Updates

Update from AIJAC

January 17, 2014
Number 01/14 #03

Last weekend, Iran and the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) reportedly reached agreement on technical arrangements to implement the interim “Joint Plan of Action”  agreed on in Geneva in November to limit Iran’s nuclear work for six months in exchange for limited sanctions relief. While the details of the technical arrangements and timetable have not yet been released, and Iran says there is an informal 30-page document that has been agreed to, the actual Joint Plan of Action is now to go into effect from Monday, Jan. 20.

Iranian President Rouhani has boasted that the deal amounts to a “surrender” by the West to the “Iranian nation’s will”, and American foreign policy expert Avi Jorisch argues that the West risks making his words true if they allow sanctions to lapse into business as usual. He notes that Iran was only forced to negotiate because of the sanctions, but these efforts are now eroding quickly, and it will be difficult to reverse this trend quickly if necessary. He says what is going on looks like a Kabuki dance, and the P5+1 needs to quickly ascertain whether Iran is actually willing to really dismantle the main elements of its nuclear program. He also backs a proposed US Congressional bill – opposed by the Obama Administration – to impose new sanctions in one year’s time that would only take effect if negotiations fail. For his complete argument, CLICK HERE. One of the bill’s main sponsors, Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, explains why he believes the bill assists rather than undermines the Administration’s diplomatic efforts here. More on the current status of the bill is here.

Next up is American columnist and think-tank head Cliff May, attempting to put the nuclear agreement into the context of the larger picture of  Iran’s regional goals. He cites evidence that Iranian leaders view the deal in terms of, as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described it, “clever, artful maneuvering that allows for the believer to achieve his goals”. May then goes on to discuss what those goals are for the Iranian regime – including domination of the Persian Gulf, regional hegemony and hatred of Israel – and recommends contingency planning for the likelihood that the interim agreement does not lead to a final deal. For this long but important look at those goals and their consequences if Iran is allowed to become a nuclear or nuclear-threshold state, CLICK HERE.

Finally, we offer some comment from American foreign policy pundit Walter Russell Mead on what we can determine about Iran’s intentions from the behaviour of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during his recent visit to Lebanon. Zarif not only praised  and met with Hezbollah and then bizarrely held a press conference in which he pledged his country to “combating terrorism”, he even laid a wreath on the grave of Hezbollah’s notorious terror mastermind Imad Mugniyeh. Mead concludes that Iran is “using the discussions on its nuclear program to project an image of moderation even as it dramatically steps up its campaign to establish itself as the leading power in the Middle East” and the US Administration appears too focused on the nuclear deal to be willing to call them on their behaviour. For his full discussion of this danger and how it adversely impacts the US negotiating position in Mead’s view, CLICK HERE. Making some similar points about the Zarif visit to Lebanon was Elliot Abrams. 

Readers may also be interested in:

• American foreign policy commentator Benny Avni looks at what Iran has been doing on the nuclear and sanctions front over the two months since the Joint Plan of Action was agreed upon. 
•  Jonathan Tobin looks at the inadequacies of the inspection regime for Iran under the Joint Plan of Action. More on this here. 
• An argument that a nuclear deal that allows Iran to keep everything it needs to quickly build nuclear weapons is worse than actually allowing Teheran to build nuclear weapons, from foreign policy expert Gary Gambill.
• Both arguing that the US should not fall into the trap of believing that the nuclear deal can create a general “detente” or major reconciliation with Iran are articles by experts Ray Takeyh and Michael Doran and Max Boot respectively.
• An excellent summary of the internal debates within the Iranian regime in the wake of the Geneva interim deal from Israeli strategic expert Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall. 
• Two pieces on the recovery of the Iranian economy in the wake of the Geneva deal and large-scale investor interest expressed in Iran since November – here and here. 
• Twenty threats Iranian leaders made against Israel in 2013.
• Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on the role played by Iran in the al-Qaeda takeover of parts of Iraq.
• A quiz which answers claims about so-called “apartheid” in Israel.
• Some good comment on what is behind the controversial statements criticising US Secretary of State John Kerry by Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon (for which Yaalon has since apologised) here and here.
• Good articles on the controversy in Europe over the so-called “quenelle”, a gesture invented by French comedian and convicted antisemite Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, from award-winning British writer novelist Harold Jacobson and British academic David Hirsh.
• Isi Leibler takes issue with some recent statements by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman which appear to contradict government policy.
• Some examples from the many stories and comments now appearing at AIJAC’s daily “Fresh AIR” blog:
  • Sharon Mittelman wrote about the legacy of Ariel Sharon in the Canberra Times.
  • Allon Lee debunks two myths about Sharon that have appeared repeatedly in media comment since his death.
  • Jamie Hyams dissected a bizarre, ahistorical and counter-productive description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an article in the Herald Sun.
  • Or Avi-Guy offers some advice on achieving stability and an end to bloodshed in Syria in the Conversation.

