An in-depth conversation about Iran, Iranian people and the the threat posed by the Islamic regime ruling the country with its nuclear program and its influence in the Middle East.
April 05, 012
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The Jim Bohannon Show
Sunday, April 8th, 2012
EU Set To Tighten Sanctions Against Iran, Syria
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012Wednesday, March 21, 2012
BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers are expected to ramp up sanctions against Iran and Syria when they meet in Brussels on March 23.
A top EU diplomat said on March 20 that the EU will impose a visa ban and asset freezes on 18 Iranians responsible for human rights violations, bringing the total number of people on the blacklist to 79.
The diplomat said the individuals are active in the country’s judicial system as well as in media companies linked to the Tehran regime.
The ministers will also rubber-stamp a decision from last month to initiate an oil embargo against Iran scheduled to take effect on July 1.
The diplomat said the EU will also “add a few more names” to its Syria sanction list to put pressure on the government to stop its crackdown on opponents.
The EU currently has 114 Syrians and 39 companies blacklisted over their links to the Syrian regime.
Iran rattles sabers: ’11,000 missiles ready to launch’ at U.S. and Israel
Sunday, March 11th, 201203/11/2012
By: Reza Kahlili
The Iranian newspaper Kayhan reported Thursday that in the first minutes of any American conflict with Iran, “Israel and all U.S. interests around the world will be targeted.”
The newspaper, which is under the supervision of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ran the story under the headline “11,000 Missiles Ready to Launch.”
And on Saturday, Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Qazanfar Roknabadi, confirmed during a public roundtable event that the Islamic regime is prepared to attack both Israel and U.S. bases in the region if its nuclear facilities are attacked.
Citing comments from Gen. Zakaraia Hossein, the former head of the superior academy of Egypt, the Kayhan report added that “America fully knows that Iran is not Iraq” and that “a war with Iran would jeopardize all its interests in the region.”
The Kayhan report emphasized that the leaders of the Islamic regime have successfully thwarted American and Israeli threats over its illicit nuclear program. But given Iran’s missile capabilities, it said, any aggression on its soil will be met with the launch of 11,000 missiles against Israel and U.S. interests in the region.
The report said Iran had successfully launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during recent war games exercises. Though this has not been reported by other sources, such capability could drastically change the balance of power in the region and further escalate existing tensions.
In December it emerged that China sold Iran, for $11 billion, advanced DF-31 ICBMs which are capable of reaching U.S. soil with nuclear warheads. North Korean engineers are helping to get the missile system up and running.
In Beirut, Roknabadi dismissed the idea of an Israeli first-strike, saying that “the Zionist regime is not able to stage military attack against Iran,” according to the Fars News Agency.
At the same event, the Mehr News Agency reported that Roknabadi repeated the Kayhan report’s claim that Iran has thousands of missiles at the ready.
“If the Zionist regime makes such a mistake with military aggression against Iran, it will face Iran’s crushing response,” he warned. “We have prepared ourselves and currently have 11,000 missiles ready to launch at the U.S. and Israel and their interests in the world.”
In an interview with Reuters on Saturday, Iran’s ambassador in Paris, Ali Ahani, said that the only way to move out of the current deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program is for the West to recognize Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment.
The Islamic regime’s strategists believe that further advancement in their nuclear program and an aggressive policy of responding to threats will finally convince the West to accept its nuclear activities and with that remove the sanctions against the country.
Iran continues with its illicit nuclear enrichment program despite four sets of U.N. sanctions. It has enough low-enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs and continues to enrich to the 20 percent level at the nuclear facilities of Natanz and Fordow. The Fordow facility is deep within a mountain and believed to be immune from air strikes. That uranium could become weapons-grade material within weeks if it were further enriched.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced on Friday that Istanbul will host the next round of talks between Iran and the six major powers, which is expected to be held in April.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the author of the award winning book, ”A Time to Betray.” He teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy.
New report: Iran funds terror through counterfeiting, drug trade
Thursday, March 8th, 201203/08/2012
By Reza Kahlili
A report from the Green Experts of Iran, an opposition group with sources inside the Islamic republic, has provided details of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ connections to drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting. The report confirms an interconnected web of criminal enterprises, run by the Guards and often facilitated by Iranian diplomatic consulates, intended to fund the Iranian military’s worldwide terror operation.
The Revolutionary Guards’ Mafia-like network in Europe has grown steadily since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Last year the U.S. government designated Iran as a “Primary Money-Laundering Concern,” and imposed new sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.
And on Wednesday the U.S. government named Gen. Gholamreza Baghbani, a general in Iran’s elite Quds force — a branch of the Guards — as a narcotics “kingpin,” citing his career of facilitating heroin trafficking from Afghanistan into Iran.
The Green Experts of Iran report, written in Farsi, reveals a grand project by the Guards called “Time for the Collapse.” The Guards, according to this plan, intend to destabilize the West through terror, drugs and money laundering.
News media have widely reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his power struggle with those loyal to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has talked of many secret ports across Iran that are used by the Guards for illegal smuggling.
About 17 months ago, the report states, members of a drug gang were arrested in Baku, Azerbaijan. Among them were two Iranians whom Iran’s consulate shielded from prosecution. But other members of the gang were citizens of Azerbaijan, Albania and Tajikistan. They confessed to their connection to the Revolutionary Guards’ drug network.
