Iran may drop nuclear deal if U.S. withdraws, foreign minister tells al Jazeera, Reuters Staff, 28 Sept 17 ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran may abandon the nuclear deal it reached with six major powers if the United States decides to withdraw from it, Iranian foreign minister told Qatar’s al Jazeera TV in New York.
U.S. President Donald Trump has called the 2015 deal an “embarrassment”. The deal is supported by the other major powers that negotiated it with Iran and its collapse could trigger a regional arms race and worsen tensions in the Middle East.
“If Washington decides to pull out of the deal, Iran has the option of withdrawal and other options,” al Jazeera TV wrote on its Twitter feed, quoting Mohammad Javad Zarif.
“Washington will be in a better position if it remains committed to the deal,” the network quoted Zarif as saying.
Al Jazeera deleted an earlier tweet citing Zarif as saying that if Washington withdrew from the deal Iran would do so too, rather than just having the option to do so, after an Iranian official said Zarif had been misquoted.
Trump is considering whether the accord serves U.S. security interests. He faces a mid-October deadline for certifying that Iran is complying with the pact…….
Top general says Iran complying with nuclear deal, The Hill, BY REBECCA KHEEL – 09/26/17The top general in the U.S. military said Tuesday that Iran is complying with a landmark nuclear deal and that the agreement has achieved its intended result of curbing Iran’s nuclear program…….
“The briefings I have received indicate that Iran is adhering to its [plan of action] obligations,” Dunford wrote in answers to policy questions in advance of his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing to serve a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“The [plan] has delayed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons,” he wrote…….. Asked during the hearing by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to elaborate, Dunford said the deal was specifically designed to address only Iran’s nuclear program and not the other four threats he sees emanating from Iran: its missile program, its maritime threat, its support for proxies and its cyber activities…..
Dunford also said it would “make sense to him” that withdrawing from the deal would have ripple effects on the North Korea crisis.
Iraq seeks help with reactor World news briefs, Sept. 23: United Nations, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017
Iraq’s foreign minister is asking nuclear countries for help building an atomic reactor for peaceful purposes, saying the country has a right to use atomic power peacefully. Ibrahim al-Jaafari made the request in his speech Saturday to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting of presidents, prime ministers and monarchs. He called for assistance “to build a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes in Iraq, to acquire this nuclear technology.” Former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein’s previous efforts to build a nuclear reactor were met with an Israeli airstrike in 1981 and years of suspicion about his nuclear intentions. The U.S. cited concerns that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction as the basis for invading Iraq in 2003, but none were ever found. Al-Jaafari cited the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s provisions allowing countries to pursue peaceful nuclear energy projects. https://www.ohio.com/akron/news/nation/world-news-briefs-sept-23-united-nations-puerto-rico
Obama-complex Fuels Trump and Netanyahu’s Fight Against Iran Nuclear Deal, Haaretz, Chemi Shalev Sep 17, 2017
Both were slighted by the former U.S. president and both are seeking payback by expunging his signature foreign policy achievement.
Donald Trump is obsessed with Barack Obama. The U.S. president never misses an opportunity to insult and taunt his predecessor. Trump does his best to diminish Obama’s achievements as he endeavors to erase them from the history books as well. His task is naturally easier in foreign affairs and national security, where his independent authority is wider. He withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership, backed away from the Paris Accord on global warming and scaled back Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba.
But just as repealing Obamacare was and remains the principle objective in expunging Obama’s legacy on the domestic front, so is Obama’s nuclear accord with Iran seen as the red flag that won’t let Trump rest until he tears it to shreds.
The hostility between the 45th president and the 44th, unprecedented in recent presidential history, is the product of Trump’s feelings of inferiority, his narcissistic personality and his cynical political exploitation of American racism, which he may or not share…….
he can’t stand the fact that as a direct consequence of his problematic presidency, most of the world misses Obama today more than it appreciated him when he was in office.
Benjamin Netanyahu shares Trump’s Obama-complex but seeks to exploit it as well. Obama handed Netanyahu a stinging defeat, perhaps the worst of his career, when he moved the Iran nuclear deal through Congress, notwithstanding Netanyahu’s objections and despite his controversial speech before a joint session in March 2015. Obama didn’t hide his disappointment from Netanyahu, though there is a marked difference in his assessment of Trump and of the Israeli prime minister; the latter, as Obama has often conceded, is intelligent. What Netanyahu and Trump have in common, among other things, is their inability to accept criticism, their tendency to turn critics into enemies and their fervent wish to wipe the smile off what they see as Obama’s condescending face.
