What's holding up Iran nuclear deal?

[raptor22]

What's holding up Iran nuclear deal?

Iran and the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — failed to reach a final deal on Iran's nuclear program before the Nov. 24, 2014, deadline. However, they agreed in Vienna to a new March 2015 deadline for a political agreement and a final agreement (inclusive of annexes) by July 1. The next round of talks is scheduled for mid-January.


Informed European sources told me that the negotiators were on the verge of announcing a political agreement in Vienna, but it was blocked for apparently unknown reasons. US Secretary of State John Kerry said: "In recent weeks, we have seen new ideas surface, flexibility emerge, that could, I repeat, could help resolve some issues, that had been intractable." Interestingly enough, just a few days after the November marathon talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that “Israel had a critical role in stopping a deal with Iran.”


Back in 2011, on the sidelines of a conference in Europe, a former Israeli official told an Iranian envoy — one of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ambassadors — that in the absence of Israel’s consent, Iran would not be able to reach a deal with the world powers. The same was publicly stated by the Israeli prime minister in December 2014: "Even though Israel isn't part of the P5+1, our voice and our concerns played a critical role in preventing a bad deal."


In December 2013, Gary Samore, former adviser on the Iran nuclear issue under President Barack Obama and president of United Against Nuclear Iran, an American advocacy organization reflecting Israeli interests, told me at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that the most likely outcome of another six months of negotiations would be another “interim agreement,” not a final comprehensive agreement. Moreover, he predicted that a “process of rolling interim agreements” could last through the remainder of Obama’s second term.


Speaking at a December 2014 news conference alongside Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said: “But you, above all others, have said that sanctions are what got Iran to the table, and it will be the only thing that brings them to a deal that we can all live with. … I’m here to tell you, Mr. Prime Minister, that the Congress will follow your lead. … To those who believe the Iranians have not been trying to develop a nuclear weapon, if you come to America, you should not be allowed to drive on our highways.”


The US intelligence community has clearly stated in its National Intelligence Estimates over the past seven years that Iran has not made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. No one in Iran — and for that matter, anywhere — can stomach that a US congressional leader would so openly follow the leadership of a foreign leader, in total neglect of the stated will and wish of his own president and national security bodies. It is unfortunate that such Israel-pleasing pronouncements by senior American statesmen only serve to further buttress the prevalent Iranian mistrust — including at the level of the supreme leader — of Washington's serious interest in working out a mutually satisfactory deal with Iran.


Judging from my numerous recent exchanges with a wide range of informed, well-placed sources within the P5+1, I am confident that a comprehensive agreement is absolutely within reach, provided that the process is not torpedoed by the US Congress and Netanyahu. The good news is that Iran and the world powers already have a common understanding on the major elements of a final deal, which would assure the maximum level of transparency and the verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the Iranian nuclear program (all key objective guarantees related to no breakout), lift the sanctions and respect Iran’s legitimate rights on enrichment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.


A diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue, as underlined by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, would make it possible for Tehran and Washington “not to waste their energy against each other.” Without sounding unrealistically euphoric, it could be said that a nuclear deal would, in all probability, serve as the beginning of the end to decades of tension and hostility between the two estranged countries.


Obama’s recent remarks, including on the possibility of reopening of embassies, even if far-fetched at this moment, point to the direction that has to be taken, which, under the current circumstances, might take the form of quiet collaboration on fighting Salafist extremism and terrorism in the region. Such actual cooperation, preferably without fanfare, carries the potential for further expansion to include other regional hotspots and crises. It’s not an empty claim: Iran has been — and will be — an anchor of regional stability.


A diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue — the sooner the better — will remove the threat of any future military conflagration in the Middle East, already in tumult with the ongoing ugly violence in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. An ultimate failure of the nuclear negotiations, whether torpedoed by the Israel-US Congress joint effort or other naysayers, would play in the hands of certain quarters in Iran to push for withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty — an eventuality that I presume few people would like to face after the North Korean affair.


With the stakes as high as they are, both with the nuclear dossier and the situation in the region, it is incumbent on the US Congress to act in a way to give diplomacy a real chance and regional stability a real boost. The bottom line is clear: Both sides need each other. The United States without Iran would continue to see its problems in the region remain unresolved or even aggravated, and Iran without the United States would continue to suffer in other ways.

 

[rahi2357]

Both sides need each other. The United States without Iran would continue to see its problems in the region remain unresolved or even aggravated, and Iran without the United States would continue to suffer in other ways.

" Its problems " ???
For example ISIS ? then this is saying that Iran won't help Iraq if we get no deal ??? or Iran won't help Assad if we get a deal ??? then what are those " problems " which we can use them in a deal as a concession ?

 

[raptor22]

" Its problems " ???
For example ISIS ? then this is saying that Iran won't help Iraq if we get no deal ??? or Iran won't help Assad if we get a deal ??? then what are those " problems " which we can use them in a deal as a concession ?

Iran could help a lot to secure region through its influence , in Iraq case it was Iran which helped Iraqis to form a new government to resolve security and military problems in the country since then Iraqis have been able to rejoin their forces and recapture their cities from ISIL thugs and terrorists . The other day Jean Francois Girault the french envoy discussed Lebanon presidential election issue by Iran ... The same goes for Syria.
The point is the American invaded Iraq and Afghanistan for 10 years and they couldn't defeat AQ and Taliban, consequently having boots on the ground wouldn't help them in fighting ISIL too they need us ''cause we know the region very well.


