Thursday, September 22, 2016

Eye on Iran: Obama Pledges to Veto Bill Forbidding Ransom Payments to Iran

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The U.S. government has given plane makers Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE the all-clear to deliver jetliners to Iran Air in one of the highest-profile trade breakthroughs since nuclear sanctions were lifted on the Islamic Republic in January... Airbus on Wednesday said some of those deliveries may occur as early as this year, a spokesman said... Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R., Ill.), a critic of Iran plane deals, said, "There is a still a long way to go and many more hurdles to overcome before Iran can actually take delivery of these planes-and thankfully Congress is committed to making the process as difficult and expensive as possible." Other obstacles remain, including plane financing. The U.S. approval "does not make the use of dollars significantly easier. So any financing will have to be in euro, already a challenge for a dollar-denominated asset," said Bertrand Grabowski, managing director of aviation finance at DVB Bank SE. He added that government export credit agencies will have to play "a critical role for the first financing, there is no alternative." That could be a challenge for Boeing. The U.S. government's Export-Import bank, which can back plane deals, is restricted from supporting Iran-related transactions. Export credit agencies backing Airbus signaled they are ready to support a deal with Iran.


President Hassan Rouhani of Iran will be on a mission at the General Assembly that could have a bearing on whether he keeps his job: getting the United States to stop blocking bank transactions with Iran. The historic agreement between his country and the United States and other world powers over Iran's disputed nuclear work was supposed to bring an end to sanctions, including financial restrictions. While Iran has been successful in selling its oil, United States banking restrictions that predate the nuclear dispute have obstructed increased trade between Iran and its European business partners. Scared off by penalties imposed by the United States Treasury Department, European banks have not provided credit for large-scale projects in Iran. In fact, because of the American regulations, it remains nearly impossible for ordinary businesses to transfer money to and from Iran - a problem that has been enormously frustrating to Mr. Rouhani, who promoted the nuclear agreement by promising a new economic era... With his political future at risk, Mr. Rouhani is expected to lobby other heads of state to put more pressure on the Americans. Because there are still no diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, he is not expected to speak with President Obama directly. Mr. Rouhani's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who speaks to his American counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, has already called for a special meeting of all the parties involved in the nuclear agreement, on the sidelines of the General Assembly.


The Obama administration did not inform key lawmakers that it had wired millions of dollars to Iran through the formal financial system, even as President Obama and other administration officials publicly defended using cash for a controversial $1.7 billion payment to Iran by saying that wiring money to the Islamic Republic was impossible... "No, I was not told that [the payments were wired]," said Tennessee senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I read about it. You may have been the person that made me aware of it." Corker said that wire transfers lend "a lack of credibility" to administration statements about the $1.7 billion cash payment for a decades-old arms deal gone awry, the first $400 million of which was sent to Iran around the time that the country released American prisoners in January. Maryland senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat and ranking member of the committee, could not recall being told that the payments were wired, but he left open the possibility that his staffers had been briefed... Senator Cory Gardner told TWS he hadn't known the money was wired. The Colorado Republican called on the administration to "come clean with the American public." "The contradiction is in the president's own words, who said that ... the United States did not have the ability to wire money to Iran because Iran lacked access to the U.S. banking networks," Gardner said. "And then, lo and behold, even when the full weight of the sanctions were in place in July of 2015, those payments were indeed made by wire."

UANI IN THE NEWS


Decoding the relationship between Israel and the Arab Gulf states has become a kind of Middle Eastern Kremlinology... Israel has a diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi, and it's not surprising anymore when an important former Gulf official will appear in public with a prominent Israeli, or a delegation of Saudi scholars travels to the Jewish state... This awkward balance was on display at the Iran Risk Summit, held on September 19 in New York City. The event was United Against A Nuclear Iran's day-long assessment of the aftermath of the U.S.'s July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, and was timed to correspond with the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly, taking place this week. The event included talks from scholars, government officials, and experts from the U.S. and the Middle East, and Europe, including former UANI president and ex-Obama Administration arms control official Gary Samore, who supported last year's nuclear deal, and former Senator and current UANI president Joseph Lieberman, who did not. The event frequently hinted at the Arab-Israeli thaw. On three different occasions over the course of a roughly 40-minute long talk, Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates' longtime ambassador to the United States, listed Hezbollah in the same breath as Hamas in discussing Iranian proxy groups active throughout the Middle East... One reason for the covert on incomplete status of the upgrade in the Israel-Gulf relationship is the lack of any apparent progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Tzipi Livni, one of the heads of the Knesset's opposition Zionist Union party and Israel's former Foreign Minister and Justice Minister, said as much during the day's most noteworthy event: A panel discussion with former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski; Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the former Bahraini Ambassador to France and Spain; a former president of the UN General Assembly; and someone whom Lieberman introduced as a current adviser to the Bahraini government. Like the UAE, Bahrain does not recognize Israel's right to exist. But that didn't stop a prominent Bahraini official-someone who is in fact a member of Bahrain's royal family-from appearing onstage with (albeit one seat down from) one of Israel's most well-known political figures for over 45 minutes.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday expressed confidence that the landmark nuclear deal between his country and a group of world powers will be able to weather the volatile U.S. election season. MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked Rouhani whether he'd rather work with Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, citing comments they've made on the nuclear deal. Rouhani said, "Of course, throughout the atmosphere of presidential elections in the United States, candidates can bring up any topic that they see best suits the needs of their campaigns. But the reality remains that when the joint comprehensive plan of action was passed based on the United Nations Security Council resolution 2231, and it was approved unanimously, that became an international agreement... No one can say here or there that I don't accept this agreement, I want to renegotiate it. This has purely an electoral effect for some," Rouhani said.


