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WSJ:
"Secretary of State John Kerry, in an often contentious Senate
hearing, told lawmakers Wednesday the U.S. isn't negotiating a 'legally
binding' agreement with Iran, meaning future presidents could choose not
to implement the accord. The back-and-forth between the GOP and the Obama
administration over the deal has grown heated within recent weeks. On Monday,
a group of 47 GOP senators sent an open letter to Iran's leaders
asserting it could quickly change or discard any agreement once President
Barack Obama leaves office, further stirring discord as an end-of-month
deadline approaches. Mr. Kerry, joining other members of the Obama
administration in rebuking the GOP senators, said their claims that
Congress could nullify or alter a deal had the effect of undermining U.S.
foreign policy. He also said they were incorrect in their claim they
could alter the terms of the deal. 'We've been clear from the beginning:
We're not negotiating a, quote, legally binding plan,' Mr. Kerry said, so
it doesn't have to be submitted for approval to Congress. Treaties,
because they legally bind governments to terms of the agreements, must be
approved by the Senate, under the Constitution. Executive agreements can
either be both legally binding or not, and Mr. Kerry said this agreement
is the latter. 'They don't have the right to modify an agreement reached,
executive to executive, between countries-between leaders of a country,'
Mr. Kerry said. He added the Iran plan, if reached, would contain
enforcement mechanisms... A future president could alter the policy if he
or she saw fit, experts said. 'Will Jeb Bush back the agreement? Will
Hillary Clinton? No one knows,' Gary Samore, a nuclear expert at Harvard
University's Belfer Center who was the top nonproliferation official in
the first Obama White House, said in an interview." http://t.uani.com/1NOCC1k
AFP:
"Iran's top general said Wednesday his country has reached 'a new
chapter' towards its declared aim of exporting revolution, in reference
to Tehran's growing regional influence. The comments by Major General
Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the nation's powerful Revolutionary Guards
Corps, come amid concern among some of Shiite Iran's neighbours about
Tehran's role. 'The Islamic revolution is advancing with good speed, its
example being the ever-increasing export of the revolution,' he said,
according to the ISNA news agency. 'Today, not only Palestine and Lebanon
acknowledge the influential role of the Islamic republic but so do the
people of Iraq and Syria. They appreciate the nation of Iran.' He made
references to military action against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in
Iraq and Syria, where the Guards have deployed advisers in support of
Baghdad and Damascus. 'The phase of the export of the revolution has
entered a new chapter,' he added, referring to an aim of Iran's 1979
Islamic revolution. In his speech to the Assembly of Experts, Iran's top
clerical body, Jafari also mentioned Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and
political party in Lebanon whose fighters fought a devastating war with
Israel in 2006. 'Hezbollah and its resistance against one of the armies
in the world -- that is to say the army of the Zionist regime... is one
of the Islamic revolution's miracles,' he said. 'It is (part of) the
powerful influence of the Islamic system as the helmsman in the
region.'" http://t.uani.com/18Dn0Na
Reuters:
"Iran's Supreme Leader hit out on Thursday at a letter by U.S.
Republican senators threatening to undo any nuclear deal between
Washington and Tehran, saying he was worried because the United States
was known for 'backstabbing', Mehr news agency reported. Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the ultimate authority on all Iranian matters of state, added
at a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani and senior clerics that
whenever negotiators made progress, the Americans became 'harsher,
tougher and coarser'... Mehr quoted Khamenei as saying: 'Of course I am
worried, because the other side is known for opacity, deceit and
backstabbing. 'Every time we reach a stage where the end of the
negotiations is in sight, the tone of the other side, specifically the
Americans, becomes harsher, coarser and tougher. This is the nature of
their tricks and deceptions.' The clerical Supreme Leader said the letter
was 'a sign of the decay of political ethics in the American system', and
he described as risible long-standing U.S. accusations of Iranian
involvement in terrorism." http://t.uani.com/1b4rMVW
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
WSJ:
"As U.S. and Iranian diplomats inched toward progress on Tehran's
nuclear program last week, Saudi Arabia quietly signed its own
nuclear-cooperation agreement with South Korea. That agreement, along
with recent comments from Saudi officials and royals, is raising concerns
on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies that a deal with Iran, rather than
stanching the spread of nuclear technologies, risks fueling it. Saudi
Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of
the royal family, has publicly warned in recent months that Riyadh will
seek to match the nuclear capabilities Iran is allowed to maintain as
part of any final agreement reached with world powers. This could include
the ability to enrich uranium and to harvest the weapons-grade plutonium
discharged in a nuclear reactor's spent fuel. Several U.S. and Arab
officials have voiced concerns about a possible nuclear-arms race erupting
in the Middle East, spurred on by Saudi Arabia's regional rivalry with
Iran, which has been playing out in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen in
recent months. 'The proliferation of nuclear technologies is a nightmare
the White House would like to discount rather than contemplate,' said
Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a
Washington think tank. 'This is more than just an imaginary
threat.'" http://t.uani.com/1xgoCTu
Reuters:
"U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Republicans who control
Congress on Wednesday they would not be able to modify any nuclear
agreement struck between the United States and Iran. Kerry said he
responded with 'utter disbelief' to an open letter to Iran on Monday
signed only by Republican senators that said any deal would only last as
long as U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, remains in office. 'When
it says that Congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at
any time is flat wrong,' Kerry, who has been negotiating a deal to rein in
Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions, told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. 'You don't have the right to modify an
agreement reached executive to executive between leaders of a country.'