The Iranian Kabuki dance

by Avi Jorisch

Al-Arabiya, January 16, 2014

Starting next Monday, Iran will formally implement an interim agreement with the West. President Rohani has described the accord as the world “bowing to Iran’s might, power and resistance.” The Islamic Republic has agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities for six months in return for what has been called “modest” relief from the crippling international sanctions imposed for most of the last decade. But the West, by rolling back the sanctions regime, has given Tehran an opportunity to reinvigorate its economic and diplomatic ties with the rest of the world, and Western countries have eagerly exploited the opening to do business with Iran. Re-legitimizing business as usual before Iran makes any significant concessions on its nuclear program not only sends the wrong message, but impairs the West’s ability to negotiate effectively.

Iran has made a full court press to rehabilitate its economy following the relaxing of sanctions. In the last six weeks, Tehran has been working its charm offensive, principally with Europe, but also with Japan, Turkey and Azerbaijan. In addition, it has begun rebuilding the critical infrastructure necessary to transact global business, including in the banking and energy sectors.

According to the White House briefing on the agreement, Iran will be offered about $7 billion in sanctions relief, including access to $4.2 billion in frozen oil revenue. But while most policymakers have focused on the relatively small amount of money this supposedly represents, it is actually the renewed banking and business infrastructure that requires attention. It took years to implement an effective sanctions regime, and that effort is now eroding quickly – despite U.S. claims to the contrary. Should Iran decide to drag out the negotiations or leave them all together, it would be extremely challenging to reinstitute the sanctions because of the length of time required.

Iran was forced to negotiate largely because of the sanctions, as over 80 financial institutions around the globe cut off ties or signifi­cantly reduced their relationship with it. Major international banks stopped supplying financial services to Iran, which significantly curtailed its ability to transact global business. According to Ali Majedi, Iran’s deputy oil minister for international and commercial affairs, as a result of the agreement, the Islamic Republic will regain access to several global banks to handle payments for its crude exports and other commodities. Undoubtedly, other financial institutions will wish to follow suit.

Until recently, oil companies were forced to turn their backs on Iran’s energy giant, largely due to U.S. policy and Congressional legislation. But Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Iran’s oil minister, met this month with the heads of European companies like Vitol Group, Eni SpA, OMV AG and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Furthermore, according to Daniel Bernbeck, head of the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other U.S. companies have already come to Tehran to explore business opportunities.

For years, European and Asian legislators treated Iran as a pariah and attempted to isolate the regime. Yet a European Parliament delegation arrived in Tehran in December, the first EU legislative institution to visit the country in over six years. Just last week, a four-member parliamentary delegation from the UK, led by former foreign secretary Jack Straw and former chancellor of the exchequer Lord Lamont, traveled to Iran to meet with members of the Majlis and invite them to the UK. Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino visited Tehran last month to work on a “plan of exchanges and cooperation,” and not just in the energy sector.

Hiroyuki Ishige, chairman of Japan’s External Trade Organization, visited Tehran in December to discuss expanding bilateral ties and floated a plan to form a joint committee to promote trade. In addition, Turkey and Iran are now expected to significantly ramp up their bilateral ties through a high-level Cooperation Council, intended to “fast track cooperation and cut the red tape in bureaucracies.” The two are also considering a joint cabinet meeting.

Predictably, negotiations until now stalled because of problems over Iran’s advanced centrifuge research. Policymakers should pay very close attention to these devices that purify uranium: at low levels, they can create fuel in atomic power plants, but at high levels, they can be turned into nuclear weapons. According to diplomatic insiders, Iran is pressing ahead with development of very advanced centrifuges, a worrisome sign indeed.

In the 1960s, a new term came into the American lexicon following U.S.-Japanese negotiations that lasted over 25 years: the Kabuki dance, now synonymous with political posturing. The international community should cut the disco party short and determine whether Iran plans to shut down its nuclear program or continue marching towards the bomb. To prove it has truly dropped its nuclear ambitions, Iran must stop its centrifuges, shut down the Arak plutonium reactor and transfer its uranium and plutonium stockpiles out of the country.

