These are my initial thoughts on the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran. They come after a few hours of watching the speeches, reading the briefings from the US State Department and the White House and some heavy-duty work on Twitter, both reading and writing (check my feed at @MJPlitnick if [...]]]> by Mitchell Plitnick

These are my initial thoughts on the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran. They come after a few hours of watching the speeches, reading the briefings from the US State Department and the White House and some heavy-duty work on Twitter, both reading and writing (check my feed at @MJPlitnick if you’d like to see some of it).

1. There are going to be tough political battles in both Washington and Tehran. But the reality is that pretty much everything the P5+1 has granted can be reversed at the figurative snap of a finger. If Iran dilutes or converts all of its 20% enriched stockpile, it will take time to build that back up. From the point of view of a hardliner in Iran, when that point is combined with the complete halt to work at Arak, the total halt to enrichment above 5%, the freeze on new centrifuges and limits on replacement and the earlier agreement Iran struck with the IAEA (which happened outside of the Geneva process, so there was no quid pro quo), this is a very long list of concessions. In exchange, Iran gets only minor sanctions relief, potentially worth as much as only $7 billion and an agreement that the West will leave the limit on Iran’s oil revenue where it is.

That’s a pretty one-sided deal, and Iranian conservatives are going to have a real point on their side when they scream about that. Yet it has already been established that many in Washington are not interested in anything less than a total Iranian capitulation. If Iran defies the West, they call for more sanctions. If Iran extends an olive branch, they say sanctions have worked and should be increased. It’s an obviously absurd position, but it is very much that of the Israeli government, the Saudi government, their various lobbying groups and the war-friendly right on Capitol Hill. Much will depend, in Washington, on President Obama’s and Secretary of State John Kerry’s ability to sell this deal as what it is—and incredibly good one for P5+1, which cannot be used as a cover for more steps toward a nuclear weapon, and which safeguards Israeli and Gulf security. In Tehran, Hassan Rowhani will have to convince the hardliners, some of whom certainly still have the ear of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini that the one-sided nature of the deal will be worth it because it will pave the way for comprehensive sanctions relief.

2. This is a huge step back away from war. Even if Iran does not comply or the process breaks down from here, at least war has been pushed back somewhat on the horizon. For the next six months, one hopes, there will be diplomatic efforts and the threat of war should be largely suspended, aside from occasional rhetoric about all option being on the table, meant to reassure Israel and the Gulf monarchies. Sanctions will be reinstated if the process fails. And we will head down the road toward war again, but at least it will have been delayed. Given that a war between the US and Iran is something neither side wants, any step back is a step towards eliminating the possibility.

3. The only way this hurts Israel is by limiting Netanyahu’s fear-mongering. The problem with Israel’s stance – and that of its right-wing advocates abroad – has been, all along, that what they really want is ever-increasing sanctions and tensions with Iran. The only deal that can possibly be even marginally acceptable to Israel is one which involves Iran’s total surrender. Since that was never going to be possible, the Netanyahu government is going to oppose even a great deal like this one with everything it has. A lot of Israeli rhetoric for years has been misinformation, sometimes even outright lies. Such was the case today when the Prime Minister’s office characterized the deal as giving “…Iran exactly what it wanted – a serious lessening of sanctions as well as preserving the most significant parts of its nuclear program.” The deal demonstrably does neither. Israel does have legitimate security concerns here, of course, but they have never been what Netanyahu has said they were. This deal is great for Israel because it grants unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear facilities to the IAEA, eliminates their 20% enriched uranium stockpile, and, at least for the next six months, eliminates Iran’s ability to beef up their nuclear program. It does that while bringing only temporary and unsustainable sanction relief—it will help a bit for a while, but by itself, this relief is nowhere near enough to repair the Iranian economy. There is just about no risk for Israel here, and everything to gain, from the point of view of the average Israeli. From the point of view of right wing demagogues like Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, it risks removing their last great boogeyman. Because if there is peace with Iran, they go back to trying to sell the Palestinians and Hezbollah as existential risks. Good luck with that.

4. A historic turning point. Although Trita Parsi, in his 2007 book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, makes it clear that there has always been some sort of interaction, if only at an indirect level, between Iran and the United States, this is the first time the two countries have come together in an agreement since the fall of the Shah in 1979. That it has even gotten this far displays a flexibility in both Tehran and Washington that hasn’t existed before. No matter how things go, that is a step forward, and a big one.