But Sen. Rand Paul, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016,
told Kerry that any deal would need approval by Congress if it affected
U.S. sanctions against Iran. Paul accused the Obama administration of
trying to bypass Congress. 'The letter was to Iran but it should've been
cc' d to the White House because the White House needs to understand that
any agreement that removes or changes legislation will have to be passed
by us,' the senator said." http://t.uani.com/1FeCXGO
Free Beacon:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani described his country's diplomacy
with the United States as an active 'jihad' that is just as significant
to Tehran's advancement as the slew of new weapons and missiles showcased
by the Islamic Republic's military. Rouhani praised the country's
military leaders for standing 'against the enemy on the battlefield' and
said as president, he would carry out this 'jihad' on the diplomatic
front... 'Our negotiations with the world powers are a source of national
pride,' Rouhani said earlier this week. 'Yesterday [during the Iran-Iraq
War], your brave generals stood against the enemy on the battlefield and
defended their country. Today, your diplomatic generals are defending
[our nation] in the field of diplomacy-this, too, is jihad.' 'Our power
is growing each day, but we don't intend to be aggressive toward anyone.
However, we will certainly defend our country, nation, independence, and
honor wholeheartedly.' Iran stands '10 times more powerful' than it was
during the time of the Iran-Iraq War, Rouhani said, which 'reflects a serious
deterrence to the enemies' threats.' ... Matan Shamir, director of
research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said Rouhani's latest comments
show he is not a moderate leader. 'While Rouhani talks about a 'win-win'
nuclear deal to global audiences, his comments make clear that he
continues to view the U.S. an antagonistic global oppressor that must be
triumphed over, in this case by a diplomatic 'jihad,'' Shamir said. 'This
is clearly not the language of a moderate or of a regime with which
rapprochement is at all realistic.'" http://t.uani.com/1E86aPF
Washington Jewish
Week: "Speaking on a panel in one of the policy
conference's breakout sessions, Gary Samore, executive director for
research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at
Harvard University and a former Obama administration official, confirmed
that the one year breakout period would only benefit the United States if
Iran's cheating on its commitments is detected immediately. Detection
would assume that inspectors would know where high level nuclear
enrichment is being conducted. But Samore believes it is unlikely Iran
would risk losing the sanctions relief it receives under a potential
agreement to attempt to 'break out' from a declared nuclear enrichment
facility - but more likely that it would come from smaller, clandestine
facilities not yet known to U.S. intelligence. Samore called this
scenario 'sneak-out' and noted that the enrichment plants at Natanz and
Fordow had once been secret. 'This is not going to be like Iraq. You may
remember that after the first war in Iraq, we imposed on them an
unbelievably intrusive inspection regime that basically allowed
inspectors to travel anywhere around the country they wanted to. Go into
any facility and talk to anybody,' said Samore. 'We're not going to get
that kind of an inspection regime out of this negotiation. At the end of
the day we're going to have to depend on intelligence. This is going to
be a potential weakness in any agreement.'" http://t.uani.com/1MuePjR
Sanctions Relief
AFP:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday his country would
increase its imports of gas from Turkmenistan, during a visit to the
reclusive Central Asian state in which he signed a slew of bilateral
agreements. Rouhani said energy cooperation with post-Soviet Turkmenistan
in oil and gas had 'big potential' after talks with his Turkmen
counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. 'We agreed to increase supplies
of Turkmen gas to Iran,' Rouhani. He did not specify what the increase
would be, but Iran already imports roughly 10 billion cubic metres (bcm)
