Author Topic: Iran  (Read 455686 times)

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Azerbaijam' defiant message to Iran
« Reply #1250 on: October 12, 2021, 07:15:08 PM »

IIRC Israel had a refueling agreement with Azerbaijan which would have given its aircraft round trip capability to hit Iran until Obama leaked about it.

=============
Azerbaijan’s Defiant Message to Iran
Washington should take note of its alliance with Israel.
By Michael Doran
Oct. 11, 2021 6:44 pm ET

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev poses with a Harop drone in Jabrayil, Azerbaijan.
PHOTO: PRESS SERVICE, REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

A picture is worth a thousand policy briefs. On Oct. 4, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, mugged for the cameras. Beaming before reporters, he stroked, patted, and put a loving arm around a Harop, a kamikaze drone manufactured by Israel.

Technically classified as a “loitering munition,” the Harop behaves, in the latter stages of its mission, like a cruise missile, crashing into its targets and exploding on impact. In the early stages, however, it functions as a drone, circling high above the battlefield, waiting for targets to emerge. The Harop is well known in Azerbaijan, thanks to the role it played in the victory last year against Armenia.

But it was for Iran’s benefit that Mr. Aliyev organized this photo-op. In recent weeks, Tehran has engaged in a crude campaign of intimidation that included military exercises on Azerbaijan’s frontier—a surprise move that elicited an angry response from Mr. Aliyev. “Why now, and why on our border?” he asked publicly. “There were no such incidents in the 30 years of Azerbaijan’s independence.”

Iranian officials answered by demanding that Azerbaijan end its alliance with Israel. “We do not tolerate the presence and activity against our national security of the Zionist regime, or Israel, next to our borders,” said Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Iranian foreign minister. “And we will carry out any necessary action in this regard.”


Iran has good reason to be worried. Its economy is in shambles, and unemployment is rampant. By contrast, Azerbaijan’s economy is strong, and its army is even stronger, thanks in part to the assistance from Israel, which organized a military airlift to resupply Azerbaijan during the 2020 war with Armenia.

Seen from Tehran, Israeli influence in Baku appears especially ominous because of the extraordinary reach into Iranian society that Azerbaijan enjoys. Ethnic Azerbaijanis, a Shiite Turkic people, form a large portion of Iran’s population, somewhere between 20% and 30%. They are concentrated in the northwest part of the country, on the border with Azerbaijan. Though a major secessionist movement hasn’t developed, discontent is rife, and strong feelings of solidarity with Azerbaijan are often on display.


The Iranian government has long assumed that Israel owes the successes of its covert war against Iran’s nuclear program to clandestine Azerbaijani networks. In 2012, after two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Azerbaijani ambassador and protested the assistance Azerbaijan was thought to have provided to Israeli intelligence.

Whether Israel is truly receiving direct assistance for its covert operations is anyone’s guess. Whatever the case may be, the Israelis clearly recognize that the rise of Azerbaijan is knocking the Islamic Republic off balance. When members of the Azerbaijani minority in Iran learned that Iran was helping Russia to resupply the Armenian army during the war, they sabotaged transport vehicles and launched public protests. Moreover, the subsequent victory of the Azerbaijani army has all but shut Tehran out of the postwar diplomacy in the South Caucasus. On none of Iran’s other borders does Tehran feel so exposed and powerless to shape events.

To say that Azerbaijan, with a population of only 10 million, has deterred Iran without American help is an understatement. At times the U.S. has actively obstructed. In 2012, when the Obama administration was courting Iran, senior American officials briefed the press on military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel with the clear intention of scuttling it.

Now Washington is again courting Tehran. Although it is doing nothing to impede cooperation between Baku and Jerusalem, its supine posture in the face of Iranian aggression has created an environment that invites acts of intimidation such as those to which Azerbaijan is being subjected.

The Biden administration would be better served by following Israel’s example. The benefits to the U.S. of a rising Azerbaijan extend well beyond the effort to counter Iran. Azerbaijan is the only country to border both Iran and Russia. A strong and self-confident Baku is also a counterbalance to Moscow.

The chaotic pullout from Afghanistan demonstrates that, if the U.S. is to remain the leading power in global politics, it must find a way to deter nasty international actors while simultaneously respecting an electorate that is wary of military interventions. The best way to balance these imperatives is to forge productive understandings with countries that wield capable militaries—and who aren’t afraid to use them.


When Mr. Aliyev hugged the Harop he was intentionally sending a message of defiance to Iran. Unintentionally, he was also sending a piece of sage advice to Washington: New challenges require new friends.

Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Iran
« Reply #1252 on: October 26, 2021, 06:29:26 PM »
GPF

   
Daily Memo: Cyberattack Targets Iranian Fuel, Beijing Reaches Out to the Taliban
Many gas stations in the country were forced to close.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Cyberattack in Iran. A cyberattack forced the closure of gas stations across Iran on Tuesday. The attack made it impossible to purchase subsidized fuel using government-issued electronic cards, which many Iranians rely on for fuel. Authorities initially called it a technical failure, but local media, citing sources close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, later confirmed the disruption was due to a cyberattack. An investigation is underway.

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Crafty_Dog

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Re: Iran
« Reply #1257 on: December 04, 2021, 07:41:38 PM »
The vaginitis is strong with that one , , ,

Crafty_Dog

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IPT: Iran's Weapon Triangle
« Reply #1258 on: December 07, 2021, 10:10:06 AM »
The Iranian Weapons Triangle that Drives Tehran's Regional Entrenchment
by Yaakov Lappin
IPT News
December 7, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/9083/the-iranian-weapons-triangle-that-drives-tehran


Crafty_Dog

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Gatestone: The accelerating feckless incompetence
« Reply #1260 on: December 11, 2021, 04:59:04 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Iran
« Reply #1263 on: January 08, 2022, 05:17:12 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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G M

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Re: A staggering act of appeasement
« Reply #1265 on: January 25, 2022, 03:21:39 PM »
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-staggering-act-of-appeasement/91963/

Biden is out of patience with the unvaxxed Americans, but will endlessly coddle the terrorist country of Iran.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2022, 03:45:32 AM by Crafty_Dog »

ccp

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‘A Staggering Act of Appeasement’
« Reply #1266 on: January 25, 2022, 06:33:48 PM »
but look how it is reported by MSM :

IT WAS S KOREA WHO PAID THE 18 MILLION

 and hardly a mention: "with US approval" and likely US direction.

https://www.reuters.com/world/skorea-says-iran-regain-un-vote-after-delinquent-dues-paid-with-frozen-funds-2022-01-23/

nothing to see here.
it was SKorea.........

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: US team negotiating with Iran splintering
« Reply #1267 on: January 26, 2022, 06:50:07 PM »
Differences Splinter U.S. Team Negotiating With Iran on Nuclear Deal
Some members of the U.S. team have left or stepped back after urging a tougher approach in talks on Iran’s nuclear program

Iran has refused to sit directly with the U.S. in the nuclear-deal talks.
PHOTO: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Laurence Norman
Follow
Jan. 24, 2022 4:19 pm ET


With talks to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran reaching a critical phase, differences have emerged in the U.S. negotiating team over how tough to be with Tehran and when to walk away, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

U.S. officials confirmed over the weekend that Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran, has left the team. Mr. Nephew, an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, had advocated a tougher posture in the current negotiations, and he hasn’t attended the talks in Vienna since early December.

Two other members of the team, which is led by State Department veteran Robert Malley, have stepped back from the talks, the people familiar said, because they also wanted a harder negotiating stance.

Among the issues that have divided the team are how firmly to enforce existing sanctions and whether to cut off negotiations as Iran drags them out while its nuclear program advances, the people familiar with the negotiations said.

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The divisions come at a pivotal time, with U.S. and European officials warning that only a few weeks remain to rescue the 2015 deal before Iran acquires the know-how and capability to quickly produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb. Under the agreement, the U.S. lifted most international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for strict but temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear work. The Trump administration exited the agreement, seeing it as insufficient to restrain Iran, and the Biden administration is trying to reverse course.

Iran has refused to sit directly with the U.S. in the talks, though on Monday Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran would consider doing so if talks progress.


Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran and an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, has left the U.S. negotiating team.
PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
With no deadline set to end the talks, some Western diplomats doubt whether the Biden administration is prepared to call it quits. Doing so could trigger a crisis, with Iran accelerating its nuclear-enrichment program at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

A senior State Department official said that the administration at its highest levels has settled on a policy toward Iran after careful consideration of multiple viewpoints and that a return to the 2015 agreement offers an opportunity to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The official confirmed Mr. Nephew’s departure from the negotiating team; he remains with the State Department. The official said another member of the negotiating team requested to be removed from the Vienna talks. No other team member has been sidelined, the official said, or departed for “anything other than normal personnel reasons.”

Strains within the U.S. team have been growing since the summer over a range of issues that have been debated—and sometimes decided—at the highest levels of the Biden administration, the people familiar with the negotiations said.

Some in the team urged leaving the talks in early December after a new Iranian negotiating team returned to Vienna and reversed most of the concessions the previous government made in the spring 2021, the people said.

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Other tension points, the people said, included whether to get the United Nations’ atomic agency to censure Tehran last year for preventing inspectors from monitoring its nuclear work and its refusal to cooperate with a separate probe into nuclear material found in Iran. Differences also flared over how aggressively to enforce sanctions on Iran, especially with China over imports of Iranian oil.

Also debated, the people said, is at what point would it become impossible to restore a central aim of the 2015 deal—keeping Iran 12 months away from having enough nuclear fuel for an atomic weapon.

U.S. and European officials decided to plow on with the negotiations in December despite Iran’s toughening of its negotiating stance. They have also drawn back from taking action at the International Atomic Energy Agency board to censure Iran, a move that Tehran said could scuttle talks.

Mr. Nephew played a key role in designing the web of sanctions imposed on Iran from 2006-13 and was a senior member of the team that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal. While he strongly backed that agreement, he has written that the use of broad sanctions was crucial in persuading Iran to negotiate seriously.

His appointment as deputy Iran envoy in March sparked criticism in Iran. A conservative Iranian newspaper, Vatan-e-Emrooz, photoshopped a poster from the 1997 horror film “The Devil’s Advocate,” in which an ambitious attorney becomes a lawyer for Satan. In the Iranian newspaper, Mr. Biden is depicted in the devil’s role, standing behind Mr. Nephew as the lawyer.

The talks in Vienna are aimed at agreeing on the steps Iran and the U.S. would take to re-enter the nuclear deal. A year after the Trump administration exited the deal in May 2018, Iran started expanding its nuclear program. It has now breached most limits in the 2015 accord, is producing near weapons-grade nuclear fuel and is thought to be just a few weeks from having enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb.

