The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle: The Iran Deal Is The Only Option

Kerry warns Congress scrapping Iran deal would mean path to nuclear weapon

WASHINGTON | By Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu

 

Secretary of State John Kerry intensified efforts on Tuesday to beat back criticism of the Iran nuclear deal and convince U.S. lawmakers that rejecting it would give Tehran a fast track to a weapon and access to billions of dollars from collapsed sanctions.

Days after tough questioning by lawmakers at an emotional Senate hearing, Kerry sharpened his response to criticism that the deal’s provisions were temporary and would not prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in the long run.

“Iran has agreed to refrain from producing or acquiring highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons forever,” he told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. “When it comes to verification and monitoring, there is absolutely no sunset in this agreement. Not in 10 years, not in 15 years, not in 20 years, not in 25 years – no sunset ever.”
Challenged even by some of his fellow Democrats, Kerry said: “If you kill the deal, you are not making America safer.”

Joined by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Kerry was part of the President Barack Obama’s effort to coax skeptical lawmakers into supporting the nuclear pact.
Congress has until Sept. 17 to endorse or reject it. Rejection would prevent Obama from waiving most U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran, a key component of the deal.

Under the July 14 pact, world powers agreed to lift sanctions in return for curbs on a nuclear program the West suspects was aimed at creating an atomic bomb, but which Tehran says is peaceful.
‘CASH BONANZA’

The four-hour hearing grew heated as some House Republicans shouted at Kerry. Senate Republicans last week accused him of having been “bamboozled” and “fleeced.”

At times, Kerry visibly lost patience, saying he was hearing many complaints, while opponents offered no alternative.

“What this agreement is supposed to do is stop them from having a nuclear weapon. Now I want to hear somebody tell me how they’re going to do that without this agreement,” he said.
Kerry insisted walking away would isolate the United States.

“If we walk away, we walk away alone. Our partners are not going to be with us,” Kerry said.
Lew said that other countries would not keep the sanctions against Iran in place.

“You could end up with Iran getting access to that money without the benefit of an agreement, which would be a very bad outcome,” he noted.

Both Republicans and Democrats signaled the potential difficulty in getting Congress on board.
Representative Ed Royce, the committee’s Republican chairman, said the deal gives Iran a “cash bonanza,” while weakening Washington’s ability to pressure Tehran.

Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat, said he saw a number of troublesome issues.
Others expressed concern about Americans held in Iranian prisons or worried about Iran’s backing militants.

“They support Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi, and those are just the organizations that begin with the letter ‘H,'” said Democratic Representative Brad Sherman.

Although Republicans control majorities in the House and Senate, they would need Democratic votes against Obama to override a promised veto if Congress rejects the nuclear pact.

Many Democrats have not decided how they will vote when Congress returns in September from a five-week recess, but several have come out in favor.

Representative Sander Levin, the longest serving Jewish member of the House, issued a statement on Tuesday backing the deal.

Jewish lawmakers known as strong supporters of Israel, such as Engel and Sherman, have been under particularly intense pressure over the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has cultivated a close relationship with Republicans, has called it a threat to his country’s survival.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Howard Goller, Andrew Hay and G Crosse)

Pentagon Worries About Nuclear Deal (Dan 8:4)

 
Nuclear Deal’s End to Iran Arms Embargo Worries Pentagon, Analysts

Pentagon
Jul 14, 2015
Military.com by Brendan McGarry and Michael Hoffman

President Obama’s nominee to become the Pentagon’s No. 2 officer joined a chorus of defense hawks worried the landmark deal meant to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions will jumpstart the Iranian economy and generate more revenue for the regime’s military forces.

Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva, currently the head of U.S. Transportation Command, told Congress during his nomination hearing Tuesday that increased Iranian revenue could be used “to sponsor state terrorism should they choose to do so.”

The agreement between the Iran and several Western countries, including the U.S., would allow the Islamic republic to pursue a limited atomic program for peaceful purposes over the next decade while also lifting sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy as well as a key arms embargo.

President Obama hailed the historic deal, announced on Tuesday after two years of negotiations, as a way to prevent Tehran from producing highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium — materials needed to build a nuclear weapon. Others criticized the pact, saying it would result in more funding for the regime to develop nuclear centrifuges and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“Under this deal, Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure remains largely intact,” Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., and a former Republican senator from South Carolina, said in a statement. “The ‘freeze’ on uranium enrichment is both temporary and partial. That’s not a freeze; it’s a slight chill at best.”

What’s more, the agreement would immediately provide Iran with as much as $50 billion in sanctions relief and eventually some $150 billion more with the release of money frozen in overseas bank accounts, DeMint said. The latter figure is more than six times what Israel — a country that Iranian leaders have vowed to destroy — spends on defense each year, he said.

“The deal also gives Tehran plenty of money to ramp up these — and other — destabilizing activities,” DeMint said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Israel to reassure the key U.S. ally.
“We remain prepared and postured to bolster the security of our friends and allies in the region, including Israel; to defense against aggression; ensure freedom of navigation in the Gulf; and check Iranian malign influence,” Carter said in a statement. “We will utilize the military option if necessary.”

Rise of Iranian Influence

The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as well as the continued unrest in Syria has increased the level of influence of Iran in the region. Iraqi leaders have turned to Iran for support in pushing ISIS militants out of key cities in Iraq’s Anbar Province after Iraqi army units crumbled in the Sunni-dominated province.

Defense analysts fear that influence will grow rapidly as Iran’s military leaders gain the necessary resources to build out its military.

As part of the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. negotiators agreed to end the embargo on the import and export of conventional arms and ballistic missiles.

