Iran Nuclear Deal Causing Global Strife

 
Israeli PM Says Arab Leaders Also Weary of Iran Nuclear Deal

By IAN DEITCH
 Jun 9, 2015, 3:27 PM
The Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister said Tuesday that Arab leaders agree with him that an emerging nuclear deal with Iran won’t stop Tehran from getting atomic weapons.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks come as Tehran and the six world powers negotiating with Iran face a June 30 target date for a comprehensive deal on curbing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions’ relief.

Netanyahu told the prestigious Herzliya conference, an annual gathering that draws speakers from around the world, that he is not the only voice in the Middle East against the deal.

“I am often portrayed as the nuclear party pooper,” Netanyahu said. “But I speak with quite a few of our neighbors, more than you think, and I want to tell you that nobody in this region believes this deal will block Iran’s path to the bomb.”

Most of the region does not have official ties with Israel and Netanyahu did not name the leaders he spoke with or the circumstances of the discussions. He spoke in Herzliya, in central Israel, just days after a close confidant, Dore Gold, met publicly with a Saudi Arabian general to discuss Iran.

“It’s worth noting that nobody from this region except Iran is at the negotiating table,” Netanyahu added.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes but Israel fears it could still allow Tehran to build nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu also warned the deal would spark a nuclear arms race that will see the region “crisscrossed with nuclear trip wires as other states nuclearize” in fear of Iran. He said lifting the sanctions rewards Iran with “prosperity at home” while allowing it to continue “aggression abroad.”
Israel has long claimed a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten world peace and security, and views a nuclear-armed Tehran as a threat to its very existence, citing Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, its long-range missile program and its support for militant groups like Lebanese Hezbollah or the Palestinian Hamas.

There was no immediate comment from Arab states on Netanyahu’s remarks.

Australia States The Obvious (Dan 8:3)

Iran ‘can not be trusted’ in nuclear talks with West, Australian lawmaker warns


NCRI Iran News
Monday, 25 May 2015 15:26

Iran supports Hezbollah terrorists and Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria and the regime cannot be trusted in nuclear talks with the West, a leading Australian lawmaker has warned.

Federal member Michael Danby said concessions from the West in negotiations would not be returned in kind by the rulers in Tehran.

He wrote in The Australia newspaper: “Iran has shown repeatedly that it will pursue its perceived interests regardless of the consequences.

“Iran’s principal aims are to undermine the Middle East’s US-backed Sunni-led status quo and to replace the US as the regional hegemonic power.

“Tehran also persists with the apparently unchanged ideology of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to destroy Israel.”

Mr Danby also said ‘no one should doubt’ Iran’s commitment to its client, Hezbollah, and its support for Assad’s brutal regime in Syria.

He added: “Iran’s direct regional aggression continues all the while. Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels captured Yemen’s capital. General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, acts as a Persian viceroy, dominating Iraq’s government and Shi’ite militias.

“So alarmed is America’s chief Middle East ally, Saudi Arabia, that Prince Turki bin Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, said in February, ‘Whatever the Iranians have, we will have too’.”

He went on: “Of course, Iran’s nuclear program is the focus of international concern. Tehran is negotiating only because international sanctions were crippling its economy. UN sanctions were placed on Iran only after several secret uranium enrichment sites were uncovered. (not by inspectors but by a dissident group).”

And he quoted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as saying recently: “We will never yield to pressure. Iran will not give access to its nuclear scientists. We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”

Mr Danby added: “The Saudis, Turks, Qataris and Israelis, like the French socialist government and Democrats in the US Congress, sense increased Iranian power in the Middle East. Direct Saudi intervention in the region is a function of a perceived decrease of US influence in the Middle East. The Saudis traditionally have relied on the US to maintain regional stability.

“But a series of US decisions — such as the prospective nuclear deal, military co-operation between US and Iranian ground forces in Iraq, allowing Assad in Syria to cross chemical weapons ‘red lines’, and distancing itself from Israel and Egypt — has convinced Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Qatar that the US is lessening its involvement in the region.

