Is The Iran Nuclear Deal Truly Dead Now?

Maya Carlin

March 26, 2023

A U.S. contractor was killed last week when Iranian-backed militants in Iraq launched a lethal drone attack targeted a U.S. base in northeast Syria. This latest provocation reiterates Tehran’s disinterest in gaining favor with the U.S. ahead of the potential for revived nuclear negotiations in Vienna. Ever since the U.S. and Iran began “seriously” participating in efforts to reinstate the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2021, Iran has escalated hostile acts across the Middle East as well as on U.S. soil.

Proxy groups sponsored and financed by the Iranian regime have carried out barrages of drone and rocket attacks targeting American assets repeatedly. Additionally, Iranian agents attempted to kidnap and later assassinate prominent dissident Masih Alinejad.

Prospects for diplomacy have weakened immensely, and President Joe Biden will probably not be able to fulfill his campaign promise of a new nuclear deal.

What is the JCPOA and why did Trump withdraw from it?

Under the 2015 Obama-era JCPOA guidelines, Iran was granted sanctions relief in exchange for several curtailments to its nuclear program. While the then-Obama White House was negotiating the content of the JCPOA framework, Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which essentially gave Congress oversight of the nuclear agreement. Ultimately, the INARA did not halt the deal but could serve as a potential roadblock for the Biden administration if it plans to push through a revived agreement.

When then-President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, his administration cited Tehran’s frequent treaty obligation violations and pursuit of a nuclear program. In addition to preventing agents with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from accessing suspicious sites and military facilities in the country, Iran thoroughly expanded its ballistic and cruise missile development programs. Arguably, one of the JCPOA’s faults was that it relaxed restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program. These weapons are significantly worrisome because they make ideal vessels to carry nuclear weapons.

Iran is inching closer to its nuclear goals

Earlier this month, Senior U.S. defense officials revealed that Iran could produce enough fissile material for one nuclear bomb in under two weeks. This warning also coincides with the United Nations assessment that Tehran has ramped up enriched uranium production to weapons-grade levels at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant underground facility. Now that Iran is on the edge of achieving its nuclear breakout time, its well-developed ballistic missile program is even more concerning. At this point, Iran has enriched uranium to 84% purity, just short of the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon, according to The Washington Post.

In addition to expanding its nuclear and ballistic missiles program Iran has been escalating tensions across the region. Over the last year, Iran orchestrated several state-sponsored acts of terrorism on U.S. soil. An Iranian national was charged with plotting to kill former national security adviser John Bolton in August.

In October, the U.S. designated the Iranian entity ’15 Khordad Foundation’ following the attack on author Salmon Rushdie’s life. Three men were recently charged in a plot to kill Iranian-American dissident Masih Alinejad in January, following a failed attempted kidnapping scheme in 2021.

Iran’s willingness and determination to conduct brazen acts of terror in America strongly indicates that the regime’s seriousness regarding a renewed joint deal with the U.S. is minimal. Considering Iran’s escalatory behavior, prospects for a revived JCPOA are abysmal.

Where is the next Iranian threat coming from for Israel? – interview

SETHJ. FRANTZMAN

March 26, 2023

Israel is facing multiple emerging threats, as well as the potential for Iran to shift support from Yemen to other fronts, as it positions itself for its latest challenge to Israel in the region. These are among the issues that Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focused on during a discussion this week with The Jerusalem Post about the region and threats to Israel.

Schanzer has been meeting with officials and experts and is looking at some of the broader trends that are impacting the region. This is important because Israel is engaged in a continuous struggle against Iran’s threats and changes in the region could be pushing those issues to the foreground in different areas.

One area of interest is the “war between the wars” campaign, also called after its Hebrew acronym “mabam.” This is a conflict that is hard to define, but it basically boils down to Israel’s operations against Iran in Syria and other places during the last decade. This is an undeclared war with unclear frontlines.

The campaign “just turned 10 years old and it is an interesting moment to see what happened,” says Schanzer, adding that when he has spoken to officials that many don’t agree on exactly what this conflict consists of. “There are two main schools of thought; one is that it is focused on Syria and the other is that it includes Syria and cyber and assassinations, Iran and maritime incidents.”

This is what former prime minister Naftali Bennett called the “Octopus doctrine,” which means Israel is engaged in fighting many tentacles of the Iranian threat. For instance, Palestinian Islamic Jihad could be seen as one part of the octopus, and Hezbollah as another part.

POSTERS DEPICT the Hezbollah, Syrian and Iranian leaders near the Lebanese-Syrian border. How can we ignore that Russia allows attacks against targets of Iran and its proxies in Syria? (credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)

Schanzer characterizes the campaign as an evolving concept that has been one of the most successful campaigns Israel has carried out. He notes that while the genesis of this concept goes back many years, it has continued through different administrations. That means there is a consensus on the need for this campaign. However, the expert also points out that this campaign reflects Israel’s current predicament.

