Tag: Nuclear Iran

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Experts expect more provocations from Iran

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By Kristina Wong – 12/31/15 12:08 PM EST

Iran’s rocket launch near a U.S. aircraft carrier is likely a sign of things to come, say experts on the regime — especially as Tehran offers concessions under the nuclear deal negotiated earlier this year.

U.S. military officials on Tuesday revealed that Iran had conducted what they called a “highly provocative” live-fire exercise within a mile from a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Although Iran has conducted two other such exercises within the past year or so — one in April and one in October 2014  — a Navy official said this last exercise, which took place on Dec. 26, was unique in that it was conducted “much closer” to U.S. ships than before.

It came one day after the White House celebrated a milestone on the nuclear deal — Iran’s shipping of most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country.

Experts say they expect similar behavior going forward.

They argue that Tehran is seeking to send a message to the U.S., the region and its own citizens that despite the deal, Iran has no intention of working more broadly with the United States.

“Despite the recent agreement on the nuclear situation…I think they’re saying to us, we’re still not going to roll over on anything else,” said Retired Navy Vice Adm. Peter Daly, CEO of the United States Naval Institute.

 

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/264495-experts-expect-more-provocations-from-iran#

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Garrett Introduces Bill to Ensure U.S. Never Assists Iran’s Nuclear Program

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Jul 29, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) today introduced H.R. 3273, the Prohibiting Assistance to Nuclear Iran Act, to ensure that no U.S. funds or resources would ever be used to help and defend Iran’s nuclear program. Garrett’s bill would prohibit U.S. assistance to Iran to develop, use, or protect their nuclear technology as requested in the nuclear agreement President Obama delivered to Congress earlier this month.

“Among its many flaws, President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran requests that the United States and the other negotiating nations help develop, modernize and protect Iran’s nuclear program. This is unacceptable,” said Garrett. “Iran is a danger to the United States and its allies, and therefore should not be allowed to continue their nuclear proliferation—especially with U.S. support. My bill would ensure that no U.S. resources will help Iran develop nuclear capabilities that could someday be used against us or our allies around the world.”

Background:

The nuclear arms agreement with Iran that the Obama Administration delivered to Congress calls for the E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) to have civil nuclear cooperation with Iran. These measures are defined in Annex III of the agreement and they include cooperating with Iran to modernize reactors, acquire fuel, exchange technology, and assist with additional research. Rep. Garrett’s bill would ensure that no U.S. resources—including military assistance—will be used to help Iran’s nuclear program.

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Arab TV Commentators Claim Obama Supports Iran Because His Father Was a Shiite

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April 17, 2015 – 7:03 PM

Commentators on two different Arabic television programs claimed that President Barack Obama is pushing a nuclear deal with Iran because his father, Barack Obama Sr.,  was a Shiite Muslim, and President Obama apparently wants the Shia-run government of Iran to be victorious in the region.

The commentators made their remarks on the UK channel Al-Hiwar TV on March 25 and on 4Shbab TV in Saudi Arabia on April 10; the segments were recorded and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project (MEMRI).

“There is one thing we must not forget,” said Syrian writer Muhydin Lazikani on Hiwar TV.  “I am not peddling some theory, and I am not being racist. But Barack Hussein Obama is the son of a Shiite Kenyan father.”

“He spent much of his childhood in Mombasa, south Kenya,” said Lazikani. “I visited this very area, and I can tell you that it is mostly Shiite. All the childhood memories of the man who rules the White House are Shiite memories.”

“This is why the Iranian issue is so important to him and why he is so anxious for Iran to emerge victorious, and for Syria and all the countries of the Arab Gulf to be shattered,” said Lazikani.

