Iran has won the diplomatic battle – but the war is not over

One picture established over the weekend by AP says it all: A gaunt, stressed and worried looking Secretary of State John Kerry walking in the streets of Geneva next to a rested, smiling and confident  Iranian foreign minister Zavad Zarif.

 

While the US negotiators tried to spin the weekend talks about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons as having been somewhat productive, citing: “long-awaited progress on some elements that would go into a comprehensive deal”. They also described the discussions as a “moving target”.

Ynet news reported on Monday that according to several news agencies familiar with the negotiations: “The United States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran's nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make weapons.”

The U.S. initially sought restrictions lasting for up to 20 years; Iran had pushed for less than 10.

The idea presented in the current talks would be to reward Iran for “good behavior” by gradually lifting constraints on its uranium enrichment program.

Iran could be allowed to operate significantly more centrifuges than the U.S. administration first demanded. Several officials spoke of 6,500 centrifuges as a potential point of compromise. Iran is currently still running at least 10,000 centrifuges, at full capacity, despite having committed to cut the number down in the November 2013 agreement with the P5+1 group. And these are the ones we know about. There are reports of secret enrichment facilities built over the past few years.

And still unclear, from all the reports so far, is the status of Iran's underground enrichment facility at Fordo and heavy water reactor at Arak, which potentially could produce enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons a year.

In other words, the US has officially now conceded Iran having nuclear weapons in ten years!

But that was not enough for the Iranians. Sensing a desperate urgency by the US negotiators to close a deal at any cost, Zarif told Iran's Fars news agency: "We had serious talks with the Americans in the past three days ... But still there is a long way to reach a final agreement."

US Negotiators hope to meet a self-imposed March 31 deadline for an initial political deal. The approaching deadline has caused a rift between the US and Israel, which calls the talks "dangerous" and "astonishing".  A “US official” has accused Israel of distorting Washington's position in the talks.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said on Monday: "The agreement with Iran as it is coming together now is a great danger to Western world peace and a threat to Israel's security."  Ya'alon said the deal would permit Iran to be freed from current economic sanctions while continuing to enrich uranium. He called Iran "the most dangerous regime" and a central factor behind instability in the Middle East.

The talks will continue on March 3rd, at a location yet to be determined. Iran is playing for time, feeling that it will get even more concessions because the US needs a foreign policy “achievement”.

But the accord will have to receive some sort of acceptance from the U.S. Congress to be fully implemented. Given the hostility to any Iranian enrichment from most Republican and many Democratic lawmakers, which hopefully will increase after Bibi’s speech, however it is delivered, this may not happen.

Kerry’s picture says it all – Iran already knows it has probably won the diplomatic battle. But the war is far from over. Israel is still very much in play…

Bad Nuke Deal; ISIS Expansion

by Gil Elan

February 19, 2015

The Iranian Nuke Deal: 

As of this writing, more details are coming out about the “bad Deal” negotiated between Iran and the US that is supposed to be initialed, if not actually signed on March 24th. As explained in this briefing last week, the “deal” assumes that with certain “restrictions” and “controls” Iran would require at least 12 months to reach the “breakout stage”, that would enable it to construct a nuclear weapon within a week or two.

According to reliable sources both here and in Israel, the so-called “deal” does not resolve in any way the fact that Iran was, according to reliable reports, including from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), just 2-3 months away from “breakout” back in November 2013! On the contrary - according to these reports it actually increases the number of advanced enrichment centrifuges Iran can assemble and operate, does not limit the quantities of enriched Uranium Iran can stockpile. It does not address the weaponization program in the secret facility at Parchin, the ongoing construction of a Heavy Water nuclear reactor (that can produce weapons-grade Plutonium) near the city of Arak or the manufacturing, testing and deploying of long range missiles. According to the US News and World Report, it is, without a doubt, a Really Bad Deal.

And as Raghida Dergham, a columnist and senior diplomatic correspondent published this week in Al Arabiya News, it is essentially a capitulation to Iran’s demands, and acceptance of this rogue, terror sponsoring, fundamentalist Shiite Islamist regime, dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the humiliation of America...as a nuclear power.    