“When Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Iran last month, she was the first high-ranking Western minister to visit the Islamic Republic since the initialling of the Lausanne framework. The significance of Bishop’s visit is that it marks Iran’s continuing passage from pariah to accepted member of the international community.

“Western countries are hustling to be at the front of the queue when sanctions are officially dropped. Western diplomats including Bishop are lauding ‘a change in Iranian attitudes’, despite no evidence of that.

“They’re also lauding Iran’s acceptance of nuclear understandings despite revelations to the contrary and responsible actions in the region, despite Iran actively undermining regional governments from Beirut to Baghdad and beyond, as well as prolonging Syria’s civil war.

“This is short termism at its worst and ignores the Khamenei regime’s actual policies and nature.
A nuclear-armed Iran in 10 years, free of sanctions, with $180 billion of reserves now freed up and with unchanged policies of regional hegemony and support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, is not in the interests of world peace, regional stability or even faraway Australia.”

More Stipulations On The Iran Deal (Dan 8)

 Iran’s Khamenei rules out interviews with nuclear scientists
Wed May 20, 2015 8:26pm BST
By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Tehran would not accept “unreasonable demands” by world powers over its disputed nuclear programme and ruled out letting inspectors interview its atomic scientists.

The comments, broadcast live on state TV, were the latest in a series of forthright statements on inspections in the countdown to a June 30 deadline to resolve a decade-old standoff over Iran’s nuclear work.

“We will never yield to pressure … We will not accept unreasonable demands … Iran will not give access to its (nuclear) scientists,” Khamenei said.

“We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”

Khamenei, who has the final say for Iran on any deal, last month ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures” over nuclear activities and said military sites could not be inspected.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been trying to investigate Western allegations that Iran has worked on designing a nuclear warhead. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it is working with the IAEA to clear up any suspicions.

U.N. inspectors regularly monitor Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, but the IAEA has complained for years of a lack of access to sites, equipment, documents and people relevant to its probe.

Western officials say Iran must step up cooperation with the IAEA if it wants to reach a broader diplomatic deal with world powers that would gradually end crippling financial and other sanctions on the oil producer.

“They say we should let them interview our nuclear scientists. This means interrogation,” Khamenei said.

“I will not let foreigners talk to our scientists and to interrogate our dear children … who brought us this extensive (nuclear) knowledge.”

Iran has yet to answer questions about two areas of the investigation into alleged research activities that could be applicable to any attempt to make nuclear bombs – explosives testing and neutron calculations.

Iran reached a tentative deal with the powers on April 2 to allow U.N. inspectors to carry out more intrusive, short-notice inspections under an “Additional Protocol” to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But there have been sharply differing interpretations from both sides on the details of that access.

When asked whether there had been some progress since April, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who has been perceived as the most demanding in the talks, said the negotiations now had to discuss the deal’s annexes, which was not the case yet.

He said Iran also had to offer real transparency in its military activities as part of the deal, including rapid access to IAEA inspectors to all sites.

“What happens if Iran doesn’t comply. How much time will we have to check? In the current text, it’s 24 days, but in 24 days a lot of things can disappear,” Fabius said. 

Negotiators from Iran and the powers met in Vienna on Wednesday to try to iron out remaining differences, including the timing of sanctions relief and the future of Iran’s atomic research and development programme.

“There has to be concrete commitments on the enrichment activities allowed for length of the accord, including a phased reduction in the number of centrifuges at the underground site of Fordow and an efficient mechanism to restore sanctions if Iran does not respect its commitments,” Fabius said.

Talks between EU political director Helga Schmid and Iranian negotiators Abbas Araqchi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi will run until Friday, with technical experts meeting in parallel, the EU said in a statement. 

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tom Heneghan)

Finally The Truth: It Was All A Lie (Rev 13)

 
George W. Bush’s CIA briefer admits Iraq WMD “intelligence” was a lie

Joanna Rothkopf

A flurry of politicians quickly declaring their candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination has meant that the Bush administration’s Iraq War is back in the national conversation. Jeb Bush has been forced to answer for his brother’s mistakes, while others like Marco Rubio have toed the party line — knowing the information that the administration knew at the time, they too would have invaded Iraq.

