Eye on Iran: Iran Bill Unlikely to Scuttle Deal

Join UANI           Top Stories Politico: "Democrats and Republicans in Congress are both claiming victory by cornering President Barack Obama to sign an Iran bill he didn't want. But the White House says that misses the point: The final legislation was narrowed enough that it's not going to stand in their way or do anything to upset the ongoing negotiations in Switzerland. And interviews with Democratic lawmakers suggest there's slim chance that they'd be willing to go any further to scuttle a nuclear deal. While Capitol Hill now has an avenue to block Obama from lifting legislative sanctions on Iran - a precondition of any agreement to curb its ability to build a bomb - now that they feel they've asserted constitutional prerogatives, Democratic senators are moving away from a confrontation... White House officials believe they got the best outcome possible, and they need to hold just 34 Democrats in the Senate or 144 in the House to keep Republicans from getting in its way. 'Given the noise of this debate, it quickly became in our interest to channel that noise in a direction where it can be contained,' a White House official said Wednesday. 'We concluded that we're just better off locking them into a position so they can have their say - that's the compromise - but the benefit is there's no longer any ambiguity about what Congress can do to interfere. This is the only vehicle, the vote will only be on sanctions, there's a limit on the timing.'" http://t.uani.com/1aAj54T NYT: "In his assertions of executive power to advance his agenda in an era of gridlock, President Obama has been largely on offense. But his latest battle with Congress not only left him on defense, it actually broke the gridlock. Against him. Mr. Obama's abrupt decision to sign a compromise version of legislation on Iran that he had previously vowed to veto was a bruising retreat in his larger campaign to act without Congress's getting in his way. In this case, partisanship gave way to rare consensus on Capitol Hill: Both sides agreed that he was wrong to cut them out. The White House tried to make the best of the setback, arguing that the bipartisan bill was less objectionable than the initial draft. But the president's concession in the face of potentially veto-proof majorities underscored that even his fellow Democrats believed he had overreached in trying to operate on his own. And it suggested that he may be approaching the outer boundaries of his authority with 21 months left in office." http://t.uani.com/1zkoS4X AP: "President Vladimir Putin sternly urged the West to respect Russia's interests in global affairs and defended his move to sanction the delivery of a long-range air defense missile system to Iran during a marathon TV call-in show with the nation... Turning to foreign policy issues, Putin said his decision to lift a 2010 Russian ban on the delivery of the powerful S-300 air defense missile system to Iran followed a tentative deal on ending the Iranian nuclear standoff reached by Tehran and six world powers earlier this month. He said Iran should be rewarded for showing 'a great degree of flexibility and a desire to reach compromise' in the talks. He said the S-300 is a defensive weapon that shouldn't pose any threat to Israel, and may in fact serve as 'a deterrent factor in connection with the situation in Yemen.'" http://t.uani.com/1DnqaQC     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama was 'responsible' for making sure that Washington respects a final agreement over Iran's nuclear programme even though Congress has been given a say on the accord's fate. 'It is the obligation of the government of the United States to implement its international agreements. And we will hold the US government, the US president accountable' for the application of the treaties that they sign, Mohammad Javad Zarif told journalists in Lisbon. He was reacting to a move by the US Senate foreign relations committee on Tuesday giving the green light to a bill that would give Congress the right to review a possible final agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue. Zarif, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, said Iran would study the bill 'to see if it infringes upon or hinders the capability of the president to carry out the obligations that he is going to assume with Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/1COWppi AFP: "Major world powers and Iran will hold fresh talks in Vienna on April 22-23 to build on the framework accord reached on Tehran's contested nuclear programme, the EU announced Thursday. The two sides 'will continue work towards a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue based on the key understandings reached in Switzerland on April 2,' a statement said. The talks will take place at political director level, involving first Helga Schmid of the EU's external affairs arm and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. They will then be joined by officials from the five UN Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany. 'In parallel, experts will continue the work on the technical details necessary to finalise the political work,' the statement said." http://t.uani.com/1yy0Skd AFP: "The UN atomic agency failed during talks in Tehran Wednesday to resolve long-standing questions over Iran's alleged past efforts to develop nuclear weapons, an Iranian official said. 'We discussed certain solutions to resolve the two outstanding questions, and it was decided to wind up the discussions at the next meeting,' said Reza Najafi, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, quoted by ISNA news agency. 