U.S. and international lawmakers should continue promoting legislative efforts such as the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act, currently being considered by Congress, which would place sanctions on Iran if it does not agree to a comprehensive deal later this year or next. The intelligence community should use signal and human intelligence and satellite imagery to verify Iranian claims, which will likely become more challenging because of political interests if the negotiations drag out.

The international community must take decisive steps to ensure Iran does not get the bomb. Only by keeping sanctions and a credible military threat on the table will the West show Iran that its actions have consequences.

 Avi Jorisch is the founder of the Red Cell Intelligence Group, a consulting and training firm that specializes in national security issues relating to terrorism, illicit finance and radical Islam. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow for Counter-terrorism at the American Foreign Policy Council. Previously, Mr. Jorisch served as a Policy Advisor at the Treasury Department’s office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

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The Persian Triangle

 Clifford D. May

Commentary, 01.01.14 

On November 24, 2013, a “Joint Plan of Action” was concluded in Geneva by Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—as well as Germany. “We have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program,” President Obama exulted. This agreement, added Secretary of State John Kerry, will ensure that Iran “cannot build a nuclear weapon.”

Their confidence was not universally shared. “This deal appears to provide the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in exchange for cosmetic concessions that neither fully freeze nor significantly roll back its nuclear infrastructure,” said Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. “Furthermore, the deal ignores Iran’s continued sponsorship of terrorism, its testing of long-range ballistic missiles, and its abuse of human rights.”

“A fairer agreement,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York, “would have coupled a reduction in sanctions with a proportionate reduction in Iranian nuclear capability.”

Key to the 1,500-word agreement is this pledge: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons.” That seems reassuring: Tough economic sanctions, President Obama’s warnings that “all options remain on the table,” and the diplomatic initiative led by Secretary of State Kerry were intended to produce exactly that commitment.

But the word reaffirms may give the game away. Iran’s rulers have made similar statements about neither seeking nor developing nuclear weapons in the past. We know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that they were lying; they have been developing secret nuclear-weapons facilities and programs for a decade or more. The discovery of those facilities and programs led to six UN Security Council resolutions condemning them and imposing sanctions in response—all of which they have flouted. So what is it the Iranians are reaffirming? It would seem, given the context, that they are promising more of the same.

Putting that concern aside might be possible if the agreement spelled out strict measures to enforce Iranian compliance. It does not. The agreement is mostly about confidence-building measures—actions the West and Iran will take to make it possible to get down to the brass tacks in six months or a year.

During the Geneva talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was all smiles, fluent English, and bonhomie. The photos of him and Catherine Ashton, the former British Labor Party politician and now the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, sharing toothy laughs are striking. She seemed unaware that, back in Tehran, Iran’s dictator, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had not toned down his fire-and-brimstone sermons and speeches at all. Addressing members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the Grand Mosque the day the Geneva nuclear negotiations began, the supreme leader declared that in the “military, political, and economic wars, in every arena where there is a test of strength, you, the believer, must stand firm against the enemy [the United States], your will must overcome the determination of the enemy.” Khamenei added that there was a need for “heroic flexibility”—a concept, he made clear, that does not imply “abandoning the ideals and aims of the Islamic regime.” What it means instead: “clever, artful maneuvering that allows for the believer to achieve his goals.”

Ample evidence and years of experience lead to the conclusion that those goals include the development of a nuclear-weapons capability, if not weapons themselves, and that Iran’s rulers seek that capability in order to (1) establish hegemony in the Middle East, (2) protect the terrorists they sponsor abroad, (3) entrench their oppressive rule at home, (4) diminish American power globally, and (5) continue to incite and threaten genocide against Israel.

Asked about the supreme leader’s remarks, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, defaulted to diplomatic understatement.  “Comments like these are not helpful,” she said. She then added: “But we still believe that both sides are negotiating in good faith.”

More likely, Iran’s self-proclaimed Islamist revolutionaries see negotiations as did Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Communist leader, when he offered a revolutionary twist on Carl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum about politics: “All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.” Or as Iranian parliamentarian Ali Motahari recently phrased it: “Negotiations do not require concessions. Negotiations are a tool for us to receive concessions.” About a day after the conclusion of the Geneva talks, the semi-official Fars News Agency published a cartoon showing Zarif in a tractor operating a huge microphone as a wrecking ball, smashing a castle, atop which is a black flag with the word sanctions in Farsi.