There is no victory in this conflict, because this war doesn’t end on a battlefield like Waterloo, it goes on and on in different places.

For instance, when Iran has supported Hamas in Gaza to threaten Israel there have been wars, but even if Israel carries out many airstrikes and appears to win, Hamas still declares victory.

Much of the campaign has taken place in Syria and was made possible by the power vacuum there. As the Syrian regime lost control of the country, many groups and other countries intervened. This allowed Israel to also act against Iranian entrenchment. Schanzer notes that the conflict in Syria is subsiding and countries are normalizing ties with the Assad regime. “What made the [campaign] possible is operating under [a] fog of war... does the battlefield change now as the fog is lifting?”

There are many wheels in motion: Russia is redeploying from Syria, Iran continues to enrich uranium and Hezbollah is “retrenching,” says Schanzer. In addition, Hezbollah has created an indigenous program for making precision-guided munitions, PGMs. The FDD expert has been warning about this threat for years.

Now, he says, Hezbollah may be producing as many as one or two of these specific types of dangerous munitions a week. As the number of PGMs in Hezbollah’s hands grows, there are questions about Israel’s response. An incident in mid-March in which a man allegedly infiltrated northern Israel and carried out a bombing attack near Megiddo before trying to flee back north is an example of Israel’s predicament.

Hezbollah has warned Israel not to start a conflict, and Middle East Monitor has said the explosion is a “new front for Israel.” Schanzer notes that Israel hasn’t responded. “Is Israel deterred or bogged down by domestic challenges; both [questions] are worth exploring.”

A major challenge could also be emerging as Iran shifts resources from backing the Houthis in Yemen. “You need to look at Yemen, no one is looking at Yemen and that’s a big mistake,” warns Schanzer. He notes that while Iran and Saudi Arabia have signed a deal, Iran has seen support for the Houthis in Yemen, who are fighting Saudi-backed Yemen forces, as a conflict of diminishing returns. “Now the Iranians are no longer sending [support to Yemen], where is that going [to go], it’s obvious that is going to Israel’s borders, most likely to go to the West Bank, Syria etc.”

Rising threats of violence in Israel

This links into the rising threats in the West Bank. Israel has been engaged in weekly conflict against groups such as Islamic Jihad, and Lions’ Den for much of the last year. Shooting attacks are increasing. Schanzer says that Iran operates a kind of nerve center or figurative joint operations room that seeks to bring together Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah and the IRGC in threats against Israel. He says that the uptick in incidents during the 2021 conflict in Gaza, such as fighting in mixed cities in Israel, is an example.

“It is pursuing a new strategy that was born before 2021,” he says, noting that this is part of an attempt to export violence to the West Bank. Basically, Israel increasingly concentrated on confronting Iranian threats farther away from Israel, and Iran is seeking to bring the fight to the West Bank. If Israel thought it could ignore Gaza, because it has the Iron Dome and other defenses, now the battle has moved to places like Jenin. Since March of last year, FDD has been tracking the increased attacks, and Schanzer says they now number more than 1,300.

“People are talking about a third intifada, there is the ’87 Intifada and then the 2000 Intifada declared from above…we are looking at more along the lines of 2000.”

Israel faces a predicament in the West Bank. If it does nothing then the violence will grow. If it goes into the Palestinian cities then it could create greater anger against Israel. “Israel is in an impossible predicament heading into Ramadan,” he says. Meanwhile, the Palestinian security forces are also teetering in their ability to confront the rising chaos. Schanzer warns that the kinds of clashes developing in places like Huwara could end up sparking a greater conflict the way Sheikh Jarrah did in 2021.

How to stop Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons short of bombing it: report

BenjaminWeinthal

March 26, 2023

Amid the shocking revelation that the Iranian regime enriched near weapons-grade uranium for an atomic weapon, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Friday published a highly detailed report to counter Tehran’s drive to become a nuclear power.

The MEMRI report argues that powerful steps can be taken by the Biden administration and Europe to impede Iran’s atomic weapon ambitions short of military strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.

MEMRI lays out a "Plan of Action" that aims to chip away at the legitimacy of the Islamic revolutionary state.

The report comes at a historic moment in Iran’s history due to the revolts against the clerical regime sweeping the nation of 87 million people since September. Demonstrations have engulfed Iran in response to the regime’s notorious morality police arrest and murder of the 22-year-old Jina (Mahsa) Amini in mid-September for not properly wearing her hijab.

MEMRI advocates "Support for the anti-regime protests. For example, renaming of streets on which Iranian embassies in the West are located after Amini."