President Obama’s father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (1936-1982), was born in Nyang’oma Kogelo, which is in the southwest region of Kenya.  His own father, Hussein Onyango Obama (1895-1979), had converted from Christianity to Islam. Barack Obama Sr. was raised a Muslim but his son, President Obama, said at the February 2009 National Prayer Breakfast, “I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist.”

https://cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/arab-tv-commentators-claim-obama-supports-iran-because-his-father-was-shiite?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=marketing&utm_term=facebook&utm_content=facebook&utm_campaign=b-arab-tv

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Menendez praised for role in Iran agreement bill

Robert Menendez, Bob Corker

APRIL 14, 2015, 6:45 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015, 6:54 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD

Facing criminal charges that pushed him into a supporting role instead of a leadership position on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez still notched a victory Tuesday when the panel unanimously approved a bill he cosponsored dealing with Iran.

And the White House, which had threatened a veto and lobbied Democrats against the bill, signaled that President Obama would be willing to sign it. White House officials cited changes that had been made to the bill, which gives the Senate the power to object before any international agreement lifts economic sanctions that Congress had imposed on Iran.

But Menendez said the administration saw it was going to lose.

“I think that it’s more the administration seeing where the will of the Congress was and coming to that conclusion” that the bill could not be stopped, he said.

Attending his first hearing since stepping aside as the committee’s top Democrat following his indictment April 1, Menendez was praised by both Republicans and Democrats for his efforts.

“I can’t imagine a senator being more constructive,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who succeeded Menendez as chairman of the committee in January when Republicans took control of the Senate. “There is no question over the last two years you have helped bring us to this point, where instead of debating things we in fact may well be taking up major legislation that will have a significant impact on security of Middle East.”

“I completely agree with you,” followed Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who is now the panel’s top Democrat after Menendez ceded that role because of the charges. “Senator Menendez enjoys the strong thanks for the incredible leadership he has given … I hope Senator Menendez’s issues will be resolved quickly.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/menendez-praised-for-role-in-iran-agreement-bill-1.1308797

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It’s Getting Stupid on Iran

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From pretending only Republicans oppose a deal to pretending the U.S.’ reputation is in jeopardy, the stupid on Iran is reaching new highs.

Ed Krayewski|Apr. 6, 2015 12:15 pm

U.S., Iranian, and other negotiators from around the world are going to spend the next two and a half or so months hammering out a deal over Iran’s nuclear program. They spent the last several years hammering out the “outline” which the deal will follow but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal—within days of the announcement of an agreement on the outline of a deal, Iranian and U.S. officials exchanged accusations that the other side was lying about what exactly had been agreed to in the outline. With six countries, including Iran and the U.S., involved in negotiations, and powerful forces in the U.S. and Iran against a deal that could eventually rob them of their favorite respective stalking horses, a deal is far from certain. It could fail for a litany of reasons.

Domestic opposition to a deal, in the U.S., in Iran, or in any of the other countries participating in the talks is unlikely to scutltle a deal on its own, but would be politically useful to blame by a government reeling from a failure. Domestic opposition, of course, is real. In the U.S. a significant amount of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, oppose a deal. Liberals have tended to attribute domestic opposition solely to Republicans—Juan Cole laughably tried to connect billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson’s political activity to the prevailing anti-Iran atmosphere among Republican presidential candidates. Cole, like others on the left, are obsessed with Citizen’s United and corporations and other organizations of people spending money on political speech.

But the fact is an anti-Iranian mood has been around for longer than Adelson’s had an interest in presidential politics, and despite the popular media perception, is not exclusive to Republicans. Attributing Republican opposition to monied interests or to a hatred of Obama is intellectually lazy at best. If opposition to an Iran deal were limited only to Republicans then, even though Republicans now control both houses of Congress, it wouldn’t amount to much. When Fox News describes Obama and Congress on a “collision course” over Iran, that’s possible because of Democrat opposition to an Iran deal.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/04/06/its-getting-stupid-on-iran

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Barack Obama’s love bomb offensive

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Barack Obama’s love bomb offensive

By Wesley Pruden – The Washington Times – Thursday, March 26, 2015

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Obama says Rudy Giuliani was wrong. He does, too, love America. That’s good enough for me. He says he’s a Christian, despite his constant love bombs for Islam, and if that’s good enough for God it’s good enough for me, too. Conversations between believers and the Almighty are confidential, and have yet to be cracked by the National Security Agency (but we can be sure they’re working on it).