------------------------------------


It’s Time to Pursue Regime Change in Iran

There are lots of reasons to be skeptical that 2015 will see a diplomatic breakthrough in efforts to end Iran’s nuclear weapons bid. But one of the more compelling is that there’s virtually nothing in the historical record to suggest that the Obama administration’s current negotiating strategy can succeed.

Though rarely referenced, the United States actually has substantial experience in successfully curbing the nuclear ambitions of states, like Iran, that to varying degrees can be described as authoritarian, anti-American, and rogue. The number of cases isn’t huge, but there’s certainly enough to offer policymakers useful food for thought on what has worked in the past.


Currently out of favor in many circles, regime change has a proven track record in helping put a number of bad actors out of the nuclear weapons business.Currently out of favor in many circles, regime change has a proven track record in helping put a number of bad actors out of the nuclear weapons business. In Latin America in the 1980s, the crucial factor that terminated bomb-making programs in Brazil and Argentina was democratization and the transition from military dictatorship to civilian rule. In South Africa, the looming collapse of apartheid provided the government of F.W. de Klerk with the necessary incentive to dismantle the country’s small nuclear arsenal. So, too, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, fledgling new states in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus saw it as in their best interests to rid themselves of large nuclear stockpiles that they’d inherited.
Also rarely acknowledged in polite foreign-policy circles is the success that military action has enjoyed in keeping at bay the nuclear ambitions of some of the world’s worst states. Israel’s 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor short-circuited Saddam Hussein’s plutonium pathway to a bomb, and 10 years later, the American military’s overwhelming victory in the first Gulf War paved the way for the dismantling of Iraq’s crash program to enrich uranium. And heresy though it may be, I’ll say it anyway: For all the subsequent problems that may have flowed from Operation Iraqi Freedom, the removal of Saddam’s regime put to rest forever the legitimate fear that the “Butcher of Baghdad” would one day find a way of getting his hands on the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Of course, we also have the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to thank for sparing us the nightmare of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with nuclear bombs. As you contemplate the all-too real horrors of the Syrian conflict to date, just think for a moment about that particular danger averted. The 2007 strike on the Al-Kibar reactor — undertaken, it’s worth reminding, against U.S. advice — should, in retrospect, be viewed as one of history’s great counter-proliferation successes.

Finally, short of an actual military attack, a credible threat to use force laced with the prospect of regime change has also produced important results in denuclearizing rogue states, with Libya being the prime example. Opponents of the Iraq war may hate to admit it, but rest assured that the confluence of a bedraggled Saddam Hussein being pulled out of his spider hole and Moammar Gadhafi’s ultimate decision to pack up his nuclear weapons infrastructure lock, stock, and barrel and ship it off to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was no mere accident.

Libya wasn’t alone in taking note of America’s crushing 2003 defeat of the Iraqi military. Iran noticed, too.

Less than three weeks after the start of the campaign, U.S. tanks were sitting in downtown Baghdad, and Saddam’s regime was on history’s ash heap — something Iranian forces hadn’t come close to achieving in more than eight years of bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The Iranians took seriously their place on President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and acted smartly to lay low and limit their exposure — publicly, by agreeing temporarily to suspend their enrichment of uranium, and more covertly, we now know, by mothballing aspects of their nuclear program most flagrantly aimed at weaponization.

Of course, Iran’s decision to put the brakes on its nuclear program didn’t last. Truth be told, among the other serious lapses in the Bush administration’s Iraq war planning, you can add the failure to give serious thought to how the presence of a victorious American military on Iran’s doorstep might be exploited to advance U.S. strategic goals vis-à-vis the mullahs, particularly with respect to nukes. Before too long it became clear that the U.S. would have its hands full fighting the Iraqi insurgency and that any inclination that might have existed to engage in coercive diplomacy with the Iranians had largely vanished. The moment passed, the pressure eased, and Iran’s centrifuges eventually started spinning again.

Nevertheless, the 2003 experience with Iran is still suggestive. First, it was entirely in keeping with the historical pattern indicating that dictatorial, rogue regimes are only likely to be moved off their nuclear agendas when confronted with a very powerful stick — whether regime change, military attack, or an acute form of pressure that is perceived to put regime’s survival at risk, preferably including a highly credible threat of force.

Second, Iran’s behavior in 2003 was also consistent with the Islamic Republic’s own pattern of decision-making, and with the limited information available about the circumstances that have triggered other important shifts in Tehran’s policies. Most recently, in 2013, crippling Western sanctions brought the Iranian economy to its knees, spurring a dramatic revamping both in Iran’s politics (calling President Hassan Rouhani) as well as its willingness to engage Washington and its partners in nuclear negotiations. Hardly a coincidence that this strategy to stave off regime instability by blunting escalating pressure was orchestrated by Rouhani and now-Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif — both of whom were key architects of Iran’s nuclear gambit in 2003.

But perhaps the most striking instance of Iran undertaking a policy reversal of truly strategic proportions came in 1988. After waging holy war against Iraq for eight years, vowing to achieve total victory, the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was suddenly forced to drink from what he termed the “poisoned chalice” and at long last accede to a ceasefire that he had always rejected. Political, economic, and military threats had mounted throughout 1988, putting the Islamic Republic’s survival in growing peril. But the final straw almost certainly came in early July when a U.S. Navy ship accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 people on board. Convinced that the incident signaled that the United States was on the verge of openly entering the war on Iraq’s side, Khomeini, in less than two weeks, made his decision to sue for peace.