5. Arguments against the deal just don’t hold water. One right-wing critic actually compared the deal with Iran to the one with Syria. Well, in Syria, we got an agreement on chemical weapons, which is what we wanted; we deprived Bashar al-Assad of the ability to use such weapons again; we did it in cooperation with all the other great powers, rather than against their opposition; and we accomplished it without bloodshed.  I strongly suspect that it is that last point that most troubles opponents of both deals. Only bloodshed and destruction seem to satisfy them, despite the fact that, morality aside, we have seen so clearly in Iraq the consequences of such actions and their ineffectiveness. As I’ve already stated, the deal self-evidently favors the West. Iran is agreeing to it because they hope it will lead to what they want, which is a fully functional nuclear energy program that is sufficiently proven to be peaceful to remove the sanctions. When hardline Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted “Unless the agreement requires dismantling of the Iranian centrifuges, we really haven’t gained anything,” he demonstrated thorough ignorance of the nuclear weaponization process as well as the contents of the agreement. There is only one reason to oppose this deal and that is that, whether with weapons of war or sanctions that will lead to a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe in Iran, an all-out attack on Iran with the hope of regime change is what this is really about. The conclusion is inescapable—if you oppose this deal, you are looking for a lot more than the neutralization of Iran’s ability to construct a nuclear weapon.

via IPS News

While the U.S. and Iranian heads of state have yet to meet, the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly may mark a new era between the two countries.

After more than 30 years of frozen US-Iran relations, President Barack Obama announced Tuesday during his address [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

While the U.S. and Iranian heads of state have yet to meet, the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly may mark a new era between the two countries.

After more than 30 years of frozen US-Iran relations, President Barack Obama announced Tuesday during his address to the world body that Secretary of State John Kerry would be directly involved in talks over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Obama’s announcement comes on the heels of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s decision earlier this month to move Iran’s nuclear negotiating file from the Supreme National Council to its Foreign Ministry headed by Kerry’s counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Kerry and Zarif are scheduled to meet on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced on Monday, adding that Zarif and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany) would meet in Geneva in October.

The Kerry-Zarif meeting would be the highest-level formal encounter of the two countries since the 1979 U.N. General Assembly when then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance met with Provisional Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi seven months after the Islamic Revolution, according to Columbia University Professor Gary Sick.

“It’s very important if what Obama said meant that Kerry will be negotiating with Zarif directly and permanently,” Iran expert Trita Parsi told IPS.

“The U.S. would then be investing more in the diplomatic process, which means more political will and a greater cost of failure, and that is exactly what we need to overcome the political obstacles,” said the president of the National Iranian American Council.

The “mistrust” between the U.S. and Iran “has deep roots”, Obama said before acknowledging the U.S. role in “overthrowing an Iranian government” as part of U.S. “interference” in Iranian affairs.

He went on to cite some of Washington’s own grievances, including the 1979 Iranian takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and Iran threatening Israel “with destruction”.

But in a speech that emphasised the importance of pursuing diplomacy before resorting to force in securing U.S. interests, Obama’s message on Iran was clear.

“We should be able to achieve a resolution that respects the rights of the Iranian people, while giving the world confidence that the Iranian programme is peaceful,” he said.

“The fascinating thing is that he’s talking to multiple audiences and re-explaining to Americans why negotiating with Iran is the way to go,” Heather Hurlburt, a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, told IPS.

“We are not seeking regime change and we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy.  Instead, we insist that the Iranian government meet its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said Obama.

“He’s signaling to Iran that we’re prepared for mutual rights and mutual respect at a moment when the Iranians seem more ready to hear than in past and he’s signaling how we see that piece of the puzzle fitting in with other regional issues,” noted Hurlburt, who heads the DC-based National Security Network.

While Zarif listened to Obama’s morning address in the General Assembly auditorium, no U.S. delegate was visible during Rouhani’s afternoon speech.

For Iran’s part, Rouhani did not attend a lunch hosted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at which Obama was present. Iran also reportedly rejected a U.S. offer for an encounter earlier in the day.

But some experts suggest that too much attention has been placed on an Obama-Rouhani meeting.

“Expectations are already high on both sides but if nothing concrete is ready, a meeting without something solid would be damaging for each president,” William Luers, a former senior U.S. official and ambassador, told IPS in an email.

“As Javad [Zarif] has said, now is the time to stop behaving like ‘carpet merchants’,” said the director of the prominent Iran Project.

“Zarif and Kerry are as good a pair as we could ask for to find out whether diplomacy can succeed. We all believe it can. The handshakes can wait,” he said.

“The important development is that both sides appear to be serious at pursuing direct talks at a high level, and the important issue is whether those talks will make substantive progress,” international relations expert Stephen Walt told IPS.

“A brief meeting between Obama and Rouhani would have been stagecraft, but not statecraft,” said the Harvard Kennedy Professor.

During his speech, Iran’s leader spoke strongly against foreign military intervention in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, and against the rounds of sanctions that have been imposed on Iran.

