Oil extraction in the Orinoco Belt, southeastern Venezuela. The crude extracted from this rich basin is very heavy and requires blending with diluent oil for refining—a process previously handled by U.S. company Chevron, which must now cease operations in the country. Credit: PDVSA

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Apr 25 2025 (IPS)

Reduced to a marginal oil producer over the past decade, Venezuela has suffered another blow as United States president Donald Trump ordered punitive measures to blockade and further restrict the country’s oil exports.

Venezuelan crude will likely navigate the fringes of global oil trade and finance, flowing toward Asian markets as the government seeks to avoid financial suffocation—possibly without ruling out new negotiations with Washington."Revenues will drop significantly because PDVSA will struggle to produce, obtain diluents, and won’t have the capacity to invest in projects." — Francisco Monaldi

“Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse. Therefore, any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country,” Trump wrote on his media platform Truth Social on March 24.

Simultaneously, Trump revoked licenses allowing U.S. firms Chevron and Global Oil Terminals, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Maurel & Prom, India’s Reliance, and Italy’s Eni to operate in Venezuela.

The foreseeable outcome “will be a drop in oil production—possibly over 100,000 barrels per day—with lower revenues and difficulties in placing crude on the black market,” Francisco Monaldi, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies, told IPS.

Venezuela, which once produced three million barrels (159 liters each) per day in the early 2000’s, has seen a decline since 2013, falling below 400,000 barrels in 2020.

Until the beginning of this century, Venezuela was a major oil producer and exporter, thanks to the vast reserves in the Maracaibo Lake basin in the west. Although underground reserves remain enormous, production has declined, and the country has lost its leading role in the global hydrocarbon market. Credit: Mdnava / Fe y Alegría

This is a stark contrast to its history as the world’s second-largest producer and top exporter a century ago, a co-founder of OPEC in 1960, and still home to the largest crude reserves—over 300 billion barrels.

The collapse of the industry and state-owned PDVSA resulted from a mix of dwindling investments, neglected maintenance, erratic management, and bad deals—all amid economic and social collapse and intense political strife.

Moreover, corruption has reached such heights that several former Energy Ministers and presidents of PDVSA have been imprisoned, while others are fugitives abroad. According to the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International, the amounts that “evaporated” without ever reaching state coffers add up to tens of billions of dollars.

Additionally, Washington imposed escalating sanctions on Venezuelan political and military leaders, with severe effects on PDVSA’s supplies and operations, the Central Bank, and other state entities.

GDP shrank to a quarter of its early-2000s level, hyperinflation reached six digits, income-based poverty hit 90%, and eight million Venezuelans—one in four—left the country.

However, since 2022, Washington’s green light for Chevron and other foreign firms helped production recover to 760,000 barrels per day in 2023, 857,000 in 2024, and 913,000 in March 2025, according to OPEC’s secondary sources.

Chevron accounted for 25% of this output, with PDVSA handling the rest. The U.S. firm also facilitated the import of 50,000 barrels of diluent daily to blend with Venezuela’s heavy crude, In order to improve and facilitate refining.

“It is assumed PDVSA will take over Chevron’s fields, but a drop is inevitable,” Andrés Rojas, editor of Venezuelan oil journal Petroguía, told IPS.

An oil tanker docks at the Waidiao terminal in Zhejiang province, eastern China. The Asian giant is the primary destination for Venezuelan oil, and this flow may increase as Venezuela loses its U.S. market due to new sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump. Credit: Zhejiang Municipal Government

The impact 

Monaldi explains that of Venezuela’s 700,000 daily exportable barrels, half went to “licensed destinations” (mainly the United States, Europe, and India), while the rest went to China (as debt repayment) and Cuba.

Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros, head of Ecoanalítica, consulting firm, estimates Venezuela will lose over US$3 billion this year from Chevron’s withdrawal, leaving external revenues at no more than US$13 billion for its 29 million people.

Government “revenues will plummet because PDVSA will struggle to produce (due to shortages of materials and spare parts), secure diluents, and invest in projects,” Monaldi said.

The expert explains that PDVSA will have to return to the black market, using practices such as transferring crude oil at sea or in the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia to vessels different from those originally dispatched.

This way, the oil reaches its destination, usually China, labeled as being produced in Malaysia or another part of the world.

However, these distant and complicated routes have the dual effect of increasing costs—including freight and insurance—and reducing revenue, as the oil must be sold at discounts of 30% or more compared to prices on the regular market.

Meanwhile, the trade, economic, and financial shock triggered by Trump’s tariff storm this month is driving oil prices down, with current benchmarks like West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at US$63 and North Sea Brent at US$67 per barrel.

Oil transfers between tankers take place offshore or near international trade hubs, such as the Strait of Malacca in Asia. This method, though riskier and costlier, is used as a black-market mechanism to evade sanctions like those imposed by Washington on Venezuela. Credit: Verdemar

Black market challenges 

In April of this year, two oil tankers—the Bahamian-flagged Carina Voyager and the Marshall Islands-registered Dubai Attraction—loaded 500,000 and 350,000 barrels of crude, respectively, at Venezuelan terminals. The oil was initially meant to be transported by Chevron to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

However, the vessels had to turn around and return to Venezuelan ports after state-run PDVSA realized it would not be able to collect payment for the shipments due to Washington’s sanctions. The cargoes will now be diverted to Venezuela’s top Asian client: China.

“PDVSA has done this since 2019 with Russian and Iranian support, using two or three intermediaries to deliver the loads,” Rojas noted.

In addition to the higher costs stemming from intermediaries, longer distances, and increased risks, Rojas points out that Venezuelan crude is heavier than benchmark Brent and WTI oils, meaning its price per barrel is roughly US$10 lower.

Monaldi notes that even if China disregards Washington’s threat to hike tariffs on Venezuelan oil imports—or Malaysia, where much of this black-market trade flows—risk premiums will rise, and Venezuela will bear the brunt by receiving insufficient diluents for its heavy crudes.

The Carina Voyager, one of the Bahamian-flagged tankers chartered by Chevron in April to transport Venezuelan crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, had to turn around and return its cargo. PDVSA made the decision after realizing payment would be impossible due to Trump’s sanctions. Credit: Sun Enterprises

“The situation is extremely complicated, and this will likely push the Venezuelan economy—which had been experiencing modest growth in recent years (2.6% in 2023 and 5.0% in 2024, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory)—back into recession, possibly as early as 2025,” the expert warns.

Monaldi adds that the recession will come alongside a sharp depreciation of the bolívar against the dollar (already over 50% since January) and, consequently, higher inflation, which Ecoanalítica estimates could reach 189% this year.

In this new game, even American oil importers lose out—they had benefited from cheaper Venezuelan crude, which allowed them to free up United States oil volumes for higher-priced exports to third countries, Rojas noted.

He also points out that Chevron’s withdrawal “hurts communities like Soledad” (a town of 35,000 in southeastern Venezuela), where a health center relied on support from the corporation as part of its social responsibility program.

And, as a final blow to Venezuela’s setbacks, two South American neighbors—once net importers of its oil—have now joined the thriving club of exporters welcomed by Washington: Brazil, which produces 3.4 million barrels per day, and Guyana, now pumping 650,000 barrels daily.

Workers packaging spirulina in the town of Zaragoza in Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 2016 (IPS)

After 25 years of voting against a United Nations resolution condemning the United States (U.S.) embargo on Cuba, the U.S. Wednesday chose for the first time to abstain from voting. An overwhelming 191 UN member states voted for the resolution, with only Israel joining the United States in abstention.

The UN General Assembly met for its annual vote on a resolution to end sanctions against Cuba imposed in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War. The United States has consistently voted against the resolution, but on Wednesday United States Ambassador Samantha Power announced its historic change in voting.

“After 50-plus years of pursuing the path of isolation, we have chosen to take the path of engagement,” said Power whose statement was met with applause.

Power highlighted the significant progress made by the Cuban government in the protection of its people including the reduction of its child mortality rate and children’s access to education. Power also described Cuba’s essential role during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 when the Caribbean nation was one of the first countries to step forward and send over 200 health professionals to the hardest hit areas in West Africa.

Cuban Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla welcomed the vote but noted that the embargo against Cuba is still in place and continues to harm Cubans and the nation’s economic development.

“Human damages caused by the blockade are incalculable,” he told the General Assembly, estimating that the U.S. embargo has cost the island over $125 billion.

Though the U.S. has eased travel and business restrictions, most laws and regulations that implemented the blockade are still in force.

For instance, the existing Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (CDA) prohibits foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. This has limited the country’s access to essential medicine and medical equipment which has “wreaked havoc” on Cuba’s health care system. Parrilla pointed to the case of U.S. company Medtronic which was unable to sell deep brain stimulators to Cuban companies to treat patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders.

He also noted that Cuban medical efforts deployed during the Ebola epidemic were hampered when the British Standard Chartered Bank refused to make financial transfers between the World Health Organisation and Cuban doctors.

Though U.S. banks can now legally process Cuban transactions, many banks fear reprisal from the U.S. having had received enormous fines for violating sanctions in the past.

In 2012, ING Bank was fined $619 million, HSBC $1.9 billion and BNP Paribas $8.83 billion.

Even after December 2014 when President Obama first announced his aim to restore full relations with Cuba, France’s Credit Agricole was fined $787 million for violating U.S. sanctions.

“Lifting the blockade is key to be able to advance towards the normalisation of relations with the United States,” said Parrilla.

Power echoed similar sentiments, urging for the two nations to continue to engage despite differences.

“Today, we will take another small step to be able to do that. May there be many, many more—including, we hope, finally ending the U.S. embargo once and for all,” she concluded.

However, abstaining from the resolution does not mean that the U.S. agrees with all of the Cuban government’s policies and practices, Power said.

“We are profoundly concerned by the serious human rights violations that the Cuban government continues to commit with impunity against its own people,” she told delegates.

According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), more than 8,600 government opponents and activists were detained in 2015. Freedom of expression and access to information also continues to be limited.

Power also rejected certain elements in the resolution, including that the embargo violated the UN charter and international law.

Iran's lead negotiator and foreign minister, Javad Zarif, was greeted by a cheering crowd back home in Tehran after a framework for a final nuclear deal was reached Apr. 2 in Lausanne, Geneva. Credit: ISNA/Borna Ghasemi

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Jun 26 2015 (IPS)

A final deal on Iran’s nuclear programme wouldn’t only make non-proliferation history. It would also be the beginning of a better life for the Iranian people—or at least that’s what they’re hoping.

Iranians, who are keeping a close eye on the talks, which resumed Saturday in Vienna amidst the looming June 30 deadline, believe that significant economic improvements would result from a final accord in the near term, according to a major new poll and study released here last week.“It may take a while, but the aligning of Rouhani's promises with the people’s expectations regarding the resolution of the nuclear issue will give him more tools to pursue his other agenda items regarding cultural and political opening and economic liberalisation.” -- Farideh Farhi

Majorities of the Iranian public expect to see better access to foreign medicines and medical equipment, significantly more foreign investment, and tangible improvements in living standards within a year of the deal being signed, according to the University of Tehran’s Center for Public Opinion Research and Iran Poll, an independent, Toronto-based polling group working with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM).