The Biden administration set restoring the nuclear deal as a foreign-policy goal, though it has kept almost all the Trump sanctions in place. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have criticized the administration for allowing Iran to build up its nuclear work even while the talks dragged on.

—Michael R. Gordon contributed to this article.

Crafty_Dog

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WT: Intrusion shows Iran's cyber vulnerabilities
« Reply #1268 on: January 28, 2022, 02:47:06 AM »
IRAN

Intrusion shows Iran’s cyber vulnerabilities

Dissident group hacks state TV, radio

BY JON GAMBRELL ASSOCIATED PRESS DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | Multiple channels of Iran’s state television broadcast images on Thursday showing the leaders of an exiled dissident group and a graphic calling for the death of the country’s supreme leader, an incident that authorities later described as a hack.

For several seconds, graphics flashed on screen, interrupting the broadcast to depict the leaders of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The name of a social media account, which claimed to be a group of hackers who broadcast the message honoring the dissidents, also appeared. Two state radio stations were also interrupted.

Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based MEK spokesperson, later told The Associated Press: “We, like you, were just informed about the issue.”

“It appears that it was done by supporters of the MEK and resistance units within the regime’s radio and television stations,” he said, without directly claiming responsibility.

The hack represented a major breach of Iranian state television, long believed to controlled and operated by members of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence branches, particularly its hardline Revolutionary Guard. Such an incident hasn’t happened for years.

A clip of the incident seen by the AP showed the faces of MEK leaders Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam Rajavi, suddenly superimposed on the channel’s regular 3 p.m. news programming. A man’s voice chants, “Salute to Rajavi, death to [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei.”

Then, a speech from Mr. Rajavi briefly plays over the images. He can be heard saying, “Today, we still honor the time that we declared death to the reactionary. We stood by it.”

Mr. Rajavi hasn’t been seen publicly in nearly two decades and is presumed to have died. Maryam Rajavi now runs the MEK.

Iran’s state TV said authorities would investigate the intrusion. It apparently marked the latest in a series of embarrassing cyberattacks against the Islamic Republic as world powers struggle to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Other attacks, which Iran has blamed on Israel, have been directed at its nuclear program.

In October, an assault on Iran’s fuel distribution system paralyzed gas stations nationwide, leading to long lines of angry motorists unable to get subsidized fuel for days. A cyberattack on Iran’s railway system caused chaos and train delays. Another hack leaked footage of abuses at its notorious Evin prison.

Iran, long sanctioned by the West, faces difficulties in getting up-to-date hardware and software, often relying on Chinese- manufactured electronics or older systems. Some control room systems in Iran run Windows 7, for which Microsoft no longer provides security updates. Pirated versions of Windows and other software are common across Iran.

Reza Alidadi, a top state TV official, later told the broadcaster that the attack possibly involved help from foreigners.

“It seems the incident is not simple and it is a complicated job that [only] owners of the technology are able to use,” he said, without elaborating.

Interruptions in Iranian state television broadcasts have happened before. In 1986, those watching state TV in Iran were surprised to see the country’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi appear to give a speech for about 11 minutes. He expressed his determination to fight Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and asked Iranians for their support.

At the time, people speculated that Mr. Pahlavi potentially received assistance from a foreign intelligence agency that had smuggled a transmitter into the country to hijack the signal. Amid the revelations of the Iran-Contra affair, reporting showed the CIA backed that transmission, as well as the work of an exile radio station in Cairo broadcasting against the Islamic Republic.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s inciden

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Why Russia and China build up Iran
« Reply #1269 on: January 28, 2022, 02:59:05 AM »
second

Why Russia and China Build Up Iran
Though vulnerable, Tehran is the ideal Middle East partner in an alliance to destroy the U.S.-led order.
By Bryan Clark and Michael Doran
Jan. 27, 2022 6:29 pm ET


The Ukraine crisis exposes a flaw in President Biden’s Iran strategy. Washington engages with Beijing and Moscow as if they share core U.S. interests with respect to Iran, when instead they are working with Tehran to undermine the American-led global order.

That’s certainly what officials in Tehran are saying. Last Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh-Meshkini, a spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said: “In the new world order, a triangle consisting of three powers—Iran, Russia, and China—has formed.” He was clear about the goal: “This new arrangement heralds the end of the inequitable hegemony of the United States and the West.”

The Biden team isn’t listening. Last Friday Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who proposed an interim deal to break the deadlock in the Iranian nuclear negotiations. “Russia shares our sense of urgency,” Mr. Blinken said, “and we hope that Russia will use the influence . . . it has with Iran to impress upon Iran that sense of urgency.”

As Mr. Blinken spoke, Russia was holding joint naval drills with China and Iran in the Indian Ocean. The day before, President Vladimir Putin hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow. In a speech before the Duma, Mr. Raisi discussed “Resistance”—the movement Iran leads to destroy the U.S.-led order in the Middle East. Resistance, he said, drove the Americans from Afghanistan and Iraq, and it also generated “the successful model of cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria.” In that spirit, Mr. Raisi parroted Mr. Putin’s main grievance with respect to Ukraine. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mr. Raisi said, “seeks to infiltrate various geographical areas with new alibis that threaten the common interests of independent states.”


Mr. Putin’s campaign to bring Ukraine under Moscow’s control has a direct connection to the joint Russian-Iranian project of propping up the Assad regime in Syria. Russia’s naval bases in Sevastopol, Crimea (which Mr. Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014), and in Tartus, Syria, serve as operational hubs for Russia’s Mediterranean presence. A strong, independent Ukraine threatens Moscow’s ability to project power into the Middle East.

Mr. Putin may agree that Iran should never possess nuclear weapons. Cooperating closely with the U.S. to achieve that goal, however, interferes with his more urgent priority, which is to undermine the American-led order.

For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a similar set of calculations. Thanks to one of history’s most rapid military buildups, China now has Asia’s largest air force, the world’s largest army by number of active-duty troops, and largest navy by number of vessels. According to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leaders, the Chinese military will be poised to invade Taiwan successfully by 2027. The Pentagon is playing catch-up. It is acquiring new weapons and technologies capable of deterring China, but these won’t be fully integrated into the force until late this decade. China’s optimal window to conquer Taiwan, therefore, will be between 2025 and 2030, when its military modernization peaks while U.S. forces are still adapting.

Which brings us back to Iran. In the event of war in Taiwan, China will look to Tehran and its proxies to mount threats to shipping—to pin down one or more American carrier groups in the Persian Gulf. But the value of Iran’s “Resistance” doesn’t end there. Beijing is heavily dependent on Middle East oil imports. It aims to protect its long and vulnerable supply lines by toppling the U.S. as the region’s pre-eminent power. It isn’t strong enough to mount a direct challenge, so it uses Iran as its stalking horse.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently announced that the 25-year strategic accord between Iran and China, forged last year, has entered into force. At the heart of the accord is oil for security assistance. Is China actively encouraging Iran to unleash its proxies against America’s Gulf allies? Not that we know of. But it is building up Iran and doing nothing to counter its most malign behavior. Beijing cannot but have noticed that when U.S. allies turn to Washington for help, they encounter a weary and distracted America, one ever less eager to deter Iran. Increasingly exposed, the allies hedge, tentatively tilting toward Beijing.

China’s influence in Middle Eastern military affairs has therefore increased substantially. It sells military equipment to most of the Middle Eastern allies of the U.S. and manufactures weapons in partnership with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is helping the Saudis master nuclear technology. In the spring of 2021, U.S. intelligence observed China secretly building a military site at Khalifa Port near Abu Dhabi. The construction stopped only after arm-twisting by Washington.

The interim deal on the Iranian nuclear program that Mr. Lavrov discussed with Mr. Blinken reportedly calls on Iran to reduce its stockpiles of enriched uranium in return for lifting sanctions. But this would only fuel Iran’s economy while allowing it to retain the capability of generating enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon at short notice. The proxy wars will expand, and the nuclear blackmail will continue.

In sum, China and Russia are building up Iran. Both need a partner in the Middle East devoted to “Resistance”—to undermining U.S. power. Why is the Biden team going along for the ride? Washington’s approach should be more strategic. Among the members of the global alliance dedicated to destroying the American-led order, Iran is the most vulnerable. The job of the U.S. is to defang it.

Messrs. Clark and Doran are senior fellows at the Hudson Insti

Crafty_Dog

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The Appeasement with Iran gathers momentum
« Reply #1270 on: February 07, 2022, 04:05:40 AM »
WT

Biden restores Iran nuclear sanctions waivers

U.S. calls move to open participation critical to return to negotiating table

BY JOSEPH CLARK THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Biden has restored sanctions waivers allowing for certain countries to participate in Iranian civil nuclear projects as the administration presses forward on talks to salvage the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.

The State Department said the waivers were not granted as part of a “concession to Iran,” but were “issued as part of a policy discretion.”

“We are issuing the waiver now for a simple reason: it will enable some of our international partners to have more detailed technical discussions to enable cooperation that we view as being in our non-proliferation interests,” a senior State Department official said.

The administration said restoring the waivers was critical for returning to the negotiating table with Iran in the hopes of returning to the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“The waiver with respect to these activities is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments,” the State Department said in a notice to Congress obtained by the Associated Press.

The so-called “civ-nuke” waivers restored by the Biden administration specifically allow third countries to work on Iranian civil nuclear projects at the Bushehr nuclear power station, Arak heavy water power, and Tehran Research Reactor.

“Absent this sanctions waiver, detailed technical discussions with third parties regarding the disposition of stockpiles and other activities of nonproliferation value cannot take place,” a senior State Department official said.

Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018 and reimposed the sanctions that had previously been lifted as part of the accord.

Mr. Trump maintained the “civ-nuke” waivers until May 2020, when he removed them as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign.

Mr. Biden has committed to returning to the deal, and U.S. officials have warned that the administration has just weeks to reach an agreement given Iran’s nuclear development progress.

Tehran is demanding that the administration restore sanctions relief granted under the original deal.

Lawmakers have been critical of the administration for reentering the negotiations despite Tehran’s blatant disregard for its commitments under the agreement.

“I am deeply concerned these waivers show the administration is preparing to cut a nuclear deal with Iran that would be worse than the original JCPOA,” said Rep. Michael T. McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee from Texas. “We already know that Iran will enter any new deal closer to amassing enough fuel for a nuclear weapon than it was under the JCPOA.”

“Another bad deal is worse for our national security than no deal,” he said.