“Unjust sanctions, as manifestation of structural violence, are intrinsically inhumane and against peace. And contrary to the claims of those who pursue and impose them, it is not the states and the political elite that are targeted, but rather, it is the common people who are victimised,” he said.

“Rouhani had the delicate task of delivering a speech that addresses multiple audiences, and the first part of his speech, especially the part about the sanctions, was addressing a domestic hardline audience,” Yasmin Alem, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told IPS.

“The second part was about Iran’s commitment to constructive dialogue and its willingness to negotiate and reach a settlement,” said the Iran expert.

“Iran seeks constructive engagement with other countries based on mutual respect and common interest, and within the same framework does not seek to increase tensions with the United States,” said the Iranian president, adding that he “listened carefully” to Obama’s speech.

“Commensurate with the political will of the leadership in the United States and hoping that they will refrain from following the short-sighted interest of warmongering pressure groups, we can arrive at a framework to manage our differences,” said the recently elected centrist cleric, who served as a nuclear negotiator under reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

“It was interesting to hear him to talk about how we can ‘manage’ relations,” Alem told IPS.

“Iran is still a long way from establishing normal relations with the U.S. and this echoes Obama’s words this morning in saying all that is down the road,” said Alem.

“It’s a good sign that both leaders are clear about the situation and on the same page,” she said.

via IPS News

While some kind of U.S. military action against Syria in the coming days appears increasingly inevitable, the debate over the why and how of such an attack has grown white hot here.

On one side, hawks, who span the political spectrum, argue that President Barack Obama’s credibility [...]]]> by Jim Lobe

via IPS News

While some kind of U.S. military action against Syria in the coming days appears increasingly inevitable, the debate over the why and how of such an attack has grown white hot here.

On one side, hawks, who span the political spectrum, argue that President Barack Obama’s credibility is at stake, especially now that Secretary of State John Kerry has publicly endorsed the case that the government of President Bashar Al-Assad must have been responsible for the alleged chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that was reported to have killed hundreds of people.

Just one year ago, Obama warned that the regime’s use of such weapons would cross a “red line” and constitute a “game-changer” that would force Washington to reassess its policy of not providing direct military aid to rebels and of avoiding military action of its own.

After U.S. intelligence confirmed earlier this year that government forces had on several occasions used limited quantities of chemical weapons against insurgents, the administration said it would begin providing arms to opposition forces, although rebels complain that nothing has yet materialised.

The hawks have further argued that U.S. military action is also necessary to demonstrate that the most deadly use of chemical weapons since the 1988 Halabja massacre by Iraqi forces against the Kurdish population there – a use of which the US. was fully aware but did not denounce at the time – will not go unpunished.

Military action should be “sufficiently large that it would underscore the message that chemical weapons as a weapon of mass destruction simply cannot be used with impunity,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told reporters in a teleconference Monday. “The audience here is not just the Syrian government.”

While the hawks, whose position is strongly backed by the governments of Britain, France, Gulf Arab kingdoms and Israel, clearly have the wind at their backs, the doves have not given up.

Remembering Iraq

Recalling the mistakes and distortions of U.S. intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, some argue that the administration is being too hasty in blaming the Syrian government.

If it waits until United Nations inspectors, who visited the site of the alleged attack Monday, complete their work, the United States could at least persuade other governments that Washington is not short-circuiting a multilateral process as it did in Iraq.

Many also note that military action could launch an escalation that Washington will not necessarily be able to control, as noted by a prominent neo-conservative hawk, Eliot Cohen, in Monday’s Washington Post.

“Chess players who think one move ahead usually lose; so do presidents who think they can launch a day or two of strikes and then walk away with a win,” wrote Cohen, who served as counsellor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “The other side, not we, gets to decide when it ends.”

“What if [Obama] hurls cruise missiles at a few key targets, and Assad does nothing and says, ‘I’m still winning.’ What do you then?” asked Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), who served for 16 years as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. “Do you automatically escalate and go up to a no-fly zone and the challenges that entails, and what then if that doesn’t get [Assad's] attention?

“This is fraught with tar-babiness,” he told IPS in a reference to an African-American folk fable about how Br’er Rabbit becomes stuck to a doll made of tar. “You stick in your hand, and you can’t get it out, so you then you stick in your other hand, and pretty soon you’re all tangled up all this mess – and for what?”

“Certainly there are more vital interests in Iran than in Syria,” he added. “You can’t negotiate with Iran if you start bombing Syria,” he said, a point echoed by the head of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi.

