Iran Newsclips, February 13, 2015
david.cutler
Quick Links:
Parsi and Cullis: How Congress Can Learn to Stop Scuttling and Love the Iran Nuke Talks, Foreign Policy
If the Iran Nuke Talks Fail..., The National Interest
Slavin: Signs point to US and Iran closing in on a nuclear deal, Al Jazeera America
Jenkins: Being Realistic about Nuclear Proliferation, Lobe Log
Nobel winner Elie Wiesel lends support to Netanyahu's U.S. speech, Reuters
Syrian Army, Hezbollah Forces Rapidly Advance into Southern Syria, Uskowi on Iran
Washington’s Uneasy Partnership With Tehran Now Extends to Yemen, Foreign Policy
Does Iran really control Yemen? Al-Monitor
Lobe: Lest We Forget: Bibi’s “Wisdom” on Iraq, Lobe Log
Case accusing Argentine president of orchestrating cover up with Iran moves forward, AP
Khamenei agrees with Congress: no deal better than a bad deal, Al-Monitor
Ledeen: Missiles and menaces in an Iran-Russia-North Korea alliance, The Hill
Ecological disaster looms in Iran’s dying wetlands, Financial Times
Parsi and Cullis: How Congress Can Learn to Stop Scuttling and Love the Iran Nuke Talks, Foreign Policy, February 13, 2015
It may sound crazy, but Congress could actually take a bold move that would allow it to get everything that Congress members claim to want in the negotiations, while actually helping to move along, rather than just scuttle, the talks. … Congress could play a productive role in the negotiations if it would pass legislation that addresses the lack of confidence. Such a bill would grant the president authorization to lift the sanctions on a timeline agreed to at the negotiations and only on the condition that Iran has scrupulously adhered to its own commitments under any nuclear deal. This would absolve Congress of the need to lift sanctions itself, which is a politically difficult and challenging task, while protecting its legal authority by retaining the power to override any proposed lifting of sanctions.
If the Iran Nuke Talks Fail..., The National Interest, February 13, 2015
What if the nuclear talks with Iran completely break down at some point, as quite a few people in Congress and the Washington policy community seem to want? We believe the results might be more dangerous for Iran, the United States, and the Middle East than an imperfect deal that keeps Iran a healthy distance from a bomb and gives the United States reasonable confidence that it could catch an Iranian attempt to dash to a weapon, without eliminating Iran's nuclear program. First of all, the possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities goes up considerably.
Slavin: Signs point to US and Iran closing in on a nuclear deal, Al Jazeera America, February 13, 2015
But even if negotiations take a while longer to conclude, U.S.-Iran relations have progressed to the point that Netanyahu’s habitual rejectionism — like Iranians’ ritual chants of “Death to America” — have become anachronistic in the eyes of a growing pragmatic consensus in both Tehran and the West. Since the conclusion of an interim nuclear agreement in 2013, there has been a de facto truce between the U.S. and Iran on a number of issues besides Iran’s nuclear program, and it appears unlikely now that relations will revert to the hostility that prevailed before Rouhani succeeded President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Jenkins: Being Realistic about Nuclear Proliferation, Lobe Log, February 13, 2015
If prevention were an affordable option, we can be pretty sure that President George W. Bush would have gone for it. That he didn’t tells us to listen to common sense: dismantling Iran’s enrichment capability and ensuring that it stays dismantled would entail exorbitant costs. It would require the United States to invade Iran, locate all its nuclear facilities, destroy them, round up and intern many of Iran’s nuclear engineers, and maintain the occupation for several generations, if not in perpetuity as Iranians are good at bearing historical grudges. If I were an American taxpayer and voter, I think I would blanch at that prospect.
Nobel winner Elie Wiesel lends support to Netanyahu's U.S. speech, Reuters, February 13, 2015
The advertisement quotes Wiesel as saying he plans to attend Netanyahu's address "on the catastrophic danger of a nuclear Iran." Awarded the Nobel in 1986, Wiesel asks Obama and others in the ad: "Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?" Speaking to Reuters by phone, Boteach said: "There's no personality more respected in the global Jewish community and few in the wider world than Elie Wiesel. He is a living prince of the Jewish people."