Crafty_Dog

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NRO: The Limits of 'No'
« Reply #1271 on: February 08, 2022, 09:23:07 AM »
A lot of interesting backward looking here from NRO, a Trump hostile publication.  Much of it sounds quite believable, but OTOH I can imagine from President Trump's POV, informed by broad and deep resistance from the State Dept and foreign policy establishment, that he might say to himself "Fukk it, deal with it!"
==========================================

The Limits of ‘No’

Welcome to the Tuesday, a weekly newsletter with themes and variations. To subscribe to the Tuesday, which I hope you will do, please follow this link.

The Part That Comes After ‘No’

In Vienna, representatives from the parties to the U.S.–Iran nuclear deal — which is either dead or dying — have convened to jaw-jaw. Harold MacMillan once said (and Winston Churchill did not) that jaw, jaw is better than war, war, which it is — until it isn’t.

Under the Barack Obama administration, the United States, Iran, and several other interested parties — Russia, China, Germany, France, the European Union, and the United Kingdom — came to an agreement that bore the simultaneously sterile and pretentious name “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” five words that give the impression of saying something without quite doing so. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to some limitations on its nuclear-development program, but not to the abandonment of the program; in return, Iran was to receive relief from sanctions imposed variously by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. Like many of the big projects of the Obama administration, the JCPOA looked better on paper than it turned out in practice.

Not that critics, especially on the right, were especially impressed with the plan on paper. National Review writers railed against it, and, as a presidential candidate, Donald Trump in his usual maximalist style called it the “worst deal ever negotiated.” But as president, Trump had some trouble getting out of JCPOA. Writing in National Review in 2017, John Bolton, who would later serve as Trump’s national security adviser, asked some uncomfortable questions:

Although candidate Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement, his administration has twice decided to remain in the deal. It so certified to Congress, most recently in July, as required by law. Before the second certification, Trump asked repeatedly for alternatives to acquiescing yet again in a policy he clearly abhorred. But no such options were forthcoming, despite “a sharp series of exchanges” between the president and his advisers, as the New York Times and similar press reports characterized it.

Many outside the administration wondered how this was possible: Was Trump in control, or were his advisers?

At Steve Bannon’s request, Bolton drew up a proposal for getting out of the JCPOA. The Trump administration, in response, gave its usual kind of performance: a tantrum and a convulsion with very little follow-up. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, but left the hard work undone. In his memo, Bolton had prescribed a program of sustained diplomacy (“Early, quiet consultations with key players such as the U.K., France, Germany, Israel, and Saudi Arabia” . . . “Prepare the documented strategic case for withdrawal” . . . “A greatly expanded diplomatic campaign should immediately follow the announcement, especially in Europe and the Middle East” . . . “Develop and execute Congressional and public diplomacy efforts to build domestic and foreign support,” etc.) but very little of that happened at all, and practically none of it was executed with any competence. Trump insisted that he had consulted extensively with U.S. allies and that the United States and its critical partners were “unified in our understanding of the threat,” which was obviously and transparently false. The leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom put out a joint statement of their “regret and concern,” insisting that the JCPOA had been effective and that “the world is a safer place as a result,” which was also obviously and transparently false. In the end, our European allies, along with China and Russia, stuck with the JCPOA, though without the participation of the United States this was effectively an almost purely formal matter.

About the JCPOA, the Europeans were wrong on the substance, with Bolton having the better case:

The JCPOA’s vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran’s direction; Iran’s significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that the JCPOA is not in the national-security interests of the United States. . .

Even the previous Administration knew the JCPOA was so disadvantageous to the United States that it feared to submit the agreement for Senate ratification. Moreover, key American allies in the Middle East directly affected by this agreement, especially Israel and the Gulf states, did not have their legitimate interests adequately taken into account.

But walking away — simply blowing up the deal, denouncing it as a misadventure of the Obama administration, and then reimposing sanctions — was not enough, in Bolton’s view:

U.S. leadership here is critical especially through a diplomatic and public education effort to explain a decision not to certify and to abrogate the JCPOA. Like any global campaign, it must be persuasive, thorough, and accurate. Opponents, particularly those who participated in drafting and implementing the JCPOA, will argue strongly against such a decision, contending that it is reckless, ill-advised, and will have negative economic and security consequences. . . . We will need to assure the international community that the U.S. decision will in fact enhance international peace and security. . . .

There were many directions that the United States might have gone after leaving the JCPOA. David French and Eli Lake each argued for regime change in Tehran, with the United States assisting and encouraging liberal-democratic opponents of the ayatollahs’ regime. “The most urgent task now for Trump is increasing the odds of success for Iran’s democracy movement,” Lake wrote. “We must beat Iran on the battlefield,” French insisted, “not by invading or declaring war but instead by ensuring the endurance and ultimate victory of our allies in the proxy conflicts raging across the Middle East. We must not abandon our allies in Syria, and we must not cede even an additional inch of territory to the combined Iranian/Russian/Assad forces in that country’s northeast. We should provide prudent and proper aid to Israeli efforts to weaken Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Lebanon. And we must work to curb Iranian influence in Iraq.”

That was excellent advice, which the Trump administration mostly ignored, abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria. The Biden administration, which is much closer to the Trump administration on key issues such as national security and international relations than either camp would care to admit (this should not surprise us — Trump is very much a man of Biden’s generation and spent much of his adult life as a big-city Democrat), continued the policy of general retreat, abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban. Biden makes the necessary conventional Atlanticist noises about diplomacy and multilateralism and such, but, like Trump, he views U.S. global security leadership mainly as a heavy national burden for which Americans go unrecompensed. (If you think American leadership costs us too much, wait until you see how much Chinese leadership costs us.) We could say with charity that he does not bring quite as much passion or ambition to the issue of Iranian nuclear ambitions as he does to the project of putting money into the pockets of his labor-union cronies.

The Obama-Trump-Biden progression contains many similar sequences. Take the so-called Affordable Care Act, another Obama project that, like the JCPOA, was a sloppily built and poorly conceived program that would have required something close to perfect execution to produce something like a reasonably successful result. Republicans would have liked to have done the same thing with ACA as they did with JCPOA: repeal it and walk away without providing a better way forward. The Trump administration spent four years being two weeks away from announcing its big health-care proposal (Kubla Khan kept 5,000 mastiffs, and he still didn’t have enough dogs to eat all that homework), but Republicans could never really build any consensus behind anything except repealing the ACA, and they lacked the political will even to do that.

There is a lot to be said for Republicans’ being the Party of “No.” (Sometimes, there’s a case for being the Party of “Hell, No!” but there is also a time to be the Party of “No, Thank You.”) “No” is the most important thing for conservatives to say. But it isn’t enough. Consider another Obama administration initiative, the illegal and unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Trump administration rescinded that one, too, and was right to do so. But, then . . . what? Programs such as DACA create their own constituencies, and these do not simply evaporate when one presidential action is negated by a subsequent one. As with the JCPOA, there were many ways that we might have gone after DACA, but what happened in fact was that we ended the program and then did approximately squat.

The Obama administration cooked up JCPOA. The Trump administration killed it. The Biden administration is working halfheartedly to revive it or something like it. And the result is that Iran is today a much more advanced and capable nuclear power than it was in 2015 when JCPOA was signed. Among other things, Iran has produced a substantial amount of 60-percent-enriched uranium, which has no civilian purpose and serves only as a marker on the road to a nuclear weapon. “In other words,” as Senator Bob Menendez put it, “Iran has already done most of the heavy lifting.”

It is good and necessary to say “No” in both domestic and foreign affairs. It is the part after “No” that is giving us some trouble. Sanctions are not entirely useless, but the examples of Cuba, North Korea, and Iran must force us to conclude that they are not the economic or diplomatic equivalent of bunker-busting weapons. Echoing earlier bombastic rhetoric, Senator Menendez threatens Russia with “the mother of all sanctions” instead of the “mother of all bombs,” and it is not quite the same thing. But there is a great deal of diplomatic territory between sanctions and bombs. Unfortunately, it requires sustained effort and offers very little near-term political reward.

And if you will forgive me for closing with the repetition of two things I keep coming back to, we have trouble with the part after “No” for two main reasons: The first is that our foreign policy is comprehensively dominated by domestic politics; it is healthy and normal that domestic politics should influence foreign policy to some considerable extent, but there must be something left over that is still foreign policy itself unless our foreign affairs are to be completely absorbed by the totemic contests of our ongoing domestic tribal rivalry. The second is that the United States does not seem to know what it wants — from Iran, from Russia, from China, from any other international relationship. We are like the decadent Romans denounced by Coriolanus, citizens “that like nor peace nor war.” But our relationship with Iran is at the moment neither peace nor war, and that not-peace/not-war is going to be even uglier, more complicated, and more dangerous if Tehran acquires nuclear weapons. We do not have very many attractive options right now, and we will have even fewer against a nuclear Iran

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« Reply #1272 on: February 16, 2022, 04:05:42 AM »
SSESSMENTS
The Final Hurdles Facing a New U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal
8 MIN READFeb 15, 2022 | 22:22 GMT





U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) arrives at the U.S. Capitol before a classified Senate Foreign Relations briefing on Iran on Feb. 9, 2022.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) arrives at the U.S. Capitol before a classified Senate Foreign Relations briefing on Iran on Feb. 9, 2022.

(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Iran, the United States and major world powers appear to be inching toward a deal to resume compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but an agreement is not assured nor would it necessarily survive past the U.S. presidential election in 2024. Western, Russian and Chinese officials have suggested that a new U.S.-Iran nuclear deal could soon be reached as talks, which resumed in Vienna on Feb. 8, enter what many Western diplomats have described as the final stage. For the West, time is of the essence due to the rapid advancement of Iran’s nuclear program.

Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov said talks had made “significant progress” on Feb. 13 after meeting with officials from Iran and the P4+1 countries (China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom). That same day, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal said there was “firm consensus” between the United States and the P4+1 countries on the final shape of a deal that would see both Washington and Tehran return to compliance with the original nuclear agreement.

Following the latest round of talks, a Western diplomat told Reuters that the United States and Iran could reach a deal by “around early March, if all goes well,” which Iranian officials have also said was a realistic timeline. But on Feb. 14, Iran’s foreign minister said Western officials should stop “playing with time” in negotiations — noting that Tehran was in hurry to reach a deal, but only one that’s in its interests.
The United States and Iran both have a strategic interest to reach a deal, which means that an agreement is possible in the coming weeks or months. For Iran, the suspension of U.S. sanctions on its oil exports would provide much-needed financial relief and enable the country to capitalize on crude prices nearing $100 per barrel. Although Iran’s economy has endured U.S. sanctions, annual inflation in the country is hovering around 40% and the youth unemployment rate is around 16%. For the United States, having Iran return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal would enable the White House and its partners in the Middle East to focus on Iran’s other regional activities, like Tehran's support of Houthi rebels in Yemen and its transferring of missile technology to such proxies. It would also free the United States to focus on more pressing foreign policy issues — namely, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine standoff and China's global ascent. Adding more Iranian oil back to the global market would help stabilize rising fuel prices as well, which have become a political liability for U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party ahead of November’s midterm elections. And finally, for Western and regional countries wary of Iran’s nuclear advancement, the reinstatement of the JCPOA would also make it easier to detect whether Iran was moving toward developing a nuclear bomb by enabling the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to continue monitoring Iranian nuclear activity.