All of which brings us to the Obama administration’s current efforts to secure a comprehensive agreement that truly ends (rather than merely postpones) Iran’s decade-long quest for nuclear weapons. If history strongly suggests that rogue states in general, and Iran specifically, are highly unlikely to take such fateful decisions in the absence of intense, escalating pressure that puts the regime in fear for its survival, Obama and his team today appear to be following the opposite strategy. Having successfully wielded harsh sanctions to coerce Iran back to the negotiating table, it’s hard not to conclude that the administration has subsequently played into Rouhani’s hands by relenting too soon. The fact is that at least since the signing of the interim deal known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) in November 2013, the U.S. has been steadily easing pressure on Iran across the board.


Politically, Iran’s international isolation has all but lifted.Politically, Iran’s international isolation has all but lifted. High-level politicians, diplomats, and businessmen from around the globe are flocking to Tehran. Rouhani and Zarif are welcomed with open arms in world capitals and hailed as cooperative and courageous partners by their counterparts.
Economically, times may still be tough in Iran, but compared to eighteen months ago things are definitely looking up. From a severe contraction of almost seven percent in 2013, Iran’s GDP began expanding at a modest one to two percent rate in 2014 — thanks in no small part to limited sanctions relief and growing market confidence that Iran’s economic future is brightening.

Finally, militarily, the prospect of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is today virtually non-existent. For their part, U.S. officials have been somewhat pathetically lining up to reassure the Iranians that we mean no ill will toward their Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad, lest the mullahs take offense and make life difficult for our forces in Iraq. Given that spectacle, just how worried can they can be right now about a possible U.S. attack on Iran itself? As for the Israelis, whose military threat against Iran was always taken more seriously than Obama’s, well, the administration has also done its level best to denude an IDF strike of all credibility — exhibit one being the recent boast of a senior U.S. official that the administration had successfully cowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from using force, and that, now, “It’s too late for him to do anything.”

If history is any guide, none of this can be good. There simply is no precedent to suggest that a state like Iran can be disabused of its nuclear weapons aspirations in an environment where the political, economic, and military threats arrayed against it are all steadily declining, rather than intensifying. It’s a relentlessly tightening noose, not a gradually loosening one, that has in the past proven the critical ingredient if nuclear diplomacy with a brutal dictatorial regime is to stand any chance of succeeding.

The story of the Iran negotiations since the signing of the JPOA 13 months ago only bears this conclusion out. On the one hand, there has been a growing list of U.S. concessions on a whole host of core issues, including Iran’s right to enrich uranium, its research and development efforts on advanced centrifuges, its work to develop long-range ballistic missiles, and the urgency of coming clean on its past weaponization activities. On the other hand, Iran’s demands have been escalating, including the brazen insistence that, in relatively short order, it be permitted to build an industrial-size centrifuge program that could expand its capacity to enrich uranium by a factor of 10 to 20.

Unable to secure a comprehensive agreement, the talks have already been extended twice. Increasingly, it looks as if the United States has maneuvered itself into the untenable position of either being forced to accept a bad deal or continuing to kick the can down the road indefinitely through further extensions of the JPOA that de facto consecrate Iran’s standing as a threshold nuclear weapons state — slowly but surely strengthening its international standing and economy, while maintaining the option to break out or sneak out to a nuclear bomb at a time of its choosing.

And the United States continued losing leverage.

Whether or not this dynamic can be broken at this late date is in serious question. An awful lot appears to have been given away already, which the Iranians will no doubt insist on pocketing even as they demand more. It remains to be seen whether a new, more hawkish Congress will be able to resurrect its role as a major force for good in the standoff with Iran — a role it played so effectively in 2011 by convincing a reluctant Obama to go along with the crippling sanctions that proved so essential in getting Iran to the table in the first place. The odds would be much higher, of course, if Obama was actually committed to meeting Congress half way to help shape a joint strategy aimed not at blowing up the negotiations, but at strengthening U.S. leverage, bringing along key allies, and bolstering the prospects for coercive diplomacy.

Unfortunately, there is little sign of that happening. Nor is there much chance of the White House taking any of the myriad of other steps that could significantly ratchet up the pressure on Iran, from direct action to bring down the Assad regime, to interdicting Iranian weapons shipments to its terrorist proxies, to bolstering Israel’s attack options through the supply of America’s most powerful bunker busters and the planes to deliver them.

Rather than seeing such moves as essential elements in a comprehensive strategy to maximize U.S. leverage and the chances for diplomatic success, the administration instead appears to view them all as reckless provocations aimed at destroying diplomacy’s chances. As a result, all it has been left with is a toolkit filled with political reassurances, more negotiating concessions, promises of economic sweeteners, and private supplications of friendship from the President of the United States to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Is that really the most likely means of convincing a revolutionary theocracy that has been at war with America for 35 years to give up its nuclear ambitions and hegemonic designs? History suggests no. Obama says yes. 2015 should be the year we find out who’s right. The stakes are high. Place your bets. Game on.

 

[rahi2357]

Iran could help a lot to secure region through its influence , in Iraq case it was Iran which helped Iraqis to form a new government to resolve security and military problems in the country since then Iraqis have been able to rejoin their forces and recapture their cities from ISIL thugs and terrorists . The other day Jean Francois Girault the french envoy discussed Lebanon presidential election issue by Iran ... The same goes for Syria.
The point is the American invaded Iraq and Afghanistan for 10 years and they couldn't defeat AQ and Taliban, consequently having boots on the ground wouldn't help them in fighting ISIL too they need us ''cause we know the region very well.