A government watchdog is asking for documents from the Treasury and State Departments that could shed light on the Obama administration's controversial $1.7 billion cash payment to Iran. Cause of Action Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Wednesday for records that outline and document the payment made to settle a nearly 40-year-old case over arms sales between the United States and Iran. Cause of Action also requested all communications about the payment between the Treasury and State Departments. "Regardless of the merits of the settlement agreement the State Department reached with Iran, and regardless of whether the cash payments created "leverage" for the release of the American hostages, shipping more than $1.7 billion in untraceable cash to the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism is nonsensical - particularly when alternative, more transparent means were available," wrote Cause of Action in the request.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION


The White House threatened Wednesday that President Obama would veto two bills aimed at curbing the impact of his so-called "ransom" payment to Iran for the release of American hostages. The administration issued the veto warnings against House bills, one that would forbid any future ransom payments to Iran and another that would require public disclosure of the assets of all top Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The House passed the latter bill, the Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act, on Wednesday night by a vote of 282-143.

Administration Takes Bipartisan Fire over Iran Payment | The Hill

The Obama administration is facing bipartisan skepticism over its $1.7 billion cash payment to Iran to settle a decades-old lawsuit that coincided with a prisoner swap. Senate Banking Committee Republicans and Democrats said in a Wednesday hearing they're concerned about the implications and precedent set by the payment. They focused on the fallout from giving Iran--the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism--more than $1 billion in untraceable money. "Hard cash is the preferred currency of terrorism," said Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), chairman of the Banking subcommittee on national security. "How much more harm can Iran and its terrorist allies to do Americans and the world?"... "There could be only one purpose in which cash was useful," said Michael Mukasey, attorney general under George W. Bush, "sponsoring terrorism around the world... That money is going to buy a lot of dead westerners," he said. Mukasey also suggested that Iran could use the cash to buy nuclear weapons from North Korea. Senators also questioned witnesses as to whether the administration was legally allowed to make the payment. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) pointed to a 2000 law that limits US payments to Iran until American terror victims with lawsuits against Iran conclude their cases. "This action took place so precipitously," said Menendez, who opposed the Iran nuclear deal. "Those victims of terrorism who have outstanding claims and have not been satisfied in the case of Iran were cheated out of the opportunity."


Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) warned Wednesday that while he thinks it's likely the Senate will extend Iran sanctions by the end of the year, the issue could easily dissolve into a partisan fight... Lawmakers in both parties want to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), which is set to expire at the end of the year, but proposals have widely varied. Top Democrats, including Cardin, have backed a "clean," standalone extension. A bill introduced this week that linked the sanctions to bolstering funding for Israel's military is the most recent proposal from Republicans.  "There's a lot of interest in Congress to deal with Iran, and if that holds up that debate and we're in lame-duck session then it's possible everything could fall," said the Maryland Democrat, who is the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee.  With the Senate expected to leave Washington next week until after the election, any ISA extension is getting kicked to the end-of-the-year session. 

BUSINESS RISK


Dual nationals being held prisoner in Iran, including three Americans, may have a long wait ahead of them, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reaffirmed in an interview Wednesday that his country doesn't recognize dual citizenship. MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked Rouhani what steps Iran is taking to resolve the issue of having Americans in prison. "First of all, you do know that dual citizenship is not recognized under Iranian law," Rouhani responded, according to a translation provided by MSNBC. "Therefore those who have dual citizenship, from the interpretation of the Iranian laws, are Iranian citizens solely and only.