According to a Feb. 3 report in The Wall Street Journal, the United States assessed in late 2021 that a return to the JCPOA would still leave Iran capable of stockpiling enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb within a year — abandoning a key selling point of the JCPOA made by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama in 2015. The Biden administration’s decision to still move forward with nuclear talks after making this assessment reflects a pragmatic approach to pursuing a new deal with Tehran despite such limitations.

The United States also appeared to extend an olive branch on Feb. 4 when it reinstated sanctions waivers for Iran’s civilian nuclear program to allow Chinese, European and Russian companies to collaborate with Iran on certain projects. Former U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the sanctions in 2020 as a part of his maximum pressure campaign on Iran.

While there are still significant obstacles to a U.S.-Iran deal, none are insurmountable. Critical issues that remain unresolved include the scope of sanctions the United States would suspend, what to do with many of Iran’s more advanced centrifuges that have become operational over the last four years, and Iranian guarantees that the United States will not simply re-exit the deal again in the future.

Scope of U.S. sanctions relief: Iran has demanded that all punitive measures be “lifted,” including the sanctions imposed on more than 300 Iranian individuals and entities since 2015 for both nuclear and non-nuclear reasons. The United States plans on suspending all of the sanctions imposed under the JCPOA, including those targeting Iran’s oil exports. But when it comes to removing additional sanctions designations, Washington has suggested it will only lift those inconsistent with the 2015 nuclear deal. Many of the sanctions designations that the United States has imposed against Iran in recent years, however, are over terrorism or human rights issues, not Iran’s nuclear program. In 2019, for example, the Trump administration sanctioned current Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (who was then the head of Iran’s judiciary) for various human rights abuses, and also formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (arguably Iran’s most important military branch) as a foreign terrorist organization.

Iran’s nuclear program: Since accelerating its nuclear program in retaliation for the United States leaving the JCPOA, Iran has installed a number of more advanced centrifuges for nuclear enrichment, including more efficient IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment plant and IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow enrichment facility. Western negotiators have pushed for Iran to dismantle and transfer the advanced centrifuges abroad, but Iran has demanded that they be stored in Iran. This is probably the West’s stickiest outstanding issue with Tehran as it’s key to slowing Iran’s nuclear development and the pace at which it would be able to ramp back up enrichment if the JCPOA falls apart again. For Iran, domestic storage would provide insurance that it could quickly increase nuclear activity again if the United States abandons the JCPOA.

Guarantees against another U.S. exit: Iran is looking to protect itself from signing another deal that a future U.S. president could again abandon. Iran has demanded the Washington promise not to leave the JCPOA in the future, but the Biden administration cannot speak for future administrations and thus far has only provided assurances that, barring a major escalation with Iran, the United States will not leave the deal as long as Biden remains in office. While Iran will probably weaken this demand, it will want the United States and Europe to offer some concessions that would make it more likely for financial institutions to be comfortable working with Iran and not be as concerned about a future breakdown of the deal. One of Tehran’s criticisms of the original 2015 deal is that companies and financial institutions were hesitant to work with Iran despite the JCPOA over concerns about future sanctions and compliance risks. Iran is likely going to want Washington to issue waivers, FAQs and letters to financial institutions to help convince them that doing business with Iran will not incur sanctions or compliance risk. But even if this happens, many institutions will continue to perceive the deal as fragile. 

Iran will likely continue nuclear research and retain key technology to quickly reactivate its nuclear program for fear that a deal with the United States may not survive if a Republican candidate wins the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Republican lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration’s Iran policy. In the wake of the positive atmosphere surrounding negotiations, a group of 31 Senators led by Texas Senator Ted Cruz also sent Biden a letter demanding any new U.S.-Iran deal be reviewed by Congress. Without control of either the Senate or the House of Representatives, however, Republicans do not currently have enough power in Congress to block such a deal, which would require passing legislation — likely with a filibuster-proof majority. But if they regain control of both houses after midterm elections in November (which they are well-positioned to do), Republicans could pass legislation that imposes mandatory sanctions on Iran, and could also attach that legislation to annual must-pass bills, like the annual defense budget bill. While it could add enough stress that the White House reimposes a limited amount of sanctions on Iran in the short-to-medium term, such legislation is unlikely to force the Biden administration to exit a new nuclear deal entirely. A Republican victory in the 2024 presidential race, however, would increase the likelihood of another U.S. withdrawal, depending on how Iran-U.S. relations evolve over the remainder of Biden’s current term and U.S. foreign policy priorities vis-a-vis China and Russia. Ironically, the threat of a Republican administration retaking the White House in January 2025 may only reinforce Iran’s desire to reach a deal with Biden, which would at least give Iran a couple of years of financial relief before the potential return of a more hawkish U.S. leader with whom securing any deal would be nigh impossible.

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GPF: Iran's bargaining tightrope in Vienna
« Reply #1273 on: February 20, 2022, 01:07:08 AM »
February 17, 2022
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Iran’s Bargaining Tightrope in Vienna
Tehran may be setting its sights too high in the nuclear negotiations.
By: Hilal Khashan

Last February, the U.S. expressed its willingness to return to negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lauded Tehran’s humiliation of “the Great Satan” and predicted the immediate removal of sanctions. His remark was a testament to the Iranian regime’s failure to understand how the U.S. formulates its foreign policy on matters of national interest. Iran’s principal objective in participating in talks with the U.S. in Vienna was to gradually remove all the sanctions imposed by Washington. Iranian negotiators insist that they are fully committed to abiding by the terms of a nuclear agreement, and are even willing to go beyond the sunset provisions for resuming their atomic activities and to keep extensive monitoring in place for additional years. But they say the U.S. is reluctant to lift all sanctions – and is now even demanding the release of four American prisoners in Iran – which, in their opinion, creates a significant hurdle in the two countries’ search for a balanced agreement.

Lifting of All Sanctions Unlikely

Since the beginning of the negotiations last April, Iran has made it clear that its regional activities and missile program are off the table. Contrary to the solemn mood in Tehran, Iranian negotiators have regularly touted the progress being made in Vienna, even as they returned last December for the eighth round of talks. Iran’s lead negotiator alluded to the U.S.’ firm position on Iran’s non-nuclear activities, saying a win-win outcome is possible when good intentions supersede suspicion and intransigence. U.S. officials have opposed wholesale termination of the sanctions regime on Iran because not all of them are related to its nuclear program.

U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, frequently refer to Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its use of regional proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as compelling justifications for maintaining some sanctions. Last year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed the U.S.’ unwavering resolve to impose “the toughest possible sanctions to deal with Iranian support for terrorism.” Blinken’s deputy, Wendy Sherman, echoed his statement when she emphasized the U.S.’ determination “to keep sanctions that deal with human rights abuses, [and] state sponsorship of terrorism.”

Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)

For the U.S., eliminating all sanctions would require more than Tehran’s compliance with the terms of an agreed-upon nuclear deal; it would necessitate a change in its regional behavior. And Biden has made some concessions to push Iran in this direction. Shortly after taking office, he removed the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen from the foreign terrorist organization list to encourage a negotiated settlement to the conflict there. Iran, however, did not persuade its Houthi allies to scale down their offensive to grab more territory. Biden also ignored Iran’s oil sales to China that violated the sanctions. But his goodwill gestures had little impact on how Iran conducted its regional policy.

Iranian negotiators went to Vienna, assuming the U.S. wanted to close the nuclear issue at any cost before withdrawing from the Middle East to focus on the Pacific. The Iranian public viewed with suspicion the diplomatic skills of President Ebrahim Raisi’s negotiating team in Vienna, perceiving them as less adept than Rouhani’s experienced diplomats. Raisi, a hardliner who previously opposed the negotiations, instructed his Vienna team to make maximalist demands such as assurances of the immediate lifting of the sanctions and guarantees that there would be no snap back to U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Why Must Iran Settle for Less?

Success in the Vienna talks hinges not on removing all sanctions but on making sanctions relief resilient. Iran has no delusions that some sanctions will remain in place. It badly needs a truce with the U.S., a cease-fire to reclaim some of its $100 billion in frozen foreign assets, to finance its foreign policy goals and urgent domestic needs. Iran cannot afford a failure in the Vienna talks because it would mean tightening the stranglehold on its struggling economy at best, coupled with possible military action against its nuclear facilities should the diplomatic route break down.

Before reaching the JCPOA, Iran’s economy registered a growth rate of -1.3 percent. In 2016, it grew by 13.4 percent. After President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal and reimposed austere sanctions, Iran’s economy dipped back into recession with -6.8 percent growth. Iran cannot afford the consequences of additional sanctions and the repercussions of war amid growing public discontent.

Biden has given Raisi’s administration ample time to moderate its policies and lower its expectations about dropping the sanctions without fundamentally transforming Tehran’s aggressive policies. Time is running out, and failure to reach an agreement, even if provisional, will be at Iran’s expense. Raisi remains adamant, however. In a defiant speech on the Islamic Revolution’s 43rd anniversary, he shouted angrily that the Iranian leadership put its hope “in the east, west, north, south … and never had hope in Vienna and New York.” His speech rang hollow because Iran wouldn’t have gone to Vienna had it not hoped to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough without compromising its regional ambitions. Iran’s relations with Arab nations are in turmoil because of its relentless campaign to coerce them to recognize its regional preeminence. Russia and China have no interest in Iran’s rise as a dominant regional power, and they only support Tehran to undermine Western interests in the Gulf.

We do not entirely know what’s going on in Vienna, especially since Blinken said the U.S. has concerns beyond Iran’s controversial nuclear program. It would not have been that difficult to return to the JCPOA if there were no other issues. Several other countries, such as Argentina and South Africa, had nuclear programs that caused alarm, but these fears were resolved with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran’s issues with the West and Middle Eastern countries exceed its nuclear program, threatening as it is, extending to its destabilizing regional policies.

Considering Iran’s restive population, Raisi does not have the luxury of allowing his negotiators in Vienna to maintain their adamant posture. While Raisi was celebrating the revolution’s anniversary, angry Iranians in Tehran posted signs on the streets reading “death to the dictator and the Islamic Republic.” In Fardis city, posters about the expiry of the supreme leader’s sanctity tainted his once irreproachable image.