Bro , completely agreed
But i think you didn't get what i said . i mean what ever happens (deal reached or no deal in nuclear talks ) Iran continues to help Iraq . what ever happens , Iran helps assad . and US knows this . so it has no use in nuclear talks .

 

[ResurgentIran]

It’s Time to Pursue Regime Change in Iran

There are lots of reasons to be skeptical that 2015 will see a diplomatic breakthrough in efforts to end Iran’s nuclear weapons bid. But one of the more compelling is that there’s virtually nothing in the historical record to suggest that the Obama administration’s current negotiating strategy can succeed.

Though rarely referenced, the United States actually has substantial experience in successfully curbing the nuclear ambitions of states, like Iran, that to varying degrees can be described as authoritarian, anti-American, and rogue. The number of cases isn’t huge, but there’s certainly enough to offer policymakers useful food for thought on what has worked in the past.


Currently out of favor in many circles, regime change has a proven track record in helping put a number of bad actors out of the nuclear weapons business.Currently out of favor in many circles, regime change has a proven track record in helping put a number of bad actors out of the nuclear weapons business. In Latin America in the 1980s, the crucial factor that terminated bomb-making programs in Brazil and Argentina was democratization and the transition from military dictatorship to civilian rule. In South Africa, the looming collapse of apartheid provided the government of F.W. de Klerk with the necessary incentive to dismantle the country’s small nuclear arsenal. So, too, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, fledgling new states in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus saw it as in their best interests to rid themselves of large nuclear stockpiles that they’d inherited.
Also rarely acknowledged in polite foreign-policy circles is the success that military action has enjoyed in keeping at bay the nuclear ambitions of some of the world’s worst states. Israel’s 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor short-circuited Saddam Hussein’s plutonium pathway to a bomb, and 10 years later, the American military’s overwhelming victory in the first Gulf War paved the way for the dismantling of Iraq’s crash program to enrich uranium. And heresy though it may be, I’ll say it anyway: For all the subsequent problems that may have flowed from Operation Iraqi Freedom, the removal of Saddam’s regime put to rest forever the legitimate fear that the “Butcher of Baghdad” would one day find a way of getting his hands on the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Of course, we also have the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to thank for sparing us the nightmare of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with nuclear bombs. As you contemplate the all-too real horrors of the Syrian conflict to date, just think for a moment about that particular danger averted. The 2007 strike on the Al-Kibar reactor — undertaken, it’s worth reminding, against U.S. advice — should, in retrospect, be viewed as one of history’s great counter-proliferation successes.

Finally, short of an actual military attack, a credible threat to use force laced with the prospect of regime change has also produced important results in denuclearizing rogue states, with Libya being the prime example. Opponents of the Iraq war may hate to admit it, but rest assured that the confluence of a bedraggled Saddam Hussein being pulled out of his spider hole and Moammar Gadhafi’s ultimate decision to pack up his nuclear weapons infrastructure lock, stock, and barrel and ship it off to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was no mere accident.

Libya wasn’t alone in taking note of America’s crushing 2003 defeat of the Iraqi military. Iran noticed, too.

Less than three weeks after the start of the campaign, U.S. tanks were sitting in downtown Baghdad, and Saddam’s regime was on history’s ash heap — something Iranian forces hadn’t come close to achieving in more than eight years of bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The Iranians took seriously their place on President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and acted smartly to lay low and limit their exposure — publicly, by agreeing temporarily to suspend their enrichment of uranium, and more covertly, we now know, by mothballing aspects of their nuclear program most flagrantly aimed at weaponization.

Of course, Iran’s decision to put the brakes on its nuclear program didn’t last. Truth be told, among the other serious lapses in the Bush administration’s Iraq war planning, you can add the failure to give serious thought to how the presence of a victorious American military on Iran’s doorstep might be exploited to advance U.S. strategic goals vis-à-vis the mullahs, particularly with respect to nukes. Before too long it became clear that the U.S. would have its hands full fighting the Iraqi insurgency and that any inclination that might have existed to engage in coercive diplomacy with the Iranians had largely vanished. The moment passed, the pressure eased, and Iran’s centrifuges eventually started spinning again.

Nevertheless, the 2003 experience with Iran is still suggestive. First, it was entirely in keeping with the historical pattern indicating that dictatorial, rogue regimes are only likely to be moved off their nuclear agendas when confronted with a very powerful stick — whether regime change, military attack, or an acute form of pressure that is perceived to put regime’s survival at risk, preferably including a highly credible threat of force.

Second, Iran’s behavior in 2003 was also consistent with the Islamic Republic’s own pattern of decision-making, and with the limited information available about the circumstances that have triggered other important shifts in Tehran’s policies. Most recently, in 2013, crippling Western sanctions brought the Iranian economy to its knees, spurring a dramatic revamping both in Iran’s politics (calling President Hassan Rouhani) as well as its willingness to engage Washington and its partners in nuclear negotiations. Hardly a coincidence that this strategy to stave off regime instability by blunting escalating pressure was orchestrated by Rouhani and now-Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif — both of whom were key architects of Iran’s nuclear gambit in 2003.