According to several Israeli and Arab sources, what Iran is “promising” in exchange for turning a blind eye on its nukes, is that it will “help” the US led coalition against ISIS, and will not declare itself nuclear armed until Spring 2017 (do the math...).

If, after Netanyahu addresses Congress on March 3rd (as of this writing it has not been changed), the kind of “deal” outlined above is still signed, then a regional Sunni coalition together with Israel may have to take the necessary action to do what the “deal” won’t - stop Iran from acquiring nukes.

The growth and spread of ISIS

In the past few days we have seen a video of the brutal beheadings (Warning!!! Unedited graphic video of the actual beheadings!! DO NOT OPEN LINK IF THIS WILL BOTHER OR OFFEND YOU!) of 21 Egyptian Christians by ISIS on the shores of the Mediterranean in Libya.

This is clear proof that ISIS is expanding the territory of the Islamic State and now controls parts of Northern Libya.

Five days ago we learned from the police chief of the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi that ISIS fighters, having just captured that town, horrifically burned alive over 45 Shiite members of the Iraqi military forces. Claiming that “a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials were now under attack”, Col Obeidi pleaded for help from the Iraqi government and the international community.

The huge significance of this town falling to ISIS is that the large Iraqi Ain al-Asad air base, where about 320 US Marine “advisors” are training members of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, is just 5 miles away. The base itself was attacked by ISIS, including several suicide bombers, just last Friday. They were eventually repelled by Iraqi troops backed by US-led coalition aircraft. This time, according to the Pentagon, no US troops participated in the fighting.

But with ISIS reinforcements now swarming into al-Baghdadi, the next attack is just a matter of time.

It’s clear to me that rather than being “degraded and eventually destroyed”, ISIS is expanding, strengthening, and casting its dark Islamist Jihadist shadow over more and more areas and people, while our leaders here and in Europe are debating what to call them...

What I would call them is: Devout Radical Islamist Jihadis, who are following literally and precisely the clear and unequivocal orders given to them, both in the Koran and the Hadith, by whom they believe is the “perfect man” and the “final messenger” chosen by Allah, the Prophet Mohammed.

In their ideology, they are continuing the conquests, proselytizing, enslaving and destruction that he started, and ordered to be continued, exactly as they understand and interpret his very words.

In their eyes they are not a mutation of Islam - rather they are the original, conquering, subjugating Islam, following the instructions of the Prophet to the letter.

We are not at war with Islam. An overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world put the words of the Koran and wartime sayings of the Prophet in historical and situational context.

But until the Ulama, the spiritual leaders of the five schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence today, either very publically reinterpret the texts, or the context, of some of the original passages...we will continue to be at war with the Devout, Radical, Islamist Jihadis.

And this will not be a three year war or thirty year war. It will only end when either:

1. One side accepts the superiority of belief of the other, or
2. All the Islamic schools of Jurisprudence rule clearly and irrevocably that Islam can and must live side by side with all other religions in peace, equality, mutual understanding and harmony.

As for the latest ill-advised official determination by State Department Spokeswomen Marie Harf that: “We cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot defeat ISIS by killing them all”, allow me to quote one of America’s greatest generals, George Patton, who said: "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his". 

Why Netanyahu MUST speak to Congress

     As more information about the supposed upcoming “Bad Deal” between the P5+1 countries and Iran over the radical Islamic State’s nuclear weapons program, due to be drafted by March 24th and finalized in June, leaks…no…gushes out, the importance of Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Bibi to address Congress, and Bibi’s acceptance, becomes more imperative. Here’s why: 