Iran’s Unachievable Ambitions

Iran is playing a risky game that it cannot win. It presents itself as a model for humanity but is unwilling to behave as a normal country and eschew meddling in its neighbors’ internal affairs because the ruling conservatives believe they are on a mission to export the revolution and achieve a preeminent status in world affairs. A former foreign affairs minister made the ideological choice very clear, saying: “We have chosen to live in a different way [and] we do not want someone telling us how to live.”

Tehran is unwilling to abandon its regional ambitions and proxies whose operations made Iran a regional power, overshadowing Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and competing only with Israel. It prefers to live with some sanctions to save its four decades of achievements rather than being forced to retreat and focus solely on domestic politics, which would imply that the Islamic Revolution has failed.

Iran took its subversion to Turkey, its economic lifeline to the outside world. Turkish authorities recently arrested 14 members of a espionage group responsible for kidnapping Iranian opposition activists, illegally repatriating them to Iran, and planning to assassinate an Israeli businessman to avenge the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020. In addition, a shadowy, pro-Iranian group in Iraq named True Promise Brigades warned the UAE that its attacks are not limited to drone and ballistic missiles. It urged Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed to seize the opportunity and extricate the UAE from Yemen’s war before destroying the progress it has made since its formation in 1971. The warning coincided with advice from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who told UAE leaders that the best defense for their country was to withdraw from the war in Yemen. The U.S and Israel responded to the hostility of Iran’s Yemeni and Iraqi proxies by pledging to defend Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against their aggression.

In recent weeks, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has achieved significant territorial advances against the Houthis, pushing them back from oil-rich Shabwa and most of Marib, in addition to a critical stronghold in the Houthi heartland in Saada. Territorial acquisition in Yemen will determine the shape of any negotiated settlement to end the war. In Syria, Israel has launched more than 1,000 air raids against Iranian-linked groups like al-Quds Brigade, Iraqi Shiite militias and Hezbollah. The Israeli command was reluctant to launch the first air raid in 2013 for fear of reprisal. To its surprise, neither the Syrian regime nor Iran and its proxies retaliated. Israel conducted subsequent air raids, including recent commando operations, with impunity. Evicting Iran from Syria is a critical Israeli objective that the Russians do not oppose despite their public opposition.

Territorial Control in Yemen
(click to enlarge)

Iran remains unwilling to live in harmony with its neighbors. Its ruling mullahs subscribe to medieval divine right thinking. Their domestic policies, let alone foreign adventures, do not align with Iran’s secular-minded people. The Iranians staged two revolutions in the 20th century, in 1905 and 1979. Anglo-Russian meddling sabotaged the first, and Khomeini hijacked the second. It is always the third that works

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Iran's Ideological Imperative
« Reply #1274 on: February 24, 2022, 03:46:26 AM »
February 24, 2022
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Iran’s Ideological Imperative
Tehran’s ambitions in the nuclear talks go far beyond lifting sanctions.
By: Hilal Khashan

A nuclear deal in Vienna is on the horizon. Iran knows it will not succeed in imposing its preconditions for returning to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. Despite the rhetoric coming from Iranian officials about having Washington lift all sanctions with assurances that it will not rescind its promises again, they have resigned themselves to grudgingly accepting Washington’s position that an agreement is not a legally binding treaty. State-controlled media outlets do not present an honest view to the Iranian public of what’s going on in Vienna, stressing instead that the outcome of the negotiations will meet Iran’s expectations. But Tehran’s goals here are broader than merely having sanctions removed. It needs a respite from its hostilities with the West to return to the oil market, undergo critical economic reforms and restore its regional diplomatic relations before it can resume its ideologically driven regional ambitions.

Limits of Returning to the JCPOA

The original JCPOA did not lift all sanctions on Iran, although it extended renewable economic relief, especially by allowing Iran to export its oil. Iranian negotiators understood that demanding the lifting of the entire sanctions regime was an unrealistic bargaining position, finally acquiescing to a multistage deal to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions related to the program being dropped. In 2015, Iran preferred to endure the non-nuclear sanctions to avoid curtailing its regional activities and ambitious missile development plans. The Iranians pushed for a timeframe to move from one stage to another to ensure an expeditious return to the oil market. The new agreement demands Iran reduce its uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent, dismantle its advanced centrifuges and store them in designated areas outside the country before sanctions relief takes effect. Since Iranian officials established a reputation for using evasive tactics and procrastination, the U.S. insists on its complete compliance before sanctions are removed.

During Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged him to accept the U.S. deal because the six world powers involved in the Vienna talks had reached a consensus that required Iran to fully comply with certain terms for returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Last June, U.S. President Joe Biden reached an agreement with Putin to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ahead of Raisi’s visit, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Putin, with whom he has developed close relations, and urged him to take a tough stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Lifting the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, however, will not be sufficient to resolve its financial problems and end its isolation, especially in the Middle East. Iran is therefore trying to build bridges with other countries in the region. Raisi recently visited Doha in a surprise diplomatic stunt and signed several economic agreements with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Raisi’s principal target is Saudi Arabia because lifting sanctions stemming from Iran’s destabilizing activities depends on repairing Tehran’s ties with Riyadh. He wants to use Qatar’s good offices to expedite normalizing relations with Riyadh, especially since the meetings in Baghdad between Iranian and Saudi diplomats did not lead to a breakthrough. The Saudis are equally interested in engaging the Iranians, and their desire to have Doha play mediator swayed King Salman to end Saudi Arabia’s three-and-a-half-year blockade on Qatar.

Iran’s Ideological Objectives

The ongoing Vienna talks have not addressed Iran’s regional policies, human rights violations and missile development activities. Therefore, the related sanctions will stay in effect until the Iranians resolve these outstanding issues. The U.S. has already informed the Iranians to settle directly with Riyadh what the Saudis consider Tehran’s regional subversive activities.

Middle East
(click to enlarge)

It’s nearly impossible to separate Iran’s foreign policy from its ideological objectives. Since the shah’s fall in 1979, Iran has been trying to export its revolution throughout the Arab region. Its successes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen attest to Iran’s perseverance and the weakness and fragmentation of the Arab political order. Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini’s exhortation of Iraqi Shiites to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime triggered the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 enabled Iran to gain a foothold in Iraq, eventually establishing numerous loyal Shiite militias and dominating Iraqi politics. Iran’s encouragement of Shiites to rebel against injustice put it on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, the leading country in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Iran drew closer to the Saudi border, galvanizing politically and socially marginalized Shiites in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to demand political inclusion and fair access to material resources.

The restive Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province is an impoverished and ostracized subcultural group that comprises 15 percent of the local population. Encouraged by the success of the Iranian Revolution, it rebelled in November 1979 against the government. The military crushed the rebellion and initiated a reign of terror in the Eastern Province until 1983. Residents again took to the streets during the 2011 Arab Spring and after Saudi authorities executed Shiite activist cleric Nimr al-Nimr in 2016. Iran reacted angrily to al-Nimr’s execution, and protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, leading to the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Central to Khomeini’s revolutionary ideological approach was the concept of backing oppressed peoples and supporting their fight against tyrannical rulers. Under these pretenses, Iran justified its selective interference in its neighbors’ domestic affairs and forging of alliances with local forces in these countries. The fact that Raisi insists on removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially its extraterritorial branch the Quds Force, from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations clearly demonstrates that Iran intends to pursue its destabilizing regional policies.

Since the revolution, Iran has held annual international Islamic conferences and celebrations to promote pan-Islamic unity. But these publicity events contradict Iran’s focus on Shiism and ascendant Persian nationalism at home. Indeed, Iran’s national policies have a solid sectarian tendency. The Iranian constitution declares Twelver Imami Shiism the official religion of the Islamic Republic and specifies that its president must be an Iranian who believes in its religious orientation.

Iran's Ethnic and Religious Composition
(click to enlarge)

Iran’s Islamic ideology combines Shiism and historically rooted Persian society, culture and civilization. It is worth noting that the Islamic Republic is not only about religion and affinity to foreign Shiite sects. It cannot ignore the pluralist social fabric of Iranian society that antedates the revolution – provided demands for political change do not denounce or undermine the Islamic Revolution. National security necessitates tolerating the opposition that works within the boundaries set by the state. Iran’s diverse political spectrum includes extremely nationalist groups with no regard for Islam and ultrareligious groups focused solely on Islamic identity. Between these two extremes, many other groups display a mosaic of political-religious preferences that oppose the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, especially its emphasis on the Arab region.

Regional Outlook

Israel is not the only Middle Eastern country worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also believe that the negotiations with Iran will not end its nuclear aspirations but merely postpone them – essentially because after 2031, Iran will be free to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent at its Fordo and Natanz facilities. Saudi Arabia knows that the U.S. wants to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, and that it cannot obstruct it. The Biden administration prefers that the Iranians and Saudis settle their differences separately from the talks in Vienna. The Saudi royals do not have an option except to communicate with the Iranians. The Saudis need an agreement to end Yemen’s seven-year war, which overburdened its financial resources and dissuaded foreign entrepreneurs from investing in its Vision 2030 plan to wean itself from dependence on oil revenues and achieve economic development.

Iran and Saudi Arabia might reach an entente, but it’s unlikely to last because their regional visions are incompatible. For decades, the foundations of Saudi foreign policy rested on avoiding conflict and promoting regional stability. In contrast, Iran led an aggressive regional approach to spread its influence and reshape the region to its advantage. The two countries need a break from conflict to ponder their internal politics. Iran needs to rebuild its economy and placate its impoverished population. The Saudi royals desire a smooth leadership succession and a move from a rentier to a knowledge-based economy. Iran is interested in developing its economic ties with the Arab world, especially the sizable Saudi market. By opening to Saudi Arabia, Iran hopes to send a clear message of goodwill to other countries in the region that it is a legitimate regional power.

Iran is not rushing to impose its regional hegemony, perceiving it as a worthwhile historical endeavor. It uses soft power – for example, spreading its culture, providing scholarships, extending invitations to visit Iran, and interacting with government officials, clerics and intellectuals – to influence the Arab public. Iran helped Hezbollah launch a cultural revolution among Lebanese Shiites, who no longer associate with Lebanon. It altered the demographic composition of Syria, a project it cautiously initiated in the early 1980s, transforming it into a country that looks more Shiite than Sunni. Iran attempted to spread Shiism in Morocco, Egypt and Sudan, and succeeded partially in Yemen and Gaza, thanks to its partnership with the Islamic Jihad Movement in the Palestinian territories. The leaders of the Islamic Republic constantly search for opportunities to infiltrate the region at the mass level and try to take advantage of interstate political divisions. When the Saudis and Emiratis led a regional effort to enforce an austere blockade on Qatar in 2017, Iran immediately opened its skies to flights to and from Doha. It also established a sea route to supply essential goods to Qatar. Iran is constantly looking for opportunities to influence foreign events and consolidate its status as a significant regional power. In the politically volatile Middle East, opportunities never cease to present themselves for watchful Iran.

