AS ISRAEL WATCHES O. EXTENDS NUCLEAR DEADLINE (AGAIN)–CLEARLY, U.S.-IRAN DETENTE PREFERABLE TO A NUCLEAR IRAN

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Contents:

How the Obama Administration Has Already Caved to Iran: Lee Smith, Weekly Standard, Nov. 24, 2014— The deadline for the Joint Plan of Action ended it seems without a final agreement between the P5+1 and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. It’s not yet clear what happens next.

Concerning Iran: Jerusalem Post, Nov. 24, 2014— Will Israel be pushed into a corner from which military action against Iran may be the only recourse?

Congress Must Rescue Administration Held Hostage by Iran: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, Nov. 24, 2014 — This morning’s announcement that the West has formally agreed to extend its nuclear talks with Iran for another seven months confirms something that we already knew about Obama administration attitudes on the issue…

Obama: Helping Terror Go Nuclear: Noah Beck, Algemeiner, Nov. 21, 2014 — Last Tuesday’s terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue killed five people: four rabbis (including three born in the USA) and a Druze police officer.

On Topic Links

After the U.S. Mid-Term Elections: The Congressional Role in U.S.-Iran Policy: Lenny Ben-David, JCPA, Nov. 17, 2014

Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls for Annihilation of Israel on Eve of Nuclear Talks: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Nov. 9, 2014

Iran Nuclear Talks: The Narcissism of Minor Differences Between the EU and US: Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 23, 2014

Iran Blames Israel and Jews for Negotiations Breakdown: Rachel Avraham, Jerusalem Online, Nov. 20, 2014

HOW THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS ALREADY CAVED TO IRAN           

Lee Smith                                                                                                            

Weekly Standard, Nov. 24, 2014

The deadline for the Joint Plan of Action ended it seems without a final agreement between the P5+1 and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. It’s not yet clear what happens next. “There will be some kind of extension,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says Dubowitz, with parties reconvening in December to continue to negotiate. "Iran has 'hooked the fish' with Western negotiators so committed to negotiations that they will do whatever it takes to keep everyone at the table." It’s useful then to see exactly what, for better or worse, has been resolved so far, either during the course of these talks or previously. According to Omri Ceren at the Israel Project, a pro-Israel public affairs organization that focuses on the Middle East, there are several issues on the table, many of which the Obama administration has already caved on.

Sanctions. The White House is offering upfront sanctions relief that the administration says it can "snapback" if the Iranians fail to comply with their end of the bargain. However, as Dubowitz explained in congressional testimony last week, the idea that it will possible to re-impose sanctions once Iran is opened for business, is politically and economically unrealistic.

Sunset clause. The Jerusalem Post reported that the administration has offered Iran a 10-year sunset clause, meaning that after ten years, whatever so-called permanent deal is reached comes to an end, constraints go away, and Iran is a normalized nuclear power despite the fact that, for instance, the Islamic Republic is a state sponsor of terror. “If this is true it’s shocking,” says Dubowitz. “Congress has been talking about many decades, and the administration said 20 years. Iran asked for 3 to 7, 10 would be a significant climb down. And it means that within a decade most of the constraints would disappear and Iran will be well-positioned to develop a massive industrial-size program, which will be much more difficult to monitor, and an easier clandestine breakout route to a bomb."

Enrichment. The administration gave up on its demands that Iran enrich no uranium at all. The Joint Plan of Action acknowledged Iran’s “right” to enrich which will allow them to close their breakout time by increasing materials to enrich. “Under several presidential administrations,” says Dubowitz, “the United States denied Iran any enrichment and now we’re haggling with them over how much uranium they get to enrich.”

Centrifuges. The White House abandoned its demands Iran must dismantle its centrifuges. Now they must only disconnect, or unplug, them, which which will allow them to close their breakout time by making sure there is equipment on hand to do the enriching. The Obama administration also gave up on its demand that there be no research and development of advanced centrifuges, which will allow Iran to close its breakout time by speeding up enrichment with next generation centrifuges. Plutonium. The administration gave up on the demand that Iran has to convert the heavy-water reactor at Arak into a light-water reactor, but Iran now refuses to budge, and the administration will instead allow an easily reversible cosmetic quick fix.