In connection with that arrest, the Green Experts report explains, modern counterfeiting equipment was confiscated — along with information that the Guards had placed similar counterfeiting operations on the borders of Russia and across East Asia.
That information, the report states, led to more arrests 11 months ago in Macau, an island protectorate of China, resulting in the seizure of high-quality forged U.S. treasury bonds. Those bonds, the report said, were already being easily transacted through regional banks, and arousing no suspicion.
Ultimately, authorities tracked the forged currency to a criminal network in Europe which was distributing large sums of counterfeit dollars and euros, in collaboration with the Guards, since at least July 2011.
Information from arrests in Europe showed that the Guards and the Iranian intelligence apparatus were involved in a major money-laundering scheme that involved the assistance of Iranian consulates.
The Green Experts report states that an organized-crime family in Albania has collaborated with the Guards for years, running a major money-laundering operation that sends fake currency into Europe. The Guards have been successfully recruiting mostly poor Albanians, sending them to Iran for intelligence and military training, and returning them to work for their European network.
Investigations have shown that one center for distribution of phony banknotes is an Iranian-affiliated company in Hong Kong.
The Revolutionary Guards’ illicit activities have expanded throughout Europe, including to England, Germany, France and, in cooperation with Italian Mafiosi, to northern Italy.
Arrests just weeks ago in Zurich, Switzerland also led to confiscation of an improbable $6 trillion in fake U.S. bonds and the arrests of eight individuals in Italy. As part of the investigation that led to those arrests, $2 billion in fake bonds were also seized in Rome.
Those arrested in that law-enforcement operation were widely reported to have been trained in Iran. They were part of the Guards’ smuggling network, and were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian contacts.
The bonds they were carrying had been transported in 2007 from Hong Kong to Zurich.
On Feb. 21, Azerbaijan officials announced the arrest of a gang with links to the Revolutionary Guards and the militant terrorist Hezbollah group. The gang members, who were involved in drug trafficking, were armed with explosives and intended to commit acts of terrorism against foreign nationals, Azerbaijan said.
According to a respected Iranian opposition website called Balatarin, a company belonging to former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rafiqdoust transfers drugs in small packages from Iran via boats and airplanes to Albania, Romania and Bulgaria. These packages are then distributed through Western Europe in trucks belonging to Albanian and Romanian companies.
The same report suggests that the Guards’ drug operation nets $20 billion annually.
A former Guards intelligence officer confirmed this in November, saying that the Guards are trying to undermine the West through their links with global crime networks.
While the trafficking of drugs funds terrorist activities, drug cartels also transport arms and explosives and move terror cells’ personnel from place to place. The Guards run this operation out of Venezuela and into Latin America as a means to enter Mexico and from there into the U.S., according to an April 2010 Pentagon report.
The Guards also use Iranian industries under their control to expand their terrorist activities. One example is Iran Khodro Company, the leading Iranian automaker with many branches outside Iran.
In 2011 a shipment of 286 pounds of heroin was intercepted in Nigeria along with 13 containers of arms and ammunition. The heroin was hidden in auto parts destined for the Iran Khodro branch in Senegal, which is operated by the Quds Forces.
Green Experts are an opposition group tied to the Green Movement in Iran that opposes the reign of Khamenei. The movement proposes free elections and the release of Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, Green movement leaders who have been under house arrest since the 2009 uprisings in Iran.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the author of the award winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy.
World powers seek unity on Iran nuke program
Wednesday, March 7th, 201203/07/2012
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press
VIENNA (AP) — Six world powers struggled Wednesday to find common ground on how harshly to criticize Iran, reflecting the difficulties of presenting a united front at upcoming talks with the Islamic Republic meant to coax it into reducing activities that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.
A 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board was scheduled to discuss concerns about Iran’s nuclear program Wednesday. But its rapid and unscheduled adjournment reflected the East-West divide.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany seek a joint statement that takes Iran to task for defying U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding it end uranium enrichment and cooperation with an IAEA probe of suspicions it secretly worked on nuclear arms. But a senior Western diplomat told The Associated Press that Russia and China — which have condemned Western sanctions on Iran as counterproductive — want more moderate language. He asked for anonymity because his information was privileged.
While divisions along such lines are not new, the fact that diplomats at the IAEA meeting have been unable to bridge them three days into the IAEA meeting reflects poorly on hopes of unity at talks scheduled in the near future between Iran and the six.
Open skepticism within the Western camp about Iran’s readiness to negotiate cast further doubt about the outcome of those talks, with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe saying he is not convinced the Islamic Republic is ready to compromise over its nuclear program.
Speaking for the six powers — who have repeatedly tried and failed to wrest concessions from Iran — European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced Tuesday that they had agreed to new talks at a still to be determined time and venue. Even minor progress at such a meeting would serve to lower tensions exacerbated by increasingly frequent warnings from Israel of possible military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But Juppe said Wednesday he’s “a bit skeptical” about the outcome after previous failures.
“I think Iran is continuing to use double speak,” Juppe said on France’s i-Tele television. “That’s the reason why we must remain extremely firm on the sanctions we have decided upon, which are from my point of view the best way to avoid a military option, which could have immeasurable consequences.”
Iran has steadfastly rejected demands to halt its uranium enrichment, which Washington and its allies worry could be the foundation for a future nuclear weapons program. Iran claims it seeks only energy and medical research from its reactors, but it wants full control over the nuclear process from uranium ore to fuel rods.