of gas per year from Turkmenistan, making it the second biggest purchaser
of the country's gas and its third largest trade partner after China and
Turkey. The two countries signed 18 agreements during the visit and Iran
also thanked Turkmenistan for its support of Iran's 'peaceful nuclear
programme.' Referring to Rouhani as a 'brother', Berdymukhamedov said
that trade between the two countries reached $3.7 billion (3.4 billion
euro) last year, up 25 percent from 2013. Rouhani responded that he hoped
the figure would reach $60 billion in the next ten years." http://t.uani.com/1wymVG1
Iraq Crisis
AP:
"Iran is playing a helpful role against Islamic State militants in
Iraq now, but once the extremists are vanquished, Tehran-backed militias
could undermine efforts to unify the country, the top U.S. military
officer said Wednesday. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told lawmakers that any
move to counter IS is a 'positive thing.' But he said there are worries about
whether those Shiite militias will later turn against Sunni or Kurdish
Iraqis and hamper efforts to bridge ethnic and political divisions that
have made peace elusive in Iraq. 'We are all concerned about what
happens after the drums stop beating and ISIL is defeated, and whether
the government of Iraq will remain on a path to provide an inclusive
government for all of the various groups within it,' Dempsey said, using
an acronym for the militant group. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff said officials are watching to see whether the militias, after
recapturing lost ground, 'engage in acts of retribution and ethnic
cleansing.' At this point, 'there no indication that that is a widespread
event.'" http://t.uani.com/1D9V29D
Daily Beast:
"Forces loyal to Iran are threatening to break ISIS's grip on the
key Iraqi city of Tikrit. Officially, the American military isn't helping
these Shiite militias and Iranian advisers as they team up with Iraqi
forces to hit the self-proclaimed Islamic State. But U.S. officials admit
that American airstrikes are a major reason Iran's proxies are advancing
on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The U.S.-led air campaign has not
only crippled ISIS's ability to move freely. It's also providing air
cover for Iraqi troops and the Iranian forces fighting alongside of them.
It is a perilous, yet unspoken, military alliance between the U.S. and
its top regional foe that some said could lead to an ISIS defeat in the
short term and ethnic cleansing of Sunni Iraqis in the long run." http://t.uani.com/1B8o0zV
Opinion &
Analysis
WSJ Editorial:
"While Washington focuses on Iran-U.S. nuclear talks, the Islamic
Republic is making a major but little-noticed strategic advance. Iran's
forces are quietly occupying more of Iraq in a way that could soon make
its neighbor a de facto Shiite satellite of Tehran. That's the larger
import of the dominant role Iran and its Shiite militia proxies are
playing in the military offensive to take back territory from the Islamic
State, or ISIS. The first battle is over the Sunni-majority city of
Tikrit, and while the Iraqi army is playing a role, the dominant forces
are Shiite militias supplied and coordinated from Iran. This includes the
Badr Brigades that U.S. troops fought so hard to put down in Baghdad
during the 2007 surge. The Shiite militias are being organized under a
new Iraqi government office led by Abu Mahdi Mohandes, an Iraqi with
close ties to Iran. Mr. Mohandes is working closely with the most
powerful military official in Iran and Iraq-the Iranian General Qasem
Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran's official news agency last week confirmed Western media reports
that Gen. Soleimani is 'supervising' the attack against Islamic State.
This is the same general who aided the insurgency against U.S. troops in
Iraq. Quds Force operatives supplied the most advanced IEDs, which could
penetrate armor and were the deadliest in Iraq. One former U.S. general
who served in Iraq estimates that Iran was responsible for about
one-third of U.S. casualties during the war, which would mean nearly
1,500 deaths... The irony is that critics long complained that the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 created a strategic opening for Iran.