SYRIA CONFLICT


Abandoning a long-standing reticence, Iranians are increasingly candid about their involvement in Syria's war, and informal recruiters are now openly calling for volunteers to defend the Islamic Republic and fellow Shi'ites against Sunni militants. With public opinion swinging behind the cause, numbers of would-be fighters have soared far beyond what Tehran is prepared to deploy in Syria... Once Tehran described these forces as military "advisers" but with around 400 killed on the battlefield, this discretion has slipped and several thousand are now believed to be fighting Islamic State and other groups trying to topple Assad. Many Iranians initially opposed involvement in the war, harbouring little sympathy for Assad. But now they are warming to the mission, believing that Islamic State is a threat to the existence of their country best fought outside Iran's borders. Iran alludes to its fighters in Syria as "defenders of the shrine", a reference to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque near Damascus, which is where a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad is said to be buried, as well as other shrines revered by Shi'ites. It is casting its recruitment net wide. As well as Iranians, it has gathered Shi'ites from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to battle the Syrian opposition in what has become a sectarian conflict. Fighters killed in Syria are praised as heroes on state television and given lavish funerals. Iranian wrestler Saeed Abdevali dedicated the bronze medal he won at the Rio Olympics to the families of "defenders of the shrine" who have been killed. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has described the wars in Syria and Iraq, where Iranian-backed authorities are also fighting Sunni militants, as crucial to the survival of the Islamic Republic. If Iranians had not gone and died fighting there, "the enemy would enter the country", he said,


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed on Wednesday a U.S. demand that Syria and Russia ground all aircraft in northern Syria after the bombing of a humanitarian convoy threatened a precarious ceasefire. In an interview with NBC News, Rouhani said stopping the flights would help Islamic State and the Nusra Front, two Islamist groups fighting the Iran-allied Syrian government. "They must be kept under pressure," Rouhani said. "If we ground planes it would 100 percent benefit them."

HUMAN RIGHTS


A new campaign group on Wednesday called for a UN probe into the 1988 massacres in Iran after the release of a decades-old audio tape shed fresh light on the alleged atrocities. From August 1988 to February 1989, Iranian authorities executed nearly 5,000 political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. Iranian opposition groups have given a figure closer to 30,000. The executions received limited attention at the time, in part because of a media blackout imposed Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had taken charge of the country in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But a 1988 recording released last month by relatives of a late dissident cleric -- which purportedly includes discussion of the killings among top Iranian officials -- has sparked renewed calls for justice. The new group called "Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran" launched Wednesday at a press conference at the United Nations in Geneva. Its members include Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate held hostage for years by FARC rebels, and Tahar Boumedra, who served as the UN's top human rights representative in Iraq.

OPINION & ANALYSIS


As he did a year ago, Rouhani will no doubt talk about peaceful intentions; he'll make the case that Iran is complying with the term of the nuclear deal; and he'll declare Iran open for business.  And, in each case, he will employ the deceptive and dangerous Iranian double-speak Tehran trades in reflexively. Iran talks peace-but promulgates terrorism and radical Islam, while an uncritical American press and feckless international class turns a blind eye to ongoing UN violations. All the while the Iranian regime uses recent cash infusions and new business to expand their radical ambitions... Make no mistake about it: despite the foolish efforts of the current American administration to put lipstick on the Iranian nuclear deal, the regime there remains our avowed enemy. Iran wants to kill Americans. I've seen them do it in Iraq. They might even wait 10 years (cue, sarcasm) for the means to do it on a much larger scale...the timeframe after which our current "deal" expires. Just ask our friends in Israel. Military veterans like me opposed the Iranian deal in the first place because, as we saw first-hand on the battlefield, Iran is an active enemy to American, our allies, and the West. The post-revolutionary Iranian regime was literally founded on opposition to American and the West, with their lodestar being "Death to America." From death squads to powerful IEDs, regime-backed Iranian agents have targeted and killed Americans and our allies wherever possible. "Death to America" literally means dead Americans. In fact, the so-called "moderate" who will stand at the UN podium today personifies this Iranian mantra. In 1995 he stood before a group of pro-regime students and proclaimed, "The beautiful cry of 'Death to America' unites our nation." Just three years ago, the so-called moderate Rouhani said during his campaign, that "Saying 'Death to America' is easy. We need to express 'Death to America' with action. Saying it is easy." Rouhani has taken action, and history is checkered by countries who didn't take radical words like this seriously... Economically, there is also a dangerous misconception that because of the deal, Iran should somehow be viewed as a global economic partner. The truth is business flowing back into Iran will quickly transform Iran from a relatively weak, overstretched economic backwater into a hulking economic and regional power with vast means to support its political and military ambitions, terror proxies, and the eventual realization of the regime's dream to build a Shia empire. Businesses contemplating Tehran as a new investment opportunity should contemplate enabling such geopolitical consequences. Bottom line, New York City-the city we love that, as we saw last week, remains an active terror target-should not open its arms to the leader of a regime that remains the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. When the enemy comes to town, we should give them what they deserve: the cold shoulder and condemnation. The Iranian deal has not changed the nature of the Iranian regime; instead, it has only made that regime more powerful, more legitimate, and more dangerous. The next president will confront this scary reality.