It has also stonewalled an IAEA probe of suspected clandestine research and development into nuclear weapons for four years, dismissing the allegations as based on forged intelligence from the United States and Israel.
In a possible concession Tuesday, Tehran said inspectors could visit Parchin, a military facility that the IAE suspect was used for secret atomic weapons work. An IAEA official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue, dismissed the offer as a stalling tactic.
Like France, Israel expressed doubt the talks would succeed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security adviser Yaakov Amidror said Israel is “very happy” to hear of the negotiations. But he said “without a real military alternative,” Iran is unlikely to give up its nuclear program.
Israel believes Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon and has said military action should be considered to stop the Iranians.
President Barack Obama told the visiting Netanyahu this week that diplomacy must be given more time.
Obama administration takes back seat on Iran sanctions
Saturday, February 18th, 2012Congress and Europe have been much more aggressive in punishing Iran for its alleged nuclear weapons program.
02/18/2012
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington—
Despite the Obama administration’s vows to cripple Iran with economic sanctions, it is leaders in Congress and Europe who have seized the lead in the West’s long-running campaign to punishTehran for its suspected nuclear weapons program.
In recent months, the toughest moves to deter Iran from pursuing its presumed nuclear ambitions have come from a bipartisan group in Congress and European allies, especially Britain and France. The White House at first resisted these steps before embracing them as inevitable.
The administration has imposed dozens of sanctions on Iran since 2009, but it has carefully calibrated their effect. Officials fear that too powerful a blow to the world’s third-largest oil exporter could cause an oil price increase, damaging the global economic recovery, undermining international support for the sanctions campaign and creating political trouble in an election year.
For example, top administration officials late last year were strongly resistant when Congress slapped Iran’s central bank with harsh sanctions. The European Union then went further, however, imposing an embargo to halt purchases of Iranian oil by European nations over the ensuing five months.
This month, Congress began crafting legislation that would essentially cut Iran out of the global clearinghouse for international financial transactions known as SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The far-reaching step could inflict severe damage to Iran’s economy by restricting the ability of banks and other institutions to move funds in or out of the country.
On Friday, SWIFT announced that it was “ready to implement sanctions against Iranian financial institutions” in response to new regulations the EU is set to enact.
Mark Dubowitz, an energy expert who has been advising Congress on sanctions, said the Obama administration has tried to add sanctions “in a measured way to assure international support and to avoid anything that would spook oil and financial markets.”
But as concern over Iran’s nuclear progress has intensified, members of Congress, with support from the French and British governments, “have really taken the lead in being aggressive,” said Dubowitz, who is executive director of a pro-sanctions group called Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The latest sanctions clearly are having an effect. In recent weeks, the value of the Iranian currency has plummeted and prices for food and other consumer goods have soared, causing hardship for ordinary Iranians and putting political pressure on the regime.
A major crisis with Iran carries political risks for the White House. A war or other disruptive event that causes a sharp rise in oil prices could endanger the United States’ fragile economic recovery and probably President Obama‘s chances for reelection.
As a result, the White House has had to scramble to keep up with the pace set by Congress and the Europeans. While critics have long accused Obama of “leading from behind” by empowering other countries to carry out America’s bidding on world crises, the administration is now trying to avoid the appearance of “following from behind.”
Administration officials insist they have been aggressive on Iran. They point to their latest action, an announcement Thursday that the U.S. will blacklist Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security for its support of Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s brutal repression of opposition protests, as well as for its backing of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Sometimes the folks involved in this on the Hill don’t appreciate all the knock-on effects these things can have on the U.S. economy, the world economy, the oil markets.… Sometimes it looks easy to use a sledgehammer, and we have to come in and say, ‘Let’s figure out how to use a scalpel,’ ” said a senior administration official who asked to remain anonymous while discussing negotiations.
But U.S. lawmakers have a different, more pointed perspective. Highly sensitive to Israel’s fears of a nuclear-armed Iran, they argue that because Iran is finally feeling the pain of sanctions, now is the time to pile on more.
Some members of Congress hope to force the ouster of the regime in Tehran, although that is not U.S. policy, while others hope more sanctions will persuade Israel to forgo a military strike. Either way, lawmakers of both parties and both chambers have voted lopsidedly, on vote after vote, in favor of action.
When Congress began devising central bank sanctions last fall, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met key lawmakers and made an emotional plea for them to change course. The Senate voted 100 to 0 to press ahead.
“The Obama administration was, in fact, inclined to continue a kind of incremental ratcheting of sanctions, but thanks to one of the most universal votes we’ve seen in a divided Capitol Hill in several years, the administration was really forced to move forward with the decision to sanction the central bank,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
When Obama signed the legislation in December, he added language in a signing statement suggesting that the administration might delay implementation. Yet the administration has more recently publicly embraced the sanctions as a viable tool.
The administration had considered trying to sever Iran from the SWIFT system, which is used by the world’s major financial institutions, even though no country has ever been cut from SWIFT. But it worried that such a move might encourage other countries to try a similar tactic to isolate adversaries in the future. Officials also were wary of adding more pressure on Iran before it was clear how much damage earlier sanctions could do, congressional aides said.
When the Senate Banking Committee began preparing legislation on SWIFT, a Treasury Departmentofficial met with aides to ask that it be watered down. After the committee adopted the original language, the administration then changed course and voiced support for the measure.