“There is a real opportunity for successful diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue, but that opportunity will either be completely spoiled or undermined if the U.S. intervention in Syria puts the U.S. and Iran in direct combat with each other,” he told IPS. Humanitarian concerns and U.S. credibility should also be taken into account when considering intervention, he said.

Remembering Kosovo

Still, the likelihood of military action – almost certainly through the use of airpower since even the most aggressive hawks, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, have ruled out the commitment of ground troops – is being increasingly taken for granted here.

Lingering questions include whether Washington will first ask the United Nations Security Council to approve military action, despite the strong belief here that Russia, Assad’s most important international supporter and arms supplier, and China would veto such a resolution.

“Every time we bypass the council for fear of a Russian or Chinese veto, we drive a stake into the heart of collective security,” noted Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “Long-term, that’s not in our interest.”

But the hawks, both inside the administration and out, are urging Obama to follow the precedent of NATO’s air campaign in 1999 against Serbia during the Kosovo War. In that case, President Bill Clinton ignored the U.N. and persuaded his NATO allies to endorse military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

The 78-day air war ultimately persuaded Yugoslav President Milosovic to withdraw his troops from most of Kosovo province, but not before NATO forces threatened to deploy ground troops, a threat that the Obama administration would very much like to avoid in the case of Syria.

While the administration is considered most likely to carry out “stand-off” strikes by cruise missiles launched from outside Syria’s territory to avoid its more formidable air-defence system and thus minimise the risk to U.S. pilots, there remains considerable debate as to what should be included in the target list.

Some hawks, including McCain and Graham, have called not only for Washington to bomb Syrian airfields and destroy its fleet of warplanes and helicopter and ballistic capabilities, but also to establish no-fly zones and safe areas for civilians and rebel forces to tilt the balance of power decisively against the Assad government. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have urged the same.

But others oppose such far-reaching measures, noting that the armed opposition appears increasingly dominated by radical Islamists, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda, and that the aim of any military intervention should be not only to deter the future use of chemical weapons but also to prod Assad and the more moderate opposition forces into negotiations, as jointly proposed this spring by Moscow and Washington. In their view, any intervention should be more limited so as not to provoke Assad into escalating the conflict.

Photo: Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, DC, on August 26, 2013. Credit: State Department

by Peter Jenkins

What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).

It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Peter Jenkins

What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).

It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his certainty about Iran’s nuclear intentions with the assessments that the US intelligence community has produced; queried the PM’s assertion that producing fissile material is nine tenths of the challenge of making a nuclear weapon capable of threatening Israel; reminded the PM of the numerous occasions he has claimed time to be running out for Iran diplomacy; and confronted the PM with what Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, a prominent spokesman for an Arab state that has coexisted peacefully with Israel, said to an interviewer from Spiegel last month:

SPIEGEL: What do you think would happen if Israel were to carry out a pre-emptive attack to prevent Tehran from building the bomb?

Prince Turki: Iran would retaliate against everybody — with its missiles, with  suicide bombers, with agents. And we would be the first victims. Imagine if a nuclear installation is destroyed in Iran and there is fallout on our  side of the border. The Iranian people would coalesce around their government. In short, it would be total mayhem.

An even more interesting question would have been this: “Prime Minister, have developments over the last two years ever prompted you to re-visit the decision taken by one of your predecessors, in 1992, to demonise Iran, in order to preserve the strategic value of Israel to the US?”

I doubt Mr. Schieffer would have got much of an answer. Yet it would be fascinating to know whether Israel is starting to reconsider the premise of the anti-Iranian course on which it embarked 21 years ago, with ever-greater consequences for US attitudes to Iran, especially in Congress.

According to Trita Parsi, the author of Treacherous Alliance: the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US, that course was premised on a change in the way Israeli leaders viewed their neighbourhood.

Since the time of Ben-Gurion, Israel had sought friendly ties with “the periphery” (Iran and Turkey) in order to counter-balance the threat posed by “the vicinity” (the Arab states surrounding Israel plus Iraq).

In 1992 it dawned on a new Israeli government that the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, the dismantlement of Iraqi WMD programs, Egyptian passivity and the launching of the Madrid peace process had defused the Arab threat and opened up possibilities for Israeli economic penetration of Arab neighbours.

But “Israel would have no future in the new order unless it could find a rationale for Washington to continue the strategic relationship” writes Parsi, who goes on to quote an expert on Israeli foreign policy: “There’s no doubt that when the prospects for peace with the inner circle emerged [the depiction of Iran as a threat] started”.

Iran was the obvious choice because of the torrent of revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli rhetoric that had flowed out of Tehran since 1979, and because Iran might one day seek to rival Israeli influence in the Arab states.

Writes Parsi: “Swiftly a campaign was organised to convince the US and Europe that Iran was a global threat.”