On Feb. 14, 2005, a massive bomb killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, my father, along with 22 other Lebanese. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague identified five Hezbollah operatives as suspected collaborators in the murder. If proved, that would mean his assassination was carried out by Iran's allies in Lebanon, who are financed and controlled by the regime in Tehran. Three years later, in 2008, Hezbollah moved to occupy Beirut, and after many years of promising that its vast, Iranian-supplied arsenal was intended only to protect Lebanon from Israel, turned its weapons against the Lebanese people... Iranian officials brazenly boast that their country is now in control of four Arab capitals - Beirut, Baghdad, Sana and Damascus - and gloat over their hegemony. Such bluster is an obvious threat, which we in Lebanon know to take very seriously, that Iran wants to expand its influence in the Middle East by sowing discord, promoting terrorism and sectarian hatred, and destabilizing the region through proxies, while pretending to be bystanders... How many schools and hospitals has Iran built in Lebanon? How much help has it provided for Lebanon to rebuild itself? The answer, of course, is little to none, and any such Iranian aid is structured entirely to the political benefit of Hezbollah. Iran has a unique opportunity to help those who are really fighting extremism in the Arab world. But to do that, it must stop meddling in Arab affairs, from Yemen and Bahrain to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It must stop feeding Sunni resentment, which only encourages a fringe minority to think terrorism is the answer. And Iran can force militias from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran to leave Syria. That would be a great first step to clear the last tactical hurdle facing those who are really fighting extremism in the Muslim world. Iran can be part of the solution. But it must accept the extended Arab hand, led by Saudi Arabia, for normalized, neighborly relations, allowing Sunni Arabs to get down to the real task of getting rid of extremism.


According to a July 2016 report by the U.N. Secretary General, Iranian firms participated in a defense trade show in Iraq last March, in potential violation of U. N. Security Council resolution 2231. Under the resolution, prior approval is required by the Security Council for any arms transfer to or from Iran; none was sought. What's more, one of the firms participating in the trade show, the Defense Industries Organization (DIO), remains on the U.N.'s blacklist - even following the nuclear agreement. The report concludes that Iraqi authorities "should have frozen all of the entity's funds, other financial assets and economic resources" pursuant to resolution 2231. However, two months following the report's publication, no action has been taken to address these apparent violations... Media coverage of the report around the time of its release this summer focused on the Secretary General's expression of concern that recent Iranian ballistic missile launches were "not consistent with the constructive spirit demonstrated by" the nuclear agreement. The report's coverage of Iranian arms exports that appear to constitute violations of resolution 2231, including Iran's high-level participation at IQDX, received scant attention.   Nor does the Security Council appear to have taken any action following the report, some two months after its release.  Indeed, the evidence is mounting that there is no appetite for robust enforcement of the nuclear agreement and its implementing resolution, less than one year from when they took effect.   


The conclusion of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal-formally the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action"-last year has created a new and profoundly different set of strategic realities across the Middle East. While this shift is hardly irreversible, it is moving rapidly, and, by the time the next American president figures out where the restroom is in the White House, the process will, like quick-drying cement, be well set. Among the new realities will be the fact that Israel's opportunity to act unilaterally-or, say, in concert with Saudi Arabia-to preempt further development of Iran's nuclear program will have passed... The constraints that all future U.S. presidents will face are written in Hillary Clinton's support for the deal; despite issuing statements larded with caveats, it's clear that the Democratic candidate has no intention of bucking her increasingly left-leaning party-or Obama, whose blessing she desperately needs-on a "legacy" achievement. Moreover, the underlying rationale for the Iran deal-that there is a grand opportunity to habituate the revolutionary regime in Tehran to the international order, to transform the Islamic Republic into a "normal" nation-is likewise entrenched, if only because the West wants it to be true (and, through the JPCOA, the West has made a giant wager on the proposition). Already, the Obama Administration has looked the other way despite Tehran's direct violations of the deal, notably on ballistic missile testing, and its stepped-up drive, in Iraq and Syria, for regional hegemony. And there have been no consequences for taking Americans hostage, including U.S. Navy sailors, or buzzing U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf... But the most lasting effect of the JPCOA is the change it has wrought on strategic competition in the Middle East. It has opened a path for Iran to achieve its strategic goal of regional domination, possibly without resort to a fielded nuclear capability at all; its nemesis, the Great Satan United States, has retreated a very long way from where it stood in 2009. Iran also is reaping the rewards of strategic cooperation with Russia and has good reason to think it might entice the Chinese into some sort of similar, if less explicit, arrangement. What Israel-and the Gulf Arab states as well-now face is less the threat of instant annihilation than a grinding war of incredible complexity. And in this struggle they increasingly feel abandoned by the United States.







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@uani.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.

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