Some lawmakers also say the administration is not tough enough in enforcing sanctions.
This week, it issued guidelines on how it will determine whether countries have sufficiently cut purchases of Iranian oil, as required under U.S. sanctions passed last year, in favor of other oil suppliers.
Sens. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) argued that the administration should set a specific goal. But the administration rejected that notion, preferring more latitude to decide whether to punish Iranian customers who are also key American allies, such as Japan and South Korea.
Crunch time will come in June when the administration must decide whether to punish nations that haven’t complied. U.S. officials could still waive the rules if they determine sanctioning those nations would create unacceptable damage to the world economy.
But going easy in a campaign year may subject Obama to political attacks that he is weak on Iran and indifferent on Israel.
“It’s going to be a moment of truth,” said Dubowitz of the pro-sanctions advocacy group.
US, Europe eye risky, unprecedented penalty for Iran over pursuit of nuclear weapons
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012Published February 15, 2012
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The United States and Europe are considering unprecedented punishment against Iran that could immediately cripple the country’s financial lifeline. But it’s an extreme option in the banking world that would come with its own costs.
The Obama administration wants Iran evicted from SWIFT, an independent financial clearinghouse that is crucial to the country’s overseas oil sales. That would leapfrog the current slow-pressure campaign of sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to drop what the U.S. and its allies contend is a drive toward developing and building nuclear weapons. It also perhaps would buy time for the U.S. to persuade Israel not to launch a pre-emptive military strike on Iran this spring.
The last-resort financial effort suggests the U.S. and Europe are grasping for ways to show immediate results because economic sanctions have so far failed to force Iran back to nuclear talks.
But such a penalty could send oil prices soaring when many of the world’s economies are still frail. It also could hurt ordinary Iranians and undercut the reputation of SWIFT, a banking hub used by virtually every nation and corporation around the world. The organization’s full name is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.
Meanwhile, violence is increasing. Explosions in Bangkok on Tuesday — Israel’s defense minister labeled them an “attempted terrorist attack” — came the day after Israel accused Iran of trying to kill its diplomats in India and Georgia. Those attacks followed the recent killings of Iranian scientists.
In the financial world, the United States can’t order SWIFT to kick Iran out. But it has leverage in that it can punish the Brussels-based organization’s board of directors. Talks are focused now on having Europe make the first move.
Short of total expulsion, Washington and representatives of several European nations are in talks over ways to restrict Iran’s use of the banking consortium to collect oil profits.
European action on SWIFT could come quickly.
Representatives from SWIFT were scheduled to meet with European Union officials this week, a U.S. official familiar with the talks said. The official said the meeting was expected to result in the EU ordering SWIFT to expel at least some of its sanctioned banks, though it was unclear whether the order would extend to Iran’s Central Bank.
The Obama administration is divided over whether the possible gain is worth the risk in trying to threaten SWIFT into kicking out a member country, in part because of concern that it would set back the global financial recovery. Iran remains a global financial player despite years of banking sanctions, and blocking it from using the respected transfer system would be a black mark like no other.
More than 40 Iranian banks and institutions use SWIFT to process financial transactions, and losing access to that flow of international funds could badly damage the Islamic republic’s economy. It would also probably hurt average Iranians more than the welter of existing banking sanctions already in place since prices for household goods would rise while the value of Iranian currency would drop.
Lawyers for SWIFT are holding meetings in Washington. People familiar with the talks say a compromise is possible in which SWIFT would voluntarily bar or restrict Iranian transfers.
But if SWIFT fails to act on its own, the U.S. expects Europe to require it to terminate services for Iranian banks, another Obama administration official said.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, delivered that message to European Union officials in Brussels earlier this month, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and thus spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Mark Dubowitz, a sanctions expert advising the White House on Iran, said the Obama administration is having detailed discussions on the merits and consequences of forcing SWIFT to block Iranian transactions.
Some in the administration also prefer to give time for new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank, officially enforced starting just this month, to take hold before layering on a round of even more draconian penalties.
SWIFT was involved in a separate controversy when it was revealed in 2006 that it had skirted the EU’s strict privacy laws after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by transferring millions of pieces of personal information from its U.S. offices to American authorities as part of the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.
“It is an essential cog in the wheel, if not the wheel itself, in international financial transactions and trade,” said David Aufhauser, former general counsel at the Treasury Department who worked with SWIFT to set up that information transfer.
SWIFT handles cross-border payments for more than 10,000 financial institutions and corporations in 210 countries. It lets users exchange financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs and reducing risk. It operates on trust and neutrality — SWIFT accepts nearly all comers and does not judge the merits of the transactions passing through its secure message system. Its managers generally brush off investigators and enforcement agencies, telling them to take up suspected wrongdoing directly with nations or corporations.
Established in 1973, the essential but little-known hub is overseen by major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.
Lawyers familiar with SWIFT’s operations said it could bar processing actions with any Iranian party or third parties representing Iran, though that would open the consortium to complaints of favoritism or political influence. It could permit the processing but quarantine Iranian transactions, or require warnings to those doing business with Iran. Penalties on Iran short of expulsion could allow SWIFT to preserve a greater appearance of neutrality but make business partners think twice, lawyers said.
Proponents of blocking Iran from SWIFT say the financial network’s own bylaws require that its services not be used to facilitate illegal activities and allow it to prohibit users that are subject to sanctions.