The Pentagon conducts “post-action reviews” to learn from its mistakes. The same is apparently not true of Foggy Bottom, which often spins battles lost as missions accomplished. Under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, American diplomats spent years attempting to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear ambitions of the despotic regime that rules North Korea. Concessions were made, aid was provided, agreements were signed, and steady progress was announced. And here is what all that time, money, and effort achieved: In 2006, the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon for the first time. A second nuclear test was conducted three years later. The United States strongly objected, vowing that North Korea would “pay a price for its actions.” North Korea paid no price, and on February 12, 2013, it conducted a third nuclear test. Today, Pyongyang continues developing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons to those regarded as enemies. In these and other matters, it cooperates closely with Tehran.

The late Christopher Hitchens, an intellectual of the left (also, untypically, a critic of the left) spoke of “the liberal softness on totalitarianism.” When it comes to Iranian totalitarianism, that softness takes the form of a delusion: The Islamic Republic is seen as a “normal” nation, seeking stability in its region and interested in nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes or, at most, because of security concerns. Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote that while he does not “like the clerical dictators in Tehran one bit, I can understand how they might feel threatened by Israel and the West.”

Gelb’s dislike is well earned, for the “clerical dictators” ordered the suicide bombing that killed 299 American and French servicemen in Beirut in 1983; were involved in the slaughter of American military personnel at Khobar Towers in 1996; masterminded Hezbollah’s attacks in Argentina in the 1990s; assisted a failed plot to bomb JFK Airport in New York City in 2007; have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; and recently flubbed an attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Georgetown restaurant in which he was to be dining. Yet it is they, in Gelb’s analysis, who might feel “threatened by Israel and the West”—and, in his view, understandably so.

Many of Gelb’s cohort in the media, think tanks, and the Department of State (three institutions in which he has worked at high levels) choose not to believe that Iran’s rulers, “hardliners” and “moderates” alike, subscribe to a coherent and seriously bellicose ideology—a Shia version of the radical Sunni belief system that drives al-Qaeda and its many affiliates. Both systems center on the imperative of Islamic supremacy and, eventually, global domination, the conviction that Muslims have, quite literally, a God-given right to rule over “unbelievers.”

Now, it is important to note that the vast majority of Shia Muslims in Iran almost certainly do not embrace this doctrine. It should be remembered that, in 1979, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a political revolution they wanted—which he then transformed into a religious revolution against which Iranians have been chafing for more than three decades. Khomeini and his acolytes replaced not just the shah but also the “quietist” Shia tradition that had maintained a respectable distance between mosque and state. In its place, Khomeini proclaimed the doctrine of velayat-e faqih—the “guardianship” of religious “jurists,” a dictatorship that melds religious and political power.

Similarly, most Sunni Muslims do not subscribe to Salafism—the emulation of Muhammad and his companions in all ways—or Salafi Jihadism, the even more extremist belief that waging war against infidels, as did early generations of Muslims, is the central pillar of the faith.

Militants among the Sunni and Shia are not enemies: They can and do cooperate against common foes. But there is a serious rivalry between them, most bloodily expressed right now in the Syrian civil war. And many if not most Sunnis, especially in the countries neighboring Iran, fear and dread the possibility that the Islamic Republic will, with American complicity, soon stride the Middle East like a colossus. “We have concerns about what sort of concessions the Americans will give,” Mustafa Alani, the Dubai-based director of security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center, told a reporter. “Will they anoint Iran as a regional superpower? The idea of Iran having hegemonic power is an absolute red line for all the Arab states.”

We can and should hope that President Obama, his diplomats, and those applauding them, are right—that the plan of action leads, within the six-month time frame specified, to a comprehensive agreement that prevents Iran’s rulers from getting their fingers on nuclear triggers. Even better would be what Washington Post columnist David Ignatius claims to see on the horizon: “an American rapprochement” with Iran, which will then become a member-in-good-standing of the “international community.” Obama would go to Iran—much as Nixon went to China. A new day would dawn.

But it is prudent to consider and prepare for less rosy scenarios, in particular the possibility that the interim agreement—made when economic pressure was most intense and so, therefore, was U.S. leverage—will come to be seen as the pinnacle of the diplomatic process and not its promising beginning. If sanctions do lose their bite over the weeks and months ahead, the expectation must be that Iran’s rulers will concede less, exploit ambiguities in the Joint Plan of Action, and hide as much of their nuclear-weapons activity from international inspectors as possible.