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WSJ: Iran nuke deal talks in final stretch
« Reply #1275 on: February 25, 2022, 04:27:40 AM »
Iran Nuclear Deal: What to Know as Talks Enter Final Stretch
Western countries have growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear work, but recent weeks have seen negotiators get closer to a deal to limit it

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visiting the Bushehr nuclear-power plant in southern Iran in October, in this photo handed out by the presidential office.
PHOTO: PREASIDENT OFFICE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Laurence Norman
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 and Sune Engel Rasmussen
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Updated Feb. 25, 2022 1:05 am ET


Iran, the U.S. and other world powers are nearing a deal to revive a 2015 agreement that curbs Tehran’s nuclear work in return for relief from international sanctions.

Negotiators are still wrangling over some significant final demands from Iran, but the delegations have in recent weeks made the most significant progress since talks to revive the deal began in April 2021. Officials involved in the talks say an agreement could be completed in Vienna in the next few days.

Reviving the 2015 accord, which former President Donald Trump exited in 2018, is a top foreign policy goal of the Biden administration. Iran responded to U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration by advancing its nuclear activities, which Western officials worry would scuttle hopes of reviving the deal.

The White House views a nuclear agreement as a vital tool to monitor and restrain Tehran’s nuclear work. It also views an agreement as key to stability in the Middle East, which would allow the U.S. to focus on Russia and China.


After negotiations resumed in November, following a six-month hiatus due to presidential elections and a change of government in Iran, Tehran stepped up its demands, Western diplomats said. It sought the scrapping of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 and walked away from steps it had committed to taking to rein in its nuclear activities and return to compliance with the deal.

The U.S. responded by seeking to increase the economic pressure on Iran.

Over the past two years, Iran has stopped adhering to most provisions in the 2015 deal, reducing the time it would need to produce enough nuclear fuel for one weapon to as little as a month. These steps away from the deal, a response to U.S. sanctions, have put at risk the survival of an agreement that helped remove sanctions on Iran and open it to business with the West.

The Biden administration says it wants to restore the agreement and then use that as a platform to negotiate a longer, stronger agreement. Tehran has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for keeping in place the Trump-era sanctions even while seeking to restore the deal.

What was agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action?
The nuclear deal, or JCPOA, was sealed in July 2015 after two years of negotiations between the U.S., Iran and other major powers, the first prolonged negotiations between Washington and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It took effect in January 2016.

The agreement obliged Iran to scrap or send abroad 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile, remove two-thirds of its centrifuges that produce nuclear fuel, and stop work on a heavy-water reactor that could have produced plutonium for a nuclear weapon. Iran also agreed to inspections from the U.N. atomic agency and stopped enriching uranium at a well-fortified underground nuclear site at Fordow.

Most restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work and oversight were designed to last for as long as 25 years. However, Iran was allowed under the deal to produce unlimited amounts of enriched uranium after 2031, with no cap on the purity of that material.

In return, Iran received international sanctions relief. Restrictions were lifted for Iran’s energy sales, its shipping industry, much of its banking sector and other industrial production. U.S. energy and banking sanctions remained but no longer affected other countries. Human-rights, ballistic-missile and terrorism sanctions were kept in place.

The deal allowed Iran to bring home over $100 billion in oil-sales revenues locked overseas because of U.S. sanctions. The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran.

Former President Donald Trump took the U.S. out of the deal in May 2018, arguing that once the restrictions in the deal start to sunset, the pact would fail to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The administration also said any agreement with Iran should include binding restrictions on Iran’s missile program, an end to Iran’s terrorism links and Iranian pledges to rein in its regional interventions. Iran refused to negotiate with the Trump administration.

Does Iran have nuclear weapons?

Iran has never had nuclear weapons, although the U.N. atomic agency and Western governments have said Tehran had a dedicated weapons program until at least 2003. Some officials have said they believe Iran at least kept alive elements of its weapons program after that date.

Iran says its nuclear work is entirely for peaceful purposes.

While the amount of time it would take Iran to amass enough nuclear fuel for one weapon has shrunk to around a month, there are a range of estimates about how long it would take Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to.

Some experts say Iran is as little as a year from being able to produce a rudimentary nuclear weapon. Others say it could take two to three years to mount an effective warhead onto its ballistic missiles.

What is the state of Iran’s current nuclear program?
Iran has been scaling up its nuclear program since mid-2019, a year after the Trump administration exited the nuclear deal and then imposed sanctions.

Before this year, Iran breached the limits on its uranium stockpile, the purity of the nuclear fuel it was producing and resumed work at the underground Fordow site.

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Re: Iran
« Reply #1276 on: February 25, 2022, 06:45:08 AM »
"Some experts say Iran is as little as a year from being able to produce a rudimentary nuclear weapon. Others say it could take two to three years to mount an effective warhead onto its ballistic missiles."

we heard this over 5 yrs ago
so did the "deal" delay them ? or are these numbers all hogwash?


"What is the state of Iran’s current nuclear program?
Iran has been scaling up its nuclear program since mid-2019, a year after the Trump administration exited the nuclear deal and then imposed sanctions."

"Before this year, Iran breached the limits on its uranium stockpile, the purity of the nuclear fuel it was producing and resumed work at the underground Fordow site."

I read Fordow is a  new deeper more impenetrable facility now.



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Re: Sen. Cruz: Biden set to become #1 funder of terrorism in the world
« Reply #1282 on: March 20, 2022, 02:06:12 PM »
He left 85 billion of weapons and equipment and the country of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/cruz-biden-set-to-become-number-1-funder-of-terrorism-in-the-world?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwbrand&fbclid=IwAR3fQxxFzKU1mjHD5RK4vZuXz_ewJBgT_26jyOzezxE1wrEEZ0db-xLgH3M

VERY important point on both sides of that!  It would be funny politically - if it wasn't so real, so true and so deadly.

When the Biden administration and the Iranians sit down at the table, the top state sponsors of terrorism are all present.  And then you have 'ally' on the deal Russia...

I hate to say it but the voters who put the man who promised to do this deal with Iran in the White House, and still support him, are complicit. 
« Last Edit: March 20, 2022, 02:10:35 PM by DougMacG »


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Gatestone: Iran
« Reply #1287 on: April 16, 2022, 12:04:41 PM »

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GPF: Why Iran won't compromise on nukes
« Reply #1288 on: June 02, 2022, 03:54:56 AM »
June 2, 2022
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Why Iran Won’t Compromise in Nuclear Talks
Tehran isn’t willing to give up on what it sees as its divine duty.
By: Hilal Khashan

A year after the start of Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna, talks ended unsurprisingly without an agreement on the core issues. Although Iran needs to reach a deal to help alleviate its social and economic problems, it considers the costs of compromise on the key questions – namely, the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – too high to accept. Iran’s ultra-religious ruling elite believe they are on a mission to spread their ideology throughout the Middle East and that any concessions in the talks could undermine the country’s divine purpose.

Ideological Motivations

Despite Iran’s worsening economic situation and the growing public frustration, its leaders will not compromise on what they consider matters of high principle. They believe that the negotiators in Vienna will not suspend the talks permanently and that a deal with the U.S. will eventually be reached. They therefore see no need to rush into a less-than-favorable agreement. Some in Iran support this approach, believing that the country is a regional superpower that deserves to lead the Middle East and all Islamic states. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has penetrated the region, finding local allies in places where Arab political systems failed to establish a state of justice and citizenship, integrate Shiites and attend to their fundamental demands.

These views on the country’s role in the Islamic world stem from centuries of religious teachings. According to Shiite beliefs, the 12th imam in the Prophet Muhammad’s line of succession, Muhammad al-Mahdi, went into occultation in 874, fearing for his life. Shiites believe that the Sunni-dominated Islamic caliphate murdered the 11 preceding imams and that it was imperative for him to disappear in order to safeguard the interests of the Islamic community and prepare it for the reappearance of Mahdi, who would carry out the task of ending injustice and oppression. The ultimate goal of Mahdi’s return would be to lead humanity into salvation and redemption in a just and divine state. Iranians insist that making unnecessary concessions in the Vienna negotiations would violate the divinely mandated mission of the hidden imam.

Stalled Negotiations

The U.S. and Iran went into the Vienna talks with two different mindsets and expectations. Since the Iranians refused to discuss their country’s ballistic missile program and the IRGC’s activities, the U.S. stressed that only the sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program could be lifted if Tehran fully implements the terms of a new agreement. The Iranians, meanwhile, insisted that the U.S. take the IRGC off its list of foreign terrorist organizations with no strings attached as a precondition for the talks.

Today, the negotiations are deadlocked and unlikely to resume before 2023, having been stalled by congressional opposition to Tehran’s demands and the Ukraine war. The top U.S. negotiator recently said that the prospects for reaching an agreement in the foreseeable future are “tenuous at best.” Each side bargained to maximize its gains, but after a year of intermittent negotiations, the U.S. decided it could not remove the IRGC from the FTO list. It’s concerned not just about Iran’s nuclear activities but also about its establishment of local militias and its subversive activities, which threaten the security of many Middle Eastern countries with which Washington is on good terms.

After Ebrahim Raisi’s election in 2021, which tightened the conservatives’ grip on power, Iranian negotiators resisted any compromise on the outstanding issues because backing down would undermine the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic. In this case, compromise would make irrelevant the office of the Supreme Leader as the guardian of the faith. Still, Tehran is keen to avoid escalating and reaching the point of no return in the negotiations, despite being weeks away from producing sufficient fissile material to manufacture at least one atomic bomb.

Many years of U.S. containment policies enabled Iran to develop an efficient system to bypass the sanctions imposed against it. (Last week, Washington introduced new sanctions on an international network led by the IRGC involved in money laundering and oil smuggling.) The surges in oil prices and in Chinese demand for Iranian oil have also provided Tehran with financial resources to hold on to a firm negotiating position.

The Iranians always claimed that an agreement was within reach, even when they had no reason for optimism. The U.S. wants Iran to present acceptable demands within the scope of the Vienna talks. It prefers to reach a workable deal on the nuclear issue while postponing action on complex problems, such as the status of the IRGC and Iran’s missile program. This cautious approach may face less opposition in the U.S., but driven by a feverish religious zeal, Iran’s conservatives think that time is on their side to conclude a more favorable deal.