Asked how long they believed it would take for changes resulting from a deal to materialise, 61 percent of respondents said they would see Iranians gaining greater access to foreign-made medicines and medical equipment in a year or less while a similar number—62 percent—thought they would see “a lot more foreign companies making investments in Iran” in a year or less.

A slightly lesser 55 percent thought they would see “a tangible improvement in people’s standard of living” within a year.

The poll—based on telephone interviews with over 1,000 respondents between May 12 and May 28—found strong support for a nuclear deal, but that support appears to be contingent on the belief that the U.S. would lift all sanctions as part of the deal, not just those related to Iran’s nuclear activities, and that economic relief would come relatively quickly.

The timeframe for and extent of sanctions removal remains, however, a major obstacle in the negotiations, the exact details of which are being kept private while talks are in progress.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who holds the final say on all matters related to the state—reportedly demanded in a major speech Tuesday that all U.S. sanctions be lifted as of the signing of a deal, a demand that could further complicate the negotiations.

“While there is majority support for continuing to pursue a deal,” said Ebrahim Mohseni, a senior analyst at the University of Tehran’s Center and a CISSM research associate, “it is sustained in part by expectations that besides the U.N. and the E.U., the U.S. would also relinquish all its sanctions, that the positive effects of the deal would be felt in tangible ways fairly quickly, and that Iran would continue to develop its civilian nuclear programme.”

He added that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might have “difficulty selling a deal that would significantly deviate from these expectations.”

Tempered expectations

A 34-page study conducted by the New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) also found that civil society, which continues to support the negotiations even while criticising the government’s domestic policies, is hopeful for an agreement that will end years of sanctions and isolation.

Of the 28 prominent civil society members interviewed by ICHRI between May 13-June 2, 71 percent of respondents expect economic benefits from an accord, citing increased investment and oil revenues, and gains to employment, manufacturing, and growth.

However, one-fifth of those expecting economic gains believe these benefits could be lost to ordinary Iranians due to governmental mismanagement.

In fact, a significant number of the civil society leaders were skeptical of the Rouhani government’s ability to deliver tangible results from a final deal to the general public.

Thirty-six percent of the interviewees expected no improvement in political or cultural freedoms, citing either Rouhani’s lack of authority or lack of willingness, while 25 percent of all respondents said they expected economic benefits to reach only the wealthy and politically influential.

“Mr. Rouhani is not in control,” Mohammad Nourizad, a filmmaker and political activist told ICHRI. “Whatever he wants to implement, he would first have to seek permission from the Supreme Leader’s office.”

“The expectations we have of Mr.Rouhani do not match his capabilities,” he added.

However, 61 percent of the respondents still believe a deal would grant the Rouhani administration the political leverage required to implement political and cultural reforms.

“It may take a while, but the aligning of Rouhani’s promises with the people’s expectations regarding the resolution of the nuclear issue will give him more tools to pursue his other agenda items regarding cultural and political opening and economic liberalisation,” Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar at the University of Hawaii, told IPS.

“He will still face still resistance and competition but there is no doubt he’ll be strengthened,” she said.

While the ICHRI’s civil society respondents expressed a greater degree of scepticism and nuance than the general population surveyed by the CISSM, a substantial majority in both polls argued that sanctions were significantly hurting ordinary Iranians, an effect that would only increase if no deal is reached.

“[Failed negotiations] would cause terrible damage to the people and to social, cultural, political, and economic activities,” Fakhrossadat Mohtashamipour, a civil activist and wife of a political prisoner, told ICHRI.

“The highest cost imposed by the sanctions is paid by the people, particularly the low-income and vulnerable groups.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Jun 9 2015 (IPS)

Only 50 years of Cold War (and the fact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany) can possibly explain the strange political power of the United States over Europe.

After a bilateral meeting between Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama (so much for transparency and participation), the Jun. 7-8 G7 summit opened in Germany and we found out that there had been a trade-off.

Roberto Savio

Merkel agreed that Europe should continue the sanctions against Russia – and so the other members of the G7 duly agreed – and Obama toned down the U.S. position on Greece.

That position had been forcefully expressed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew a few days earlier to European leaders: solve the Greek problem, or this will have a global impact that we cannot afford. This had suddenly accelerated negotiations, with the hope then that everything would be solved before the G7 summit.

But Greece did not accept the plan of the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, which was suspiciously close to International Monetary Fund (IMF) positions.

At the G7 summit, Obama softened the U.S. position on Greece, and even said that “Athens must implement the necessary reforms.”

Obstinacy on sanctions against Russia ignores the fact that, in a very delicate economic moment, Europe has lost a considerable part of its exports because of Russia’s retaliatory block on European imports. It is also difficult to see what advantage there is for Europe in pushing Russia into the arms of China. We will soon be seeing joint naval exercise between the two countries, which will only escalate tensions.

But let us look at Greece given that its tug of war with Europe has now been going on for five years.

Let us recall briefly. Greece had been spending much more than it could by distributing public jobs under any government, by giving easy pensions to everyone, and so on. Then, in 2009, the centre-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won the elections and we found out that the figures Athens had been giving Brussels were false.

The real deficit stood at almost 12.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), confirmation of what the European Union and its bodies had long suspected but which it had done nothing about.“Europe is now led by Germany and the Germans are convinced that what they did at home is valid everywhere. Together with the countries of northern Europe, they look on the people of southern Europe as unethical, people who want to enjoy life beyond their means”

To avoid going into the agonising details of the continuous negotiations between Greece and the European Union, I jump to the January elections this year which the left-wing Syriza party won and its leader Alexis Tsipras was named Prime Minister on a clear programme: stop the austerity programme imposed by the “Troika” – IMF, EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) – on behalf of the European countries, led by Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Finland.

Greece is on its knees. Officially, unemployment has gone from 11.9 percent in 2010 to 25.5 percent today, but it is widely considered to be around 30 percent. Among young people, it is close to 60 percent. GDP has gone into a 25 percent decline, Greek citizens have lost about 30 percent of their revenues and public spending has been slashed to the point that hospitals have great difficulty in functioning.

Yet, the request (order) of the “Troika” is simple – cut everything the deficit has been eliminated.

So, for example, cut pensions, which have been already been cut twice. In any case, this would reap a paltry 100 million euros but would cripple people who are living on less than 685 euro a month. Or, raise VAT on tourism, from the present 6.5 percent to 13.6 percent, which would be a deadly blow to Greece’s only important source of income.

This is the plan presented by Juncker, whose arrival as head of the European Commission was accompanied by a grandiose Marshall Plan for Europe, a plan which has since disappeared totally from the scene.

In an article a few days ago titled ‘Europe’s Last Act?”, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics, argues that the idea of austerity as a uniform recipe for Europe is missing reality.

“The troika badly misjudged the macroeconomic effects of the program that they imposed. According to their published forecasts, they believed that, by cutting wages and accepting other austerity measures, Greek exports would increase and the economy would quickly return to growth. They also believed that the first debt restructuring would lead to debt sustainability.

“The troika’s forecasts have been wrong, and repeatedly so. And not by a little, but by an enormous amount. Greece’s voters were right to demand a change in course, and their government is right to refuse to sign on to a deeply flawed program.”

It is on austerity that the paths of the United States and the European Union divide.

The United States has embarked on investing for growth, despite pressure from the Republican party for austerity, and the U.S. economy is picking up again.

But Europe is now led by Germany and the Germans are convinced that what they did at home is valid everywhere. Together with the countries of northern Europe, they look on the people of southern Europe as unethical, people who want to enjoy life beyond their means. As The Economist put it in an article on the Greek crisis: “In German eyes this crisis is all about profligacy”.

It did not help that another very minor crisis – that of Cyprus between 2012 and 2013 – confirmed Germany’s view about the profligacy of the south of Europe. In the case of Cyprus, the “Troika” settled the crisis at a cost of 10 billion euros.

There is widespread agreement that the crisis of Greece, which represents just two percent of the total European budget, could have been settled at the beginning with a 50-60 billion euro loan. But only since Tsipras became prime minister, and with popular support started to refuse to accept the creditors’ plan, has Greece has become a very important issue.

There is now talk of a “Grexit”, or Greece’s exit from the European Union. This would have a cascade effect, and it would mean the end of Europe as a common dream, of a Europe based on solidarity and communality.

In the G7, Obama has insisted on investments and demand as a way out of the crisis. Merkel has again repeated that Europe does not need stimulus financed by debt, but stimulus coming from the reform of inefficient economies. At this point, perhaps “everything is always about something else”, as the late award-winning Sri Lankan journalist Tarzie Vittachi once told me.

An enlightening comment on the Greek situation has come from Hugo Dixon writing in The New York Times of Jun. 7. The Greek prime minister “will have to choose between saving his country and sticking to a bankrupt far-left ideology. If he is smart, he can secure a few more concessions from creditors and a goodish deal for Greece. If not, he will drag the country into the abyss.”

And then, it is interesting to note that one of the main reasons for being so hard with Syriza is that the citizens of Spain, Portugal and Ireland, who were the first to swallow the bitter pill of austerity, would revolt if they saw a different path for Greece, and it just happens that those countries have conservative governments.

The entire European political system reeled with shock at the victory of Syriza, and again a few days ago at the victories of the left-wing anti-establishment Podemos party in municipal elections in Spain.

For some reason, the very authoritarian and conservative government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, the victory of the very conservative Andrzej Duda as president in Poland, as well as the rise of Matteo Salvini’s anti-European and anti-immigration Lega Nord party in Italy create no panic, not even if Salvini looks to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s right-wing Front National, as figures of reference.

So, the real issue now in the case of Greece is to punish an anti-establishment figure like Tsipras and show that the radical left cannot run a country.

Who really believes that there will masses of citizens in Madrid, Lisbon or Dublin taking to the streets to protest if Europe does a somersault of solidarity and idealism, and lowers its requests or dilutes them over more time? (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 pose for photos after talks concluded in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2, 2015. Credit: US State Dept/public domain

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, May 26 2015 (IPS)

Internationally supported sanctions against Iran could begin to crumble if talks over Iran’s nuclear programme fail to produce a final deal, according to Germany’s envoy to the United States.

“The alternatives to the diplomatic approach are not very attractive,” said Ambassador Peter Wittig Tuesday.“The alternatives to the diplomatic approach are not very attractive." -- German Ambassador Peter Wittig.

“If diplomacy fails, the sanctions regime might unravel…and we would probably see Iran enriching once again as it has done before the negotiations started,” said the diplomat during a panel discussion in Washington at the Atlantic Council.

The sanctions that have ravaged the Iranian economy face far less risk, however, if Tehran were seen as responsible for the failure, according to the United Kingdom’s envoy to the U.S.

“If there is not a deal because the Iranians simply will not live up to [their obligations] or [fail to] implement…then I think we carry on with the sanctions regime and in certain areas it may be right to try to raise the level of those sanctions,” said Ambassador Peter Westmacott.

But Westmacott agreed with his German counterpart that if Iran were not to blame, the sanctions regime could fall apart.

“At the same time, if we were to walk away or if the [U.S.] Congress was to make it impossible for the agreement to be implemented…then I think the international community would be pretty reluctant, frankly, to contemplate a ratcheting up further of the sanctions against Iran,” he said.

“A number of countries” already “don’t respect” sanctions and are buying Iranian oil, he added.