This is the backdrop to the meeting in New York on Monday between Trump and Netanyahu, the two senior members of the Obama Victims Club, who are both seeking payback by trying to erase his signature foreign policy achievement. In principle, the two are unlikely to disagree.
Russia to the United States: Stay in Iran Nuclear Deal https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-09-15/russia-to-the-united-states-stay-in-iran-nuclear-dealSept. 15, 2017UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said Moscow’s message to the United States during a likely meeting of the parties to the Iran nuclear deal next week on the sidelines to the United Nations General Assembly was to stay in the deal.
“That is not only our message, but the rest of the participants and those that are outside are trying to send this message across,” Nebenzia told reporters on Friday.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Leslie Adler)
News 24 2017-09-12 Vienna – The UN atomic watchdog hit back on Monday at US criticism of the Iran nuclear deal, insisting its inspections there are the world’s toughest and that Tehran is sticking to the accord.
“The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under [the 2015 accord] are being implemented,” International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano told reporters.
“The verification regime in Iran is the most robust regime which is currently existing. We have increased the inspection days in Iran, we have increased inspector numbers… and the number of images has increased,” he said in Vienna.
A Devious Threat to a Nuclear Deal, NYT, By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Nikki Haley laid the Trump administration’s cards on the table this week with a new proposal aimed at sabotaging one of the Obama administration’s most important diplomatic initiatives — the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. President Trump promised during his campaign to kill the deal, despite its clear benefits to American security. Ms. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has set forth a scheme that could not only allow Mr. Trump to carry out his threat, but also shift final responsibility to Congress.
Consortium News Israel and the neocons still seek an excuse to bomb Iran, now citing false claims about its supposed noncompliance with the nuclear deal. The new water carrier is U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes.By Paul R. Pillar
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program, is for Donald Trump one more of the Obama administration’s achievements to be trashed. It goes alongside the Affordable Care Act, the Paris climate change agreement, and other measures (most recently the “dreamers” program involving children of illegal immigrants) as targets for trashing because fulfilling campaign rhetoric is given higher priority in the current administration than whether a program is achieving its purpose, whether there are any realistic alternatives available, or what the effects of the trashing will be on the well-being of Americans and the interests and credibility of the United States.
Nikki Haley, whose foreign policy experience has consisted of these past few months as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, has assumed the role of chief public trasher of the JCPOA for the administration. Evidently no demands on the time of the U.S. ambassador in New York, from the issue of North Korea (which has real, not imagined, nuclear weapons) to the war in Syria were too important to keep her from giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that represented the administration’s most concerted and contrived public effort so far to lay groundwork for withdrawing from the JCPOA.
Haley has warmed to this cause both because of her own previous parochial interests, including those associated with financial contributions she has received, and because it is a convenient vehicle for playing to Trump’s urges. Haley evidently feels no obligation to perform as one of the “adults” in the administration to whom the country looks to contain those urges.
The speech at AEI was Trumpian in some of the tactics it employed. The performance should cement the ambitious Haley’s place on Trump’s short list of candidates to become Secretary of State once Rex Tillerson’s unhappy and probably short tenure in the job ends. The speech also used more twisted versions of familiar rhetorical twists that have been heard before from diehard opponents of the JCPOA…….https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/06/nikki-haley-falsely-accuses-iran/
Haley: Trump ‘has grounds’ to say Iran violating nuclear deal, Politico, By NAHAL TOOSI, 09/05/2017
Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador says the president “has grounds” to declare that Iran is not complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, stoking doubts about whether Trump intends tokeep an international agreement and core legacy achievement for former President Barack Obama.
Nikki Haley, speaking Tuesday in Washington, said she did not know what Trump plans to do next month when he is due to certify to Congress whether Tehran is complying with the agreement. But she appeared to lay the groundwork for Trump to declare that Iran is in violation of the deal……..http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/trump-iran-violate-nuclear-deal-nikki-haley-242331
Contradicting Trump, U.N. Monitor Says Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal, NYT, By RICK GLADSTONE, AUG. 31, 2017Iran is adhering to the limits placed on its nuclear activities under the 2015 agreement with six world powers, the United Nations monitor said Thursday in a quarterly report that could further complicate President Trump’s vow to find the Iranians in violation of the accord.
U.S. pressure or not, U.N. nuclear watchdog sees no need to check Iran military sites, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-inspections-idUSKCN1BB1JC ,Francois Murphy, VIENNA , 31 Aug 17, – The United States is pushing U.N. nuclear inspectors to check military sites in Iran to verify it is not breaching its nuclear deal with world powers. But for this to happen, inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.
Last week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is scrutinizing compliance with the 2015 agreement, as part of a review of the pact by the administration of President Donald Trump. He has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated”.