Syrian Army, Hezbollah Forces Rapidly Advance into Southern Syria, Uskowi on Iran, February 13, 2015
The Syrian Army, bolstered by the Lebanese Hezbollah, continued its rapid advance into southern Syria today, recapturing strategic hilltops and key swaths of territory lost last year to rebel groups including al-Nusra. Iran’s Quds Force is believed to have directed the major military operation.
Washington’s Uneasy Partnership With Tehran Now Extends to Yemen, Foreign Policy, February 12, 2015
The Houthis’ success has only deepened a sense of concern among American allies in the Middle East — a worry shared by some American analysts — that the United States is willing to allow Iran a sphere of influence in the region, in part to help lock down a nuclear deal. … Yemen “is not the main game” in the Middle East, Harvey said. “But it feeds into a sense of paranoia” that the United States is acquiescent in the face of an emboldened Iran. “It doesn’t look good if you’re a Sunni Arab in the region,” he said.
Does Iran really control Yemen? Al-Monitor, February 12, 2015
There is a near consensus among Yemen experts that no single tribe or political current can individually govern the country. Although pictures of ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah have been carried by Houthi supporters during demonstrations, in the last year or so, no member of the Houthi political bureau has made any statement praising Iran. The Houthis’ position might be explained by pointing to their lack of desire to stir up unnecessary resistance from inside and outside of the country against them, and that they do not seek to become the sole holder of power in Yemen.
Lobe: Lest We Forget: Bibi’s “Wisdom” on Iraq, Lobe Log, February 12, 2015
So now, two-and-a-half years later, and with Dermer, a former Republican activist, installed as ambassador at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the obvious question is: Why should we “welcome [Netanyahu’s] expertise” on anything having to do with the region? As the excerpts below demonstrate, Netanyahu’s “expertise” on Iraq contributed to the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. foreign policy, at least since Vietnam. Why is there any reason to believe that his assessments of “Iran’s regional designs” in 2015 are any more accurate than his assessments about Iraq and the regional implications of regime change there than those he offered in his testimony in 2002? Especially when Israeli national-security officials believe that he is grossly exaggerating the alleged threat posed by Iran.
Case accusing Argentine president of orchestrating cover up with Iran moves forward, AP, February 13, 2015
The prosecutor who inherited a high-profile case against Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Friday reaffirmed the accusations, formally renewing the investigation into whether the president helped Iranian officials cover up their alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. A top government official called the move a "judicial coup."
Khamenei agrees with Congress: no deal better than a bad deal, Al-Monitor, February 12, 2015
Based on the language of the joint statement, it seems that the end of March is a sort of soft deadline for a preliminary agreement. Given that the negotiations are confidential and most of the knowledge of the these talks comes from leaked sources, and sometimes by those with political motivations, it’s not clear how Obama would present this March deal to Congress nor how Zarif will sell this multistep deal, if indeed it is that, to Khamenei. But it's still a possibilityKhamenei may have been expressing opposition to a multistep deal that would have other phases after the June deadline.
Ledeen: Missiles and menaces in an Iran-Russia-North Korea alliance, The Hill, February 13, 2015
You wouldn't expect a brutal regime to have trouble carrying out punishment against convicted criminals, but there are several documented cases in which that has occurred. Iran applies the Law of Talion — "an eye for an eye" — so that if someone is convicted for blinding another person, the punishment is to be blinded himself. Yet Iranian doctors frequently refuse to do it, insisting that it violates their oath to "do no harm," and they have stuck to their principles, leaving the guilty parties in jail as the authorities search for a willing doctor. This is, to be sure, an unusual form of civil disobedience, but I haven't seen any reports of those doctors being punished for it.
Ecological disaster looms in Iran’s dying wetlands, Financial Times, February 13, 2015
State mismanagement, 15 years of drought and the building of dams in neighbouring Afghanistan are blamed for the disappearance of the waters, leaving the local population, who for generations lived on fishing, cattle breeding and hunting, with no source of income. … The dying wetland is just one sign of a growing water crisis in Iran that political leaders say is likely to become the country’s biggest challenge in the future.