While the U.S. and Europe debate options, some American lawmakers are trying to increase pressure on SWIFT. The Senate Banking Committee passed a measure earlier this month directing the White House to press SWIFT to block Iranian entities.
A tougher House bill would compel the administration to sanction SWIFT unless it stopped providing services to Iran.
The pending legislation has caught the attention of officials at SWIFT. The financial network’s general counsel and other advisers requested a meeting with congressional lawmakers and staff next week, Senate aides said.
Officials close to the White House say the Obama administration is comfortable with the less restrictive language in the Senate Banking Committee measure, but has concerns that more-binding legislation would leave the U.S. less flexibility in dealing with Iran.
SWIFT did not respond to requests for comment. In a brief statement posted on its website, the consortium said it is committed to fighting misuse of the financial system to finance terrorism and has cooperated with enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Europe.
Without addressing the specifics of a full expulsion or more limited block on Iranian transactions, SWIFT’s statement urged caution.
“SWIFT remains committed to maintaining its role as a neutral global financial communications network” while complying with sanctions laws, the statement said.
Ex-CIA spy: History of failed negotiations shows Iran won’t deal
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012President Obama errs in pushing nuclear negotiation, writes this ex-CIA spy in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Four US presidents tried and failed. The problem lies in Iran’s fanatic ideology. Biting sanctions and US overt support for the Iranian people will bring real change.
By Reza Kahlili / February 1, 2012
President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, said he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and that all options to prevent that are on the table.
More importantly, Obama said the Islamic regime, which fuels terrorism worldwide and oppresses its own people at home, could still rejoin the international community “if it changes course and meets its obligations.” That is not going to happen – despite glimmers of hope after a trip of UN nuclear inspectors to Iran this week.
As a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, I wrote a cautionary, open letter to President Obamawhen he took office three years ago. I said I was worried that he failed to see the realities of the regime’s fanaticism.
In offering to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, Mr. Obama must have believed that the aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, were to blame for the lack of progress. But I reminded the new president of the long history of attempted rapprochement by every US administration, each attempt ending in failure.
I explained that the very ideology of Iran’s Islamic leaders was the sole reason for no progress in a negotiated settlement. They simply would not close an honest deal with infidels.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was involved in deep negotiations with Iran over arms sales and normalization of US-Iranian ties. National Security Council staffer Oliver North could barely contain himself over the prospect of peace with Iran.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of Parliament, promised American authorities resumption of diplomatic relations once the founder of the Islamic regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, was dead. In exchange, he asked for arms and America’s help in diminishing Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military machine.
I was in the Revolutionary Guard then, but as a CIA spy. My Guard commander mocked the Americans for believing Speaker Rafsanjani’s promises. The Iran-Contra Affair, in which US arms sales to Iran funded “freedom fighter” Contras in Nicaragua, ended embarrassingly for President Reagan’s administration.
President George H.W. Bush continued negotiations to improve US-Iranian relations. I was working for the CIA in Europe then when my American handler told me to consider the more moderate Rafsanjani, by then president, as the new king of Iran. This despite information I had passed on about Iran’s involvement in the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland – and despite the fact that Rafsanjani and other regime leaders were involved in worldwide terrorism and assassination. The elder Bush’s efforts at negotiation failed.
Then President Clinton attempted to persuade Iran to stop supporting terrorism and to normalize ties with the US. But he also failed to achieve results with Mohammad Khatami, the next Iranian president. President Khatami promised cooperation while secretly purchasing parts for Iran’s nuclear project.
Despite his harsh rhetoric, President George W. Bush, too, approached Iran. In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice negotiated with Ali Larijani, then Iran’s top nuclear envoy. By the autumn, the Bush administration believed an agreement was set, expecting Mr. Larijani to appear at the UN to announce Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment as America announced the removal of sanctions.
Secretary Rice showed up for the big event; Larijani never did.
When Obama took office in 2009, he missed the biggest opportunity to support democracy, bring stability to the region, and secure world peace when he wrote Ayatollah Ali Khamenei requesting negotiations. Then, fraudulent elections transpired in Iran, sparking the uprising of millions of Iranians demanding freedom and democracy.
The leaders of Iran masterfully, as always, provided a sliver of hope to Obama’s request, enough for the West to remain largely silent over the protests in Iran.The Iranian nuclear envoy even expressed confidence about an offer put on the table by the West in October 2009 as a step toward solving the nuclear issue. The Obama administration was ready to announce victory, though several months passed.
Then, after the demonstrations in Iran were suppressed, with tens of thousands arrested, many raped, tortured, and executed, Iran announced the deal was unacceptable. Meanwhile, Tehransaid it enriched uranium to the 20 percent level, a significant advance. Iran’s treachery was obvious: Their negotiating masked further enrichment on the way to nuclearization.
Now we are in a quandary that could have been avoided had the US more demonstratively assisted Iran’s protesters.
The Islamists have enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs – despite four rounds of UN sanctions. And they continue to enrich at two nuclear facilities while barbarically suppressing freedom-loving Iranians and threatening world peace.
Iranian authorities recently revealed that Obama sent yet another letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, expressing his concerns over Tehran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, and his desire for cooperation and negotiation based on mutual interests.
Obama greatly errs in his continued drive toward negotiation. Sanctions are now having a biting effect on Iran, but they cannot alone deter Iran’s race to get the bomb.