'We hope to reach this stage at the next session,' he said without giving a date, at the end of a one-day visit by chief IAEA inspector Tero Varjoranta and a team of experts. Iran had agreed to answer agency enquiries about alleged explosive testing and research into nuclear bomb making by last August." http://t.uani.com/1DLtTZJ RFE/RL: "Tired of waiting for the Foreign Ministry to shed light on a historic framework nuclear agreement it reached with world powers, a group of Iranian lawmakers has gone rogue and issued a list of recommended changes to the deal... After dragging its feet, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced on April 14 that its own fact sheet was being prepared, with the supreme leader's blessing. But the renegade lawmakers jumped the gun and released their own 'Recommended Fact Sheet' that sees the deal much differently to Washington. The 12-point document, published by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency on April 15, covers some of the stickiest points in the deal. The document says a final deal should be governed by the 'red lines' issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that protect Tehran's 'nuclear achievements.'" http://t.uani.com/1FO7rfk WSJ: "An Iranian legislator warned on Wednesday that Iran's parliament could respond to the actions of the U.S. Congress by insisting on a role of its own in the talks, potentially complicating them further. The discussions are set to resume on April 21 following a three-week hiatus, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif said in Madrid on Tuesday. The Iranian parliament was discussing a bill that would make Iran's approval contingent on the immediate withdrawal of sanctions after the signing of the pact, Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, said in an interview with state TV. 'The bill says removal of the sanctions is the condition for the deal,' Mr. Hosseini said. 'If the U.S. Congress wants to meddle and cause limitations for the deal, we will put it on vote in the parliament.'" http://t.uani.com/1FXmTZn The Hill: "The State Department on Wednesday would not say whether sanctions on Iran would be lifted immediately after a final nuclear deal is reached, calling that a 'technical detail' that has yet to be resolved. 'I think we're in now an area of technical detail that is still to be further negotiated,' said State Department acting deputy spokesman Jeff Rathke. Facing repeated questions from reporters, Rathke would only say that sanctions relief 'will come after Iran meets the key nuclear requirements.'" http://t.uani.com/1zkEtRW Cyber Warfare NYT: "In February, a year after the Las Vegas Sands was hit by a devastating cyberattack that ruined many of the computers running its casino and hotel operations, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., publicly told Congress what seemed obvious: Iranian hackers were behind the attack... Now a new study of Iran's cyberactivities, to be released by Norse, a cybersecurity firm, and the American Enterprise Institute, concludes that beyond the Sands attack, Iran has greatly increased the frequency and skill of its cyberattacks, even while negotiating with world powers over limits on its nuclear capabilities. 'Cyber gives them a usable weapon, in ways nuclear technology does not,' said Frederick W. Kagan, who directs the institute's Critical Threats Project and is beginning a larger effort to track Iranian cyberactivity. 'And it has a degree of plausible deniability that is attractive to many countries.' Mr. Kagan argues that if sanctions against Iran are suspended under the proposed nuclear accord, Iran will be able to devote the revenue from improved oil exports to cyberweapons." http://t.uani.com/1yvveU5 Congressional Action AP: "For at least a few days, Washington may have actually worked. Republicans and Democrats talked to each other. President Barack Obama and several members of his administration conversed with lawmakers, too. As a result, a Senate committee unanimously backed legislation to give Congress a say in the Iran nuclear talks. In the biggest surprise of all, the White House said Obama would sign the measure if it passed the full Congress. For a capital city long stalled in gridlock, with the priorities of Republicans and Democrats rarely overlapping, it was a rare burst of bipartisanship - even if neither side wanted to admit it. It took Obama spokesman Josh Earnest 45 minutes of questions from reporters before he acknowledged on Tuesday that the president would sign the new Iran legislation. Even then he said the White House wasn't 'particularly thrilled' with the outcome. Republicans said the White House got boxed in when administration officials realized they would lose if it came down to a vote on a tougher Iran measure." http://t.uani.com/1NQ8LYV Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Austrian President Heinz Fischer will probably visit Iran this year and may take a business delegation along should Tehran clinch a definitive deal with world powers over its nuclear policy, he told a newspaper. Fischer, who has a largely ceremonial role, accepted in principle a year ago an invitation to visit Iran in what would be the first trip for years by a Western head of state. Business leaders see the thaw with Iran as a potentially big opportunity to improve commercial ties once crippling economic sanctions over Iran's contested nuclear program ease... 'Now that a framework agreement with Iran exists, a trip in the second half of 2015 has become likely,' Fischer told the Wiener Zeitung in an interview published on Thursday." http://t.uani.com/1FNZcjm Reuters: "An Indian delegation will visit Iran this week to scout for investment opportunities ahead of an anticipated nuclear deal between the OPEC-member and world powers that would soften sanctions against the country, sources privy to the plan said. Officials from India's finance and oil ministries and executives from ONGC Videsh and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd are part of the delegation that will hold meeting with their Iranian counterparts on Saturday, the sources said. India is Iran's biggest oil client after China although its imports from Tehran have declined under pressure from western sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1b6wrqS Bloomberg: "When Mohammad Kolahi wanted to replace his French Peugeot sedan this year, the Tehran business consultant looked east instead of west. A friend was already driving a JAC J5, an Italian-designed four-door assembled in Iran for Chinese carmaker Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co. Kolahi paid 570 million