Looming Deadline

Ahead of the June 30 deadline for reaching a final deal, Iran will resume the negotiations with representatives from the P5+1 or E3+3 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) Wednesday in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

Talks with Iran over its controversial nuclear program have been ongoing since 2003, when France, Germany and the United Kingdom (the E3) began to engage Iran in an attempt to limit its nuclear programme.

Iran contends its programme has always been peaceful. The United States intelligence community has assessed that Iran was previously working towards mastering the nuclear fuel cycle, but has not restarted a nuclear weapons program.

“It’s a political decision for them. Not that they don’t have the technical wherewithal, the technical competence, because they do,” said the U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper March 2 on PBS’ “Charlie Rose” show.

Although Iran and its negotiating partners have made several historic diplomatic strides since an interim nuclear agreement was reached 2013 in Geneva—notably the ongoing high-level direct contact between previously hostile Tehran and Washington—the talks have yet to produce a final deal.

It’s unclear how much progress has actually been made in the complex private negotiations since a preliminary framework agreement was declared on April 2, but the parties are currently in the drafting phase.

The French ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, wasn’t optimistic here Tuesday.

“It’s very likely that we won’t have an agreement before the end of June or even (right) after,” he said.

“Even if we get the best deal … afterwards, you will have to translate it into the technical annexes, so it may be … we could have a sort of fuzzy end to the negotiation,” he added.

High Stakes

While domestic politics in the key capitals of Tehran and Washington could ultimately prove to be the greatest barriers to a final deal, all sides seem to be waiting until after the deadline to make more moves.

But patience is running thin among key Iranian and American lawmakers, who have made no secret of their opposition to the talks. If no deal is reached by Jun. 30, the door to a wave of domestic criticism in both capitals will once again be wide open.

Peter Jenkins, who previously served as the U.K.’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations, told IPS that even if Iran were blamed for the breakdown of the talks, it wouldn’t end up totally isolated.

“I doubt the non-Western world will be ready to believe that the blame for a break-down lies solely with Iran,” said Jenkins.

“They will suspect that some of the blame should be ascribed to the U.S. and E.U. for making demands that go well beyond the requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So those of them that have been applying sanctions may break away,” he said.

“In the West, however, most countries will believe what the U.S. instructs them to believe and will continue to apply sanctions if required to do so by the U.S.,” he added.

As for an impending blame-game, Jenkins said the stakes are too high for everyone to submit to a complete breakdown at this point: “I think it much more likely that they will make a herculean effort to cobble together an agreement over the ensuing weeks.”

“Both sides have so much to gain from an agreement and so much to lose if they squander all that they have achieved to date,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Azzum Atme checkpoint border crossing from the West Bank into Israel, where hundreds of Palestinian labourers cross into Israel each day using Israeli buses. These labourers already face long delays at the checkpoint and if they are banned from Israeli buses their trips will take even longer. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 24 2015 (IPS)

A  decision by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to segregate buses in the occupied West Bank has backfired after causing an uproar in Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, and political damage on the international stage.

This came as Israel faces mounting international criticism over its land expropriation and settlement building in the West Bank, and other forms of discrimination levelled against Palestinians.

Israel’s new extreme right-wing government is also being attacked on the domestic front with liberal Israelis, and Israeli NGOs involved in human rights, accusing the government of damaging Israel’s image and values.“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action” – Prof Samir Awad, political scientist at Birzeit University

Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been waging a campaign to prohibit Palestinians, particularly labourers who work in Israel, from using their buses in the occupied West Bank for over a year, saying that they represented a security threat, refused to give up their seats for Israelis and expressed sexual interest in Israeli women.

Last week, approval was given for buses to be segregated but after the backlash the plan was quickly scrapped.

However, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon quickly denied that segregation or racism had anything to do with the issue and that the decision to ban Palestinians from Israeli buses had only been based on “security” needs.

Neither has Ya’alon given up on the plan. He intends to instruct the IDF to come up with a new plan to cover all 13 crossing points from the West Bank into Israel.

This development came simultaneously as European Union foreign policy head Federica Mogherini paid a 24-hour visit May 20-21 to Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward, stating that Europe wanted to play a more prominent role in the process.

But behind Mogherini’s visit was growing approval within the European Union for more pressure to be exerted on Israel to stop expropriating land from the Palestinians to build more illegal Israeli settlements and enlarge current ones.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was on the defensive following its perception of bias from the European Union.

“The Israeli government will not be pressured by the European Union into making any concessions with the Palestinians in regards to the peace process,” said a spokesman from Israel’s Foreign Ministry – who insisted on remaining anonymous due to “ongoing problems at the ministry”.

“If the EU exerts one-sided pressure on Israel, without putting any pressure on the Palestinians, the situation will backfire because it will allow the Palestinians to avoid direct negotiations with us at the negotiating table,” the spokesman told IPS.

“Any future peace negotiations will have to involve face to face talks between the Palestinians and us. We will accept nothing less.”

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, quoting a mediaeval biblical scholar, instructed all Israeli diplomats not to apologise for Israel’s occupation, stating that “all of the land (meaning East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories) belonged to Israel.

As Israel finds itself painted into a corner politically, Palestinian and Israeli analysts have been debating whether there would be any European pressure on Israel and whether that pressure would have any effect.

Political scientist Prof Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, believes that the European Union will be able to successfully pressure the Israeli government, despite its extremism.

“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action,” Awad told IPS.

“EU pressure on Israel will also be buoyed by the fact that a number of EU countries have officially recognised a Palestinian state while others have recognised a state in principle and are critical of Israel’s continued occupation and land expropriation in the West Bank,” added Awad.

However, political analyst Benedetta Berti, a research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, is not convinced that the European Union will succeed in pushing Israel to any negotiating table.

“If we look at their record so far there has been a lot of rhetoric but not much actual action. So far, 16 out of the 28 EU ministers have told Mogherini to go ahead with labelling settlement goods exported to Europe,” Berti told IPS.

“It hasn’t happened yet as they have to get 20 of the 28 EU ministers on board for that and due to the divisions in the EU over Israel I’m not sure that it will happen in the near future,” explained Berti.

Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group has accused the Israeli authorities of being indifferent to attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers and security forces.

“Most cases of violent crimes against Palestinians not only go unpunished – but often are completely ignored by the authorities. Even when criminal investigations against soldiers accused of such offences are opened, they almost always fail,” said Yesh Din, a volunteer organisation working to defend the human rights of Palestinian civilians under Israeli occupation.

The groups said that approximately 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by the IDF against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians, and their property, are closed without any indictments. In the rare cases that indictments are served, conviction leads to very light sentencing.

“Moreover, Palestinians who attempt to file complaints about crimes committed against them face staggering obstacles in their way. The complete absence of military police stations open to the Palestinian public in the West Bank, for example, makes it literally impossible for Palestinians to file complaints directly with the military police,” stated Yesh Din.

Edited by Phil Harris    

By Prem Shankar Jha
NEW DELHI, May 10 2015 (IPS)

President Barack Obama’s Nowroz greeting to the Iranian people earlier this year was the first clear indication to the world that the United States and Iran were very close to agreement on the contents of the nuclear agreement they had been working towards for the previous 16 months.

In contrast to two earlier messages which were barely veiled exhortations to Iranians to stand up to their obscurantist leaders, Obama urged “the peoples and the leaders of Iran” to avail themselves of “the best opportunity in decades to pursue a different relationship between our countries.”

Prem Shankar Jha

This moment, he warned, “may not come again soon (for) there are people in both our countries and beyond, who oppose a diplomatic solution.”

Barely a fortnight later that deal was done. Iran had agreed to a more than two-thirds reduction in the number of centrifuges it would keep, although a question mark still hung over the timing of the lifting of sanctions against it. The agreement came in the teeth of opposition from hardliners in both Iran and the United States.

Looking back at Obama’s unprecedented overtures to Iran, his direct phone call to President Hassan Rouhani – the first of its kind in 30 years – and his letter to Ayatollah Khamenei in November last year, it is clear in retrospect that they were products of  a rare meeting of minds between him and  Rouhani and their foreign ministers John Kerry and Muhammad Jawad Zarif that may have occurred as early as  their first meetings in September 2013.

The opposition to the deal within the United States proved a far harder obstacle for Obama to surmount. The reason is the dogged and increasingly naked opposition of Israel and the immense influence of the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) on U.S. policymakers and public opinion.

Both of these were laid bare came when the Republican party created constitutional history by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address  a joint session of Congress  without informing the White House, listened raptly to his diatribe against Obama, and sent a deliberately insulting letter to Ayatollah Khamenei in a bid to scuttle the talks.

Obama has ploughed on in the teeth of this formidable, highly personalised, attack on him  because he has learnt from the bitter experience of the past four years what Harvard professors John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt had exposed in their path-breaking  book, ‘The Israel lobby and American Foreign Policy’ in 2006.“Quietly, and utterly alone, Obama decided to reverse the drift, return to diplomacy as the first weapon for increasing national security and returning force to where it had belonged in the previous three centuries, as a weapon of last resort”

This was the utter disregard for America’s national interest and security with which Israel had been manipulating American public opinion, the U.S. Congress and successive U.S. administrations, in pursuit of its own security, since the end of the Cold War.

By the end of 2012, two years into the so-called “Arab Spring”, Obama had also discovered how cynically Turkey and the Wahhabi-Sunni sheikhdoms had manipulated the United States into joining a sectarian vendetta against Syria, and created and armed a Jihadi army whose ultimate target was the West itself.

Nine months later, he found out how Israel had abused the trust the United States reposed in it, and come within a hairsbreadth of pushing it into an attack on Syria that was even less justifiable than then U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.  And then the murderous eruption of the Islamic State (ISIS) showed him that the Jihadis were out of control.

Somewhere along this trail of betrayal and disillusionment, Obama experienced the political equivalent of an epiphany.

Twelve years of a U.S. national security strategy that relied on the pre-emptive use of force had  yielded war without end, a string of strategic defeats, a  mauled and traumatised army, mounting international debt and a collapsing hegemony reflected in the impunity with which the so-called friends of the United States were using it to serve their ends.

Quietly, and utterly alone, Obama decided to reverse the drift, return to diplomacy as the first weapon for increasing national security and returning force to where it had belonged in the previous three centuries, as a weapon of last resort. His meeting and discussions with Rouhani and Iranian foreign minister Zarif gave him the opportunity to begin this epic change of direction.

Obama faced his first moment of truth on Nov. 28, 2012 when a Jabhat al Nusra unit north of Aleppo brought down a Syrian army helicopter with a Russian man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM).

The White House tried to  pretend that that the missile was from a captured Syrian air base, but by then U.S. intelligence agencies were fed up with its suppression and distortion of their intelligence and  leaked it to the Washington Post that 40 SAM missile batteries with launchers, along with hundreds of tonnes of other heavy weapons had been bought from Libya, paid for by Qatar, and transported to the rebels in Syria  by Turkey through a ‘rat line’ that the CIA had helped it to establish, to funnel arms and mercenaries into Syria.

A day that Obama had been dreading had finally arrived: heavy weapons that the United States and the European Union had expressly proscribed, because they could bring down civilian aircraft anywhere in the world, had finally reached Al Qaeda’s hands

But when Obama promptly banned the Jabhat Al Nusra, he got his second shock. At the next ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting in Marrakesh three weeks later, not only the   ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels that the United States had grouped under a newly-formed Syrian Military Council three months earlier, but all of its Sunni Muslim allies condemned the ban, while Britain and France remained silent.