Playing With the Big Powers

To help alleviant some of the pain from the sanctions, Iran has tried to strike partnerships with other major powers. But China and Russia will not solve Iran’s economic problems, and there are reasons to doubt the sincerity of their gestures of goodwill.

In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Iran to discuss investing $400 billion over 25 years in banking, communications, ports, railways, health and information technology. The secretive deal, dubbed the “Lion and the Dragon Pact,” has divided Iranian public opinion over its implications for the country’s sovereignty. Many Iranians doubt that Beijing will treat Tehran as an economic partner on equal footing, and claim that China’s primary objective is to obstruct U.S. efforts to contain Beijing. (These efforts include a military cooperation deal signed by the U.S., the U.K. and Australia last year and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework signed by 12 other countries in the region last month.)

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad harshly criticized the 2016 pact – which was negotiated in secret and outlined only in vague terms – arguing that the Chinese often make promises they fail to honor. Iranian nationalists have also voiced their opposition to stronger economic ties with China, comparing the issue to the tobacco concession that triggered protests in 1891 and the 1901 D’Arcy concession that gave an English prospector exclusive rights to explore for oil in Persia. Critics have also compared the Lion and the Dragon Pact to the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay with Russia, which cost Iran territory in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea areas.

As for Russia, its semblance of cooperation with Iran in the Caucasus and Syria falls short of a strategic alliance. The legacy of Russian imperial wars and territorial expansionism is embedded in Iran’s collective consciousness. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was as distrustful of the Russians as he was averse to the U.S., calling the two countries “two blades of the same scissors.” Russia was critical of Iran’s 1905 constitutional movement, and in 1911, Russian artillery shelled the National Iranian Assembly. Russia’s colonial legacy, including the Red Army’s occupation of northern Iran in 1941, continues to be a barrier to the formation of cordial and trusting tries between the two countries.

Growing Disaffection at Home

The future of Iran hinges on the future of the supreme leader position. It’s doubtful that this office will survive Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death. While Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini commanded the unwavering support and respect of Iran’s clerical establishment, Khamenei’s controversial religious credentials do not hold the same weight among many of his peers. Moreover, Khamenei, who was personally designated to the post by his predecessor, cannot name the next supreme leader. The office has not been institutionalized, and it’s doubtful that Khamenei’s successor would preserve the religious edifice of the regime. Iran now faces the prospect of falling into the hands of the IRGC, which would rule the country as a military dictatorship.

There’s no strong kingmaker among Iran’s ruling conservatives who could keep the political system together and avoid a constitutional crisis. Iran is ethnically heterogeneous, and Shiism is what keeps it from falling apart. Since the Safavids, who ruled Iran from the beginning of the 16th century, the regime’s legitimacy has been embedded in religious doctrine. The shah lost power in 1979 because he alienated the religious establishment. The rise of a military dictatorship would bring Iran’s ethnic divisions to the surface, threatening its survival as a unitary state.

Many ayatollahs in Najaf and Qom supported separating religion from politics, a position that Iranian-born Ayatollah Ali Sistani still holds. Khomeini took the opposite approach and decided to revolutionize religion. Iranians look at clerics today with disdain, viewing them as the representatives of a corrupt political system. They dread having to wear their religious dress in public to avoid ridicule and even physical assault. There is a new generation of young clerics who affiliate with the reformists and believe in dismantling the sacred pillars of the state, including the supreme leader’s office. Iran’s political system is decaying faster than many observers think. The Iranian people don’t often rise against the state, but when they do, they make history.

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WSJ: Israel's shadow war with Iran goes non-nuclear
« Reply #1290 on: June 16, 2022, 06:18:02 AM »
Israel’s Shadow War With Iran Goes Nonnuclear
The Jewish state escalates its effort by targeting a broader range of security personnel and facilities.
By Jonathan Spyer
June 15, 2022 6:24 pm ET


The killing of Iranian Col. Hassan Khodaei outside his Tehran home signaled a major shift in Israel’s strategy toward Iran. The Jewish state’s apparently considerable efforts on Iranian soil had formerly been directed at the Iranian nuclear program. But Jerusalem seems to have adopted a broader definition of the challenge it faces—and the measures it will adopt to address it.

Khodaei, who was killed May 22, had no known connection to the nuclear program. Rather, he was one of the most seasoned special-operations men in the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Khodaei was engaged in external operations said to include kidnappings and assassinations. He played an important role in the transfer of drone and missile technology to Lebanese Hezbollah, Tehran’s key regional proxy. According to Hebrew media reports, he was in the midst of masterminding a plan for the abduction of Israelis overseas at the time of his demise.

Khodaei’s killing was the second known operation carried out this year by Israel on Iranian soil against a target unconnected to Tehran’s nuclear program, and the first to directly target a specific individual. An earlier strike, at an air base at Kermanshah in mid-February, destroyed hundreds of drones.

Israeli operations on Iranian soil in recent years have included the theft of the Iranian nuclear archive in 2018, the killings of scientists associated with the nuclear program, and probably also acts of sabotage against nuclear facilities, such as the December 2021 explosion at the enrichment complex at Natanz. These actions indicate that Israel has succeeded in thoroughly penetrating Iran’s defenses.

More broadly, Israel has engaged in a shadow war against Iranian efforts at power-building across the Middle East. Israeli air power has been active in disrupting and damaging Iranian infrastructure in Syria. Individual assassinations have taken place in Syria and probably also in Lebanon. Israeli planes have struck as far afield as Iraq.

But the extension of Israel’s campaign against Iran’s nonnuclear subversive activities onto Iranian soil is a new development and a significant escalation. Such a change isn’t merely tactical in nature, and a decision to adopt it wouldn’t have been taken without the prime minister’s approval. The growing perception in Israel is that the Iranian nuclear program can’t be seen in isolation from Tehran’s broader strategy for regional domination.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has long been vocal in support of this view. While serving as defense minister in February 2020, Mr. Bennett told Israeli reporters: “When the octopus tentacles hit you, you must fight back not just against the tentacles, but also make sure to suffocate the head. . . . For years on end, we have fought against the Iranian tentacles in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip, but we have not focused enough on weakening Iran itself. Now we are changing the paradigm.”

In June, 2020, the Israel Defense Forces established the Strategy and Third Circle Directorate, assigned to formulate a comprehensive view of the Iranian threat facing Israel in all its aspects. It now appears that this approach is being extended to the sphere of action. Israel sees Iran as engaged in a comprehensive, strategic drive intended to result in Tehran’s emergence as the dominant or hegemonic power in the Middle East. The destruction of Israel is a key element in this strategy. This project focuses on political and proxy military activity, investment in Iran’s ballistic missile program, and the development of a nuclear capacity intended as a kind of insurance policy for the other two elements.

The Jewish state, in turn, is in the process of formulating and implementing a comprehensive response. A counterenvelopment of Iran through deepening ties with states surrounding it—including Azerbaijan to the north and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to the southwest—forms part of this approach. Israel’s 2021 transfer to the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility offers potential for making these growing links operational in key areas, such as missile defense.

It appears that a bold change of the rules of engagement, in which the totality of Iranian strategy will now be opposed also on Iranian soil, forms an additional component of this effort. The strike on the drone fleet at Kermanshah and the killing of Khodaei in Tehran were the first manifestations of this new approach. Three additional unexplained deaths of senior Iranian security personnel have occurred in subsequent weeks. The shadow war between Israel and Iran has entered a new phase.

Mr. Spyer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis and a research fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is author of “Days of the Fall: A Reporter’s Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.”

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Re: Iran
« Reply #1291 on: June 27, 2022, 12:38:27 AM »
Iran Descends into Outright Piracy and Confrontation with the West
by Ioannis E. Kotoulas
Special to IPT News
June 23, 2022

https://www.investigativeproject.org/9193/iran-descends-into-outright-piracy

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Foreign Affairs: What America should do if nuke talks fail
« Reply #1292 on: July 02, 2022, 05:38:54 AM »
FA is very much a Deep State publication:

=============================================

What America Should Do If the Iran Nuclear Deal Talks Fail
Outsourcing Middle East Security to Israel Is a Bad Plan B
By Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr
July 1, 2022

Get a link
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2022-07-01/what-america-should-do-if-iran-nuclear-deal-talks-fail

U.S. President Joe Biden’s July trip to the Middle East comes at a delicate moment. There is a last gasp effort underway to revive stalled talks between the United States and Iran on restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal aimed at preventing the Islamic Republic from being able to develop a nuclear weapon. Since the last round of talks in Vienna, Tehran has accelerated its program and will soon become a threshold nuclear state. When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the UN nuclear watchdog—censured the country for failing to cooperate with inspectors, the Iranian government further curtailed IAEA monitoring of its nuclear program and announced new underground advanced enrichment facilities.

Israel, however, has long promised that it will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, and it is working outside of multilateral institutions to realize that goal. Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists and military officials. It has conducted air attacks on Iranian targets in Syria and expanded its strike capabilities, presumably in preparation for new attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and military facilities. With American backing, the Israelis are also seeking to organize a number of Arab states into a military alliance against Iran. According to The Wall Street Journal, the United States convened a meeting last March with security officials from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to integrate intelligence sharing and air defense systems to combat aerial threats from Iran.

These developments are scrambling Washington’s plans for the Middle East. The Biden administration has argued that the revival of the JCPOA is the best way to control Iran’s nuclear program. But failing that, it appears prepared to adopt Israel’s current approach to containing Iran. That entails further tightening the economic noose around Iran’s neck by forcing the country out of the oil market. And it means the United States would support Israel in carrying out attacks inside Iran and in its effort to weave a coalition of Arab states to contain the country. The latter is, in essence, a new function for the Abraham Accords, the signature foreign policy achievement of the Trump administration, which tied Israel to Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates in what amounts to an anti-Iran bloc. Left unspoken is that the accords may evolve into a functioning military defense pact, buttressed by the United States.


The situation recalls the 1970s, when U.S. President Richard Nixon subcontracted Middle East security to the shah of Iran. Similarly, the Biden administration is, in effect, handing over the task of containing Iran to Israel. This is a risky approach: unlike some 50 years ago, this time the U.S.-designated policeman for the region is not trying to avoid conflict but is the regional actor most clearly pushing for escalation. Washington should adopt a different strategy, one aimed at averting conflict by combining beefed-up regional security with encouraging stronger diplomatic ties between Iran and Arab states—one of the few things that could help reduce the mounting tensions in the Middle East.

THE ISRAELI OCTOPUS (?!?)

Israel has long vowed that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett believed that a return to the nuclear deal would give Iran more resources to pursue its nuclear and regional ambitions. But unlike his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bennett spent little time campaigning against the deal and instead stepped up efforts to not only sabotage Iran’s nuclear program but to undermine the Islamic Republic.