After her talks with officials of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Haley said: “There are… numerous undeclared sites that have not been inspected. That is a problem.” Iran dismissed her demands as “merely a dream”.
The IAEA has the authority to request access to facilities in Iran, including military ones, if there are new and credible indications of banned nuclear activities there, according to officials from the agency and signatories to the deal.
But they said Washington has not provided such indications to back up its pressure on the IAEA to make such a request.
“We’re not going to visit a military site like Parchin just to send a political signal,” an IAEA official said, mentioning a military site often cited by opponents of the deal including Iran’s arch-adversary Israel and many U.S. Republicans. The deal was struck under Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.
IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano frequently describes his Vienna-based agency as a technical rather than a political one, underscoring the need for its work to be based on facts alone.
The accord restricts Iran’s atomic activities with a view to keeping the Islamic Republic a year’s work away from having enough enriched uranium or plutonium for a nuclear bomb, should it pull out of the accord and sprint towards making a weapon.
Donald Trump’s nuclear obsession with Iran is misplaced, The US president would be better advised to try defusing tensions with North Korea, Ft.com Roula Khalaf, 30 Aug 17,
Donald Trump had two nuclear tantrums this summer, though you may know about only one of them. He warned North Korea it would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it made further threats to the US, and set much of the world fretting about nuclear war as a consequence. The former director of national intelligence James Clapper noted that there is nothing to stop Mr Trump from carrying out a first strike, which, as he rightly puts it, is “pretty damn scary”. Also scary is Mr Trump’s determination to reopen another nuclear dispute that was parked in 2015, thanks to deft diplomacy by his predecessor. He doesn’t rage as much about Iran as North Korea but Mr Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal, which rolled back Tehran’s enrichment programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions. Every time the state department confirms Iran is in compliance with it (Congress mandates this every 90 days), the president has a fit.
This summer, according to US media, during one such episode, Mr Trump ordered his lieutenants to come up with a reason why Iran is flouting the agreement next time they report back to him. For foreign policy watchers, this brought back memories of George W Bush’s obsession with Saddam Hussein and the resulting politicisation of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. The consequences of that misguided adventure are still spilling Iraqi and American blood……
With the crisis intensifying in North Korea — which, unlike Iran, does have nuclear weapons — ensuring an Iranian nuclear programme stays inactive for a decade is rather reassuring. Though the circumstances and the nature of the regimes of North Korea and Iran are different, the same painstaking multilateral diplomacy that produced the deal with Tehran will be needed to resolve the stand-off with Pyongyang peacefully….
while it would have been preferable to force Iran into a total surrender, it was not possible. If there had been a better deal to be had, the six world powers involved in the talks would have negotiated it. Mr Trump fancies himself as a master negotiator, but he would meet his match if he sat down with the Iranians. The US administration is under the impression that undermining the nuclear agreement would force Iran into submission to its Sunni Arab neighbours. More likely, quite the opposite would happen. Mr Trump is obsessing about Iran for the wrong reasons. More useful would be to study the nuclear agreement for the lessons it might offer about dealing with North Korea. roula.khalaf@ft.comhttps://www.ft.com/content/3534bbf6-8c96-11e7-9084-d0c17942ba93
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents. “Terrorism is not going to be lingering here for ever,” he says. “But climate change is an ongoing death sentence.”
How climate change is a ‘death sentence’ in Afghanistan’s highlands, Global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents, say those witnessing the savage impact first-hand, Guardian, Sune Engel Rasmussen , 28 Aug 17 ,
The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies.
In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,840ft).
This is where Aziza’s family lives, in the village of Borghason. In a good year, they just about survive by cultivating wheat and potatoes for food and a small income. However, when the rains fail, as they increasingly do, the family is plunged into debt, unable to reimburse merchants for that year’s seeds. “Last year, we had to borrow money from the bazaar,” Aziza says.
Things are about to get tougher. The precariousness of life in Bamiyan, one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces, leaves villages like Borghason at the mercy of climate change.
On a recent visit, the Guardian trekked from freshwater lakes surrounded by jagged massifs at 4,500 metres down to villages at the receiving end of erratic weather, a common result of global warming. Warmer temperatures melt the mountain snow earlier, resulting in an increased flow of water before farmers need it.
These are irregularities that farmers living at the margins of economic sustainability cannot afford. “People are surviving,” says Andrew Scanlon, country director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “[But] their ability to bounce back is almost zilch.”
Farmers say unanimously that temperatures have risen over the past decades. Rain is scarcer and more unpredictable. “People know about climate change even if they don’t call it that,” says Fatima Akbari, the UNEP’s country assistant. “They know all about change in water and weather.”