Obama’s third, and worst, moment of truth came nine months later when a relentless campaign by  his closest ‘allies‘, Turkey and Israel, brought him to the verge of launching an all-out aerial attack  on Syria in September 2013 to punish it for “using gas on rebels and civilians in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.”

Obama learned that Syria had done no such thing only two days before the attack was to commence, when the British informed him that soil samples collected from the site of the Ghouta attack and analysed at their CBW research laboratories at Porton Down, had shown that the sarin gas used in the attack could not possibly have been prepared by the Syrian army.

This was because the British had the complete list of suppliers from which Syria had received its precursor chemicals and these did not match the chemicals used in the sarin gas found in the Ghouta.

Had he gone through with the attack, it would have made Obama ten times worse than George Bush in history’s eyes.

Hindsight allows us to reconstruct how the conviction that Syria was using chemical weapons was implanted into policy-makers in the United States and the European Union.

On Sep. 17, 2012, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the highly-reputed German magazine Der Speigel, had learned, “quoting several eyewitnesses”, that Syria had tested delivery systems for chemical warheads   at a chemical weapons research centre near Aleppo in August, and that the tests had been overseen by Iranian experts.

Tanks and aircraft, Der Speigel reported, had fired “five or six empty shells capable of delivering poison gas.”

Since neither Der Speigel nor any other Western newspaper had, or still has, resident correspondents in Syria, it could only have obtained this report second or third-hand through a local stringer. This, and the wealth of detail in the report, suggests that the story of a test firing, while not necessarily untrue, was a plant by an intelligence agency. It therefore had to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

One person who not only chose to believe it instantly, but also to act on it was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Dec. 3, 2012, Haaretz reported that he had sent emissaries to Amman twice, in October and November, to request Jordan’s permission to overfly its territory to bomb Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.

* The second part of this two-part analysis can be accessed here.

Excerpt:

The Koreas on the globe. Credit: TUBS/ Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Ahn Mi Young
SEOUL, Feb 18 2015 (IPS)

The two Koreas are an odd match – both are talking about possible dialogue but both have different ideas of the conditions, and that difference comes from the 62-year-old division following the 1950-53 Korean War.

During this time, North Korea has become a nuclear threat – estimated to possess up to ten nuclear weapons out of the 16,300 worldwide (compared with Russia’s 8,000 and the 7,300 in the United States) according to the Ploughshares Fund’s report on world nuclear stockpiles – and South Korea has become the world’s major economic success story.

In a national broadcast on Jan. 16, South Korean president Park Geun Hye presented her vision for reunification by using the Korean word ‘daebak‘ (meaning ‘great success’ or ‘jackpot’). “If the two Koreas are united, the reunited Korea will be a daebak not only for Korea but also for the whole world,” she said.North Korea has become a nuclear threat – estimated to possess up to ten nuclear weapons out of the 16,300 worldwide – and South Korea has become the world's major economic success story

Since she became leader of the South Korea’s conservative ruling party in 2013, Park has been referring to a new world that would come from a unified Korea. Her argument has been that if the two Koreas are reunited, the world could be politically less dangerous – free from the North Korea’s nuclear threat – and a united Korea could be economically more prosperous by combining the South’s economic and cultural power and the North’s natural resources and discipline.

Denuclearisation has been set as a key condition for daebak to come about. At a Feb. 9 forum with high-ranking South Korean officials, President Park said that “North Korea should show sincerity in denuclearisation efforts if it is to successfully lead its on-going economic projects. No matter how good are the programmes we may have in order to help North Korea, we cannot do so as long as North Korea does not give up its nuclear programme.”

However, observers have said North Korea has no reason to give up its nuclear weapons as long as it depends on its nuclear capability as a bargaining chip for political survival.  “Nuclear capabilities are the North’s only military leverage to maintain its regime as it confronts the South’s economic power,” said Moon Sung Muk of the Korea Research Institute of Strategies (KRIS).

In fact, there are few signs of changes. North Korea has conducted a series of rocket launches, as well as three nuclear tests – all in defiance of the U.S. sanctions that are partially drying up channels for North Korea’s weapons trade.

Amid recent escalating tension between Washington and Pyeongyang over additional sanctions, activities at the 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor in North Korea which produces nuclear bomb fuel are being closely watched to monitor whether the North may restart the reactor.

In the meantime, South Korea has been denying the official supply of food and fertilisers to North Korea under the South Korean conservative regimes that started in 2008.

During the liberal regime of 2004-2007, South Korea was the biggest donor of food and fertilisers to North Korea.

Then there appeared to be a glimmer of hope when North Korea’s enigmatic young leader Kim Jong Un presented a rare gesture of reconciliation towards South Korea in his 2015 New Year’s speech broadcast on Korean Central Television on Jan. 1.

“North and South should no longer waste time and efforts in (trying to resolve) meaningless disputes and insignificant problems,” he said. “Instead, we both should write a new history of both Koreas … There should be dialogue between two Koreas so that we can re-bridge the bond that was cut off and bring about breakthrough changes.”

In his speech, the North Korean leader even went as far as suggesting a ‘highest-level meeting’ with the South Korean president. “If the South is in a position to improve inter-Korean relations through dialogue, we can resume high-level contacts. Also, depending on some circumstances and atmospheres, there is no reason we cannot have the highest-level meeting (with the South).”

In South Korea, hopes for possible inter-Korean talks have been subdued. “What North Korea wants from dialogue with the South is not to talk about nuclear or human rights, but to have the South resume economic aid,” said Lee Yun Gol, director of the state-run North Korea Strategic Information Centre (NKSIS).

The government in Seoul remains cautious about Pyongyang’s peace initiatives. “We are seeing little hope for any rosy future in inter-Korean relationships in the near future, although we are working on how to prepare for the vision of ‘daebak‘,” said Ryu Gil Jae, South Korean reunification minister, in a Feb. 4 press conference.

North Korean observers have said that economic difficulties have been pushing the North Korean government to relax its tight state control over farm private ownership. North Korean farmers can now sell some of their products in markets nationwide, in a gradual shift towards privatised markets.

Further, according to Chinese diplomatic academic publication ‘Segye Jisik’ (세계 지식), quoted by the South Korean news agency Yonhap News, the North Korean economy has improved since its new leader took office in 2012. From a 1.08 million ton deficit in stocks to feed the 20 million North Koreans in 2011, the deficit now stands at 340,000 tons.

According to observers, this report, if true, could send the signal that if North Korea is economically better off, it may be politically willing to reduce its dependence on the nuclear card in any bargaining process with South Korea.

U.S. sanctions have been used in the attempt to force North Korea to denuclearise, thus restricting North Korea’s trade, and the U.S. government levied new sanctions against North Korea on Jan. 2 this year in response to a cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment. The FBI accused North Korea of the attack in apparent retaliation for the film, The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

But, while sanctions may work in troubling ordinary North Koreans concerned with meeting basic food needs, they have little impact on the North Korean government. “North Korea’s trade with China has become more prosperous and most of North Korea’s deals with foreign partners are behind-the-scene deals,” said Hong Hyun Ik, senior researcher at the Sejong Research Institute.

And, in response to the threat that it may be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), on the basis of U.N. findings on human rights, Kim Jong Un reiterated: “Our thought and regime will never be shaken.”

South Korea may now stand as the only hope for North Korea, as the United States and the United Nations gather to turn tough against the country over the human rights issue, and South Korea may find itself faced with a ‘two-track’ diplomacy between the hard-liner United States and its sympathy for the North Korean people.

In past decades, North Korea has usually played out a game with the United States and South Korea. “In recent year, the United States has been using ‘stick diplomacy’ against the North Korea, while South Korea may want to shift to ‘carrot diplomacy’,” said Moon Sung Muk of the Korea Research Institute of Strategies (KRIS).

“The Seoul government knows that the pace of getting closer to the North should be constrained by U.N. or U.S. moves,” Moon added.

Edited by Phil Harris    

By Frederic Mousseau
OAKLAND, United States, Jan 27 2015 (IPS)

At the same time as the United States, Canada and the European Union announced a set of new sanctions against Russia in mid-December last year, Ukraine received 350 million dollars in U.S. military aid, coming on top of a one billion dollar aid package approved by the U.S. Congress in March 2014. 

Western governments’ further involvement in the Ukraine conflict signals their confidence in the cabinet appointed by the new government earlier in December 2014. This new government is unique given that three of its most important ministries were granted to foreign-born individuals who received Ukrainian citizenship just hours before their appointment.

Frédéric Mousseau

The Ministry of Finance went to Natalie Jaresko, a U.S.-born and educated businesswoman who has been working in Ukraine since the mid-1990s, overseeing a private equity fund established by the U.S. government to invest in the country. Jaresko is also the CEO of Horizon Capital, an investment firm that administers various Western investments in the country.

As unusual as it may seem, this appointment is consistent with what looks more like a takeover of the Ukrainian economy by Western interests. In two reports – The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture and Walking on the West Side: The World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict – the Oakland Institute has documented this takeover, particularly in the agricultural sector.

A major factor in the crisis that led to deadly protests and eventually to president Viktor Yanukovych’s removal from office in February 2014 was his rejection of a European Union (EU) Association agreement aimed at expanding trade and integrating Ukraine with the
EU – an agreement that was tied to a 17 billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

After the president’s departure and the installation of a pro-Western government, the IMF initiated a reform programme that was a condition of its loan with the goal of increasing private investment in the country.“The manoeuvring for control over the country’s [Ukraine’s] agricultural system is a pivotal factor in the struggle that has been taking place over the last year in the greatest East-West confrontation since the Cold War”

The package of measures includes reforming the public provision of water and energy, and, more important, attempts to address what the World Bank identified as the “structural roots” of the current economic crisis in Ukraine, notably the high cost of doing business in the country.

The Ukrainian agricultural sector has been a prime target for foreign private investment and is logically seen by the IMF and World Bank as a priority sector for reform. Both institutions praise the new government’s readiness to follow their advice.

For example, the foreign-driven agricultural reform roadmap provided to Ukraine includes facilitating the acquisition of agricultural land, cutting food and plant regulations and controls, and reducing corporate taxes and custom duties.

The stakes around Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector – the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat – could not be higher. Ukraine is known for its ample fields of rich black soil, and the country boasts more than 32 million hectares of fertile, arable land – the equivalent of one-third of the entire arable land in the European Union.

The manoeuvring for control over the country’s agricultural system is a pivotal factor in the struggle that has been taking place over the last year in the greatest East-West confrontation since the Cold War.

The presence of foreign corporations in Ukrainian agriculture is growing quickly, with more than 1.6 million hectares signed over to foreign companies for agricultural purposes in recent years. While Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont have been in Ukraine for quite some time, their investments in the country have grown significantly over the past few years.

Cargill is involved in the sale of pesticides, seeds and fertilisers and has recently expanded its agricultural investments to include grain storage, animal nutrition and a stake in UkrLandFarming, the largest agribusiness in the country.