America must openly support the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran – facilitating a direct channel of communication with them and finding a way to bring Iran’s leaders to court for crimes against humanity.
Only then can we can hope for real change in Iran, for peace and stability.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior Fellow with EMPact Americaand teaches at the US Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).
EU blacklists Iran’s Bank Tejarat as West targets nuclear drive
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012Tuesday, 24 January 2012
The EU said that Bank Tejarat had helped in the movement last year of tens of millions of dollars in an effort to assist Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to acquire yellowcake uranium. (File photo)
The European Union has included Iran’s state-owned Bank Tejarat among entities it is blacklisting to raise pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program, according to an EU document published on Tuesday.
EU governments agreed on Monday to an immediate ban on all new contracts to import, buy or transport Iranian crude oil, and to freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank. They also agreed to ban all trade in diamonds, gold and other precious metals with the central bank and other public bodies.
The EU said that Bank Tejarat had directly facilitated Iran’s nuclear efforts, for example by helping in the movement last year of tens of millions of dollars in an effort to assist Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to acquire yellowcake uranium.
Bank Tejarat also has a history of helping designated Iranian banks circumvent international sanctions, the EU said.
By providing financial services to other banks, Bank Tejarat has also supported the activities of subsidiaries and subordinates of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian military organizations, the EU said.
Western powers hope the far stricter sanctions it has now imposed, bringing the EU more closely into line with U.S. policy, will force Iran to scale back or halt its nuclear work, which Western powers believe is aimed at developing weapons. Iran says it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful purposes.
Immediate Impact
The EU’s move to slap an embargo on Iranian oil, along with new U.S. measures in response to Tehran’s suspect nuclear drive, appeared to have an immediate effect and brought swift condemnation from Tehran.
The Iranian currency, the rial, tumbled to a record low against the dollar on Monday, after several months of steady declines.
According to one senior Treasury official, the Iranian currency has lost more than 70 percent of its value against the dollar since autumn.
Oil prices were also up modestly Monday after the EU announced its embargo on Iran’s crude exports with Brent North Sea crude for March climbing 72 cents to $110.58 a barrel in London.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast denounced “the method of threat, pressure and unfair sanctions.”
The hawkish government of Iran’s arch-foe Israel appeared reassured but Tehran’s ally Russia warned “unilateral sanctions” could be counter-productive, preventing Iran “from making any concessions or corrections.”
Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on Tuesday his country would follow the European Union in banning Iranian oil imports, after talks with his British counterpart in London.
“The actions taken in Brussels yesterday on sanctions by the European Union, we in Australia will undertake precisely the same parallel action for Australia,” Rudd said after talks with William Hague.
“It is not just that we endorse the action taken in Brussels for Europe; we of course will do the same for Australia.
“The reason is very clear – the message needs to be delivered to the people of Iran, the wider political elites of Iran, as well as the government of Iran, that their behavior is globally unacceptable.”
At the press conference in London, Rudd said Australia’s oil embargo was likely to have only a limited impact, saying: “On the question of our own imports of Iranian oil, they have become negligible over time.”
EU bans Iranian oil, Tehran responds with threats
Monday, January 23rd, 2012By Justyna Pawlak and Hossein Jaseb
BRUSSELS/TEHRAN | Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:47am EST
(Reuters) – The European Union banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran’s nuclear development program.
In Iran, one politician responded by renewing a threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, an oil export route vital to the global economy, and another said Tehran should cut off crude shipments to the EU immediately.
That might hurt Greece, Italy and other ailing economies which depend heavily on Iranian oil and, as a result, won as part of the EU agreement a grace period until July 1 before the embargo takes full effect. Angry words on either side helped nudge benchmark Brent oil futures above $110 a barrel on Monday.
A day after a U.S. aircraft carrier, accompanied by a flotilla that included French and British warships, made a symbolically loaded voyage into the Gulf in defiance of Iranian hostility, the widely expected EU sanctions move is likely to set off yet more bellicose rhetoric in an already tense region.
Some analysts say Iran, which denies accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons, could be in a position to make them next year. So, with Israel warning it could use force to prevent that happening, the row over Tehran’s plans is an increasingly pressing challenge for world leaders, not least U.S. President Barack Obama as he campaigns for re-election in November.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has voiced skepticism about the chances of Iran being persuaded by non-military tactics, called the EU sanctions a “step in the right direction” but said Iran was still developing atomic weapons.
Israel, assumed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, views the Iranian nuclear program as a threat to its survival.
Meeting in Brussels, foreign ministers from the 27-state EU, which as a bloc is Iran’s second biggest customer for crude after China, agreed to an immediate ban on all new contracts to import, purchase or transport Iranian crude oil and petroleum products. However, EU countries with existing contracts to buy oil and petroleum products can honor them up to July 1.
EU officials said they also agreed to freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank and ban trade in gold and other precious metals with the bank and state bodies.
Along with U.S. sanctions imposed by Obama on December 31, the Western powers hope that choking exports and hence revenue can force Iran’s leaders to agree to curbs on a nuclear program the West says is intended to yield weapons.
EU SEEKS TALKS
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed plans for a visit next week by senior inspectors to try and clear up suspicions raised about the purpose of Iran’s nuclear activities. Tehran is banned by international treaty from developing nuclear weaponry.
“The Agency team is going to Iran in a constructive spirit, and we trust that Iran will work with us in that same spirit,” IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said in a statement announcing the December 29-31 visit. “The overall objective of the IAEA is to resolve all outstanding substantive issues.”