“The charges were based not on an existing Iranian threat but on the anticipation of a future Iranian threat,” he states.

What followed is becoming history.

Now the question is whether Israel still feels as sanguine about its Arab “vicinity”, and whether it continues to want Iran to provide the rationale for its strategic relationship with the US.

One might suppose that Israel could dispense with Iran as a rationale now that the US and Europe have such need of Israel as a still point of democratic stability in a maelstrom of Arab unrest.

Can one also suppose that Israel might see value in encouraging the US and Europe to cooperate with Iran to restore stability to the Arab “vicinity”?

The point is not that Syria, Iraq and Egypt are in any condition to threaten Israel militarily. Of course they are not. The point is that instability is intrinsically unpredictable.

Some future twist in the unfolding drama of the Arab Spring could transform Israel’s strategic prospects. And meanwhile the risk of chemical weapons falling into the hands of anti-Israeli terrorists is greater than it has ever been.

The fiction that Iran is a global threat no longer serves Israel well. How long will it take the Israelis, intelligent as they are, to realise that?

by Jasmin Ramsey

The Director of National Intelligence submitted the annual report on the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” today. The report can be accessed here and following are key passages that are relevant to Iran’s nuclear program, compliments of the Ploughshares Fund Early Warning [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

The Director of National Intelligence submitted the annual report on the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” today. The report can be accessed here and following are key passages that are relevant to Iran’s nuclear program, compliments of the Ploughshares Fund Early Warning mail-out, which I encourage everyone to sign up for.

–On Iran: “We assess Iran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security, prestige, and regional influence and give it the ability to develop nuclear weapons, should a decision be made to do so. We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

–“We judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran…In this context, we judge that Iran is trying to balance conflicting objectives. It wants to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities and avoid severe repercussions—such as a military strike or regime threatening sanctions.”

–While Iran has enhanced its uranium production capabilities, “we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU before this activity is discovered.”

Interesting Iran-related takeaways from this latest US intelligence community assessment include the notion that Tehran’s decision-making process with regard to its nuclear program can be influenced, as Laura Rozen reported today, and that while it has grown increasingly autocratic at home, much of Iran’s foreign strategy is described as defensive, according to this analysis by Mideast expert, Trita Parsi. “This is not to say that Clapper discounts or dismisses the challenge Iran poses to the U.S.,” wrote Parsi today, “but his assessment is devoid of the panic-stricken and sensationalist narrative that hints of the coming Iranian land invasion of the U.S. and its desire to destroy Western civilization.”

Following is the DNI’s assessment of Iran’s WMD-Applicable Capabilities (more on this later):

We assess Iran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security, prestige, and regional influence and give it the ability to develop nuclear weapons, should a decision be made to do so. We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

Tehran has developed technical expertise in a number of areas—including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles—from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons. These technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.

Of particular note, Iran has made progress during the past year that better positions it to produce weapons-grade uranium (WGU) using its declared facilities and uranium stockpiles, should it choose to do so. Despite this progress, we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU before this activity is discovered. We judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran. Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran’s security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program. In this context, we judge that Iran is trying to balance conflicting objectives. It wants to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities and avoid severe repercussions—such as a military strike or regime threatening sanctions.

We judge Iran would likely choose a ballistic missile as its preferred method of delivering a nuclear weapon, if one is ever fielded. Iran’s ballistic missiles are capable of delivering WMD. In addition, Iran has demonstrated an ability to launch small satellites, and we grow increasingly concerned that these technical steps—along with a regime hostile toward the United States and our allies—provide Tehran with the means and motivation to develop larger space-launch vehicles and longer-range missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, and it is expanding the scale, reach, and sophistication of its ballistic missile arsenal. Iran’s growing ballistic missile inventory and its domestic production of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) and development of its first long-range land attack cruise missile provide capabilities to enhance its power projection. Tehran views its conventionally armed missiles as an integral part of its strategy to deter—and if necessary retaliate against—forces in the region, including US forces.

Photo: National Intelligence James Clapper. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Gary Sick (Columbia University professor who served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan), Joe Cirincione (President of the Ploughshares Fund), Trita Parsi (President of the National Iranian American Council) and Michael Eisenstadt (senior fellow at the Washington Institute) discuss the results of last week’s talks [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Gary Sick (Columbia University professor who served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan), Joe Cirincione (President of the Ploughshares Fund), Trita Parsi (President of the National Iranian American Council) and Michael Eisenstadt (senior fellow at the Washington Institute) discuss the results of last week’s talks between Iran and the 6-world power P5+1 negotiating team in Almaty, Kazakhstan (see my related story here) on HuffPost Live and the path ahead.

by Mitchell Plitnick

The annual Israel-Congress orgy dubbed as the AIPAC Policy Conference kicked off today. It might just as well be called the War on Iran conference — that’s sure to be the issue that dominates the proceedings. The US-Israel relationship is taking the second spot. And the Palestinians? More [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Mitchell Plitnick

The annual Israel-Congress orgy dubbed as the AIPAC Policy Conference kicked off today. It might just as well be called the War on Iran conference — that’s sure to be the issue that dominates the proceedings. The US-Israel relationship is taking the second spot. And the Palestinians? More than ever before, they will be invisible.