Russia and China pushed hard for this embargo to end as the two countries stand to benefit from an increased arms trade with Iran. Other countries and non-state actors such as Syria, Hezbollah and North Korea could also stand to benefit as Iran seeks to boost its military while also selling arms produced in Iran.

One U.S. intelligent analyst, who asked not to be named, feared lifting the embargo will have wider influence on the U.S. and the Middle East than the changes to nuclear policy. He explained that he foresaw an arms race starting in the Middle East as the Gulf Arab states and Israel seek to protect themselves from a strengthening Iran. Egypt, for example, bought Dassault Rafale fighter jets from France in the midst of negotiations.

Carter warned last week against the lifting of the embargo, specifically on ballistic missiles, when he spoke before Congress. He said the Pentagon wants to make sure Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program does not advance.

“The reason that we want to stop Iran from having an I.C.B.M. program is that the ‘I’ in I.C.B.M. stands for ‘intercontinental,’ which means having the capability of flying from Iran to the United States,” Carter told Congress.

‘Built on Verification‘

The White House said the agreement will curb Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent, put two-thirds of its centrifuges under international supervision, modify its nuclear reactor in Arak so it can’t produce weapons-grade plutonium and ship spent fuel from the reactor out of the country.

“Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons,” Obama said in a statement. “Now, its uranium stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon.”

He added, “This deal is not built on trust — it’s built on verification. Under this deal, we will, for the first time, be in a position to verify that Iran is meeting all of these commitments.”

— Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com
— Michael Hoffman can be reached at mike.hoffman@military.com

Iran Now Asking For The Moon (Dan 8:4)

Iran Wants U.N. Arms Embargo Lifted

Diplomat says step should be part of improvement in relations with international community
By JAY SOLOMON


Updated July 6, 2015 7:42 p.m. ET

VIENNA—Iran is pushing for a United Nations arms embargo to be completely lifted as part of the international community’s moves to improve relations with Tehran in the wake of an emerging nuclear agreement, a senior Iranian diplomat said Monday.

The diplomat said his government wasn’t specifically linking the lifting of a U.N. ban on arms sales to a nuclear accord. But he said the U.S. and European Union no longer could justify placing curbs on Iran’s military and ballistic-missile programs.

“This issue does not belong to the nuclear file so the natural question is: What has been the reason for the inclusion of arms embargo in the resolution in the first place?” the official said. “So this is a question that should be posed to our European and American partners…What was the reason that you put this issue in the agenda of the Security Council?

The demand is among the final issues still being negotiated between Iran and six world powers—Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S.

The Obama administration has set Tuesday as the deadline for concluding the talks. But U.S. and Iranian officials have suggested privately in recent days that the negotiations could extend to later in the week.

U.S. officials have said a new U.N. Security Council resolution must be drafted as part of any final agreement to lift associated sanctions. They say the resolution must maintain elements of the arms embargo and other restrictions.

Current resolutions ban Iran from producing nuclear fuel, mining uranium, and developing ballistic missiles that could be used to carry an atomic bomb.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only, such as generating electricity.
The senior Iranian official indicated that the U.S. demands weren’t acceptable, adding that the U.N. Security Council’s perception of Iran needed to change to support a nuclear accord.
“In our opinion, the treatment of Iran by the Security Council has been terrible, to put it mildly,” the official said. “If they want to open a new page in relations with Iran, they have to make this hard choice.”
 
The U.N. has imposed four rounds of economic sanctions on Iran in a bid to pressure Tehran into stopping its nuclear work.

Iran is also under a broader U.N. arms embargo that seeks to prevent it from aiding and arming political and military allies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories.

The Iranian official in Vienna said there has been significant progress in negotiations between Iran and the world powers over the past two weeks, adding that only a few final issues needed to be resolved.

He said the arrival in Vienna, beginning on Sunday, of the foreign ministers representing the six countries negotiating with Iran would be crucial to forging a final agreement.

The negotiator said his country didn’t want its diplomatic partners to seek another formal extension of the talks. But he said Tehran didn’t see Tuesday as a firm deadline to complete the process.
“We do not see any definite deadline as to our work here,” said the Iranian official. “Even if we pass July 9th…there will be another period which all of us can continue to work.”

The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) sharply criticized Iran’s calls for a lifting of the arms embargo and the curbs on its missile program.
Mr. Royce repeated concerns raised by U.S. lawmakers that any sanctions relief given to Tehran could provide it with new funds to support its military allies in the Middle East, such as the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“With tens of billions of sanctions-relief cash likely coming, Iran now wants free rein to arm Hezbollah terrorists, assist Assad in Syria, and aid Houthi rebels in Yemen,” Mr. Royce said.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

Iran Iran Weapon Pact Violates UN Embargo

Iran sells weapons to Iraq, breaks U.N. embargo

THURSDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2014 09:38

If verified, the deal could threaten negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program

By Per Liljas

Iran has signed a $195 million deal to sell arms and ammunition to Iraq, according to documents viewed by Reuters, a transaction that would break a U.N. embargo regarding weapon sales by Tehran.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fed up with delays in U.S. arms deliveries, several Iraqi lawmakers have said, and although his spokesman refused to either confirm nor deny the agreement, he conceded that such a deal would be understandable considering his country’s security issues.

“Nothing prevents us from buying arms and ammunition from any party and it’s only ammunition helping us to fight terrorists,” he said.

Iran has denied any knowledge of the deal, which was supposedly reached only weeks after al-Maliki returned from lobbying the Obama administration in Washington for additional arms.

A Tehran weapons sale could complicate ongoing negotiations to ease international sanctions over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

“If true, this would raise serious concerns,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki during a news briefing. “We are seeking clarification on the matter from the government of Iraq and to ensure that Iraqi officials understand the limits that international law places on arms trade with Iran.”