But perhaps the most striking instance of Iran undertaking a policy reversal of truly strategic proportions came in 1988. After waging holy war against Iraq for eight years, vowing to achieve total victory, the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was suddenly forced to drink from what he termed the “poisoned chalice” and at long last accede to a ceasefire that he had always rejected. Political, economic, and military threats had mounted throughout 1988, putting the Islamic Republic’s survival in growing peril. But the final straw almost certainly came in early July when a U.S. Navy ship accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 people on board. Convinced that the incident signaled that the United States was on the verge of openly entering the war on Iraq’s side, Khomeini, in less than two weeks, made his decision to sue for peace.

All of which brings us to the Obama administration’s current efforts to secure a comprehensive agreement that truly ends (rather than merely postpones) Iran’s decade-long quest for nuclear weapons. If history strongly suggests that rogue states in general, and Iran specifically, are highly unlikely to take such fateful decisions in the absence of intense, escalating pressure that puts the regime in fear for its survival, Obama and his team today appear to be following the opposite strategy. Having successfully wielded harsh sanctions to coerce Iran back to the negotiating table, it’s hard not to conclude that the administration has subsequently played into Rouhani’s hands by relenting too soon. The fact is that at least since the signing of the interim deal known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) in November 2013, the U.S. has been steadily easing pressure on Iran across the board.


Politically, Iran’s international isolation has all but lifted.Politically, Iran’s international isolation has all but lifted. High-level politicians, diplomats, and businessmen from around the globe are flocking to Tehran. Rouhani and Zarif are welcomed with open arms in world capitals and hailed as cooperative and courageous partners by their counterparts.
Economically, times may still be tough in Iran, but compared to eighteen months ago things are definitely looking up. From a severe contraction of almost seven percent in 2013, Iran’s GDP began expanding at a modest one to two percent rate in 2014 — thanks in no small part to limited sanctions relief and growing market confidence that Iran’s economic future is brightening.

Finally, militarily, the prospect of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is today virtually non-existent. For their part, U.S. officials have been somewhat pathetically lining up to reassure the Iranians that we mean no ill will toward their Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad, lest the mullahs take offense and make life difficult for our forces in Iraq. Given that spectacle, just how worried can they can be right now about a possible U.S. attack on Iran itself? As for the Israelis, whose military threat against Iran was always taken more seriously than Obama’s, well, the administration has also done its level best to denude an IDF strike of all credibility — exhibit one being the recent boast of a senior U.S. official that the administration had successfully cowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from using force, and that, now, “It’s too late for him to do anything.”

If history is any guide, none of this can be good. There simply is no precedent to suggest that a state like Iran can be disabused of its nuclear weapons aspirations in an environment where the political, economic, and military threats arrayed against it are all steadily declining, rather than intensifying. It’s a relentlessly tightening noose, not a gradually loosening one, that has in the past proven the critical ingredient if nuclear diplomacy with a brutal dictatorial regime is to stand any chance of succeeding.

The story of the Iran negotiations since the signing of the JPOA 13 months ago only bears this conclusion out. On the one hand, there has been a growing list of U.S. concessions on a whole host of core issues, including Iran’s right to enrich uranium, its research and development efforts on advanced centrifuges, its work to develop long-range ballistic missiles, and the urgency of coming clean on its past weaponization activities. On the other hand, Iran’s demands have been escalating, including the brazen insistence that, in relatively short order, it be permitted to build an industrial-size centrifuge program that could expand its capacity to enrich uranium by a factor of 10 to 20.

Unable to secure a comprehensive agreement, the talks have already been extended twice. Increasingly, it looks as if the United States has maneuvered itself into the untenable position of either being forced to accept a bad deal or continuing to kick the can down the road indefinitely through further extensions of the JPOA that de facto consecrate Iran’s standing as a threshold nuclear weapons state — slowly but surely strengthening its international standing and economy, while maintaining the option to break out or sneak out to a nuclear bomb at a time of its choosing.

And the United States continued losing leverage.

Whether or not this dynamic can be broken at this late date is in serious question. An awful lot appears to have been given away already, which the Iranians will no doubt insist on pocketing even as they demand more. It remains to be seen whether a new, more hawkish Congress will be able to resurrect its role as a major force for good in the standoff with Iran — a role it played so effectively in 2011 by convincing a reluctant Obama to go along with the crippling sanctions that proved so essential in getting Iran to the table in the first place. The odds would be much higher, of course, if Obama was actually committed to meeting Congress half way to help shape a joint strategy aimed not at blowing up the negotiations, but at strengthening U.S. leverage, bringing along key allies, and bolstering the prospects for coercive diplomacy.

Unfortunately, there is little sign of that happening. Nor is there much chance of the White House taking any of the myriad of other steps that could significantly ratchet up the pressure on Iran, from direct action to bring down the Assad regime, to interdicting Iranian weapons shipments to its terrorist proxies, to bolstering Israel’s attack options through the supply of America’s most powerful bunker busters and the planes to deliver them.

Rather than seeing such moves as essential elements in a comprehensive strategy to maximize U.S. leverage and the chances for diplomatic success, the administration instead appears to view them all as reckless provocations aimed at destroying diplomacy’s chances. As a result, all it has been left with is a toolkit filled with political reassurances, more negotiating concessions, promises of economic sweeteners, and private supplications of friendship from the President of the United States to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Is that really the most likely means of convincing a revolutionary theocracy that has been at war with America for 35 years to give up its nuclear ambitions and hegemonic designs? History suggests no. Obama says yes. 2015 should be the year we find out who’s right. The stakes are high. Place your bets. Game on.

That was quite a comedic piece. The author of the article must be deluded.