There are a few sessions at the conference that deal with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in very general terms. But Iran will be the focus, as evidenced by related bills which AIPAC had some of its most loyal members of Congress introduce in advance of their lobbying day. Those bills work to give Israel a green light to attack Iran if it feels the need to and puts the “special relationship” between the US and Israel on paper.

Last week a Senate resolution was introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ). The two senators are widely known as AIPAC favorites and have led bipartisan actions like this in the past, working with AIPAC quite closely to develop legislation favorable to the lobbying organization. The resolution states that if Israel decides to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon, this would be considered an act of self-defense and that “…the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel…”

The bill is a “sense of Congress” resolution, so it is not binding; hence the word “should” rather than “will” is used. Still, it is a very clear expression that the Senate expects and desires that President Obama provide a full range of support to Israel in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran. It certainly sends a signal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will have Congress behind him if Obama tries to restrain Israel from taking such a step. While the bill’s wording clarifies that it should not be understood as a declaration of war in the event of an Israeli attack, a commitment to military support of Israel in the event of a purely Israeli decision to attack Iran could well amount to the same thing.

The timing of the bill should not be ignored. AIPAC consistently tries to get its most important legislation to the congressional floor ahead of its conference and especially its “lobbying day,” when thousands of AIPAC activists descend upon Capitol Hill, armed with its marching orders. The timing demonstrates AIPAC’s priorities, and it’s not coincidental that this bill comes on the heels of a rare moment of small hope in negotiations between the P5+1 (the US, France, England, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran.

In their recent meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the P5+1 reduced some of their demands and offered some relief from sanctions in exchange for Iranian compliance. This was met with a positive response from Iran. Trita Parsi, prominent expert on Iran and the head of the National Iranian American Council, offered cautious optimism: “Though the gap between the two sides is still wide, the fact that two additional meetings were scheduled without any Iranian foot-dragging – in the midst of the Iranian holiday season mind you – may also signal increased seriousness.”

AIPAC would be unlikely to view the P5+1′s reported offer favorably, as it allows Iran to keep a certain amount of its 20% enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor and backs off a demand to close the nuclear plant at Fordow, demanding only that work there be suspended. AIPAC would surely view these moderations as risky for Israel. So, a provocative resolution was introduced in Congress. AIPAC is likely even more aware than many of its congressional allies that probably at least some in Tehran will not pick up on the nuance that this resolution is non-binding. If the resolution is interpreted by Iran as demonstrating that the US is not serious about finding a negotiated resolution to the nuclear standoff, it will surely serve as further incentive for Iran to redouble its nuclear efforts.

But AIPAC has never favored negotiations, always leaning toward militant stances, military threats and ever more devastating sanctions. More of the same can be expected at their conference, with the many members of Congress, from both parties, who will be speaking, attending and parroting the AIPAC line.

In the House of Representatives, another AIPAC-backed bill would impose still tighter sanctions on Iran. Both the Senate and House resolutions also include language that seeks to change US policy from being dedicated to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon to preventing Iran from acquiring the capability to build such a weapon. The two thresholds are very different, and the latter is a point that Iran has probably already passed. Such a policy would provide the justification for war at any time.

AIPAC’s legislative agenda is not limited to Iran. The agenda regarding Israel strongly reflects the current situation, both in what it says and what it does not.

The entire Palestinian issue is being buried, and this fits well with the direction Israel itself is taking. As I explained elsewhere, whatever governing coalition Benjamin Netanyahu assembles, both it and the opposition will be dominated by parties that either outright oppose a Palestinian state or are in favor of returning to endless and fruitless negotiations. Thus AIPAC completely mutes the issue. But they are pushing legislation regarding the US-Israel relationship, an emphasis that at least partially reflects the recent battle over Chuck Hagel’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense.

AIPAC knew early on that Hagel’s confirmation was inevitable, so it dropped out of the fight almost as soon as it began. One of their great strengths is their keen ability to pick their battles. Instead they allowed the partisan Republican and extremist groups, like the Emergency Committee for Israel, to take on the Hagel nomination. Both Elliott Abrams and ECI’s founder Bill Kristol said that Hagel was “weakened” by the whole affair.