Similarly, Monsanto has been in Ukraine for years but has doubled the size of its team over the last three years. In March 2014, just weeks after Yanukovych was deposed, the company invested 140 million dollars in building a new seed plant in Ukraine.

DuPont has also expanded its investments and announced in June 2013 that it too would be investing in a new seed plant in the country.

Western corporations have not just taken control of certain profitable agribusinesses and agricultural activities, they have now initiated a vertical integration of the agricultural sector and extended their grip on infrastructure and shipping.

For instance, Cargill now owns at least four grain elevators and two sunflower seed processing plants used for the production of sunflower oil. In December 2013, the company bought a “25% +1 share” in a grain terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk with a capacity of 3.5 million tons of grain per year. 

All aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural supply chain – from the production of seeds and other agricultural inputs to the actual shipment of commodities out of the country – are thus increasingly controlled by Western firms.

European institutions and the U.S. government have actively promoted this expansion. It started with the push for a change of government at a time when president Yanukovych was seen as pro-Russian interests. This was further pushed, starting in February 2014, through the promotion of a “pro-business” reform agenda, as described by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker when she met with Prime Minister Arsenly Yatsenyuk in October 2014.

The European Union and the United States are working hand in hand in the takeover of Ukrainian agriculture. Although Ukraine does not allow the production of genetically modified (GM) crops, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, which ignited the conflict that ousted Yanukovych, includes a clause (Article 404) that commits both parties to cooperate to “extend the use of biotechnologies” within the country.

This clause is surprising given that most European consumers reject GM crops. However, it creates an opening to bring GM products into Europe, an opportunity sought after by large agro-seed companies such as Monsanto.

Opening up Ukraine to the cultivation of GM crops would go against the will of European citizens, and it is unclear how the change would benefit Ukrainians.

It is similarly unclear how Ukrainians will benefit from this wave of foreign investment in their agriculture, and what impact these investments will have on the seven million local farmers.

Once they eventually look away from the conflict in the Eastern “pro-Russian” part of the country, Ukrainians may wonder what remains of their country’s ability to control its food supply and manage the economy to their own benefit.

As for U.S. and European citizens, will they eventually awaken from the headlines and grand rhetoric about Russian aggression and human rights abuses and question their governments’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2015. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Jan 23 2015 (IPS)

While it’s anyone’s guess whether a final deal will be reached over Iran’s nuclear programme this year, a number of key international actors have forcefully weighed in on calls from within the U.S. congress to impose more sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

President Barack Obama reiterated his threat to veto new Iran-related sanctions bills while talks are in progress during his State of the Union (SOTU) address this week.There’s no guarantee at this point whether the bills at the centre of the battle will garner the veto-proof majority necessary to become legislation.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said Jan. 20 in his second to last SOTU. “New sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails—alienating America from its allies; and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear programme again.”

The administration’s call to “give diplomacy with Iran a chance” was echoed a day later by key members of the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China plus Germany), which is negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme, through an op-ed in the Washington Post.

“…[I]ntroducing new hurdles at this critical stage of the negotiations, including through additional nuclear-related sanctions legislation on Iran, would jeopardize our efforts at a critical juncture,” wrote Laurent Fabius (France), Philip Hammond (U.K.), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany) and Federica Mogherini (EU) on Jan. 21.

“New sanctions at this moment might also fracture the international coalition that has made sanctions so effective so far,” they continued. “Rather than strengthening our negotiating position, new sanctions legislation at this point would set us back.”

Last week, during a joint press conference with Obama at the White House, the U.K.’s Prime Minister David Cameron admitted he had contacted members of the U.S. Senate to urge against more sanctions on Iran at this time.

“[Y]es, I have contacted a couple of senators this morning and I may speak to one or two more this afternoon,” he told reporters on Jan. 16.

“[I]t’s the opinion of the United Kingdom that further sanctions or further threat of sanctions at this point won’t actually help to bring the talks to a successful conclusion and they could fracture the international unity that there’s been, which has been so valuable in presenting a united front to Iran,” said Cameron.

In what has been widely perceived by analysts as a rebuff to Obama’s Iran policy, reports surfaced the day after Obama’s SOTU that the House of Representatives Speaker John A. Boehner had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has made no secret of his opposition to Obama’s approach to Iran—to address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 11.

Netanyahu accepted the invitation, but changed the date to Mar. 3, when he would be visiting Washington for a conference hosted by the prominent Israel lobby group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The invite, which was not coordinated with the White House, clearly surprised the Obama administration, which said it would not be receiving the Israeli prime minister while he is in town, citing a policy against receiving foreign leaders close to election dates (the Israeli election will be in March).

While Netanyahu has long recommended hard-line positions on what a final deal over nuclear program should entail—including “non-starters” such as zero-percent uranium enrichment on Iranian soil—he cannot be faulted for accepting the speaker’s invitation, according to the U.S.’s former ambassador to NATO, Robert E. Hunter, who told IPS: “If there is fault, it lies with the Speaker of the House.”

“If the Netanyahu visit, with its underscoring of the political potency of the Israeli lobby on Capitol Hill, is successful in ensuring veto-proof support in the Senate for overriding the threatened Obama veto of sanctions legislation, that would saddle Boehner and company with shared responsibility not only for the possible collapse of the nuclear talks…but also for the increased chances of war with Iran,” he said.

But there’s no guarantee at this point whether the bills at the centre of the battle—authored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Bob Menendez, and another by the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker—will garner the veto-proof majority necessary to become legislation.

With the support of the Democratic leadership in Congress, the administration has so far successfully prevented the Kirk-Menendez bill from coming to the floor since it was introduced in 2013.

A growing number of current and former high-level officials have also voiced opposition to more sanctions at this time.

“Israeli intelligence has told the U.S. that rolling out new sanctions against Iran would amount to ‘throwing a grenade’ into the negotiations process,” Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News on Jan. 21.

“Why would we want to be the catalyst for the collapse of negotiations before we really know whether there is something we can get out of them?” asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week after opposing new sanctions during a forum in Winnipeg, Canada.

“We believe that new sanctions are not needed at this time,” the Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen told the Wall Street Journal this week.

“To the contrary, new sanctions at this time, even with a delayed trigger, are more likely to undermine, rather than enhance, the chances of achieving a comprehensive agreement,” he said.

While the battle isn’t over yet, in the wake of Obama’s veto threat and Boehner’s invitation to Bibi, even some of the Democratic co-sponsors of the original Kirk-Menendez bill appear to be moving in the White House’s direction.

“I’m considering very seriously the very cogent points that [Obama’s] made in favour of delaying any congressional action,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told Politico.

“I’m talking to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. And I think they are thinking, and rethinking, their positions in light of the points that the president and his team are making to us,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

By Christine Ahn and Suzy Kim
HONOLULU, Dec 2 2014 (IPS)

On Nov. 18, a committee of the United Nations General Assembly voted 111 to 19, with 55 abstentions, in favour of drafting a non-binding resolution referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Christine Ahn

While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea’s human rights crisis."While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea's human rights crisis"

After claiming up to four million lives with at least one member of every family in North Korea killed by the war, the Korean War was halted by an armistice agreement signed by North Korea, China and the United States representing the United Nations Command.

Suzy Kim

As James Laney, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea during the 1990s explains, “one of the things that have bedevilled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War” and he prescribes the “establishment of a peace treaty to replace the truce.”

What does the past have to do with the present state of human rights in North Korea?

The continued state of war affects the human rights of North Korean people today in at least two ways. Domestically, the North Korean government prioritises military defence and national security over human security and political freedoms. Internationally, North Koreans suffer due to political isolation and economic sanctions.

The fact that the Korean War ended with a temporary ceasefire rather than a permanent peace treaty gives the North Korean government justification – whether we like it or not – to invest heavily in the country’s militarisation.

According to the South Korean government’s Institute of Defense Analyses, North Korea invests approximately 8.7 billion dollars – or one-third of its GDP – on defence.

Pyongyang even acknowledged last year how the un-ended war has forced it “to divert large human and material resources to bolstering up the armed forces though they should have been directed to the economic development and improvement of people’s living standards.”

Since military intervention is not an option, the Barack Obama administration has used sanctions to pressure North Korea to denuclearise. Instead, North Korea has since conducted three nuclear tests, calling sanctions “an act of war”.

That is because sanctions have had deleterious effects on the day-to-day lives of ordinary North Korean people. “In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his last visit to North Korea.

International sanctions have made it extremely difficult for North Koreans to access basic necessities, such as food, seeds, medicine and technology. Felix Abt, a Swiss entrepreneur who has conducted business in North Korea for over a decade says that it is “the most heavily sanctioned nation in the world, and no other people have had to deal with the massive quarantines that Western and Asian powers have enclosed around its economy.” 

Whether in Pyongyang, Seoul or Washington, the threat of war or terrorism has been used to justify government repression and overreach, such as warrantless surveillance, imprisonment and torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) in the name of preserving national security.

In South Korea, one of the liberal opposition parties, the Unified Progressive Party, is currently on trial in the Constitutional Court on charges made by the Park Geun-hye government that its members conspired with North Korea to overthrow the South Korean government.

Amnesty International says that this case “has seriously damaged the human rights improvement of South Korean society which has struggled and fought for freedom of thoughts and conscience and freedom of expression.”

In the coming days, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether the U.N. Security Council should refer North Korea to the ICC, although it is likely to be vetoed by China and Russia. The United Nations vote, while lofty in principle, actually serves to further isolate Pyongyang, which will likely retreat even further behind its iron curtain.

“We’ve said from day one that if North Korea wants to rejoin the community of nations, it knows how to do it,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said, referring to the precondition of denuclearisation for talks.

Instead of relying on the failed Washington policy of “strategic patience” it is time for a bold move that will truly bring North Korea into the community of nations, leaving no excuse to delay addressing human rights – sign a peace treaty to end the state of war. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

E3/EU+3 nuclear talks, Vienna - July 2014. Credit: EEAS/cc by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 25 2014 (IPS)

Buoyed by the failure of the U.S. and five other powers to reach a comprehensive agreement with Iran over its nuclear programme after a week of intensive talks, pro-Israel and Republican hawks are calling for Washington to ramp up economic pressure on Tehran even while talks continue, and to give Congress a veto on any final accord.

“We have supported the economic sanctions, passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, in addition to sanctions placed on Iran by the international community,” Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte, three of the Republican’s leading hawks, said in a statement released shortly after the announcement in Vienna that the one-year-old interim accord between the so-called P5+1 and Iran will be extended until Jul. 1 while negotiations continue.Most Iran specialists here believe that any new sanctions legislation will likely sabotage the talks, fracture the P5+1, and thus undermine the international sanctions regime against Iran.

“These sanctions have had a negative impact on the Iranian economy and are one of the chief reasons the Iranians are now at the negotiating table,” the three senators went on.

“However, we believe this latest extension of talks should be coupled with increased sanctions and a requirement that any final deal between Iran and the United States be sent to Congress for approval. Every Member of Congress should have the opportunity to review the final deal and vote on this major foreign policy decision.”

Their statement was echoed in part by at least one of the likely Republican candidates for president in 2016.

“From the outcome of this latest round, it also appears that Iran’s leadership remains unwilling to give up their nuclear ambitions,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a favourite of pro-Israel neo-conservatives.