 

[mohsen]

sorry, but the question is if Americans really want to defeat the ISIS?
you should ask yourself why they said it takes 3 decades to defeat them? and if you find the answer you would know why they are accidentally dropping ammunitions for ISIS, instead of gently unloading their cargoes for Iraq army in the airport. It's not the ISIS we are fighting with, it's American's proxies and be sure destroying them is the last thing they want.

so let me predict again this negotiations will fail so miserably that Mr Rohani and Zarif couldn't imagine even in their nightmares. 4b$ in return of ... and 30$ oil .
I really should say good luck Mr Rohani and your foreign policies.

 

[rahi2357]

I really should say good luck Mr Rohani and your foreign policies.

Mohsen jan , you know , everybody knows if Iran leaves the talks then they won't let Iran to sell even one barrel of oil . i repeat even 1 barrel . and let's face the facts . our economy is still completely dependent on oil and petroleum products . and we can't change it in one or two years . just remember the last year of ahmadinejad . - 4 GDP growth rate and 40% Inflation . our economy was literally dying .Then what's the solution ?

 

[mohsen]

Mohsen jan , you know , everybody knows if Iran leaves the talks then they won't let Iran to sell even one barrel of oil . i repeat even 1 barrel . and let's face the facts . our economy is still completely dependent on oil and petroleum products . and we can't change it in one or two years . just remember the last year of ahmadinejad . - 4 GDP growth rate and 40% Inflation . our economy was literally dying .Then what's the solution ?

unless you are ready to give up EVERYTHING (nuclear energy is just the first one), don't seek the solution in negotiations with west.

connecting our economy problems with the negotiations is the most dangerous thought which is being advertized by the western sources. only today you can negotiate on the nuclear energy, but tomorrow when we ran out of fossil fuels, you have to accept whatever they demand in return of the same energy which you gave up today.

do you know what has caused the Saudi dictators to lower their oil price? a little hop for giving up our rights in the negotiations, a little hop which we gave them by a little retreat in the first round of the negotiations.

also nothing has changed between this government and the previous one, even the amount of oil barrel export per day.
not only our economy isn't dying, it's even recovering from the shock and adopting itself with the sanctions on the swift system. yet I believe the result of some policies by this government is slowing this recovery process.

 

[raptor22]

Bro , completely agreed
But i think you didn't get what i said . i mean what ever happens (deal reached or no deal in nuclear talks ) Iran continues to help Iraq . what ever happens , Iran helps assad . and US knows this . so it has no use in nuclear talks .

sorry, but the question is if Americans really want to defeat the ISIS?
you should ask yourself why they said it takes 3 decades to defeat them? and if you find the answer you would know why they are accidentally dropping ammunitions for ISIS, instead of gently unloading their cargoes for Iraq army in the airport. It's not the ISIS we are fighting with, it's American's proxies and be sure destroying them is the last thing they want.

so let me predict again this negotiations will fail so miserably that Mr Rohani and Zarif couldn't imagine even in their nightmares. 4b$ in return of ... and 30$ oil .
I really should say good luck Mr Rohani and your foreign policies.

A couple years ago I read an analysis on how the us could invade Iran, the number of troops needed to invade Iran was estimated around 1000000 troops in that essay.
The other barriers ( my POV) are Iran allies in the region which are Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. 2 out of 3 of our allies have already been attacked by ISIL and the third one i.e Lebanon has been threaten and is on the brick of war (Hezboallh has prevented it).
So I think they wouldn't fight ISIL they need it in Syria to remove Assad regime and finally get to Iran.

That was quite a comedic piece. The author of the article must be deluded.

Exactly it's what I thought in the first place, the writer is national security adviser to Dick Cheney as vice president in Bush era.

 

[rahi2357]

connecting our economy problems with the negotiations is the most dangerous thought which is being advertized by the western sources. only today you can negotiate on the nuclear energy, but tomorrow when we ran out of fossil fuels, you have to accept whatever they demand in return of the same energy which you gave up today.

I never mean giving up . But do you agree that (at least ) a big part of economic problems is related to the sanctions ? and do you agree that in case of leaving talks they put sanctions to the highest level ? we have not faced the highest level yet . that means selling no oil. zero ! that's what they are saying . you are saying that there is no solution in negotiations too . ok , but what's the solution ?

not only our economy isn't dying, it's even recovering from the shock and adopting itself with the sanctions on the swift system. yet I believe the result of some policies by this government is slowing this recovery process.

I said it "was" dying ( referring to the last year of ahmadinejad ) .

 

[mohsen]

I never mean giving up . But do you agree that (at least ) a big part of economic problems is related to the sanctions ?

I totally agree.

and do you agree that in case of leaving talks they put sanctions to the highest level ? we have not faced the highest level yet . that means selling no oil. zero ! that's what they are saying . you are saying that there is no solution in negotiations too . ok , but what's the solution ?
I said it "was" dying ( referring to the last year of ahmadinejad )

Totally disagree.
if they could bring it to zero they wouldn't hesitate, simply they couldn't.
their sanctions was being violated by our customers, so they created the exception list to keep their face.

oil embargo was ineffective, that's why they went for the swift system which had its negative effect on the dollar too
THIS WAS THEIR LAST SHOT.
solution is relying on domestic production, creating credential system based on barter with our customers.
you know closing our refineries and importing the gasoline (which Mr Rohani did) isn't among them, signing new deals for pure montage products (like new deals in our car industry) just extends our dependency on foreign goods and again has negative effect on the currency rate. our problem is these west educated liberal politicians, economists, etc both in Ahmadinejad and Rohani governments who know nothing but being dependent either on east or west.