Despite 15 years as one of the world’s biggest receivers of international aid, much of it to agriculture, Afghanistan remains woefully underdeveloped and largely defenceless against jolts from nature. Western donors primarily poured money into short-sighted programmes such as heavy engineering and cash-for-work schemes, designed for “quick impact”, Scanlon says.
“Soldiers and engineers were on six-month contracts and needed to quickly win hearts and minds,” he adds. Governments and engineers got accustomed to short time frames. Meanwhile, little was done to build long-term resilience. Winning hearts and minds was meant to win the war, yet climate change endangers that elusive victory.
Although research on the topic in Afghanistan is limited to small-scale anthropological analyses, studies from Iraq and elsewhere link global warming and security. According to the UNEP, about 80% of conflicts in Afghanistan are related to resources like land and water – and to food insecurity, an immediate consequence of global warming.
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
Bamiyan is the epicentre. The mountains in Shah Foladi, one of four recognised national parks, feed both the Kabul basin and the Helmand river, which runs south for 700 miles (1,126km). In Helmand, water has instigated conflict for decades and been central to foreign intervention since the early cold war, when the US got involved in irrigation projects.
Despite fighting a worsening war against insurgents, the Afghan government seems, to an extent, aware of the need to address the risks of global warming. “In the region, Afghanistan is the most vulnerable country facing the ravages of climate change,” says Prince Mostapha Zaher, grandson of the former king Mohammad Zahir Shah and director general of the NEPA…….
Women are particularly affected by erratic weather. In Borghason, when the rains fail, farmers switch crops from barley to wheat, which is less ideal as livestock feed, says Chaman, an older woman in the village. As a result, women – who are tasked with fetching water and tending livestock – have longer distances to hike.
If Report Says Iran Is Abiding by Nuclear Deal, Will Trump Heed It?,NYT, By GARDINER HARRIS AUG. 27, 2017 WASHINGTON — Within days, international monitors will send an inspection report on Iran’s nuclear facilities to governments around the world, touching off a chain of events that could lead to another clash between President Trump and congressional Republicans, or even his own top advisers.
Strong indications’ Trump won’t recertify Iranian compliance with nuclear deal
There are more signs the Trump administration is preparing a case to decertify Iran’s compliance with the international nuclear deal.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, this week visited the atomic watchdog agency in charge of monitoring Iran’s compliance.
On Thursday, Tehran said it “is abiding by its duties and responsibilities” and accused Washington of using the issue “for ill-wishing political means.” CNBC
Jeff Daniels | @jeffdanielscaThe Trump administration is giving “strong indications” that it is preparing a case to decertify Iran‘s compliance with the international nuclear agreement, an expert says.
If that happens, though, some analysts believe it risks alienating U.S. allies. In addition to the United States and Iran, the 2015 nuclear agreement was signed by Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United Nations.
The White House sent Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to Vienna on Wednesday to meet with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for monitoring and verifying Iran’s commitments under the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
On Thursday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted from a letter sent by Iran’s foreign minister to the U.N. agency saying the country “is abiding by its duties and responsibilities” with regard to nuclear weapons and agreements. He accused Washington of using the issue “for ill-wishing political means.”
During her visit, Haley “discussed the IAEA’s verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments,” according to a statement by the agency. It provided no additional information, and a statement from Haley’s office discussed her visit but shed no light on imminent action.
Last week, Haley said the Tehran government should be held accountable for “its missile launchers, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage.”
The Trump administration has certified Iran’s compliance twice under a law that requires it to notify Congress of Iran’s compliance every 90 days. The next review ends in October.
Analysts say recent actions by the U.S. demonstrate that President Donald Trump plans to renege on the Iran nuclear agreement. During the election campaign, he threatened to rip up the agreement, calling it “the worst deal ever.”
The actions include new U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran and a comment last week by a U.S. official that Iran is in breach of “the spirit” of the nuclear accord. New sanctions were designed to punish Iran for its human rights record, rocket launches as well as its role in terrorism and arms smuggling.
“He’s given strong indications that he’s just not going to recertify it,” said John Glaser, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank.
“If we were to leave the deal or deliberately abrogate it, we’d be isolated internationally and we wouldn’t be able to do anything like reapply sanctions that would do any kind of damage on Iran,” he added. “That’s because the rest of the international community would not sort of play along.”
Glaser said the other parties to the agreement “agree that Iran is compliance with the deal and agree that the deal should be kept in place because it’s a robust, nonproliferation agreement. It has kind of taken military conflict against Iran because of the nuclear program off the table.”