“None of this will change in the coming months unless we return to the pressure track that originally brought Iran to the table.”

At the same time, however, senior Democrats expressed disappointment that a more comprehensive agreement had not been reached but defended the decision to extend the Nov. 24, 2013 Joint Programme of Action (JPOA) between the P5+1 — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany – and Iran – an additional seven months, until Jul. 1.

Echoing remarks made earlier by Secretary of State John Kerry, who has held eight meetings with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, over the past week, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein noted that “Iran has lived up to its obligations under the interim agreement and its nuclear programme has not only been frozen, it has been reversed. Today, Iran is further away from acquiring a nuclear weapon than before negotiations began.

“I urge my colleagues in Washington to be patient, carefully evaluate the progress achieved thus far and provide U.S. negotiators the time and space they need to succeed. A collapse of the talks is counter to U.S. interests and would further destabilise an already-volatile region,” she said in a statement.

The back and forth in Washington came in the wake of Kerry’s statement at the conclusion of intensive talks in Vienna. Hopes for a permanent accord that would limit Iran’s nuclear activities for a period of some years in exchange for the lifting of U.S. and international sanctions against Tehran rose substantially in the course of the week only to fall sharply Sunday when Western negotiators, in particular, spoke for the first time of extending the JPOA instead of concluding a larger agreement.

Neither Kerry nor the parties, who have been exceptionally tight-lipped about the specifics of the negotiations, disclosed what had occurred to change the optimistic tenor of the talks.

Kerry insisted Monday that this latest round had made “real and substantial progress” but that “significant points of disagreement” remain unresolved.

Most analysts believe the gaps involved include the size and scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme – specifically, the number of centrifuges it will be permitted to operate — and the number of years the programme will be subject to extraordinary curbs and international inspections.

Kerry appealed to Congress to not to act in a way that could sabotage the extension of the JPOA – under which Iran agreed to partially roll back its nuclear programme in exchange for an easing of some sanctions – or prospects for a successful negotiation.

“I hope they will come to see the wisdom of leaving us the equilibrium for a few months to be able to proceed without sending messages that might be misinterpreted and cause miscalculation,” he said. “We would be fools to walk away.”

The aim, he said, was to reach a broad framework accord by March and then work out the details by the Jul. 1 deadline. The JPOA was agreed last Nov. 24 but the specific details of its implementation were not worked out until the latter half of January.

Whether his appeal for patience will work in the coming months remains to be seen. Republicans, who, with a few exceptions, favoured new sanctions against Iran even after the JPOA was signed, gained nine seats in the Senate and will control both houses in the new Congress when it convenes in January.

If Congress approves new sanctions legislation, as favoured by McCain, Rubio, and other hawks, President Barack Obama could veto it. To sustain the veto, however, he have to keep at least two thirds of the 40-some Democrats in the upper chamber in line.

That could pose a problem given the continuing influence of the Israel lobby within the Democratic Party.

Indeed, the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, Robert Menendez, who reluctantly tabled a sanctions effort earlier this year, asserted Monday that the administration’s efforts “had not succeeded” and suggested that he would support a “two-track approach of diplomacy and pressure” in the coming period.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading Israel lobby group, also called Monday for “new bipartisan sanctions legislation to let Tehran know that it will face much more severe pressure if it does not clearly abandon its nuclear weapons program.”

Its message echoed that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who had reportedly personally lobbied each of the P5+1’s leaders over the weekend, and who, even before the extension was officially announced, expressed relief at the failure to reach a comprehensive accord against which he has been campaigning non-stop over the past year.

“The agreement that Iran was aiming for was very bad indeed,” he told BBC, adding that “the fact that there’s no deal now gives [world powers] the opportunity to continue …to toughen [economic pressures] against Iran.”

The Iran task force of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), co-chaired by Dennis Ross, who held the Iran portfolio at the White House during part of Obama’s first term, said, in addition to increasing economic pressure, Washington should provide weaponry to Israel that would make its threats to attack Iran more credible.

The hard-line neo-conservative Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) said Congress should not only pass new sanctions legislation, but strip Obama’s authority to waive sanctions.

“There’s no point waiting seven months for either another failure or a truly terrible deal,” ECI, which helped fund several Republican Senate campaigns this fall, said.

“Congress should act now to reimpose sanctions and re-establish U.S. red lines that will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. To that end, such legislation must limit the president’s authority to waive sanctions, an authority the president has already signaled a willingness to abuse in his desperate quest for a deal with the mullahs.”

Most Iran specialists here believe that any new sanctions legislation will likely sabotage the talks, fracture the P5+1, and thus undermine the international sanctions regime against Iran, strengthen hard-liners in Tehran who oppose accommodation and favour accelerating the nuclear programme.

“The worst scenario for U.S. interests is one in which Congress overwhelmingly passes new sanctions, Iran resumes its nuclear activities, and international unity unravels,” wrote Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on the Wall Street Journal website Monday.

“Such an outcome would force the United States to revisit the possibility of another military conflict in the Middle East.”

Such arguments, which the administration is also expected to deploy, could not only keep most Democratic senators in line, but may also persuade some Republicans worried about any new military commitment in the Middle East.

Sen. Bob Corker, who will likely chair the Foreign Relations Committee in the new Congress, issued a cautious statement Monday, suggesting that he was willing to give the administration more time. Tougher sanctions, he said, could be prepared “should negotiations fail.”

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com. He can be contacted at ipsnoram@ips.org

Edited by Kitty Stapp

With both countries' flags placed side by side, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits across from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria, on Jul. 13, 2014, before beginning a bilateral meeting focused on Iran's nuclear programme. Credit: State Department

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Nov 18 2014 (IPS)

In the United States, the negotiations aimed at a final deal between world powers and Iran over its nuclear programme—in a crucial phase this week—are far from the minds of average people. But for many Iranians, the talks hold the promise of a better future.

“I really hope for a fair agreement,” Ahoora Rostamian, a 30-year-old financial engineer living in the Iranian city of Isfahan, told IPS in a telephone interview.“I have seen broad support and trust for [lead Iranian negotiator] Javad Zarif among the people…he may well be the most popular politician in Iran.” -- Adnan Tabatabai

“It is very important both economically and politically…(A)lmost all sectors of industry are affected by the sanctions, and only the people, not the government, are paying the price,” he said.

From the capital city of Tehran, Mohammad Shirkavand, who expects a final deal to be signed by the Nov. 24 deadline, said it would “alleviate tensions and allow Westerners to get to know the real Iran.”

“Iran has been developing even under a massive sanctions regime, but when there is a final nuclear deal, the situation will be much better,” said the mechanical engineer and tour guide.

“People are indeed very hopeful,” Adnan Tabatabai, a Berlin-based analyst who regularly travels to Iran, told IPS. “I have seen broad support and trust for [lead Iranian negotiator] Javad Zarif among the people…he may well be the most popular politician in Iran.”

Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China, plus Germany) began a marathon round of meetings Nov. 18 in Vienna aimed at achieving a final deal by next Monday.

That would mark the one-year anniversary of the signing in Geneva of the interim Joint Plan of Action, which halted Iran’s nuclear programme from further expansion in exchange for moderate sanctions relief.

All of the officials involved in the negotiation have insisted that a comprehensive agreement remains possible by the self-imposed deadline.

But three days of talks last week in Oman—which hosted initially the secret U.S.-Iran meetings in March 2013 that paved the way for unprecedented levels of bilateral exchanges—concluded without a breakthrough.

“The Iranian team went back to Tehran with new ideas from Oman and will have a chance to respond to them in Vienna,” Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association, told IPS.

“There’s still a week left, and that’s a lot of time on the diplomatic clock,” said Davenport, who closely monitors Iran’s nuclear programme. “The negotiators are committed to reaching a deal by the deadline, and it’s still possible.”

The details of the negotiations remain secret, but leaked comments to the press suggest that while the negotiators are close to a deal, they remain stuck on the size and scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme as well as the terms of the sanctions relief that would result from a final deal.

Iran wants to maintain enough centrifuges and other nuclear infrastructure to be self-reliant and reach industrial-scale production for what they insist is a civil nuclear programme by 2021. But the U.S. and its allies want Iran to significantly scale back its current operations.

The failure to sign a deal so far has left some in Iran feeling hopeless—though not about their negotiating team’s ability to push for the best deal.

“I am not very optimistic about a final deal because if the P5+1 were seriously determined to reach a deal they could have achieved that by now,” said Sadeghi, a 29-year-old student also from Isfahan. “They have previously proven that what they’re seeking is halting Iran’s peaceful nuclear activity, not a genuine deal.”

Back in Tehran, Sobhan Hassanvand, a journalist who closely monitors the talks for Shargh, a reformist newspaper, told IPS he expects at least a partial deal by the end of the month.

“On both sides there are rational people who want the deal… Both sides have shown some flexibility, and tried to fight hardliners,” he said.

“They have gotten this far, and the final steps can be breathtaking…I am hopeful and optimistic,” added Hassanvand.

The negotiating teams from both the U.S. and Iran, led by Acting Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, respectively, face tough domestic opposition, with powerful adversaries working hard to get their demands onto the negotiating table.

Before the end of this week, committees in the U.S. House and Senate—both of which will be controlled by Republicans as of January—will hold a series of hearings focused on the alleged dangers of a “bad deal”.

Activist groups—both for and against diplomacy with Iran—have also scheduled briefings for Congressional staffers and reporters in the run-up to Nov. 24.

“There are some members of Congress who oppose a diplomatic solution with Iran,” Davenport told IPS. “Many of them are pushing for more stringent sanctions, but that will only drive Iran away from table and lead both sides down the path of escalation.

“But the majority of Congress needs to consider the alternative to a diplomatic resolution…if we don’t achieve a deal we could easily go down the path of another war in the Middle East,” she said.

U.S. President Barack Obama has also received strong criticism for allegedly sending a secret letter last month to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that “appeared aimed at buttressing the campaign against the Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal,” according to a Nov. 6 report in the Wall Street Journal.

Though the content of the reported letter has not been officially revealed, some U.S. Republican and hawkish Democratic politicians, as well as Israeli officials, described it as evidence of Obama’s desperation for a deal, particularly in light of the need for Iran’s cooperation in Washington’s efforts to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile in Iran, the country’s ultimate decision-maker, Ayatollah Khamenei, once again expressed support last week for the country’s negotiating team through speeches and his Twitter account.

But he has also consistently expressed doubt about the Obama administration’s sincerity and its ability to negotiate for a fair deal, insisting that Washington is ruled by the Israeli government, which has made no secret of its opposition to Obama’s approach.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also been the target of political grumblings by domestic powerbrokers for his handling of the nuclear issue. But last week saw many of his critics directing their distrust at the United States.

“In the nuclear debate, our key point is that we have complete trust with respect to the negotiating team, but this point must not be missed, that our opposing side is a fraud and a liar,” said Mohammad Hossein Nejatand, a commander of the revolutionary guards, on Nov. 14.

“Instead of writing letters, Obama should demonstrate his goodwill,” said Ayatollah Movahedi-Kermani during Friday prayers in Tehran.

Iranians meanwhile appear generally confident about their negotiating team’s strategy.

“They are doing a good job…The problem is (that) the other side is not looking for a “deal,” but for Iran to give up,” said Sadeghi.