rials ($20,300) for an automatic-transmission version about a month ago -- or about 30 percent less than other comparable new cars he considered... As Western automakers prepare to re-enter the Middle East's highest-volume car market, they'll find a landscape changed by new competitors from China. Led by Chery Automobiles Co., Lifan Industry Group Co. and Jianghuai, the Chinese have benefited from the vacuum left by the likes of PSA Peugeot Citroen, which once counted Iran as its biggest market outside France. The Chinese will probably boost their share of the Iranian market from about 1 percent in 2011 to about 9 percent of 1.17 million units in 2016, according to researcher IHS Automotive... Chery, Lifan and Jianghuai all have local partners that build cars in Iran from kits shipped from China. Chinese companies' share of this segment also more than quadrupled to 8 percent between 2011 and last year, IHS estimates." http://t.uani.com/1FY4JcA  Sanctions Enforcement News & Observer: "An N.C. Senate committee voted unanimously Tuesday for legislation that bans state government from contracting with companies tied to Iran's energy sector. Senate Bill 455 would exercise an option given to states in federal law to cut business connections to Iran over its nuclear program. It's sponsored by Republican Sen. Rick Gunn of Burlington and backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who spoke at Tuesday's committee meeting. 'We all know Iran has supported terrorist groups,' Forest said. 'Iran's development of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic to both Israel and the United States.' The bill would direct the Secretary of State to develop a list of companies with Iran ties. Representatives from State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office said Iran divestment is already a formal policy, and it applies to the state's retirement fund portfolio." http://t.uani.com/1czbo0k Human Rights IHR: "At least 43 prisoners have been executed during the last three days in Iran. A juvenile offender with serious mental illness was among the five who were executed in Karaj on Wednesday. Reports indicate that more mass-executions might take place in Karaj the coming weeks. Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly calls on the international community to immediately react... In addition to Wednesday's executions, 37 prisoners have been executed in the Rajaishahr and Ghezelhesar prisons of Karaj on Monday and Tuesday 13 and 14 April. All these prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges." http://t.uani.com/1GOLCC2 Opinion & Analysis WSJ Editorial: "Vladimir Putin wasted no time turning President Obama's nuclear diplomacy with Iran into a commercial opportunity, agreeing Monday to sell the mullahs sophisticated air-defense missile systems. Now China plans to join Russia in building new nuclear reactors for the Islamic Republic. Oil-rich Iran has little need for the one nuclear power plant it already has, in the coastal city of Bushehr, but it wants five more. The reactors will open more paths to nuclear-weapons capability, with minimal interruption from U.S.-led diplomacy. 'We have inked an agreement with the Russians to construct two new nuclear power plants for the generation of electricity, while the Chinese will also enter this arena soon,' said Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, in remarks published Tuesday in state media. China's role as Iran's nuclear enabler dates to the 1980s, when Chinese specialists began helping Tehran mine uranium and produce uranium hexafluoride, former Los Alamos official Susan Voss has said. After Tehran came under United Nations sanctions in 2006, Chinese firms kept exporting proscribed metals and chemicals to Iran anyway. In recent years China has been the main buyer of Iranian oil, some purchased legally with sanctions exemptions and some smuggled illicitly by sea, according to the group United Against Nuclear Iran. Civilian nuclear power isn't illegal. Yet such reactors "can be copious producers of plutonium suitable for nuclear weapons," notes Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He adds that building a small clandestine reprocessing plant to extract the plutonium 'is actually easier than putting up a centrifuge plant' such as those Iran has at Natanz and Fordo. The power-plant proliferation risk was proven in October 2012, when Iran unexpectedly removed fuel rods from Bushehr containing up to 220 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, or enough for 24 Nagasaki-type nuclear bombs. U.S. intelligence officials scrambled in response to increase their spying capabilities around Bushehr, but drones and other tools can only see so much." http://t.uani.com/1DndGbL Bruce Klingner in TNI: The interim Iranian nuclear framework is a vague accord with significant shortcomings. Moreover, the ink had barely dried before Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disputed the Obama administration's depiction of what had been agreed to. Khamenei declared that all sanctions against Iran must be removed immediately upon signature of a final accord in three months. He also insisted that Iran would not permit inspections of its military sites. Khamenei's comments run counter to Obama administration claims that 'international inspectors will have unprecedented access' to all Iranian nuclear facilities. The administration had also asserted that Tehran agreed that United States, EU, and UN sanctions would be 'retained for much of the duration of the deal' and only incrementally reduced. We've been down this path before... with North Korea. In September 2005, the Six Party Talks joint statement was followed by dueling U.S. and North Korean press statements. Portrayals of how quickly Washington would lift sanctions and remove Pyongyang from the state sponsors of terrorism list diverged widely. Given the similarities between the two sets of nuclear negotiations, the Korean experience should provide hard-earned guidance for American negotiators on how the Iranian agreement should be completed. http://t.uani.com/1D85nxk          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.