Eye on Iran: Iranian Oil Exports Rise in February, More to Ally Syria

Join UANI           Top Stories Reuters: "Iran's oil exports have risen further in February for a fourth consecutive month, according to sources who track tanker movements, adding to signs that the easing of sanctions pressure on Tehran is helping its oil exports to recover. The increase in shipments is around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to one tracker company, which would take Iranian exports to at least 1.30 million bpd for February... A second tracking source familiar with Iran's shipments said extra cargoes had headed to Syria and South Korea in February. Two cargoes were unloaded in Indonesian waters - a location sometimes used by Iran for ship-to-ship transfers... Mark Wallace, chief executive of U.S. pressure group United Against Nuclear Iran, which seeks tougher sanctions, said Iran's economy was already benefiting from the sanctions relief. 'The Obama administration has stated that sanctions relief would only amount to $6 billion (£3.6 billion) to $7 billion, however the increase in oil sales alone has already been worth over $4 billion in new revenue for the regime,' said Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. 'If Iran's oil exports remain constant from now until July, the regime will have gained more than $14 billion in additional revenue post-Geneva, not including the various other economic benefits from sanctions-easing related to areas such as the petrochemicals, automotive and precious metals sectors.'" http://t.uani.com/1o8wuBl Reuters: "The U.N. nuclear watchdog planned a major report on Iran that might have revealed more of its suspected atomic bomb research, but held off as Tehran's relations with the outside world thawed, sources familiar with the matter said... According to the sources, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has apparently dropped the idea of a new report, at least for the time being. There was no immediate comment from the IAEA. The sources said there was no way of knowing what information collected by the agency since it issued a landmark report on Iran in 2011 might have been incorporated in the new document, although one said it could have added to worries about Tehran's activities... A decision not to go ahead with the new document may raise questions about information that the United Nations agency has gathered in the last two years on what it calls the 'possible military dimensions' (PMD) to Iran's nuclear programme... The sources, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, suggested the more recent material concerned extra detail about alleged research and experiments that were covered in the November 2011 report. A new report would probably have included 'updated information on PMD' which could have 'reinforced the concern' about Iran, one said." http://t.uani.com/OGjt7T Reuters: "Senator Robert Menendez is happy to play the role of a U.S. 'bad cop' on Iran. Just don't call him a warmonger. The Democratic chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee upset the White House by leading the push for a bill that would tighten sanctions even further on Tehran, potentially putting at risk nuclear talks between world powers and the Islamic Republic. Still, his hard line on Iran has its uses in the negotiations. Congressional hawks like Menendez have allowed 'good cop' Obama administration negotiators to remind Iran that Congress is ready to impose more sanctions if talks do not go well. 'I think that we have been a positive force on getting Iran to this moment, and I think the administration actually has worked away with the best of all worlds,' Menendez told Reuters in a telephone interview. 'We have the same end goal. We have at the moment a difference in tactics,' the New Jersey Democrat said... While they have no problem playing Obama's foil on Iran, Menendez and other senators bristled when a White House aide publicly accused them last month of warmongering... 'It was unfortunate to have spokespeople for the administration suggest that,' said Menendez, 60, who won his first election four decades ago. 'It did not serve the administration well. It did not serve our ultimate goal of getting Iran to stop nuclear weapons.'" http://t.uani.com/OGke0M      Nuclear Program & Negotiations Trend: "Iran's Arak Heavy Water Reactor is now 85 percent complete, Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi Fard said, Iranian Donya-e-eqtesad newspaper reported on Feb. 27. The MP went on to say that in the past the western powers wanted Iran's nuclear sites to be closed. Meanwhile today they have accepted their loss negotiating with Iran on the issue. 'Some 19,000 Iranian centrifuges are spinning and the Arak heavy water reactor is 85 percent complete,' he remarked." http://t.uani.com/1epw1tI Reuters: "The United States has an obligation to pursue nuclear negotiations with Iran before it considers going to war with Tehran to force it to give up its nuclear activities, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday. 'We took the initiative and led the effort to try to figure out if before we go to war there actually might be a peaceful solution,' Kerry told a group of reporters... 'I happen to believe as a matter of leadership, and I learnt this pretty hard from Vietnam, before you send young people to war you ought to find out if there is a better alternative,' said Kerry, who served in the Vietnam War as a young U.S. naval officer. 