Tabatabai said Iranians were more likely to blame the U.S. than their own government if no deal is concluded.

“In that case people may conclude that whether Iran’s foreign policy is provocative or reconciliatory, the isolation and demonisation of their country will prevail,” he said.

“This is exactly the main argument of opponents of a deal in Tehran,” he added. “In their view, hostility towards Iran is a given—and if it’s not channeled through the nuclear file, another issue will be used to maintain enmity with Iran.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

By Robert E. Hunter
WASHINGTON, Nov 18 2014 (IPS)

Nov. 24 is the deadline for six world powers and Iran to reach a final deal over its nuclear programme. If there is no deal, then the talks are likely to be extended, not abandoned.

But as I learned from more than three decades’ work on Middle East issues, in and out of the U.S. government, success also depends on Israel no longer believing that it needs a regional enemy shared in common with the United States to ensure Washington’s commitment to its security.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they walk across the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Mar. 20, 2013. Credit: White House Photo, Pete Souza

Much is at stake in the negotiations with Iran in Vienna, notably the potential removal of the risk of war over its nuclear programme and the removal of any legitimate basis for Israel’s fear that it could become the target of an Iranian bomb.

Success could also begin Iran’s reintegration into the international community, ending its lengthy quarantine. If President Barack Obama and his national security officials get their way, including the Pentagon—hardly a group of softies—a comprehensive final accord would be a good deal for U.S. national security and, in the American analysis, for Israel’s security as well.

Yet more is at issue for Israel, and for the Persian Gulf Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. They want to keep Iran in purdah.

Indeed, since the Iranian Revolution ran out of steam outside its borders, the essential questions about the challenge Iran poses have been the following: Will it be able to compete for power and position in the region, and, how can Iran’s competition be dealt with?

The first response, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is to decry whatever might be agreed to in the talks, no matter how objectively good the results would be for everyone’s security. He has the Saudis and other Arab states as silent partners.

Between them, the Israeli and oil lobbies command a lot of attention in the U.S. Congress, a large part of whose members would otherwise accept that President Obama’s standard for an agreement meets the tests of both U.S. security and the security of its partners in the Middle East.

But a large fraction of Congress is no more willing to take on these two potent lobbies than the National Rifle Association.

Netanyahu will also do all he can to prevent the relaxation of any of the sanctions imposed on Iran. But even if he and his U.S. supporters succeed on Capitol Hill, President Obama can on his own suspend some of those sanctions—though exactly how much is being debated.

The U.S. does not have the last word on sanctions, however. The moment there is a final agreement, the floodgates of economic trade and investment with Iran will open. Europeans, in particular, are lined up with their order books, like Americans in 1889 who awaited the starter’s pistol to begin the Oklahoma land rush.

In response, U.S. private industry will ride up Capitol Hill to demand the relaxation of U.S.-mandated sanctions. Meanwhile, the sighs of relief resounding throughout the world will begin changing the international political climate concerning Iran.

Yet America’s concerns will not cease. While the U.S. and Iran have similar interests in opposing the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), and in wanting to see Afghanistan free from reconquest by of the Taliban, they are still far apart on other matters, notably the Assad regime in Syria, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas.

President Obama will also have an immediate problem in reassuring Israel and Gulf Arab states that American commitments to their security are sincere. To be sure, absent an Iranian nuclear weapon, there is no real Iranian military threat and all the Western weapons pumped into the Persian Gulf are thus essentially useless.

Iran’s real challenges emanate from its dynamic domestic economy, a highly educated, entrepreneurial culture that is matched in the region only by Israelis and Palestinians, and a good deal of cultural appeal even beyond Shi’a communities.

Obama thus faces a special problem in reassuring Israel, a problem that goes back decades. When the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was signed in 1979, the risks of a major Arab attack on Israel sank virtually to zero. So, too, did the risk of an Arab-Israeli conflict escalating to the level of a U.S.-Soviet confrontation. All at once, U.S. and Israeli strategic concerns were no longer obviously linked.

Thus as soon as Israel withdrew from the Sinai in May 1979, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin started searching for an alternative basis for linking American and Israeli strategic interests.

For him and for many other Israelis, then and now, it is not enough that the American people are firmly committed to Israel’s security for what could be called “sentimental” reasons: bonds of history (especially memories of the Holocaust), culture, religion, and the values of Western democracy.

But such “sentiment” is the strongest motivation for all U.S. commitments, a far stronger glue than strategic calculations that can and often do change, a fact that could be testified to by the people of South Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Yet for Begin and others, there had to be at least a strong similarity of strategic interests. Thus, in a meeting with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance the day after Egypt retook possession of the Sinai, Begin complained that the US had cancelled its “strategic dialogue” with Israel. Vance tasked me, as the National Security Council staff representative on his travelling team, to find out “what the heck Begin is talking about.”

I phoned Washington and got the skinny: the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment had been conducting a low-level dialogue with some Israeli military officers. Proving to be of little value, it was stopped.

The reason for Begin’s outburst thus became clear: in the absence of the strategic tie with the United States that had been provided by the conflict with Egypt, Israel needed something else, in effect, a common enemy.

That’s why many Israeli political stakeholders were ambivalent about the George W. Bush administration’s ambitions to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein: with his overthrow, a potential though remote threat to Israel would be removed, but so would the perception of a common enemy. Since Saddam’s ousting, Iran has gained even more importance for Israel as a means of linking Jerusalem’s strategic perceptions with those of Washington.

By the same political logic, Israel has always asserted that it is a strategic asset for the United States. As part of recognising Israel’s psychological needs, no U.S. official ever publicly challenges that Israeli assertion regardless of what they think in private or however much damage the U.S. might suffer politically in the region because of Israeli activities, including the building of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

So what must Obama do in order to eliminate the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon, while also reassuring Israel of US fealty? On one side, to be able to honour an agreement with Iran, Obama has to undercut Netanyahu’s efforts with Congress to prevent any sanctions relief.

On the other side, he could reassure Israel through the classic means of buttressing the flow of arms, including the anti-missile capabilities of the Iron Dome that were so useful to Israel during the recent fighting in Gaza.

Israel would want even closer strategic cooperation with the U.S., including consultations on the full range of U.S. thinking and planning on all relevant issues in the Middle East. Israel (at least Netanyahu) would also want any notion of further negotiations with the Palestinians, and the relaxation of economic pressures on Gaza, put into the deep freeze—where, in effect, they already are.

Israel has an inherent, sovereign right to defend itself and to make, for and by itself, calculations about what that means. (The country is not unified, however: a surprising number of former leaders of the Israeli military and security agencies have publicly differed with Netanyahu’s pessimistic assessments of the Iranian threat).

As Israel’s only real friend in the world, the United States continues to have an obligation, within reason, to reassure Israel about its security and safety.

For Obama, this reassurance to Israel is a price worth paying in the event of a deal, which would be at least one step in trying to build security and stability in an increasingly turbulent Middle East. But that can only happen if Israel refrains from obstructing Obama’s effort to make everyone, including Israel, more secure.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

By Emma Bonino
ROME, Nov 17 2014 (IPS)

In just a few days, a meeting is scheduled that will be decisive for the security of the Middle East and of the whole world.

Nov. 24 is the deadline for final negotiations between high representatives of six world powers and Iran seeking to reach a comprehensive agreement on the development of the Iranian nuclear programme.

Emma Bonino

The six powers include three European countries (Germany, United Kingdom and France) as well as China, the United States and Russia. This negotiating group is known in Europe as E3+3.

The interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme signed in November 2013 delivered the E3+3’s most substantial guarantees to date, instituting rigorous supervision of the Iranian nuclear programme while limiting and reducing its production of enriched uranium. Since then progress has been made at several talks and the deadline for their conclusion has been set for Nov. 24.

It is hoped that agreement will be reached on the remaining difficult issues and that the foundations for a final agreement will be laid. If this does not happen, it is feared that further postponement may provide more opportunities for those opposed to diplomatic means to derail the process.

This would be a serious reverse when so much progress has been made, creative technical solutions have been proposed, and an agreement is within reach that would peacefully and effectively address the concerns of the E3+3 about proliferation in regard to Iranian nuclear plans, as well as respect Iran’s legitimate aspirations to develop atomic energy for civilian use, and its sovereignty.“An agreement [on Iran’s nuclear programme] must also renew the West’s commitment to Iran by opening up new options in the pursuit of regional interests that partly coincide, at a time when Europeans are once more militarily engaged at Iran’s gates”

The European countries have invested vast resources to attain this stage of the negotiations, enforcing unprecedented economic sanctions against Iran as well as shouldering the consequences on the regional scale of maintaining Tehran in isolation.

Europe must use the little time it has left to encourage the negotiating parties to resolve the pending issues by making reasonable concessions, while at the same time avoiding matters that are not essential to a good accord. The Europeans should also work alongside the U.S. government to allay the fears of regional allies sceptical about the long-term strategic benefits of a definitive nuclear pact.

The cost of failure, in economic and security terms, is incalculable.

Failure would probably result in an unrestricted or timidly supervised Iranian nuclear programme, without robust verification to prevent its possible diversion for military purposes.

A negative outcome would foreseeably lead to intensification of sanctions and the isolation of Iran, which could in turn be a stronger incentive for Tehran to try to develop nuclear weapons. This would further undermine Western interests and create an increasingly explosive dead-end situation in military terms.

The costs to Iran of failure, in economic and security terms, are incalculable.

Some of those opposed to an agreement, who can be found in either negotiating party, may wish for consequences of this nature. But responsible leaders should not share this attitude.

If a definitive pact is forged, the E3+3 will establish the truly historic precedent of safeguarding global security through containment of Iran’s capability to develop nuclear weapons. 

A final agreement would also strengthen trust and create the necessary political space for the European Union to engage Iran again in human rights dialogue of the kind that took place in the past, which makes so much sense and is so badly needed now.

Crucially, an agreement must also renew the West’s commitment to Iran by opening up new options in the pursuit of regional interests that partly coincide, at a time when Europeans are once more militarily engaged at Iran’s gates and when cooperation on at least partially shared interests seems possible and necessary, without ignoring the many circumstances in which Iranian and Western interests continue to diverge.

Iran and the E3+3 are closer than ever to resolving the nuclear question.

Non-proliferation, global and regional security and the pacification of conflict hotspots in the Middle East, as well as the exemplary effect of multilateral diplomacy during these convulsed times, would without exception benefit significantly from a firm and fair agreement.

All the parties have the option of distancing themselves from a nuclear agreement, but if they do so it will be in the knowledge that the alternatives are far worse, and that they ought to pay heed to their own best strategic interests. They should all know, also, that there may never be another opportunity like this one to close a definitive nuclear deal. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Independence Square in Kiev. In the aftermath of the revolution Ukraine now faces a difficult path to EU integration. Credit: Natalia Kravchuk/IPS.

By Somar Wijayadasa
NEW YORK, Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

The crisis in Ukraine is a man-made disaster created by world leaders who have been trying to pull Ukraine apart – either towards Europe or Russia.

As geo-political tensions in the world rage unabated, world powers rush to impose sanctions that cause unintended consequences.

A Washington Post editorial, ‘The Snake Oil Diplomacy: When Tensions Rise, The US Peddles Sanctions’, published as far back as July 1998, stated, “No country in the world has employed sanctions as often as the United States has… it has imposed economic sanctions more than 110 times.”

