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| Iran's Foreign Minister is given a heroes' welcome in Tehran [Reuters] |
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| Twitter photo, Tehran |
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| Twitter photo, Tehran |
Celebrations broke out in Tehran as a landmark framework agreement for a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was announced.
Videos posted on social media showed cars driving through the streets of Tehran with honking horns and passengers clapping.
Twitter posts described people dancing in the streets of north Tehran and passing out sweets. Some posted pictures of a small gathering in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[Jerusalem Post]
Iran Brags about Nuke Concessions - Jordan Fabian
Iranian officials quickly declared victory, arguing the deal would lift all international sanctions on the regime while allowing it to continue to develop nuclear power. "All Security Council resolutions will be terminated, all U.S. nuclear-related secondary sanctions as well as EU sanctions will be terminated" during the term of the agreement, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a press conference.
"None of those measures include closing our facilities. The proud people of Iran would never accept that. Our facilities will continue. We will continue enriching, we will continue research and development, our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility," Zarif said.
(The Hill)
Iran Agrees to Nuclear Restrictions - Carol Morello
The framework agreement is not a final deal. But it creates parameters for three more months of negotiations. Iran would not have to close any of its three nuclear facilities. Iran's heavy-water reactor in Arak would be rebuilt so it could not produce weapons-grade plutonium. Iran's underground uranium-enrichment plant at Fordow would be converted into a nuclear physics and technology center.
(Washington Post)
Does Iran Have Secret Nukes in North Korea? - Gordon G. Chang
In October 2012, Iran began stationing personnel at a military base in North Korea close to the Chinese border. The Iranians reportedly are working on both missiles and nuclear weapons. Inspections inside Iran will not give the international community access to any nuclear weapons efforts in North Korea.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, thought to be Tehran's chief nuclear scientist, was almost certainly in North Korea in February 2013 to witness its third atomic test. Reports put Iranian technicians on hand for the first two detonations as well.
The North Koreans have also sold Iran material for bomb cores. The Telegraph reported that in 2002 a barrel of North Korean uranium cracked open and contaminated the tarmac of Tehran airport.
Iran could still continue developing its bomb in North Korea, conducting research there or buying North Korean technology and plans. With the removal of sanctions, Iran will have the cash to accelerate the building of its nuclear arsenal.
In other words, Iran could be one day away from a bomb - the flight time from Pyongyang to Tehran - not one year as America hopes.
(Daily Beast)
Israel: All Options Open on Iran
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said that in the face of the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, "if we have no choice, we have no choice...the military option is on the table."
Asked about possible U.S. objections to Israeli military action, Steinitz pointed to Israel's unilateral attack against the Osirak nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1981. "This operation was not carried out in agreement with the United States," he said. "The prime minister has said clearly that Israel will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power."
(AFP)
Obama's Iran Deal Falls Far Short of His Own Goals - Editorial
The "key parameters" for an agreement on Iran's nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran's nuclear facilities - including the Fordow center buried under a mountain - will be closed. Not one of the country's 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran's existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be "reduced" but not shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran's nuclear infrastructure will remain intact.
That's a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that "the deal we'll accept" with Iran "is that they end their nuclear program" and "abide by the UN resolutions that have been in place." Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium.
The proposed accord will provide Iran a huge economic boost that will allow it to wage more aggressively the wars it is already fighting or sponsoring across the region.
(Washington Post)
Obama's Iran "Framework" - Editorial
The framework is only an "understanding" among Iran and the six powers because many of the specifics are still being negotiated. But Mr. Obama wanted to announce some agreement near his self-imposed March 31 deadline, lest Congress ratchet up sanctions on Iran.
The general outline of the accord includes some useful limits on Iran, if it chooses to abide by them. All this would be somewhat reassuring if the U.S. were negotiating a nuclear deal with Holland or Costa Rica - that is, a law-abiding state with no history of cheating on nuclear agreements. But that's not Iran. The framework lacks the crucial "anywhere, anytime" inspections provision, even as Mr. Obama calls it the most intrusive ever.
It was dispiriting to hear Mr. Obama resort to his usual false dilemma gambit that Americans have only two choices - his agreement or war. The truth is that the critics of his Iran framework do not want war. But they also don't want a phony peace to lead to a nuclear Middle East that leads to a far more horrific war a decade from now.
(Wall Street Journal)
Why the Iran Deal Is Irrelevant - Daniel Henninger
Iran knows it has nuclear negotiators' immunity: No matter how or when Iran debauches any agreement, the West will request more talks. Iran's nuclear-bomb and ballistic-missile programs will go forward, as North Korea's did, no matter what.
(Wall Street Journal)
U.S. Foreign Policy Detached from Reality - Alex Fishman
The agreement with Iran is nothing more than a sad joke at Israel's expense.