AIPAC was less than keen on Hagel because he is comparatively reluctant to go to war with Iran and because he has been outspoken about the pressure AIPAC exerts on the Hill. He also considers it his duty to serve the United States before Israel. The bills discussed above are intended to narrow the political options on Iran for the President and his new cabinet. Others are intended to legislatively solidify the special relationship between Israel and the United States which AIPAC fears might have been weakened in recent years by the attention they brought to their Israel-first advocacy.

Another bill introduced to the House would designate Israel as a “major strategic ally.” That designation is unprecedented and could mean just about anything, but it would allow Israel to enjoy some unique status in its relationship with the US. Of course, it already does, but there has never been a formal, legislative statement to that effect. The bipartisan bill is sponsored by two good friends of AIPAC, Ed Royce (R-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY). It broadens sanctions on Iran and designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

Much of the impetus for this bill comes from the sequester and is intended to help ensure that funding for Israel is not threatened by the automatic budget cuts (and never mind that aid to US citizens might be considered by most in the US as a higher priority than aid to Israel). It also includes wording that works to separate aid to Israel from all other foreign aid, so that going forward, threats to general foreign aid would not include Israel, which is the largest recipient of such aid.

But there is also what I’d call the Hagel Factor. Knowing that they were not going to be able to stop the President from appointing the Defense Secretary he wanted, AIPAC has worked to ensure that ideas concerning them about Hagel on Iran and on the special US-Israel relationship will be blunted. Accordingly, the next three days will evolve around the imminent threat Iran poses (including at least the insinuation of a nuclear attack intended to wipe out the Jews), the importance of safeguarding the shared values between the US and Israel, and all the wonderful things Israel provides for the US. Though don’t expect too many specifics on that last point.

Following up on LobeLog’s revelation in September that Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum (MEF) helped support the defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), our former colleague Eli Clifton has published new information about the funders of MEF’s Legal Project – among them, [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Following up on LobeLog’s revelation in September that Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum (MEF) helped support the defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), our former colleague Eli Clifton has published new information about the funders of MEF’s Legal Project – among them, the Bradley Foundation, which was named one of the top funders in the Center for American Progress “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” and the San Francisco-based Koret Foundation.

Eli shows that the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin coached the defendant in the case, Seid Hassan Daioleslam, on how to mount an effective attack on NIAC and president Trita Parsi – at one point, advising Daioleslam that anything he wrote for MEF’s “Middle East Quarterly” (of which Rubin was then editor) would have to be “run …past one of our lawyers to make sure that it is written in a way that adheres to libel laws in the United States but, as you know, libel laws in the United States usually allow you to say what you need to say.”

Pipes has also used his MEF to say what he needed to say. Writes Eli:

In recent years, Pipes has written a series of pieces arguing that President Obama “was born and raised a Muslim and retained a Muslim identity until his late 20s.”

“[I]f Obama once was a Muslim, he is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be executed. Were he elected president of the United States, this status, clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world,” wrote Pipes in a January 2008 FrontPageMag column.

Eli’s piece should be read in its entirety but I made a couple of interesting notes. Ironically, Parsi himself was a Bradley Fellow – that is, an indirect beneficiary of the Foundation’s largess. He received a stipend from Bradley as a result of his research work for former neo-con favourite Francis Fukuyama at Johns Hopkins School for International Studies (SAIS). Thus, Bradley helped fund Parsi’s own PhD work, which resulted in his very well-reviewed book on U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relations, “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States”.

Also, Eli notes that the MEF describes its domestic mission as “combat(ing) lawful Islamism; protects the freed of public speech of anti-Islamist authors, activists, and publishers; and works to improve Middle East studies in North America” — by which I take to mean the group supports Campus Watch to report professors who may at times be critical of Israel for this or that reason. What is interesting about the NIAC lawsuit, however, is that NIAC, insofar as I am aware, is a completely secular organization that has nothing whatever to do with Islamism or the promotion or denigration of any religion.

Laura Rozen reports that the six world power negotiating team may not be revamping its package to be more generous with Iran as many were hoping (Russia has not even signed on to the new version yet) ahead of resumed talks which likely won’t take place until January.

Amidst reports that stalled negotiations with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may soon be jump-started, many here are arguing that a mutually negotiated settlement remains the most effective option for resolving the dispute and averting the threat of war.

“We believe there is time and clearly there is an [...]]]> via IPS News

Amidst reports that stalled negotiations with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may soon be jump-started, many here are arguing that a mutually negotiated settlement remains the most effective option for resolving the dispute and averting the threat of war.