The thing is, the Iraq War was not the result of an intelligence goof — rather, the country’s top office systematically misled the public about Iraq’s nonexistent WMD program, as well as Saddam Hussein’s link to Al Qaeda.

On Tuesday night, former CIA Deputy Director and Bush’s intelligence briefer Michael Morell appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” where he, under an amount of good cable news duress, admitted that the administration intentionally misrepresented intelligence.

The show played a clip of Cheney saying, “We know [Saddam Hussein] has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

“Was that true or not,” host Chris Matthews asked.

“We were saying–”

“Can you answer that question? Was that true?”

“No, that was not true,” he finally said.

Iran Continues To Evade Framework Deal (Daniel 8:3)

Iran’s Leader Khamenei Vows To Resist ‘Excessive Demands’ As Nuclear Talks Resume

AP | By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Posted: 05/20/2015 8:31 am EDT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader vowed Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran’s military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders Wednesday that Iran will resist “coercion and excessive demands” from America and other world powers.

Negotiators from Iran and a six nation group — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — have launched a new round of talks in Vienna focused on reaching a final deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions. The two sides reached a framework agreement in March and hope to strike a final deal by June 30.

A fact sheet on the framework accord issued by the U.S. State Department said Iran would be required to grant the U.N. nuclear agency access to any “suspicious sites.”

But Khamenei indicated that the Americans are increasing their demands that international inspection of Iran’s military sites and interviews with Iranian scientists be included in the final deal.

“The impudent and brazen enemy expects that we allow them talk to our scientists and researchers about a fundamental local achievement but no such permission will be allowed,” Khamenei told military commanders in Tehran Wednesday, in remarks broadcast on state TV. “No inspection of any military site or interview with nuclear scientists will be allowed.”

Khamenei said interviewing Iranian nuclear scientists would be an affront to Iran’s dignity.
“I will not allow foreigners to interview — which is tantamount to interrogation — the prominent beloved scientists and sons of this nation,” he said.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media this week as accusing the Americans of changing their position and toughening their stance as the deadline approaches.

“They insist on crossing (our) red lines. This turns into an obstacle,” Velayati was quoted as saying.

There Is NO Nuclear Fatwa (Daniel 8:3)

 

Fatwa? What Fatwa? Does Ayatollah Khamenei’s Edict Exist?

The Washington Post (“Kerry seeks to assure Arab states over Iran deal,” March 6, 2015) casually referred to an unconfirmed religious ruling by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the all-powerful supreme leader of Iran may not have made. Khamenei purportedly issued a fatwa (an Islamic sharia law edict) against nuclear weapons, yet questions about both its very existence and potential meaning go unmentioned in the article.

It’s hard to tell what the supposed fatwa says because there is no hard evidence of its publication nor is a clear date given for its issuance. According to a Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) paper, the fatwa was first reported in October 2003 by Tehran after August 2002 revelations that Iran was secretly building a centrifuge enrichment facility in Natanz.

The WINEP report notes the ayatollah’s ability to alter or override fatwas and his shifting rhetoric with regard to earlier declarations. These reportedly condemned the creation of nuclear weapons, but more recent pronouncements explicitly ruled out only their use.

The existence of the edict seems to be entirely of a self-referential nature—it is asserted to exist but no written evidence supports the claim. This is unusual for an order of such importance, as the WINEP report notes.

The Post referred to the supposed fatwa almost in passing: “Iran insists it does not seek nuclear arms, which the country’s supreme leader has declared are forbidden by Islam, but wants the capacity to make nuclear fuel for reactors that produce energy and medical isotopes.”

The Post’s article is not alone in claiming Khamenei declared nuclear weapons off-limits to Iran under Islamic rule. In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 24, 2013 President Obama stated, “the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons.”

In November, 2013 Secretary of State John Kerry made a similar claim while in Geneva, Switzerland noting, “the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa, which forbids them to do this [acquire nuclear weapons].”