But the 2007 surge defeated the Shiite militias and helped Sunni tribal
sheikhs oust al Qaeda from Anbar. U.S. forces provided a rough balancing
while they stayed in Iraq through 2011. But once they departed on
President Obama's orders, the Iraq government tilted again to Iran and
against the Sunni minority... The strategic implications of this Iranian
advance are enormous. Iran already had political sway over most of Shiite
southern Iraq. Its militias may now have the ability to control much of
Sunni-dominated Anbar, especially if they use the chaos to kill moderate
Sunnis. Iran is essentially building an arc of dominance from Tehran
through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut on the Mediterranean... While
Islamic State must be destroyed, its replacement by an Iran-Shiite
suzerainty won't lead to stability. Iran's desire to dominate the region
flows from its tradition of Persian imperialism compounded by its
post-1979 revolutionary zeal. This week it elected hardline cleric
Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi to choose Iran's next Supreme Leader. The Sunni
states in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf are watching all of
this and may conclude that a new U.S.-Iran condominium threatens their
interests. They will assess a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal in this context,
making them all the more likely to seek their own nuclear deterrent. They
may also be inclined to stoke another anti-Shiite insurgency in Syria and
western Iraq. All of this is one more consequence of America leading from
behind. The best way to defeat Islamic State would be for the U.S. to
assemble a coalition of Iraqis, Kurds and neighboring Sunni countries led
by U.S. special forces that minimized the role of Iran. Such a Sunni
force would first roll back ISIS from Iraq and then take on ISIS and the
Assad government in Syria. The latter goal in particular would meet
Turkey's test for participating, but the Obama Administration has refused
lest it upset Iran. The result is that an enemy of the U.S. with American
blood on its hands is taking a giant step toward becoming the dominant
power in the Middle East." http://t.uani.com/18eAUpg
John Yoo in NRO:
"Time for a primer on international agreements, thanks to the
controversy over Senator Tom Cotton's letter to Iran. Joined by almost
all Republican senators, the missive warned Tehran that any nuclear deal
with President Obama would not last unless it went to Congress for
approval: 'We will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons
program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an
executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The
next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke
of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at
any time.' As a description of American constitutional law, Senator
Cotton has it exactly right. It was as if he were just informing Iran
about the text of the Constitution. There are three types of
international agreements under U.S. law: a. Treaties: These require
two-thirds of the Senate for approval. The U.S. has generally used
treaties for the most serious commitments of American sovereignty, such
as alliances and arms control. b. Congressional-Executive agreements:
These require approval by the House and the Senate. Although unmentioned
in the Constitution, they are nothing more than regular laws passed by
Congress. These have been used for deals such as trade agreements. c.
Sole executive agreements: These are made by the president alone. They
are constitutional only because they represent promises by the president
on how to exercise his constitutional power. The Cotton letter is right,
because if President Obama strikes a nuclear deal with Iran using only
instrument (c), he is only committing to refrain from exercising his
executive power - i.e., by not attacking Iran or by lifting sanctions
under power delegated by Congress. Not only could the next president
terminate the agreement; Obama himself could terminate the deal. In fact,
the Cotton letter could have gone farther and pointed out that Obama may
make promises that he cannot keep. Since a sole executive agreement is
only a commitment for the use of the executive's authority, it cannot
make promises about Congress. Under the Constitution's Foreign Commerce
Clause, only Congress has the authority to impose international economic
sanctions. Obama's executive agreement cannot prevent Congress from
imposing mandatory, severe sanctions on Iran without the possibility of
presidential waiver (my preferred solution for handling the Iranian
nuclear crisis right now). Obama can agree to allow Iran to keep a
nuclear-processing capability; Congress can cut Iran out of the world
trading and financial system... As a matter of constitutional law, the
Cotton letter should be no more controversial than a letter that simply
enclosed a copy of the U.S. Constitution (without President Obama's
editing)." http://t.uani.com/1MvJ1wI
Sen. Tom Cotton in
USA Today: "The critical role of Congress in the
adoption of international agreements was clearly laid out by our Founding
Fathers in our Constitution. And it's a principle upon which Democrats
and Republicans have largely agreed. In fact, then-Sen. Joe Biden once
reflected on this very topic, writing that 'the president and the Senate
are partners in the process by which the United States enters into, and
adheres to, international obligations.' It's not often I agree with
former senator and now Vice President Biden, but his words here are
clear. The Senate must approve any deal President Obama negotiates with
Iran by a two-thirds majority vote. Anything less will not be considered
a binding agreement when President Obama's term expires in two years.