Ballistic missiles. Several U.N Security Council resolutions (most recently UNSCR 1929) require Iran to cease all activity on its ballistic missile technology. However, it is now inconceivable that the administration will include ballistic missiles as part of the deal. Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif literally laughed at White House negotiators when they suggested Iran should meet long-standing UNSC resolutions demanding a halt to proliferation-sensitive ballistic technology. As Reuters reported, “the U.S. delegation made clear that it wanted to discuss both Iran's ballistic missile program and possible military dimensions of its past nuclear research… Zarif merely laughed and ignored the remarks." Possible military dimensions of Iranian nuclear program, and the verification regime. Reports over the weekend suggested that the White House may have given up on demanding that Iran fully disclose its past activities, including possible military dimensions of the nuclear program. Without knowing exactly what Iran has done in the past, any post-agreement verification regime would be incapable of discerning whether or not Iran was keeping its word. The administration denied these reports.

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CONCERNING IRAN

Jerusalem Post, Nov. 24, 2014

Will Israel be pushed into a corner from which military action against Iran may be the only recourse? It is Iran that should have been pushed into a corner by the international community over its nuclear program, but the direction talks have taken so far between world powers and the Islamic Republic leaves little room for optimism. At press time, the deadline set by the sides for talks – midnight of November 25 – was expected to come and go without a deal, due to Iranian opposition. The feeling in Israel was that if the mullahs ruling Tehran had agreed to the accord presented to it by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany – also known as the P5+1 – Iran would have remained a threshold nuclear state. And Israel might have been forced to act.

That was the clear message given to The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Wilner by a high-ranking Israeli official. It is still not clear what precisely were the details of the accord rejected by Iran. The understanding in Jerusalem is that certain restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would have been imposed for roughly 10 years. During that time, an inspection regime would have been put in place by the world powers. Current uranium stockpiles would have been removed or converted.  Iran’s ability to produce fissile material for a bomb would have been capped at nine months, compared to the current three months. But all this is in theory. In practice, Iran would have been allowed to keep thousands of centrifuges that would have enabled it to enrich uranium for a bomb within a short time. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it in an interview with the BBC on Monday, “There’s no right to enrich. What do you need to enrich uranium for if you’re not developing an atomic bomb?” Inspections cannot be relied on to stop enrichment without Iranian goodwill, of which there is a dearth. Iranian officials will inevitably attempt to use subterfuge and lies to cover up its nuclear weapons program, as it has in the past. And the experience with North Korea tells us that inspection regimes are unreliable. Even intelligence agencies are far from perfect. It took years to discover the nuclear facilities located in Natanz and Qom.

Thanks to Iranian intransigence, the signing of a bad deal has so far been averted. And clearly no deal is better than a bad one. But where do we go from here? The Iranians are apparently stalling for time in an attempt to come closer to nuclear weapons capability. In the meantime, they are also involved in perpetuating a number of conflicts throughout the Middle East. The Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a number of terrorist organizations operating in Gaza all receive support from the Iranians. Eventually, however, the P5+1 will have to make a decision. In the best-case scenario, they will soon reach the conclusion that Iran has no intention of willingly giving up its nuclear weapons program and will reinstate a strict sanctions regime. Combined with a credible military threat, stiff penalties might yet coerce the Iranians into giving up on their aspirations to become a nuclear power. A military attack on Iran, and the unknown negative consequences resulting from such an attack, would be avoided.

However, if the P5+1 permit Iran’s leaders to continue to stall for time as they develop their nuclear program or if they end up signing a bad deal that allows Iran to remain a nuclear threshold power, a peaceful resolution to the conflict will be impossible. Countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia would not stand by silently while Iran attains nuclear weapons, or the ability to deploy them within a short period of time. The ensuing nuclear arms race would risk destabilizing the Middle East. Because Iran is also developing intercontinental ballistic missiles – missiles which are used only to carry nuclear payloads, as Netanyahu pointed out Monday – it would also have the ability to strike targets thousands of kilometers away, endangering large parts of the world. Of course, Israel would be forced to act as well. Just a few weeks ago, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for “the elimination” of Israel. He urged Israel’s enemies to commit to “armed resistance” until the Zionist entity is destroyed. The best way to prevent Iran from dragging the region into a war is by using non-military means, combined with a credible military threat, to pressure it to give up its aspirations for nuclear weapons. Signing a bad deal or dragging out talks for too long will only lead to conflict, a nuclear arms race, and perhaps even war.      