Doubts about the fatwa’s existence recently appeared in an article by Andrew McCarthy (“The Khamenei Fatwa Hoax is absurd on its face,” National Review, April 16). McCarthy says that disbelief is warranted since fatwas must be written and accessible to be authoritative and the Iranian has a regime history of lying and reversing religious edicts for political expediency.—Sean Durns

Impossible: Iran Has A Fatwa Against Nukes ;) (Daniel 8:3)

Inspectors Say Iran Is Evading Questions as Nuclear Talks Enter a Crucial Stage

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

FEB. 19, 2015

WASHINGTON — With only five weeks remaining for a basic agreement to be reached with Iran on the fate of its nuclear program, the world’s nuclear inspectors reported on Thursday that Iran was still refusing to answer their longstanding questions about suspected work on nuclear weapons and designs.

The report, by the International Atomic Energy Agency, was issued just as an American negotiating team heads to Geneva for four days of talks that will, by Sunday, include Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Most of those negotiations focus on the future, particularly on the question of how much nuclear fuel Iran would be permitted to produce and stockpile.

But a lurking issue has been whether, as part of any final accord, Iran will be compelled to answer all questions that the I.A.E.A. has put to it about evidence of past work on designing weapons. For more than three years Iran has refused, maintaining the evidence was fabricated and insisting its nuclear intentions are peaceful. But Iran has also, at various times, agreed to provide some answers, especially after the agency detailed, in November 2011, a dozen areas in which it suspected weapons-related work may have taken place.

American officials have cloaked the details of the negotiations in secrecy, and have not been specific about how an agreement would compel compliance with the international inspectors, who are part of the United Nations. Iranian demands for an agreement include a lifting of all United Nations resolutions and sanctions against Iran, many based on I.A.E.A. reports.

A senior American official, who declined to speak on the record about the negotiations, said the United States and its five negotiating partners — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — “are working to support the work of the I.A.E.A. by gaining I.A.E.A. access to information and locations that it has been seeking as appropriate.”

The agency’s report reaffirmed that Iran had complied with its responsibilities under an interim agreement during the negotiations to suspend production of nuclear fuel that could be quickly converted to bomb-grade, and limit production of reactor-grade fuel. Inspectors have been able to visit the main fuel-production sites. President Obama has cited that finding in recent interviews to assert that the Iranian program is now far more constrained — an argument for playing out the negotiations to conclusion. Even so, opinions in the Obama administration about the prospects for final accord are mixed.

The report said the agency “remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Because Iran has not provided explanations for the agency’s questions about all nuclear-related work, the report said, “the agency is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

The report, which was not released publicly, was obtained by The New York Times and other news organizations.

American intelligence agencies concluded toward the end of the Bush administration that Iran had ceased what they described as an effort to pursue a weapon in late 2003, though they found evidence of sporadic work since. But there has never been a precise accounting of what kind of work they say Iran pursued, especially in laboratories and test areas overseen by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian scientist believed to be leading the military research.

In 2011, the I.A.E.A. published a list of a dozen technologies, most of them necessary to build a nuclear weapon, that inspectors said Iran had tried to master, based in part on evidence supplied by the United States and Israel.

But on a cooperative note, the inspectors narrowed that list of 12 to three, and announced plans in November 2013 to get those answered first.

More than a year later, the report said, Iran has engaged the inspectors on only one topic — whether its engineers developed detonators that could be used to initiate a nuclear explosion. The report Thursday said Iran had not provided “any explanations” that would go beyond that cursory engagement, or clarify the two outstanding questions.

For example, it said, Iran had avoided answering why it conducted studies of experiments with conventional explosives. In a bomb, those explosives could be used to create highly focused shock waves that compress the core of a nuclear device, starting the chain reaction that leads to a nuclear blast. But there are other uses for such explosives.

The other outstanding question centers on computer modeling studies of how the subatomic neutrons released in a chain reaction move and multiply.

In their 2011 report, the inspectors argued that the evidence behind their dozen questions had made a credible case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” and that a clandestine effort might still be underway.

The report said inspectors had amassed “over a thousand pages” of documents, presumably spirited out of Iran by spies or defectors. It said they showed “research, development and testing activities” on technologies needed to develop a nuclear weapon; the details filled 14 pages.