The authors of the report, Yigal Carmon, president of MEMRI, and Ayelet Savyon, director of MEMRI's Iran Studies Project, note, "To this day, the Iranian regime continues to be extremely sensitive and zealous with regard to its international legitimacy, and herein lies its greatest political vulnerability, on which the plan of action suggested below will focus. If the Iranian regime's legitimacy were to be undermined to any extent, it is possible that Iran would slow its sprint toward enriching weapons-grade uranium and curb its terrorist regional ambitions, if at least partially and temporarily."

The troika of anti-Western countries – Russia, Communist China and Iran – are a focus of the report. MEMRI terms the relations among these countries an "anti-Western axis, in which Iran plays a central role."

MEMRI also took Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to task for claiming he issued a fatwa (Islamic religious order) against the construction of nuclear weapons. The think tank said, "Iran must be called out for its lie regarding the supposed fatwa by Khamenei banning nuclear weapons. The West must demand that the ‘fatwa’ be presented, and Iran must be loudly condemned for having lied about this for so long."

When asked for a copy of the original fatwa, Mojtaba Babaei, Iran’s spokesman for its U.N. diplomatic mission, sent Fox News Digital a U.N. document stating, "The Supreme Leader reiterated the principled position of the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the prohibition of the use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and stated: ’We consider the use of such weapons as haram (religiously forbidden) and believe that it is everyone's duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.'"

MEMRI clained to Fox News Digital that the U.N. document is a "political statement" and not a "fatwa." MEMRI wrote an analysis on its website, declaring "The Official Iranian Version Regarding Khamenei's Alleged Anti-Nuclear Weapons Fatwa Is A Lie."

When pressed numerous times for a copy of the original fatwa in Persian, Babaei declined to provide it.

The United Nations has recoiled from highlighting Iranian regime terrorism. The MEMRI policy document says, "United Nations white papers listing the terror attacks that were carried out or planned by Iran and its proxies, as well as the internal persecution and execution of anti-regime protestors, would have a significant impact."

MEMRI noted, "Such white papers could demonstrate that Iran is a terrorist state both domestically and internationally. They would expose the fact that several Iranian regime officials have Interpol warrants out against them, and that in 1988 and 2019, the U.S. sanctioned, Iran's now-President Ebrahim Raisi, for his role in the… 1988 execution of thousands of political prisoners, including many academics."

MEMRI also stressed U.N. condemnations could expose "the academic activities in the West by regime apologists such Hossein Mousavian at Princeton University and Mohammad Jafar Mahallati at Oberlin College; and operating HispanTV, a propaganda outlet in South America."

Mousavian has faced intense criticism from Iranian Americans for his alleged pro-Iran regime activities, including serving as ambassador to Germany when Iran’s regime approved the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant in 1992.

Fox News Digital reported on the Oberlin College so-called "Professor of Peace" Mahallati’s alleged role while Iran’s ambassador in covering the massacre of at least 5,000 Iranians in 1988.

MEMRI favors crippling sanctions to destabilize Iran’s regime, including the potent enforcement of existing punitive measures against Tehran.

"During years of sanctions, the U.S. transferred billions of dollars to Iraq from the Federal Reserve, pretending that it doesn't know that this money ends up in Tehran. This was only stopped a few weeks ago, "wrote MEMRI.

The authors demand that European countries proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist entity. In 2019, the U.S. designated IRGC, which has been responsible for murders of over 600 American military personnel, according the U.S. government, in the Mideast, as a terrorist organization.

The U.S. has under both Democratic and Republican administrations listed Tehran as the world’s worst international state-sponsor of terrorism.

Iran’s regime has championed and ordered assassinations of Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ex-national security adviser John Bolton and Iranian American dissidents such as Masih Alinejad.

MEMRI pushes for "Open condemnation of Iran's aggression against the West. It is noteworthy that even as Iran openly threatens to assassinate senior American officials, as well as dissidents living abroad, no meaningful condemnation comes from America and the West."

The authors say an "an open call for regime change in Iran would be problematic" but "at the very least the West should not send messages reassuring the regime that there are no Western intentions of regime change in Iran, as the U.S. has reportedly done."

The intense focus by the U.S. and other world powers (France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia) to reach an agreement with Iran to temporarily curb its alleged illegal nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief has ignored human rights violations in Iran, argue critics.

MEMRI advocates "Support for human rights organizations that expose the discrimination and repression against ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and particularly the LGBTQ+ community by the Iranian regime."

Iran’s sensitivity to being banned at international sporting events was noted by MEMRI. "Since the Iranian regime has executed soccer players and wrestlers for having expressed support for the anti-regime protests, Iran's national soccer and wrestling teams should be sanctioned."

The widespread labor unrest across Iran was also a topic for MEMRI. The think tank urged "Support for trade strikes and labor unrest in Iran, like had been the case with the Polish trade union Solidarity in 1980."