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said of the new sanctions: “I want the pressure of these sanctions to result in negotiations … I want to see Iran come back to the table and either pick up all the ideas that we left on the table … last year … or to come forward with its own ideas.”
Iran has said lately that it is willing to hold talks with Western powers, though there have been mixed signals on whether conditions imposed by either side make new negotiations likely.
The Islamic Republic insists it is enriching uranium only for electricity and other civilian uses.
It has powerful defenders against the Western action in the form of Russia and China, which argue that the new sanctions are unnecessary, and can also probably count on China and other Asian countries to go on buying much of its oil, despite U.S. and European efforts to dissuade them.
Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, classifying the EU embargo among “aggravating factors,” said Moscow believed there was a good chance that talks between the six global powers and Iran could resume soon and that Russia would try to steer both Iran and the West away from further confrontation.
A member of Iran’s influential Assembly of Experts, former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian, said Tehran should respond to the delayed-action EU sanctions by stopping sales to the bloc immediately, denying the Europeans time to arrange alternative supplies and damaging their economies with higher oil prices.
“The best way is to stop exporting oil ourselves before the end of this six months and before the implementation of the plan,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
He reiterated that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel between the Gulf and open sea through which a third of all oil tanker traffic passes to importers around the world.
Washington has said it will not tolerate any closure, a position underlined by Sunday’s passage through the strait of a U.S. flotilla around the carrier Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by two European frigates, Britain’s Argyll and France’s La Motte-Picquet.
HORMUZ THREAT
While Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, possibly aware of the warships’ impending arrival, had backed away on Saturday from a threat made by a vice president last month to prevent “even one drop of oil” passing through the strait if the West embargoed Iran’s crude, a senior member of parliament said on Monday that the closure remained an option if exports were disrupted.
“If any disruption happens regarding the sale of Iranian oil, the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be closed,” Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of parliament’s foreign affairs and national security committee, told Fars.
Going further, he referred to previous U.S. warnings that it would use force to break any Iranian blockade of the channel and threatened wider violence against Washington’s global interests.
“If America seeks adventures after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will make the world unsafe for Americans in the shortest possible time,” Kossari said.
“It is in America’s interests to accept a powerful Iran and not seek military adventures.”
While the Western powers were at pains to describe their naval movement through the strait as routine, a view echoed by the Revolutionary Guards, they also stressed its symbolism.
“On this occasion HMS Argyll and a French vessel joined a U.S. carrier group transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, to underline the unwavering international commitment to maintaining rights of passage under international law,” Britain’s defense ministry said in a statement.
In Paris, spokesman Thierry Burkhard said: “It’s a sign to Iran if they want to consider it like that.”
Iran, the world’s No. 5 oil exporter and also rich in natural gas, says it is refining uranium and developing other nuclear technologies to meet rising energy needs. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported in November that it had evidence suggesting Iran had worked on designing an atomic bomb.
The unprecedented effort to take Iran’s 2.6 million barrels of oil per day off international markets has kept global prices high, pushed down Iran’s rial currency and caused a surge in the cost of basic goods for Iranians. [nL5E8CN0M9]
(Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy and Mitra Amiri in Tehran, David Brunnstrom in Brussels,Adrian Croft in London, John Irish in Paris, Alexei Anishchuk in Sochi, Ari Rabinovitch and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
EU Set To Widen Iran Sanctions
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012Sunday, January 22, 2012
By Rikard Jozwiak
January 22, 2012
BRUSSELS — The European Union is set to widen its sanctions against Iran when the club’s foreign ministers meet in Brussels on January 23.
The 27 member states are expected to agree on an embargo against Iranian oil exports and might even agree to impose some sanctions on the country’s central bank.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, speaking at a news conference in Paris last week, said sanctions represent the best hope of avoiding “the military option.”
“We have proposed to strengthen these [sanctions] in two fields: an embargo on Iranian oil exports and a freeze on the assets of the Iranian central bank,” Juppe said.
“The American Congress has already made decisions in that direction, they were stamped by [U.S.] President [Barack] Obama, [and] we — the European Union — are working on them, and I think that on Monday, at the EU foreign ministers meeting, we will be able to come to an agreement on a sanctions package in these two areas.”
Two Tracks
The P5+1 group — which includes Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States, and is seeking to negotiate an end to Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons — has also stressed its openness to renewed talks.
In a statement, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who was speaking on behalf of the P5+1, said the group “has always been clear about the validity of the dual-track approach,” referring to the combination of sanctions and diplomacy. However, in the statement Ashton said that Tehran hadn’t yet responded to an October 21 letter which laid out the possibility of talks.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, in an appearance at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the bloc is united in its determination to confront Iran.
”The European Union will put into place a new and very substantial round of sanctions this coming Monday to forcefully make the point that Iran’s behavior on the nuclear issue is unacceptable and a danger to world peace,” Westerwelle said.
Speaking in Washington on January 20 after meeting with Westerwelle, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Iran is heading down a “dangerous path” with its pursuit of a nuclear program.
Clinton also said that Tehran needed to show that it was serious about recent statements indicating a willingness to return to the negotiating table.
“We all are seeking clarity about the meaning behind Iran’s public statements that they are willing to engage, but we have to see a seriousness and sincerity of purpose coming from them,” Clinton said.