If that’s the case, subsequent negotiations will not bring about what Obama and Kerry announced in November. Instead, as the sanctions unravel, Iran will continue its drive to become a nuclear-armed state or at least a threshold nuclear-weapons state. In other words, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism will pause just a few months or even weeks from having the world’s worst weapons and, very possibly, the means to deliver them.

We should be able to imagine, anticipate, and plan for probable contingencies. For example, we can be sure that a strengthened Iran will continue efforts to exert influence over Iraq, from which American troops have been withdrawn. The same would be true for Afghanistan once most Americans depart from that troubled land. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s satrap, looks increasingly likely to survive, thanks in no small measure to the elite Iranian forces that have been on the ground fighting for him. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist foreign legion, also has been winning battles for Assad in Syria. Victory in that theater can only help it consolidate its control of Lebanon. Hamas leaders, who had fallen out with Iran because they could not support an Alawite dictator brutally suppressing a rebellion by Syria’s Sunni majority, should be expected to reconcile with Tehran, especially now that there is no longer a friendly Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt.

But those are not the most serious consequences likely to unfold if there is a nuclear Iran, no longer hobbled by sanctions. Other states in the region will come under enormous pressure to bend to the Islamic Republic and the supreme leader. Azerbaijan, sometimes described by Iranians as a lost province, could be particularly at risk. It has a coast on the Caspian Sea where there are trillions of dollars in oil resources. In the past, both Iran and Russia have regarded the Caspian as a lake whose riches are to be divided as they see fit.

Most significant, however, Iran’s rulers will attempt to exercise effective control over the Persian Gulf. Mark Langfan, a New York–based geo-spatial topographer, has mapped out a triangle over the Gulf and its shores: Its apex is in Iraqi Kurdistan. One leg extends south through Iraq and the Shia-inhabited “Eastern province” of Saudi Arabia. The second leg passes through western Iran. The third leg takes in the northern shores of the United Arab Emirates, as well as Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. Fifty-six percent of the world’s known oil and gas reserves are found within this triangle. Control, even implicit control, of this area would give Iran tremendous leverage over the global price of petroleum.

Also within this “Persian Triangle” is the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes about 20 percent of the world’s petroleum, and more than a third of the petroleum traded by sea. In 2008, Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, threatened to seal off the strait if Iran were attacked by Israel or the U.S. On several occasions, U.S. ships in the strait have been harassed by Iranian vessels. All that was done while Iran was weak, both militarily and economically. A nuclear-armed or nuclear-threshold Iran asserting its “right” to what it might claim as “territorial waters” (much as China has been claiming airspace above disputed islands in the East China Sea) will pose tough choices.

Would the U.S. respond by saying, as in the past, that closing the strait would represent a red line that cannot be crossed without serious consequences? If the U.S did, would that still be credible? Or would the risk of a nuclear exchange be seen as too high a price to pay—an unacceptable tradeoff of “blood for oil”? If the latter, Iran’s economic clout, especially over Europe, would increase enormously over the years ahead.

Iranian ambitions might next focus on the Saudis, seen as usurpers with no legitimate claim to serve as custodians of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and enjoying enormous wealth only because they have deprived their Shia tribes of the black gold that lies beneath their territories. It is widely rumored that as soon as the Saudis see a nuclear Iran as inevitable, they will seek an equalizer. Others in the region may, too, perhaps setting off a nuclear-weapons “cascade” that will increase the odds of loose nukes, sooner or later, falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

And of course, Iran’s rulers may decide that their top priority is to challenge, defeat, and destroy Israel, which they have called a “cancer” that “should be cut off.” As for what Israel might do about that and when, those who know are not talking and those who are talking probably don’t know.

In the 20th century, dictators driven by utopian ideologies rooted in atheism caused enormous bloodshed. Decisions being made today by the White House and Congress may determine whether, in the 21st century, as much carnage will be caused by dictators driven by utopian ideologies proclaimed to be ordained by God.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security. In 1979, he covered the Iranian revolution for Bill Moyers’s Journal/International Report, Hearst newspapers, and CBS Radio.

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You Won’t Believe What the Iranian Foreign Minister Said After He Honored a Notorious Terrorist

Walter Russell Mead

“Via Media” blog, The American Interest, Jan. 14.

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