'That is an obligation we have as leaders to exhaust all the remedies available to you before you ask people to give up their lives and that is what we are doing' with Iran, he added." http://t.uani.com/1jDcM0z Global Security Newswire: "Iran has resumed activities at an installation believed by some specialists to have housed nuclear-arms studies, says a Washington analytical group. A Jan. 30 satellite photograph shows new movements at Iran's Parchin base following an apparent lull in large-scale operations at the site, according to a Tuesday assessment by the Institute for Science and International Security. The facility remains off-limits to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who suspect it may have once hosted a structure capable of accommodating atomic-relevant detonation experiments, as well as potential work on a 'neutron initiator' to trigger nuclear blasts. The think tank said that debris and possible construction supplies have appeared close to the suspected detonation chamber's former housing, as well as near an edifice on the northern edge of the Parchin complex. The finding came less than a week after IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano cited the appearance of apparent construction materials and debris at Parchin since November." http://t.uani.com/1ftrhVA Reuters: "The United States will provide 750,000 euros ($1.03 million / 619,325 pounds) to help pay for the U.N. atomic agency's work in verifying the implementation of last year's nuclear accord between world powers and Iran, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in January told member states it needed about 5.5 million euros in 'extra-budgetary voluntary contributions' to finance its increased inspector activity in Iran during the six-month deal... One diplomat said he had heard the Vienna-based U.N. agency had so far received pledges of about 4.5 million euros. The IAEA had no immediate comment on the issue on Wednesday." http://t.uani.com/1kcjRYN Domestic Politics FT: "When Mohammad-Ali Najafi resigned in January just six months after taking over as head of Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation, the official reason was ill health. Others gave a different explanation: that he quit after realising he could not get to grips with the overstaffed bureaucracy of the bloated organisation he presided over. 'Mr Najafi was frustrated that he could not push for any reforms,' said one political analyst. 'It was not easy to change a director, for instance, as many employees were opposing new policies.' Analysts say among the biggest challenges facing the seven-month-old government of Hassan Rouhani, Iran's centrist president, is dealing with the dramatic rise in the number of employees at state-run organisations over the past few years." http://t.uani.com/1jDcXce Opinion & Analysis William Tobey in FP: "The world's nuclear weapons proliferators watch each other. They look for warnings and opportunities in how their peers are treated. Iran halted its nuclear weapons development after Saddam was toppled for several years. Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi also got cold feet. Later, Tehran watched the tepid international responses to the 2006 North Korean nuclear test and to a secret Syrian plutonium production reactor (which Israel destroyed as it neared completion in 2007), and apparently decided that the rewards outweighed the risks associated with constructing a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom. What are the Mullahs watching now? Syria, where the Obama administration's policy is failing. U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi reports that the first round of the Geneva 2 peace talks failed even to provide for any humanitarian relief, let alone to make progress toward a political settlement. He lamented that, 'We haven't achieved anything.' The Assad government then escalated its attacks against civilians by dropping 'barrel bombs' packed with explosives and shrapnel on neighborhoods and mosques, continuing a brutal war that has already killed over 130,000 people and displaced millions. Even Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledges that U.S. policy on Syria is failing. More to the point for Tehran, the effort to destroy Syria's chemical weapons has stalled. Last week, the U.S. representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ambassador Robert Mikulak, blasted the Syrian government, noting that only 4 percent of priority one chemicals had been removed, despite a December 31, 2013 deadline for shipping all such materials out of Syria. He went on to accuse Damascus of a 'bargaining mentality.' Syria's compliance has been belated, incomplete, and grudging. Worse, while the agreement to remove Syria's chemical weapons has stalled, it has also effectively halted international efforts to remove Assad. The obvious lesson for Tehran: Reach an interim agreement that deflates international pressure for action, drag your feet on implementation, and keep your illicit weapons program as the world dithers. The stakes in Syria have always been high. The civil war is a humanitarian catastrophe. Its outcome will determine whether or not Iran continues to extend its reach to the border of Israel through its Hezbollah proxies. It will affect prospects for peace and stability in Lebanon and perhaps Jordan. And, it will profoundly influence the outcome of nuclear negotiations with Tehran... If the Obama administration cannot compel a weakened Assad government, beset by civil war and subject to international opprobrium for using chemical weapons, to comply with its disarmament obligations, it is unlikely to succeed in dealing with a much stronger Iranian regime. The price of failure in Syria could be a doomed nuclear deal with Iran." http://t.uani.com/1bOzYc6 Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.