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CONGRESS MUST RESCUE ADMINISTRATION HELD HOSTAGE BY IRAN    

Jonathan S. Tobin

Commentary, Nov. 24, 2014

This morning’s announcement that the West has formally agreed to extend its nuclear talks with Iran for another seven months confirms something that we already knew about Obama administration attitudes on the issue: it is far more afraid of disrupting any chance for détente with the Islamist regime than in sticking to its principles or its promises about halting the threat posed by Tehran’s program. But while sending the talks into a second overtime period allows Iran to keep moving ahead with its nuclear program and lets Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiators to relax a bit, this decision should wake up Congress. The failure of the administration to escape the trap that it has set for itself by letting the next stage of the talks drag on endlessly should re-energize the existing bipartisan coalition in favor of toughening sanctions on Iran to get back to work and pass a new bill.

It should be remembered that a year ago in the aftermath of the signing of a weak interim deal with Iran, the administration successfully fended off efforts to increase sanctions on the Islamist regime by claiming that doing so would disrupt the negotiations. President Obama and Kerry both promised that the next round of talks would have a limited time frame that would prevent Iran from continuing the same game that it has played with the West for the last decade. Tehran has been trying to run out the clock on the nuclear issue since George W. Bush’s first term in the White House. It has easily exploited two administrations’ efforts at engagement and diplomacy during this time frame and has gotten far closer to its goal of a bomb as a result. Even more importantly, with each round of negotiations it has forced Obama and America’s allies to retreat on its demands. Last year its tough stance forced Kerry to give up and ultimately agree to tacit Western acceptance of Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium. In the last year, it has also successfully gotten the U.S. to retreat on issues such as the number of centrifuges it is allowed to operate and the future of its stockpile of nuclear fuel, and kept other issues such as the need to divulge the extent of its nuclear military research, the future of its plutonium plant at Arak, its ballistic missile program, and support for international terrorism off the agenda. Proposed Western concessions have grown to the point of the absurd, such as the suggestion about disconnecting the pipes between the centrifuges. At the same time Iran has also stonewalled the International Atomic Energy Agency on demands for more inspections and transparency.

After last year’s interim deal was signed, the administration easily fended off congressional efforts to toughen sanctions by saying they weren’t needed to strengthen the hands of Western negotiators and openly talked of the danger of demonstrating ill will toward Tehran that would scuttle the talks. The president and his foreign-policy team also labeled skeptics about this deal and advocates of more sanctions as warmongers. But a year later it’s clear that the skeptics were right and everything the administration promised about the next round of talks was either mistaken or an outright lie. Though Kerry claimed that the interim deal had achieved its goal of halting Iran’s progress, the truth is that nothing it accomplished can be easily reversed. In exchange for dubious progress, the U.S. sacrificed its considerable economic leverage in the form of loosening sanctions. Iran now believes with good reason that it can end the sanctions without giving up its nuclear ambition. By turning the promised six months of talks to pressure Iran into a year plus seven months, the president and Kerry have broken their word to Congress and played right into the hands of the ayatollahs. It’s possible that seven more months of ineffectual pressure on Iran will yield another weak deal that will ensure it will soon become a threshold nuclear power while at the same time allowing Obama to announce a much-needed foreign-policy success and the fulfillment of his campaign pledges on the issue. But given the promises that were made about the previous two deadlines, what confidence can anyone have in America’s willingness to draw conclusions about the talks if Iran doesn’t yield?

Even if we are operating under the dubious assumption that any deal reached under these circumstances could be enforced or achieve its goal, the failure of the president to enforce the current deadline telegraphs to Iran that it needn’t worry about any other threats from the West. If the U.S. wouldn’t feel empowered to push Iran hard now with oil prices in decline and the current sanctions (which Obama opposed in the first place) having some impact on the regime’s economy, why would anyone in Tehran take seriously the idea that there will be consequences if they don’t make concessions or sign even another weak deal? Though Kerry talked about building trust with Iran, the only thing that can be trusted about this process is that the Islamists have played him and his boss for fools.