The president loves our allies, too. He sent the bust of Winston Churchill back to London, whence it came, only because it was cluttering up the Oval Office and getting rid of it had nothing to do with memories of snubs and affronts his Kenyan father passed down to him (though Churchill was an unrepentant colonialist). The president dearly loves Old Blighty.

He loves la belle France, too, and if it hadn’t interfered with a golf date — a good tee time on a good course on a sunny day must not be wasted — he would have hurried to France to march in step with other heads of the states of the West to pay honor to the slain of the radical Islamic shootouts in Paris.

The president even loves Israel, but in his way. It’s tough love to bring the Jews to heel. Just as Secretary of State John Kerry is topping up a deal to satisfy the mullahs in Iran, comes the news that the United States has declassified a 386-page report that reveals in minute detail Israel’s super-discreet nuclear program. Everybody knows Israel has one, but until now Israel, with American support, has never acknowledged it. To do so, all mature hands have agreed, could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The American declassification, first reported by the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva, was made public in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, when he warned that the deal envisioned by Mr. Obama would leave Iran with “nuclear breakout capabilities.”

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/26/wesley-pruden-obama-reveals-israels-nuclear-progra/#ixzz3ViXytdPX

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Sen. Cotton: Believe Iran’s leader when he says, ‘death to America’

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“Saying ‘Death to America’ is easy,” Mr. Rouhani said in a speech in the city of Karaj, according to the state-run Mehr News Agency. “We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action. Saying it is easy.”

Sen. Cotton: Believe Iran’s leader when he says, ‘death to America’

By Jordain Carney

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Monday stepped up his opposition to the nuclear talks with Iran, warning that the regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should not be legitimized by the United States.

“The gravest threat to our national security is a nuclear-armed Iran, and this man, Ayatollah Khamenei,” Cotton said from the Senate floor.

The Arkansas Republican referred to a speech the Iranian official gave over the weekend in honor of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The crowd chanted “death to America” as Khamenei spoke.

“What was his response to that chant? He said, ‘Yes, certainly, death to America,’ ” Cotton said. ” ‘Death to America.’ Remember this is the leader whom with the United States is negotiating today.”

Cotton has been a vocal critic of the international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. He spearheaded an open letter, also signed by 47 Republican senators, to Iran’s leaders that suggested that any deal could be overturned after President Obama leaves office in 2017.

Obama released his own video message last week in honor of Nowruz. In that video, the president pressed Iranian officials to take “the best opportunity in decades” to bolster the U.S.-Iranian relationship by accepting a deal to roll back the country’s nuclear program.

Cotton said Obama’s remarks were “ill-advised.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/236633-ayatollah-khamenei-is-gravest-threat-to-us-security-says-senator

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Menendez, majority of US Senate on same page over Iran: Analyst

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Menendez, majority of US Senate on same page over Iran: Analyst

Most members of the US Senate share Democratic Senator Robert Menendez’s opinion on Iran’s nuclear energy program and sanctions, an American foreign policy analyst says.

“Senator Menendez is a very powerful member of the Senate, especially in the area of foreign affairs, and his opinion on Iran carries great weight inside the US Senate,” said James George Jatras, a former US diplomat and adviser to the Senate Republican leadership.

The Department of Justice has reportedly decided to bring criminal corruption charges against Menendez, who is involved in congressional efforts to pass anti-Iran legislation.

“As far as the pending charges against him from the Justice Department, I think… you have to presume that he is innocent until the government shows that they have proof of criminal wrongdoing,” Jatras told Press TV on Saturday.

“But I do not think that charges will really do much to change the direction of the Senate on the question of Iran, and the nuclear program and sanctions because Senator Menendez’s opinions are widely shared by other senators of both parties,” he noted.

Menendez, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been one of the detractors of President Barack Obama’s administration.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/08/400782/Senate-agrees-with-Menendez-on-Iran