 

[raptor22]

I totally agree.
Totally disagree.
if they could bring it to zero they wouldn't hesitate, simply they couldn't.
their sanctions was being violated by our customers, so they created the exception list to keep their face.

oil embargo was ineffective, that's why they went for the swift system which had its negative effect on the dollar too
THIS WAS THEIR LAST SHOT.
solution is relying on domestic production, creating credential system based on barter with our customers.
you know closing our refineries and importing the gasoline (which Mr Rohani did) isn't among them, signing new deals for pure montage products (like new deals in our car industry) just extends our dependency on foreign goods and again has negative effect on the currency rate. our problem is these west educated liberal politicians, economists, etc both in Ahmadinejad and Rohani governments who know nothing but being dependent either on east or west.

But when they wanted to put embargo on Iran oil industry some people were saying it's not possible they can not do that oil prices would skyrocket to 250$ per barrel if they do so... and they did it. right now oil production is more than demand in the markets and Iran's production is not much.
But putting sanctions on Russia by westerns may help us to have more space.

 

[mohsen]

But when they wanted to put embargo on Iran oil industry some people were saying it's not possible they can not do that oil prices would skyrocket to 250$ per barrel if they do so... and they did it. right now oil production is more than demand in the markets and Iran's production is not much.
But putting sanctions on Russia by westerns may help us to have more space.

even in that time Saudis were ready to fill the gap, if our customers didn't change their source it wasn't the result of their love for us but technical problems (their refineries are built based on our oil specs) and political motivations, for example china, how much they can trust the Saudis who are the puppet of the west? it's a strategic matter for them to keep us in the list.
just pray the low oil price force our governors to reduce the dependency on oil.

 

[raptor22]

even in that time Saudis were ready to fill the gap, if our customers didn't change their source it wasn't the result of their love for us but technical problems (their refineries are built based on our oil specs) and political motivations, for example china, how much they can trust the Saudis who are the puppet of the west? it's a strategic matter for them to keep us in the list.
just pray the low oil price force our governors to reduce the dependency on oil.

یشنهاد جدید مجلس برای قطع وابستگی بودجه ۹۴ به قیمت نفت و دلار


خبرگزاری تسنیم: مجلس شورای اسلامی پیشنهاد الحاقی جدیدی در لایحه بودجه ۹۴ کل کشور را در دست بررسی دارد که در صورت تصویب نهایی، ضمن قطع وابستگی بودجه ۹۴ به قیمت نفت و ارز، کسری بودجه پنهان دولت نیز شفاف و آشکار می‌شود.



به گزارش خبرگزاری تسنیم، احمد توکلی عضو کمیسیون برنامه و بودجه مجلس شورای اسلامی درباره پیشنهاد جدید قطع وابستگی بودجه 94 به نفت و ارز که اقتصاددانان سرشناس مجلس و مرکز پژوهش‌ها آن را پیگیری می‌کنند، گفت: در صورت تصویب این طرح، بودجه دولت برای همیشه از وابستگی به نفت و ارز خلاص می‌شود. به‌عبارت دیگر، بودجه به‌معنای واقعی کلمه "ریالی" می‌شود، همچنین تأثیرات نوسانات ارزی و نفتی بر بودجه دولت هم رخت برمی‌بندد تا اقتصاد مقاومتی نیز به‌معنای واقعی ملاک عمل قرار گیرد.


وی بی‌نیاز شدن از تعیین نرخ ارز و مقدار صادرات و ارزش هر دلار به ریال و اعمال سیاست تولید و صادرات نفت را از نتایج این طرح عنوان کرد و اظهار داشت: در عین حال، در صورت تصویب نهایی این طرح، شورای پول و اعتبار نیز بدون متأثر شدن از بودجه، نرخ ارز را متناسب با اقتضائات اقتصاد ملی تعیین خواهد کرد؛ بدین ترتیب سیاست ارزی به‌عنوان یک ابزار مؤثر در دست بانک مرکزی باقی خواهد ماند.


رئیس سابق مرکز پژوهش‌های مجلس شورای اسلامی با بیان اینکه سیاست‌گذاری تجاری نیز در این وضعیت قابل اعمال خواهد بود، تصریح کرد: در صورت تصویب نهایی این طرح، حساب ذخیره ارزی با فروش ارز در بازار مبلغ مورد نیاز را تأمین می‌کند و به دولت خواهد پرداخت.


توکلی در ادامه خروجی نهایی طرح ویژه قطع وابستگی بودجه به نفت و ارز را چنین نتیجه‌‌گیری کرد: فروش ارز به بانک مرکزی تقریباً منتفی و اعمال سیاست پولی توسط این بانک ممکن می‌شود. شفافیت بودجه بیشتر می‌شود. با آشکار شدن کسری هزینه تراشی کند می‌شود، ضمن اینکه هر سال می‌توان درصد معینی از برداشت از حساب ذخیره ارزی را کم کرد تا وابستگی اقتصاد به نفت کاهش یابد.


وی تصریح کرد: قرار است اقتصاددانان مجلس نیز در این باره مذاکراتی با دولت‌مردان داشته باشند.


