani.com/1GGU1Gk
Ali Alfoneh
& Reuel Marc Gerecht in WashPost: "We don't
know all that has transpired in the talks on Iran's nuclear program
being conducted in Switzerland, but we do know that the White House has
shied away from a potentially paralyzing issue: the 'possible military
dimensions' - the PMDs - of the regime's program. As Olli Heinonen, a
former No. 2 at the International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned,
outsiders really can have no idea where and how fast the mullahs could
build a nuclear weapon unless they know what Iranian engineers have
done in the past. Without 'go anywhere, anytime' access for IAEA
inspectors and a thorough accounting of Tehran's weaponization
research, we will be blind to the clerics' nuclear capabilities. And
one of the most important issues - probable North Korean nuclear cooperation
with the Islamic Republic - deserves special scrutiny. This disturbing
partnership casts serious doubt on the Obama administration's hope that
President Hassan Rouhani and his team have any intention of limiting
Iran's nuclear ambitions. The unfinished North Korean-designed reactor
that was destroyed by Israeli planes on Sept. 6, 2007, at Deir al-Zour
in Syria was in all likelihood an Iranian project, perhaps one meant to
serve as a backup site for Iran's own nuclear plants. We draw this
conclusion because of the timing and the close connection between the
two regimes: Deir al-Zour was started around the time Iran's nuclear
facilities were disclosed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002, and
the relationship between Shiite-ruled Syria and Shiite Iran has been
exceptionally tight since Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000. We
also know - because Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian
president and majordomo of the political clergy, proudly tells us in
his multivolume autobiography - that sensitive Iranian-North Korean
military cooperation began in 1989. Rafsanjani's commentary leaves
little doubt that the Iranian-North Korean nexus revolved around two
items: ballistic missiles and nuclear-weapons technology. In his
memoirs, the bulk of which is composed of journal entries, Rafsanjani
openly discusses Iran's arms and missile procurement from North Korea.
However, from 1989 forward, his entries on Pyongyang become more opaque
- a change, we believe, indicating emerging nuclear cooperation. By 1991,
Rafsanjani discusses 'special and sensitive issues' related to North
Korea in entries that are notably different from his candid commentary
on tactical ballistic missiles. Rafsanjani mentions summoning Majid
Abbaspour, who was the president's technical adviser on 'chemical,
biological, radiological, and nuclear industries,' into the
discussions. Rafsanjani expresses his interest in importing a 'special
commodity' from the North Koreans in return for oil shipments to
Pyongyang. He insists that Iran gain unspecified 'technical know-how.'
... Odds are high that even today the Central Intelligence Agency
doesn't know what Rafsanjani got from Pyongyang, but it is safe to
surmise that the North Koreans weren't clandestinely building a
peaceful nuclear reactor at Deir al-Zour . CIA Director John Brennan
has often asserted that U.S. intelligence doesn't believe that the
clerical regime is on the verge of making atomic weapons, and he
further claimed that Langley could detect any Iranian decision to sneak
toward the bomb. But Washington hasn't guessed correctly once since
World War II about the timing of nuclear weaponization by foreign
powers (the A-bombs of close allies Britain and France don't count).
Odds are good that North Korea helped to jump-start Iran's nuclear-weapons
program. If so, how long did this nefarious partnership continue?
Rouhani was Rafsanjani's alter ego. He's undoubtedly the right man to
answer all of the PMD questions that the IAEA keeps asking and the
Obama administration keeps avoiding." http://t.uani.com/1CD4eSl
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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