In early June, in anticipation of the IAEA’s formal censure of the Iranian government for failure to cooperate with nuclear inspectors, Bennett told the Knesset that “the days of immunity, in which Iran attacks Israel and spreads terrorism via its regional proxies but remains unscathed—are over.”


Israel has long vowed that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

Bennett unleashed a so-called octopus strategy (???) against Iran. This included sabotage, assassinations, cyberwarfare, and attacks on Iran’s military personnel and infrastructure, as well as those of its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. The new approach, which goes beyond targeting nuclear facilities to focus more broadly on the Islamic Republic itself, has been less predictable, more aggressive, and more complex than previous Israeli campaigns. In recent weeks, for example, Israel has expanded its assassination targets beyond those associated with the nuclear program, most notably when Mossad agents apparently killed a colonel in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran. That was not an isolated incident: there have been many recent reports of mysterious deaths and suspicious explosions and industrial accidents.

Critical to Bennett’s strategy has been building Israel’s capabilities on Iran’s borders. According to sources in the region, the Israeli sabotage and assassination campaign inside Iran has relied on bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran in the north, and Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which borders Iran in the west. Bennett also hoped that the Abraham Accords would provide a regional counterweight to the Islamic Republic. The accords have already expanded Israel’s reach in the Persian Gulf through security arrangements with Bahrain and the UAE, whose leaders share many of Israel’s concerns about Tehran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. It is now concluding free trade agreements with the UAE, as well as supplying sophisticated air defense systems, radars, and cybertechnology to its Gulf allies. Washington is also encouraging Egypt and Jordan to deepen security ties with Israel and supporting efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the accords to solidify an Arab axis to contain Iran. That issue will likely be on the agenda when Biden speaks with his Saudi counterparts on his trip to the Middle East.

IRAN’S LONG GAME

While Israel is going on offense, Iran is seeking to buy time. By avoiding direct confrontation with Israel, Tehran can fortify its nuclear program, enhance its missile and drone program, and expand its military capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Iranian officials also believe that if Israel managed to draw Tehran into a larger conflict, the Biden administration would be compelled to intervene militarily. Furthermore, mounting hostilities would increase the probability that more Arab states would cast their lot with Israel.

That said, Iran is attacking Israel, mostly through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Over the last few months, Hezbollah flew a drone inside Israeli territory, Iraqi militias aligned with Iran allegedly carried out a cyberattack on Israel’s primary airport, and Hamas launched rockets at Israeli planes. Iran is also showing a growing willingness to target Israeli intelligence outposts close to its borders and increase the costs to states that facilitate Israeli operations against Iran. That is particularly true when Israel has gone after members of the IRGC, the branch of the armed forces that exercises profound influence over the Iranian government. After Israeli airstrikes killed two IRGC commanders in Syria and a presumed Israeli drone attack launched from Iraqi Kurdistan territory in Iraq decimated a military facility in western Iran, Tehran carried out military drills on its borders with Azerbaijan and attacked targets in Iraqi Kurdistan, including an alleged Mossad base.

Tehran has also pressured its Iraqi allies to pass a law that criminalizes normalization of ties with Israel. Ambiguous in its text, the law intends to keep Iraq out of Israel’s expanding sphere of influence and also pressure the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to reduce its cooperation with Israel. These steps have not gone unnoticed in Israel. After the Israeli attack on Damascus International Airport, the Israeli government advised its citizens to stay away from Turkey, a popular tourist destination among its citizens, out of concern that Iran was planning to retaliate by attacking Israeli nationals.

REVIVING THE NUCLEAR DEAL
In the midst of this brewing turmoil, members of the Biden administration are negotiating in Doha, in coordination with EU officials, to revive the JCPOA. That is, in many ways, an exercise in damage control: U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal in 2018 has shortened the period of time Tehran would need to create a bomb and strengthened the hand of hardliners in Iran. Under the original deal, Iran would have been a year away from acquiring enough fissile material for one bomb. Now, under a new deal, that timeframe will be shaved down to six months.

The pressure and sanctions the Trump administration placed on Tehran forced much of Iran’s oil trade underground, leading the IRGC to secure its budget by managing a good deal of this illicit trade directly. Since 2018, Iran has sold oil surreptitiously, and the bulk of its trade has gone through black markets, allowing the IRGC to sell its own share of oil and build economic conglomerates. As a result, the bulk of the IRGC’s revenue now sits outside the official government budget.

Influential individuals within the IRGC now have a powerful incentive to argue against a new nuclear deal, because Iran’s oil revenue would once again go to the Iranian government. The IRGC would have to submit its budget to civilian oversight and would likely face public pressure to relinquish a portion of it. That development would be particularly unwelcome at a time when the IRGC is seeking to increase its military capability to maintain strategic parity with Israel. Mounting Israeli attacks have strengthened the IRGC’s resistance against the deal, which they suspect is a U.S. machination to undermine Iran’s capability to respond militarily.

To be sure, a deal would breathe life into Iran’s economy at a time when popular discontent is growing. And it would generate trade opportunities with Iran’s neighbors at a time when Israel is extending its ties with Arab states. Those among Iran’s leaders who favor a deal could overcome IRGC resistance if the economic promises of a deal are significant and immediate, and if Iran could be confident they will be realized. Failing to reach a deal also heightens the risk of escalation with Israel. But the IRGC holds powerful sway over the Iranian government. Ironically, both Israel and IRGC oppose the nuclear deal and are preparing for a looming conflict.

A PATH FORWARD
In the coming weeks, U.S. engagement will be critical to keeping the shadow war between Iran and Israel from spiraling out of control. Escalating attacks by Israel and Iranian proxies could explode into a larger confrontation, inflaming tensions from the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula. This could prolong the political crises in Iraq and Lebanon; derail a fragile truce between Iranian-backed Houthis and Saudi-led forces in Yemen; and even reignite the conflict in Syria. It would drag the United States back to deal with the region at a moment when it wishes to focus on Russia and China.

To avoid these outcomes, the Biden administration must set redlines with the Israeli government and insist on limits to provocative attacks. The United States also must outline a strategy for Middle Eastern stability that is not merely based on containment and confrontation with Iran or securing a short-term reduction in oil prices. Rather, it must establish a durable framework for preventing conflict. The most effective way to do this would be to conclude a new nuclear deal with Iran. To be sure, a deal will not go far enough to satisfy Israel, nor will it shut down the activities of the IRGC and its proxies in the region. It will, however, hold the line on Iran’s nuclear program in a way that would make urgent Israeli action unnecessary. And that would lessen the likelihood of Iranian retaliatory actions in the region—including against tankers and oil facilities—that could roil world energy markets.

A breakthrough could also transform Iran’s relations with its Gulf neighbors. Tehran has attempted to strengthen its ties with Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar. Iran also has been keen to improve relations with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. After five rounds of talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a cease-fire in Yemen is now entering its third month. A nuclear deal will add impetus to this initiative. Conversely, more sanctions and an Israeli offensive against Iran’s nuclear program are likely to stop it in its tracks, setting the region on a dangerous escalatory path.


U.S. engagement is critical to keeping the shadow war between Iran and Israel from spiraling out of control.
Even without a nuclear deal, greater Arab-Iranian engagement could serve as a brake on Iran’s more aggressive regional activities. But that is only if there is a veritable path to improving Arab-Iranian relations. Although Persian Gulf monarchies fear Iran and have deepened their security ties with Israel, they do not want a war between Iran and Israel. Arab states want Israeli security protection but fear they would become collateral damage in a military showdown. Persian Gulf countries also have an interest in ending regional conflicts, most notably in Yemen. Building on the current cease-fire in that country requires continuation of Saudi-Iranian dialogue, divorced from the fate of the nuclear deal.

The growing push for stronger diplomatic relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors presents Washington with an opportunity to reorient regional security. By working closely with Arab states—not just signatories to the Abraham Accords, but those with a vested interest in Persian Gulf and the Red Sea security—Washington can build broader support for controlling escalation between Israel and Iran. It must couple the imperative of containing Iran militarily with encouraging regional diplomacy to influence its behavior. Israel is wooing Arabs to join an anti-Iran security umbrella. Iran has every reason to dissuade Arabs from taking that step. Arab states can use this leverage to encourage both Iran and Israel to desist from risky provocations and keep in check their shadow war. Biden should use his trip to the region to encourage them to do just that.


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Stratfor: Team Biden says Iran has crossed the Rubicon
« Reply #1298 on: August 24, 2022, 08:32:44 AM »
U.S., Iran: Washington Says Iran Has 'Crossed the Rubicon' Toward Possible Nuclear Deal
2 MIN READAug 23, 2022 | 19:49 GMT





What Happened: Iran has reportedly dropped several of its key demands hanging up a nuclear deal, including its demand that the United Nations' nuclear watchdog close its probe into Iran's nuclear activity at three undeclared sites, Reuters reported Aug. 23, citing a senior U.S. official. The official added that the United States thinks Iran has, ''finally crossed the Rubicon and moved toward possibly getting back into the deal on terms that President Biden can accept.''
 
Why It Matters: The dropping of Iran's key demands — if they remain off the table — makes a nuclear deal more likely, but much will depend on the final stretch of talks, as Iran has previously thrown last-minute curveballs when negotiators appeared ready to ink an agreement. A deal would reduce U.S.-Iran tensions in the Middle East, but it would not deescalate Israel-Iran tensions, keeping security risks in places like Syria and Lebanon high. A restored nuclear deal would also see the United States remove sanctions on Iran's oil sector, which could ease the global energy crisis by bringing more Iranian oil to the market.
 
Background: Iran submitted its written response to the EU-mediated roadmap on restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal on Aug. 15. In June, the International Atomic Energy Agency's board approved a report calling on Iran to provide information related to material found at the three undeclared nuclear sites.
 

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Re: Stratfor: Team Biden says Iran has crossed the Rubicon
« Reply #1299 on: August 24, 2022, 09:34:38 AM »
I thought we didn't negotiate with terrorists, and there were good reasons for that.  Now we send them planeloads of money in exchange for [empty] promises.

I don't get why the Obama-Biden "advisers" are hellbent on doing this.  Valerie Jarrett born in Iran doesn't explain this.

One more failure of the Bush Cheney Republicans:  As hawk VP Dick Cheney lost his influence in the late years of the W. Bush meltdown, Bush-Cheney left office without dealing with the Iran threat, while R's nominated a moderate and America elected the Senate's most liberal member to kick off the America Apology Tour.  He got the Nobel Peace Prize and we got an emboldened Iran, NK, China and Russia.