That is why Congress must step in now and immediately revive the bipartisan bill proposed by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Mark Kirk that would tighten the noose around Iran’s still-lucrative oil trade. Just as the current sanctions that Obama and Kerry brag about were forced upon them, the only way this administration will negotiate a viable deal with Iran is to tie its hands by passing a new sanctions bill. It should also be pointed out that the alternative to Kerry’s appeasement of Iran is not the use of force. Tougher sanctions that will return the situation to the point where it was last year before Kerry caved on the interim deal provide the only chance to stop Iran by means short of war. It may be that outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will block a sanctions bill in the lame duck session just as he did last year despite the support of an overwhelming majority of members from both parties. But if he does thwart action, the new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican majorities in both houses should act quickly to pass a bill that will impose real penalties on Iran. The commitment of Obama and Kerry to détente with Iran has made them, in effect, hostages of the Islamist regime in these talks. The only way they can be rescued from their own folly is action by Congress.

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OBAMA: HELPING TERROR GO NUCLEAR                                                        

Noah Beck                                                                                                                          

Algemeiner, Nov. 21, 2014

Last Tuesday’s terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue killed five people: four rabbis (including three born in the USA) and a Druze police officer. Two Palestinians entered during morning prayers and attacked worshipers with knives, meat cleavers, and a handgun. Congress showed moral clarity when blaming the horrors on Hamas and Palestinian Authority incitement, but Obama’s statements were perfunctorily “balanced.” Obama warned of a “spiral” of violence – an obtuse refrain of those suggesting moral equivalency between terrorism and the fight against it. Obama also misleadingly claimed that “President Abbas…strongly condemned the attacks” omitting that Abbas did so only after pressure from the administration and with equivocation (Abbas suggested a link between recent terrorism and visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, as if to justify the attacks). It’s also worth noting that Palestinians celebrated the massacre (as they did after the 2013 Boston bombing and the 9/11 attacks).

Obama’s weak reaction is consistent with his mostly impotent response to ISIS terrorists who behead Americans and Mideast Christians, and grow their Islamist empire by the day. Frighteningly, his approach to Iranian nukes follows the same meek pattern, but the stakes are exponentially higher, because when Iran goes nuclear, so does terrorism. Iran is already the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, without nuclear weapons. Iran-supported Hamas has already tried to commit nuclear terror: last summer, Hamas launched rockets at Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor. How much more dangerous will Iran become when it has nukes? Even if Iran doesn’t directly commit nuclear terrorism, an Iranian nuclear umbrella will embolden the regime and the terrorist organizations it sponsors.

Obama has a long record of weakness towards Iran. In 2009, when Iran’s Basij paramilitary force brutalized demonstrators protesting Iran’s fraudulent presidential election, Obama kept his response irrelevantly mild for the sake of “engaging” Iran. That surely helped Iranian voters understand the risks of protesting the “free” election of 2012 (involving eight regime-picked candidates). It was indeed a very orderly rubberstamp. In 2011, when a U.S. drone went down on Iranian soil, Obama cordially requested it back. The regime recently scoffed at such impotence by showcasing its knock-off based on that drone and some U.S.-made helicopters that it purchased,  highlighting just how useless sanctions have become. President Hassan Rouhani’s election vastly improved the public face of Iran’s nuclear program, and Obama was charmed too. Obama has been unilaterally weakening the sanctions against Iran by not enforcing them. He has threatened to thwart any Congressional attempt to limit his nuclear generosity by simply lifting sanctions without Congressional approval. Yet despite these concessions and Rouhani’s smiles, human rights abuses in Iran have actually worsened.

Obama declared in 2012 (while running for reelection) that he doesn’t bluff when it comes to stopping Iranian nukes, and that containment was not an option, unlike military force. But the credibility of that statement collapsed after Obama shrunk away from his “red line” against Syrian chemical weapons use. In 2013, Basher Assad gassed his own people and Obama took no military action. So if Obama cowers against a disintegrating state, what are the chances that he’ll militarily prevent Iranian nukes? And Obama has dangerously undermined the only military threat to Iranian nukes that anyone still takes seriously: Israel. On the Iranian nuclear issue, Obama has isolated Israel on how close Iran is to a nuclear capability with estimates that are far laxer. And as long as Obama continues negotiating (even if Iran is clearly playing for time as the U.S. offers ever more desperate proposals) or reaches a deal allowing Iran to become a threshold nuclear weapons state, an Israeli military option to defang Iranian nukes appears less legitimate.