1. Disagreeing strongly with both the US negotiating tactics at the table (concede more and more without any budge from the Iranians), and a constantly retreating goal line (from “zero nuclear weapons capability” to accepting a nuclear weaponized Iran that can, in what is probably an unrealistic fantasy of someone advising the President, be somehow “contained”), Germany, France, The UK, China and Russia have quietly taken a back seat in the talks. 
2. All “negotiations” (i.e.: capitulation to Iran’s demands) in recent weeks have been conducted between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. 
3. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday notes that “Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 29: "Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six UN resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now in essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability through an agreement that sets a hypothetical limit of one year on an assumed breakout. The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it." 
4. And while the White House seems certain that a regime of inspections, and threats of sanctions or military action are more than enough to “manage” or “contain” a nuclear armed, radical and unpredictable Islamist Shiite regime, whose leaders call day in and day out for the destruction of Israel and eventually the “Great Satan” America, after dominating all regional Sunni regimes, everybody in the neighborhood knows that “this American dog wont hunt”. 
5. The WSJ editorial concludes: “Our own view is that Mr. Obama is so bent on an Iran deal that he will make almost any concession to get one. In any case Mr. Kissinger’s concerns underscore the need for Congressional scrutiny and a vote on any agreement with Iran.”

And this is EXACTLY why Bibi must be allowed to present the facts about the “bad deal”, together with updated Israeli intelligence reports on the Iranian program to Congress before the March 24th meeting between Kerry and Zarif.

Congress has the duty to know and the American public has a right to know.

A Power hungry, fanatically Jihadist, expansionist driven and long-time terrorist supporting Shiite theocracy with nukes is a threat not only to Israel and Saudi Arabia, but to every man woman and child in the world that will refuse to bow to their dictates.

There will be plenty of time for egos, insults, protocols, legacies, election campaigns and the rest of the everyday meaningless minutia later. But not now!

Now is the time to let Bibi Netanyahu present Israel’s existential message to Congress.

New Saudi Rulers and Iranian Nukes Talks

As predicted in last week's blog, King Salman’s handlers wasted no time in firing many of the late King Abdulla’s top ministers and advisors, and replacing them with his own family members.

Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Studies wrote on January 30: “Just two days after President Obama's visit to Riyadh, King Salman has sacked several of the princes who met with the U.S. delegation.

According to U.S. and Saudi reporting of the January 27 summit, talks between the two leaders were dominated by national security topics, including Iran, the "Islamic State"/ISIS, and Yemen. It is therefore surprising that the most senior departure is Prince Khaled bin Bandar, the head of Saudi intelligence, who sat near the king during the discussion…Also out is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council, former ambassador to Washington, and former intelligence chief who was viewed as one of the late King Abdullah's closest confidants.”

Bandar has excellent relations with the US and Israel, and functioned as a mediator between the US and several Arab despotic regimes, including Syria under both Hafez and Bashar Al-Assad.

Henderson continues: “Another casualty is King Abdullah's son Prince Turki, the sacked governor of Riyadh province who had greeted President Obama at the airport and bid him farewell upon his departure. Prince Mansour bin Mitab bin Abdulaziz - the minister of municipalities and rural affairs, who was in the welcoming line for the president, was demoted to ‘advisor’.”

Henderson points out that the pro USA and social reform minded Crown Prince Muqrin has no ministerial portfolio. This is unprecedented and leaves him without a political power base. It also indicates that he will lose that title very soon in favor of a less pro-western son of the new king.

In addition, the new heads of the Justice Ministry and Religious Police are considered less reform-minded than their predecessors.

So far, Israel is taking a cautious wait-and-see position, having anticipated these moves long ago, and established lines of communication for various possible scenarios. Both countries have more common interests in the region (Iran Nukes, ISIS) than not.

As for the US - Saudi relations, the general assumption is that any agreements or deals discussed in the past and during the President’s short condolence visit will have to start from scratch.

Most of the top officials they met during the visit (and have been working with for years) are now gone, and the new ones seem to be much more conservative and not afraid to voice their disappointment and mistrust of the US for not fulfilling the famous “red line” commitment regarding stopping Iran’s military nuclear and missile programs.

Worse than that – like the Israelis they see the almost completed upcoming “deal” between Iran and the P5+1 negotiators as a total capitulation to Iran, and a clear, shiny and very bright American “green light” for Iran to build and stockpile nuclear weapons and powerful long-range missiles...under the absolutely ridiculous and unenforceable strategy of “containment”. Meanwhile the Iranians are laughing all the way to outer space…