The Iranians will never meet the Security Council's demands not to supply weapons to the rebels in Yemen and to Hizbullah, Syria, Iraq or Hamas. It's unclear what makes Obama believe that after an agreement is signed they will change direction and fulfill their obligations this time - rather than disregard the entire world as they have been doing in recent years.
The bottom line is that the Americans have a bad political agreement in their hands which may give the Obama administration industrial peace until the end of its term, but leaves the nuclear cloud in the Middle East for many years to come.
(Ynet News)
The Diplomatic Track to War - Caroline Glick
US President Barack Obama, his advisers and media cheerleaders have long presented his nuclear diplomacy with the Iran as the only way to avoid war. Obama and his supporters have castigated as warmongers those who oppose his policy of nuclear appeasement with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.
But the opposite is the case. Had their view carried the day, war could have been averted. Through their nuclear diplomacy, Obama and his comrades started the countdown to war.
Friday is the eve of Passover. Thirteen years ago, Palestinian terrorists brought home the message of the Exodus when they blew up the Seder at Netanya’s Park Hotel, killing 30, wounding 140, and forcing Israel into war. The message of the Passover Haggada is that there are no shortcuts to freedom. To gain and keep it, you have to be willing to fight for it.
That war was caused by Israel’s embrace of the notion that you can bring peace through concessions that empower an enemy sworn to your destruction. The price of that delusion was thousands of lives lost and families destroyed.
Iran is far more powerful than the PLO. But the Americans apparently believe they are immune from the consequences of their leaders’ policies. This is not the case for Israel or for our neighbors. We lack the luxury of ignoring the fact that Obama’s disastrous diplomacy has brought war upon us. Deal or no deal, we are again about to be forced to pay a price to maintain our freedom.
[Jerusalem Post]
Agreement Does Not Warrant Celebration - Emily B. Landau
Iran's past behavior in the nuclear realm, coupled with its continued military nuclear aspirations and bullying behavior in the Middle East, do not warrant any celebration of an historic deal.
The writer is head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
Agreement Allows Activities With No Civilian Necessity - Armin Rosen
Thomas Moore, a longtime nonproliferation expert for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the agreement allows Iran to engage in nuclear activities - like stockpiling low-enriched uranium and operating a plutonium reactor - that have no civilian necessity.
Moreover, "I don't see that Iran is going to do anything different on cooperation for verification today than it did prior to today," Moore said.
(Business Insider)
A Deal Without Stability - Editorial
The largest effect of the nuclear agreement will be to juice the ongoing proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia and their allies. If the deal is fully implemented, Iran will receive hundreds of billions in additional revenue, and Tehran is likely to devote much of it to funding its murderous militias in Iraq, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthi movement in Yemen - not to mention Lebanon's Hizbullah and Hamas in Gaza.
What's missing is a coherent U.S. strategy for stabilizing the region that integrates the nuclear accord with measures to check Iran's hegemonic ambitions and rebuild crumbling Arab states.
(Washington Post)
The Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal - Richard N. Haass
The agreement says nothing about Iran's missile programs or support for terrorists and proxies, much less about what it is doing in Syria or Iraq or Yemen, or about human rights at home. Iran is a would-be imperial power that seeks regional primacy. A nuclear agreement might even make this reality worse, as Iran could well emerge with its reputation enhanced and a long-term option to build nuclear weapons intact.
The writer, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department.
(Project Syndicate)
Iran Nuclear Deal Is a Mistake - Ari Shavit
The post-Nagasaki Pax Americana has given more humans more peace, more prosperity and more liberty that at any other time in history. Not only as an Israeli but also as a citizen of the free world, I want a strong America to protect freedom, maintain world order and remain the global leader in the 21st century. But what should I do when Washington might make a terrible historic mistake?
Iran is not an Israel-only issue. If Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the Gulf states will go nuclear. Worried about ISIS? Anxious about al-Qaeda? Shocked by the carnage in Syria? Imagine what will happen when the most unstable region in the world becomes nuclearized. One outcome will be the proliferation of nuclear capabilities in the hands of non-state players that will use them, sooner or later, to catastrophic results.
The deal that Obama announced does not do enough to prevent this. Only in the years 2011-2012 did Washington begin a strategic and effective diplomatic effort against Tehran, but the moment it began to bear fruit, it was abandoned. A decade of strategic shadowboxing between Iran and the West ended in 2013 with a victory for Tehran.
(Politico)
VIDEO UPDATE:
WATCH: Does this look like a man who lost in the negotiations? Iran's FM is treated to a hero's welcome on his return to Tehran as he proclaims "The nuclear program will continue, none of our facilities will be closed down." ----> The proposed deal doesn't stop an Iranian nuclear bomb -- it paves the way for one. Take action. Join over 20000 people who signed NoBombForIran.com
Posted by The Israel Project on Tuesday, April 7, 2015
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