The media’s anti-Israel bias is well known (they can’t even get a simple story about vehicular terrorism against Israelis correct (compare how The Guardian writes accurate headlines when Canada suffers an Islamist car attack but not when Israel does). So if Obama accepts Iran’s nuclear program and Israel then attacks it, the media will be even harsher on Israel (even though the world will be silently relieved, if Israeli courage succeeds at neutralizing what scared everyone else). Downgrading U.S.-Israel relations seems to be part of Obama’s détente with Iran. Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei recently tweeted his plan for destroying Israel, but Obama grows even more determined to reach an accord that legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program. And the Obama administration’s diplomatic abuse of America’s closest Mideast ally is unprecedented – from his humiliation of Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2010, to Secretary of State John Kerry’s betrayal of Israel during Operation Protective Edge, to calling Netanyahu a “chickenshit” a few weeks ago, without even apologizing later (note the irony of calling Netanyahu a coward anonymously). Obama seems far more concerned by Israeli construction of apartments in Jerusalem than a nuclear Iran. And he has been pressuring Israel to retreat from more disputed territory, effectively rewarding Palestinians for launching the third missile war against Israel from Gaza in five years last summer and now the third Intifidah inside Israel in 17 years. That puts Obama just behind the European appeasers who think Palestinian bellicosity merits statehood. They all naively think — at Israel’s peril — that peace is possible with raw hatred.

Obama indeed appears desperate to get a nuclear accord with Iran at any price. He has written letters asking for Iran’s help against ISIS after they hinted at an ISIS-for-nukes exchange, and has pursued an agreement at all costs. Obama’s top aide, Ben Rhodes, was caught saying how a nuclear accord is as important to Obama as “healthcare”; at least there’s a fitting slogan to sell the deal to Americans: “If you like your nukes, you can keep them.” Russia, the serial spoiler, suggested extending nuclear talks past the November 24th deadline. Iran will undoubtedly agree to more enrichment time (while it keeps stonewalling the IAEA’s investigations into it nukes), as it did last July. For Obama, a bad agreement or an extension looks far better than concluding that talks have failed and issuing more empty threats to stop Iran militarily. And so U.S. foreign policy will continue its freefall, as the world’s bad actors will want to see what they can extort from a leader even weaker than President Carter. While Carter permitted Iran to hold 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days, Obama may allow Iran to hold the world hostage with nuclear terrorism. It’s now dreadfully obvious: without massive public pressure, Obama will help Iran get nukes…

[To Sign A Petition to Tell Washington: NO PATH TO A BOMB OR NO DEAL, Click the Following Link—Ed.]

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On Topic

After the U.S. Mid-Term Elections: The Congressional Role in U.S.-Iran Policy: Lenny Ben-David, JCPA, Nov. 17, 2014 —November 24 is seen as a critical date in the negotiations between Iran and UN Security Council’s permanent members (the “P5+1” the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China plus Germany) on the fates of Iran’s nuclear enterprise and the economic sanctions imposed on the recalcitrant and bellicose

Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls for Annihilation of Israel on Eve of Nuclear Talks: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Nov. 9, 2014 —On the eve of the opening of the nuclear talks in Oman on November 9, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei repeated his call to annihilate Israel and suggested a nine  – point plan on how to confront Israel and urged Muslims to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank. Khamenei also re-twitted Iran’s 11 red lines in the nuclear talks.

Iran Nuclear Talks: The Narcissism of Minor Differences Between the EU and US: Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 23, 2014 —With the negotiation process to end Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program about to enter the final stretch, nuanced differences still exist among the Western powers toward Tehran.

Iran Blames Israel and Jews for Negotiations Breakdown: Rachel Avraham, Jerusalem Online, Nov. 20, 2014 —The deadline is approaching, but an agreement is still far away.

Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research/ L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme, www.isranet.org

Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284 ; ber@isranet.wpsitie.com