“We believe there is time and clearly there is an interest from all parties to reach a diplomatic solution,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, co-host with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) of a conference here today titled, “Making Diplomacy Work”.

“Diplomacy is the obvious option, but it’s not obvious how to make diplomacy succeed,” said NIAC president Trita Parsi, who chaired the event that aired on C-SPAN Monday.

The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Iranian revolution. The conflict has been mostly cold, but the threat of war spiked this year following a pressure campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Obama administration has set the U.S.’s “red line” at development of a nuclear weapon, but the Israeli red line is Iran’s acquirement of nuclear weapon-building “capability”, or Iran crossing into a so-called “zone of immunity” where it can create a nuclear weapon at Fordow, the underground uranium enrichment facility that’s impenetrable by Israeli air strikes.

Asked how he would advise the president if the Israelis carried out a strike against Iran, keynote speaker Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former National Security Adviser under President Jimmy Carter, said he would have appropriately advised the president before that point and that U.S. national security should not follow that of another country.

“It’s very important for clarity to exist in a relationship between friends. I don’t think there’s any implicit obligation for the United States to follow, like a stupid mule, whatever the Israelis do,” said the famed geostrategist.

Jim Walsh, a nonproliferation expert at MIT, stated that military strikes against Iran would compel it to expel International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspectors and dash for a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against future attacks.

“What do we get if there’s war?” asked Walsh. “An Iran with nuclear weapons.”

In contention with the Israeli red line is the notion that Iran already has the ability to create a nuclear weapon, should it make the decision to do so, according to experts.

“Since 2007, Western and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran is nuclear capable,” said Kimball, who previously told IPS that the objective should thus be aimed at affecting Iran’s will.

“We must be honest about this, there’s no difference between a centrifuge at Fordow and Natanz, it’s only harder to bomb Fordow,” said Walsh.

Walsh also noted that “mistrust” between the U.S. and Iran and a focus on singular issues are impediments to the diplomatic process.

“They both want to get a deal around issue of 20-percent (enriched uranium), they want to play small ball, get something and push the can down the road. This is a mistake. You are shrinking the negotiating space,” noted Walsh.

Ahmed Sadri, a professor of Islamic World Studies at Wolf University, argued that the next few months provide the perfect window of opportunity for the U.S. and Iran to seriously move the diplomatic process forward.

“Now is the right time, after American elections and right before Iranian elections,” he said, adding that “if there is no relationship (between the U.S. and Iran), negative feelings are reinforced.

“Leader Ali Khamenei has a very conspiratorial and paranoid mind…But just because you’re paranoid that there’s a crocodile under your bed doesn’t mean there isn’t a crocodile under your bed,” said Sadri.

According to Rolf Ekéus, the former head of the United Nation Special Commission on Iraq, sanctions-relief must be on the table to provide Iran with enough incentive to give up its alleged ambitions.

“Iraq was praised by the IAEA…but it turned out they were cheating, that’s why one had to create another arrangement…containing a very important U.N. dimension that respected boundaries and the independence of Iraq,” said the Swedish diplomat.

“This was a functioning system which allowed good behaviour to get sanctions relief; bad behaviour was met with tough language from the Security Council, not individual governments, Israel or anyone,” said Ekéus.

Ekéus also emphasised that “regime change must be taken off the table” as Iranians should be “left to take care of it” and the U.S. should stop “hiding behind the P5+1” and engage Iran on mutual regional interests.

“Iran is huge now, its influence is enormous, but it’s shaky all over. The P5+1 is not the appropriate player if you want to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

Brzezinski emphasised that the diplomatic process is not dead, but listed options the U.S. should consider if negotiations completely fail.

The worst choice would be a U.S. joint or Israeli attack, which would “produce a regional crisis and widespread hatred particularly for the U.S.,” said Brzezinski, dismissing it as an “act of utter irresponsibility and potentially significant immorality of the U.S.”

The least objectionable of the worst options – all of which should be considered only after the U.S. failed to achieve its desired outcome through negotiations – would be a type of containment.

“We combine continued painful, but not strangulating sanctions – and be very careful in that distinction – with clear political support for the emergence of eventual democracy in Iran…and at the same time an explicit security guarantee for U.S.-friendly Middle Eastern states, including Israel, modeled on the very successful, decades-lasting protection of our European allies from an overwhelming Soviet nuclear threat,” he said.

Brzezinski added that Iran has not endured as a sovereign state for centuries because it was motivated by suicidal tendencies like initiating a war that would invite a devastating U.S. attack.

“The sooner we get off the notion that at some point we may strike Iran, the better the chances for the negotiations and the better the chance for stability if we couple it with a clear commitment to the security of the region, designed to neutralise any potential, longer-range, Iranian nuclear threat,” he said.