This is true of any agreement, but in particular with the nuclear deal
President Obama intends to strike with Iran. Unfortunately, despite our
best efforts, the Obama administration has so far completely bypassed
Congress in its negotiations with Iran. The administration cares little
about what will win congressional approval - only complete nuclear
disarmament - and more about just reaching some sort of deal. Regrettably,
it appears the deal President Obama is negotiating with Iran will not be
a good one. In fact, if reports are correct, it will be a bad one that
will ultimately allow Iran to continue its nuclear program and ultimately
develop a nuclear weapon. That is why this week, I, along with 46 of my
fellow senators, wrote Iranian leaders to inform them of the role
Congress plays in approving their agreement. Our goal is simple: to stop
Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. I do not take my obligations as a
senator lightly. Nor do those who are signatories to the letter. If the
president won't share our role in the process with his negotiating
partner, we won't hesitate to do it ourselves. Our constituents elected
us to the Senate, in part, to protect them from bad agreements like this
and to help ensure their safety and security. And that is what we intend
to do." http://t.uani.com/1MvJ8bN
Tim Mak in The
Daily Beast: "Beyond the theatrics of the open
letter that 47 Republican senators sent to Iran, it features a core of
truth: the Obama administration is negotiating a deal that cannot be
guaranteed beyond the president's current term. The Obama administration
was so outraged with the Republican attempt to undercut the president's
foreign policy negotiations that it sent the vice president, the White
House press secretary, and others to attack the letter rather
seriously-instead of treating it as the 'cheeky' reminder of Congress's
role that GOP senators intended. In the process of engaging, the Obama
administration highlighted that any deal with Iran would be, like many
other past international security initiatives, a 'non-binding' agreement.
And by taking this bait, the administration undercut its own credibility
in making longer-term assurances about American sanctions relief. 'A
non-binding agreement with Iran is easier to make (because the President
can clearly do it on his own) and easier to break (because there is no
domestic or international legal obstacle to breaking it),' wrote Jack
Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general who now teaches law at
Harvard, at Lawfare on Wednesday. The letter, which was conceived of by
freshman GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, was influenced in part by prominent
national security hawk and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. Kristol said
he had no part in drafting or editing the letter, but did consult with
the senator about it. 'I did discuss it with Tom as he was conceiving it
and pondering whether and how to do it. I know he consulted with others
as well with some government and foreign policy experience, as you'd
expect,' Kristol told The Daily Beast. State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki noted on Tuesday that the Iran nuclear agreement wasn't exactly
novel. Lots of previous international deals were 'non-binding,' too. 'It
will be the same kind of arrangement as many of our previous
international security initiatives-such as the framework negotiated with
Russia to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, the Proliferation Security
Initiative, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and non-security
initiatives such as the recent U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate
Change,' a senior State Department official told The Daily Beast.
Secretary of State John Kerry made the same argument before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. 'We're not negotiating a, quote
'legally binding plan.' We're negotiating a plan that will have in it a
capacity for enforcement. We don't even have diplomatic relations with
Iran right now,' he said. A senior State Department official also argued
that 'the overriding reason to prefer a non-binding international
arrangement to a treaty is the need to preserve the greatest possible
flexibility to re-impose sanctions if we believe Iran is not meeting its
commitments under a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.' Some Republicans
thought twice about whether the open Iran letter was a needless agitation
that hurts bipartisan Congressional efforts to prevent a bad nuclear
deal. But several days after its release, the effect of the open letter
has been to clarify how precarious a deal with Iran could be after
January 2017. This raises questions about the durability of a deal that
President Obama has said could have Iran agreeing to roll back its
nuclear capabilities 'for 10 years or longer.' The open letter to Iran
(PDF) had two points: the power to make binding international agreements
required congressional buy-in, and the fact that many of the senators
would remain in office long after President Obama's second term had
expired. 'The letter forced the administration to explain why they're
icing Congress out of Iran negotiations, and now that explanation has
ignited a firestorm,' said Omri Ceren, press director for the pro-Israel
group The Israel Project. 'The administration looks like it intentionally
chose a weaker, non-binding arrangement, rather than a treaty, to avoid
Senate oversight.'" http://t.uani.com/19eh7az
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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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