جزئیات پیشنهاد الحاقی جدید مجلس برای قطع وابستگی بودجه به قیمت نفت و ارز در لایحه بودجه 94 به‌شرح ذیل است:


"بند الحاقی به تبصره 2 ــ فعالیت حساب ذخیره ارزی حاصل از عواید نفت موضوع ماده (1) قانون برنامه چهارم توسعه اقتصادی، اجتماعی و فرهنگی جمهوری اسلامی ایران مصوب سوم شهریور ماه 1383 با اعمال اصلاحات و تغییرات زیر تداوم می‌یابد:


الف ــ عواید حاصل از صادرات نفت اعم از (نفت خام و میعانات گازی) به‌صورت نقدی و تهاتری و درآمد دولت از صادرات فرآورده‌های نفتی و خالص صادرات گاز پس از کسر سهم صندوق توسعه ملی شرکت ملی نفت ایران و موارد قانونی دیگر به حساب ذخیره ارزی واریز می‌شود.


ب ــ تأمین بخشی یا تمام کسری بودجه عمومی دولت در قوانین بودجه سنواتی از محل حساب ذخیره ارزی مشروط بر اینکه از دیگر منابع قابل تأمین نباشد با تصویب مجلس شورای اسلامی مجاز است. در سال 1394 به دولت اجازه داده می‌شود تا سقف 711هزار میلیارد ریال موضوع ردیف‌های ... جدول این قانون از منابع حساب ذخیره ارزی استفاده کند.


حساب ذخیره ارزی وجوه مزبور را با فروش منابع ارزی از طریق بانک مرکزی جمهوری اسلامی ایران تأمین و به حساب‌های خزانه‌داری‌کل کشور واریز می‌کند.


ج ــ پیگیری وصول اقساط و سود تسهیلات اعطائی از محل حساب ذخیره ارزی و واریز آن به حساب مزبور از طریق بانک‌های عامل به‌عهده دولت است.


د ــ ایفای باقی‌مانده تعهدات حساب ذخیره ارزی به بخش‌های غیردولتی، خصوصی و تعاونی به‌عهده همین حساب است و ایجاد هرگونه تعهد جدید ممنوع است".


توکلی در ادامه نقش فعلی نفت در بودجه دولت و اقتصاد ملی را مورد اشاره قرار داد و یادآور شد: هم اکنون نفت در طرف منابع جدول منابع ــ مصارف بودجه ظاهر می‌شود.


نحوه محاسبه مقدار این منبع نیز بدین صورت است:


منبع نفتی = حجم صادرات نفت‌خام x ارزش دلاری هر بشکه x ارزش هر دلار به ریال


وی ادامه داد: بدین ترتیب در بودجه ریزی باید درباره سه متغیر حجم صادرات نفت، قیمت هر بشکه نفت به دلار و قیمت هر دلار به ریال تصمیم گرفته شود. بر همین اساس، چون در نهایت بانک مرکزی ارزها را می‌خرد، در بسیاری از وضعیت‌ها با افزایش دارایی خارجی بانک پول پرقدرت افزایش می‌یابد، یعنی سیاست پولی نیز تابعی از سیاست مالی می‌شود؛ در نتیجه این نوع بودجه ریزی با اولویت بخشیدن به مالیه عمومی حکومت را در سیاست‌گذاری ارزی، تجاری و پولی خلع سلاح می‌کند. علاوه بر آن، سیاست مالی نیز به‌درستی انتخاب و اعمال نمی‌شود.


توکلی با اشاره به چاره کار برای رهایی از این وضعیت، عنوان کرد: راه آزاد ساختن سیاست‌گذاری‌های مختلف از تبعیت سیاست مالی، تغییر یک حکم قانون برنامه پنجم و تغییر روش حسابداری جدول منابع مصارف است. وزارت نفت هر مقدار نفتی که با راهبردهای بلندمدت و کوتاه‌مدت صنعت نفت سازگار است، همچنین با ملاحظه تعهدات اوپک، تولید می‌کند و مازاد بر مصرف داخلی را صادر می‌کند. از درآمد صادراتی سهم صندوق توسعه ملی، شرکت نفت، 2 درصد مناطق نفت‌خیز و محروم داده می‌شود و بقیه تماماً به حساب ذخیره ارزی واریز می‌شود.


وی افزود: جدول منابع و مصارف هم به‌شکل جدید (ذیل) تنظیم می‌شود.

​

 

[raptor22]

Iran strikes would only delay nuclear program: US general

Washington (AFP) - Air strikes on Iran would set back but not destroy its nuclear capabilities, the top US military leader said Thursday, with a deadline looming for a deal between Tehran and major powers.


Iran and the P5+1 group (the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany) have set a November 24 deadline for a historic accord curbing the Islamic republic's nuclear energy program after a decade of on-off negotiations.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to develop the nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful civilian energy program.

Israel in the past has raised the threat of military action to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, while Washington has left its options open.

"We do have the capability -- were we asked to use it -- to address an Iranian nuclear capability," said General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.

"But... as we look at using the military instrument if necessary to address the Iranian nuclear issue, that would delay it, it will not eliminate it," he told a forum at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The United States and Iran broke off diplomatic ties in 1980, but the two sides have both engaged in the multilateral negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.

Top US diplomat John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are due to meet in Oman over the weekend in talks hosted by European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.

A final session of talks is then due to take place in Vienna from November 18-24, and Kerry has stressed that the deadline would not be extended.

"What really makes the nuclear capability of Iran an issue, is not centrifuges and ballistic missiles but rather the human capital that has the expertise to regenerate it," Dempsey explained.

"We do have the capability to delay their nuclear enterprise by some number of years, which I won't obviously articulate here."