Questions Over Implementation
The main stumbling block is how to freeze the central bank’s assets without blocking legitimate trade with the country and how to avoid hurting the population at large.
And with all EU member states already in agreement that an oil embargo is necessary, question marks remain over when the restrictions will be implemented.
The majority of countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are hoping to set a July 1 date, the same time scale that the United States decided on when it announced similar measures earlier this month.
This would mean that member states would have until the end of June to fulfill existing contracts but that they would have to stop all imports at the start of July as well as refraining from signing any new contracts after that.
Greece has asked for a longer grace period — of about 9 to 12 months — to line up alternative supplies. The crisis-hit country is heavily dependent on Iranian oil and is relying on easier credit terms from Tehran to finance its purchases.
Both EU and U.S. diplomats are currently working to secure a deal that would replace imports from Iran with oil from Saudi Arabia. Last year, the EU imported 450,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude, constituting about 20 percent of Iran’s total exports.
To ease the concerns of Greece and other large importers such as Spain and Italy, Brussels might also initiate a formal review during the phase-in
to ensure that all member states are coping with the disruption.
The attempts to target the central bank are more complicated according to sources who spoke to RFE/RL.
Measures Against Belarus
The European Union also plans to widen the scope of its sanctions against Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus.
So far it has frozen personal assets and imposed visa bans on more than 200 individuals linked to the regime after the violent crackdown on demonstrators that ensued after the flawed presidential election in 2010.
The foreign ministers are expected to decide that human rights offenders in general as well as individuals that prop up the regime economically also can be blacklisted.
The move represents a step away from the rather narrow remit set before, which only targeted people with a direct link to the persecution of demonstrators against alleged voting fraud.
No new names will however be added to the list on January 23, but EU sources claim that there might be up to 140 names being considered under the new framework.
EU readies unprecedented Iran oil, bank sanctions
Friday, January 20th, 201201/20/2012
The European Union is readying its toughest action to date against Iran, moving to dry up funding of its contested nuclear drive by targeting both its oil and financial sector, diplomats said Friday.
Foreign ministers from the 27-nation bloc meeting in Brussels on Monday are expected to agree to sanction Tehran’s central bank — and possibly other banks — and announce an embargo on purchasing Iranian oil, EU officials and diplomats said.
In the build-up, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged “much tougher, more decisive sanctions” as a means of avoiding military action while German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned Iran was endangering world peace.
“Those who do not want to reinforce sanctions against a regime which is leading its country into disaster by seeking a nuclear weapon will bear responsibility for the risk of a military breakdown,” Sarkozy said.
Westerwelle said Monday’s new “very substantive sanctions” aimed to make the point that Iran’s nuclear behaviour “is unacceptable and a danger to world peace.”
Also expected Monday are bans on the sale of gold, diamonds and other precious metals to Iran and any delivery of newly minted coins and notes. Existing bans on petrochemical imports and investment are to be enlarged.
Reports however of an imminent resumption of international talks with Iran on its disputed nuclear programme were dashed by EU foreign policy Catherine Ashton, who represents global powers in the negotiations.
Her office said the powers still “are waiting for the Iranian reaction” to a letter sent by Ashton to Tehran months ago offering to re-start the talks but only “without pre-conditions.”
Greece’s dependency on Iranian oil meanwhile was holding up a deal on the timing and conditions of the oil embargo.
The political will was there, but the bloc was still looking for new suppliers able to match the easy conditions offered by Tehran to the cash-strapped nation.
Greece, which relies on Iranian oil for more than a third of its oil imports, had concluded “good financial arrangements” with Iran that include 60-day payment and no financial guarantees, sources said.
“Greece has agreed on a political level to stop its imports from Iran, the question is who can compensate,” a diplomat said. “Of course it will be more difficult to find alternative suppliers because of the present financial situation of Greece.”
Diplomats said a political decision on the embargo was expected from the ministers on Monday although “the financial solution will require more time.”
The new EU sanctions are part of a concerted effort with the United States to pressure Iran into halting its controversial nuclear activities, which the West suspects are aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear programme is purely for civilian use.
The EU imported some 600,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day last year, according to the International Energy Agency, making it a key market alongside India and China, which has refused to bow to pressure from Washington.
Iranian oil accounted for 34.2 per cent of Greece’s total oil imports, 14.9 per cent of Spain’s and 12.4 per cent of Italy’s in the first nine months of last year, according to the latest EU statistics.
With the three nations all suffering financial difficulties, weeks of talks on an oil embargo have stumbled on a deadline for EU importers to phase out existing contracts.
Britain, France and Germany called for a three-month deadline, whereas Greece requested up to a year. A compromise under discussion would see the embargo take full force in five months on July 1.
Under discussion too has been a request from Italy to allow Iranian companies to continue repaying debts with crude instead of cash, a move which some argue would mean Tehran having less crude to sell on the market.
EU nations too have been divided over when to review the embargo to assess its impact on the likes of Greece, and whether it is undermining the global oil trade as well as Iran’s economy.
Already agreed is a deal to sanction Iran’s central bank to freeze assets used to finance its nuclear drive.
The freeze would be partial “enabling legitimate trade to go ahead”, and ensuring there were no obstacles to continued payment of outstanding Iranian debts to Europe, an EU diplomat said.
Germany notably expressed concern over the reimbursement of loans to Iran worth 2.6 billion euros should financial channels be closed.