Historically, the League of Nations, United Nations, United States and the European Union have resorted to mandatory sanctions as an enforcement tool when peace has been threatened and diplomatic efforts have failed.

“No country in the world has employed sanctions as often as the United States has… it has imposed economic sanctions more than 110 times.” -- Washington Post
During the 1990s, we witnessed a proliferation of sanctions imposed by the U.N. and U.S. against Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Liberia, Somalia, Cambodia, Haiti – to name a few.

These sanctions brought disastrous consequences – where those in power thrived and the poor suffered.

A few countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea scoffed at U.S. sanctions as they had resources or the will power to survive. Sanctions against China and India failed to change the leadership or hinder the country’s economic drive and growth.

But in most countries, especially Cuba, Iraq and Haiti, sanctions deteriorated their economic, social and healthcare systems.

At times, sanctions were used as an ulterior motive for “regime change” which is a violation of the U.N. Charter and the basic norms of international law.

Such a devious practice has nothing to do with protecting human rights, and promoting democracy and freedom.

Now, the sanctions against Russia – over the crisis in Ukraine – have boomeranged.

By April, “Maidan” protests ousted Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovytch. U.S. missiles near Russia and NATO’s efforts to expand into former Warsaw Pact countries angered Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia was blocked out of the G8.

The U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Russia when Crimea joined Russia after the Crimeans held a referendum to declare independence based on the right of nations to self-determination that is stipulated in Article 1 of the U.N. Charter.

The right to “self-determination” was applied when former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were divided, and when several small states like East Timor declared independence.

People in East Ukraine – 70 percent of who are ethnic Russians – felt violated when the Ukrainian Government decided to ban the Russian language from its official status.

They too invoked their right to self-determination and held a referendum to establish their own State.

The U.S. broadened sanctions when the Malaysian plane was downed in East Ukraine. No evidence surfaced from the black boxes, satellite images or OSCE inspectors’ revelations to prove culpability – unless it was a deliberate, pre-meditated act to blame a warring faction.

Also Western leaders claim that Russia provides weapons to the rebels in Ukraine. It may be true, but again the U.S. has not provided any evidence and Putin denies the charge. It’s like Iraq’s WMDs all over again.

More U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia froze the assets of Russians in power, banned their travel to EU countries, restricted Russian banks’ sales of debt or stocks in European markets, and targeted Russia’s defense, energy and financial sectors – to name a few.

On Aug. 7, in a radical response to Western sanctions, Russia retaliated by banning imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheese, dairy products, fruit and vegetables from the European Union, United States, Australia, Canada, Norway, for one year.

Russia’s agriculture minister, Nikolai Fyodorov, said, “We now have the unique chance to improve our agricultural sector and make it more competitive.” He said that Russia has already identified other non-Western countries to import banned food items, and that he is confident that Russians will use locally available food.

From what we hear, European growth has slowed down; some countries creeping back into recession; U.S. investors have withdrawn over four billion dollars from Euro stocks; European farmers and Norway’s fishermen are affected and the EU has set aside 167 million dollars to compensate farmers for their loss of revenue; and companies that transport cargo to Russia have come to a halt.

While it is difficult to predict how this tit-for-tat will ultimately affect both Russian and Western economies, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the sanctions have, in fact, harmed the West more than they have hurt Russia. He said, “In politics, this is called shooting oneself in the foot.”

Also the toll on human suffering is increasing. The U.N. claims that the war in Ukraine has already killed over 2,500 and injured nearly 5,000 people.

According to UNHCR, over 730,000 Eastern Ukrainians have fled to Russia. The Ukrainian government acknowledges that over 300,000 of its citizens are displaced inside Ukraine.

The U.N. Charter and international law provide for settling conflicts between states through negotiations based on mutual respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of the other.

This disaster can be resolved only if power-hungry world leaders renounce their arrogance and interventionism, and help Ukraine become a prosperous but neutral buffer nation between Western Europe and Russia. If not, the partition of Ukraine will be inevitable.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The Security Council votes unanimously earlier this year to maintain arms sanctions on Côte d’Ivoire until Apr. 30, 2015. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 2014 (IPS)

When the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, fails to resolve a military conflict, it invariably exercises one of its tried, and mostly failed, options: punish the warring parties by imposing punitive sanctions.

Currently, there are 15 U.N. sanctions committees, supported by 65 “experts” overseeing 11 monitoring teams, groups and panels, at a cost of about 32 million dollars a year.There have been no takers so far in a sharply divided Security Council, mostly with vested political and military interests in the Syrian civil war.

The sanctions, imposed so far on about 25 countries, have included arms embargoes, travel bans and financial and diplomatic restrictions.

U.N. military sanctions go back to apartheid South Africa in 1977, and since then, have been imposed on several post-conflict countries, including Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Last month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly called on the Security Council (UNSC) to impose an arms embargo on Syria.

But there have been no takers so far in a sharply divided Security Council, mostly with vested political and military interests in the Syrian civil war.

Ban has persistently – and unyieldingly – maintained that the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has claimed over 150,000 lives since March 2011, could be resolved only politically, not by military force.

But his voice is lost in the political wilderness – with no diplomatic or moral support either from the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – all of them explicitly or implicitly providing military or financial support to the warring parties in Syria.

The United States, Britain and France could possibly opt for military sanctions – but only on Syrian military forces.

Russia and China, who are supportive of the Bashar al-Assad regime, want sanctions on Western-supported rebel forces.

As a result of the deadlock, the proposal for an arms embargo has remained grounded.

The secretary-general’s proposal took another beating late last month when the United States announced plans to spend about 500 million dollars to train and arm “moderate” Syrian rebels – making the proposed arms embargo a mockery.

“Considering the deadlock over Syria in the past few years, the call by the secretary-general is not likely to change anything,” Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Arms Transfers and Arms Production Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS.

Russia has been very outspoken about its opposition to an arms embargo, backed by China, both veto-wielding permanent members of the UNSC, he pointed out.

“This has been related to the widespread view in Russia that the end of the Syrian regime (of President Bashar al-Assad) will lead to chaos and fundamentalism in Syria,” Wezeman said.

On top of that, he said, Russia has repeatedly pointed at the experiences of the conflict in Libya, when several states provided weapons to Libyan rebels legitimising this, and using ambiguous language in UNSC resolutions, that Russia thought imposed a full arms embargo on Libya when it agreed with the resolutions.

Russia has stated repeatedly that an arms embargo is out of the question if there are no convincing guarantees that states will stop supplying weapons to the rebel forces opposing Assad’s regime, said Wezeman, who has been closely tracking military developments in Syria.

Currently, Russia is the major arms supplier to the Assad regime.

There is also the question of the effectiveness of sanctions, because the United Nations does not have the means to rigidly enforce any arms embargoes, according to U.N diplomats.

William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Centre for International Policy, told IPS the secretary-general’s call for an arms embargo on all sides of the Syrian war is a welcome effort to reduce the bloodshed there.

The biggest impact would be stopping the flow of Russian arms to the Assad regime, but unfortunately, Russia is also the country most likely to veto any embargo proposal that comes before the Security Council, he noted.

“So the question will be how to pressure Moscow to reverse course on its military support of the Syrian government, or whether an embargo by the U.S. and the European Union (EU) only would have the desired effect,” he said.

Still, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said the UNSC has been using both economic and military sanctions with increased regularity since the mid-1990s.

“We know that sanctions can work when they are designed and implemented well and when they enjoy the support of member states on and outside the Security Council,” Eliasson said.

Speaking at a high-level review on sanctions last month, he said in almost all of the 25 cases where sanctions have been used by the U.N., they have been part of an overarching strategy featuring peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding elements.

On another line of analysis, Eliasson said, “Let us also remember that sanctions are not only punitive.”

Some sanctions regimes are designed to support governments and regions working towards peaceful transition, he pointed out.

In Libya, sanctions continue to help transitional authorities recover state assets and prevent the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

In Liberia, the arms embargo on non-state actors continues to provide the government with protective support.

In Guinea-Bissau, he said, the sanctions regime is acting as a deterrent against post-electoral violence by encouraging key local actors to respect the results.

“Steps are also being taken to assist peaceful and benign governments whose countries are still under sanctions,” Eliasson added.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general recently dispatched an assessment mission to Somalia to explore how the United Nations and others can help the federal government comply with the partial lifting of the arms embargo, he said.

Hartung told IPS past embargoes have been imperfect, but have been worthwhile nonetheless.

The embargo on the apartheid regime in South Africa was violated through third party transfers and undermined by sales of arms-making technologies to Pretoria, but it did reduce the flow of arms to South African forces and it made it more expensive for South Africa to maintain its war machine.

He said arms dealers like Viktor Bout, in collaboration with key governments, undermined embargoes on Sierra Leone and Angola, but a more forceful and coordinated effort to stem this trade could have made a difference.

“So it really comes down to the political will of key governments to make embargoes work,” he concluded.

Even when they aren’t perfect, he said, they can make it harder for parties to conflicts to arm themselves and therefore reduce levels of violence.

Since the early 1990s, Wezeman told IPS, there have been around 25 separate U.N. arms embargoes.

Quite certainly all of these have been violated to some extent. However that should be expected from any sanction imposed by the U.N., or even any sanction or law imposed in general.

“Still, most if not all of them have made it considerably more difficult for the targets of the embargoes to continue to acquire weapons,” he said.

Obviously more is needed to end wars, he said, as often large stocks of weapons will still be available to continue fighting. However, not imposing an arms embargo can be argued to make things even worse, Wezeman added.

Pending legislation calling for U.S. President Barack Obama to impose sanctions against key Venezuelan officials is unlikely to defuse the ongoing crisis there and could prove counter-productive, according to both the administration and independent experts here.

A bill approved overwhelmingly Tuesday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would authorise Obama to freeze any financial assets in U.S. institutions and cancel U.S. visas for Venezuelan officials deemed responsible for “directing significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses against persons associated with the anti-government protests in Venezuela.”

The bill, a similar version of which was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this month, would also authorise sanctions against anyone who has provided assistance to government security forces and commit 15 million dollars in support for “pro-democracy” groups and independent media in the South American nation.

“Today we took an important step forward to punish human rights abusers in (President) Nicolas Maduro’s regime,” declared Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the bill with the Committee chair, Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.

“The U.S. has tried hard not to become the centre of the debate, realising [...] that it would only help the Maduro government point to Washington as the source of the protests [...]." -- John Walsh, Venezuela specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
“(N)ow that thousands of innocent Venezuelans have protested courageously and peacefully against the failure that is this chavista government, we can’t allow the government’s repression, violence and murders to go unpunished,” he said in a statement after the 13-2 vote.

On a visit to Mexico Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry noted Congressional support for sanctions and hinted that the administration may feel compelled to impose them.

“Our hope is that the leaders, that President Maduro and others, will make decisions that will make it unnecessary for them to be implemented. But all options remain on the table at this time, with the hopes that we can move the (dialogue) process forward,” he said.

A number of experts, as well as senior administration officials, however, warned that the legislation, however well-intended, could make matters worse in the deeply polarised oil-rich country.

“I think people are really frustrated about what’s happening in Venezuela,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based hemispheric think tank here.

“But the U.S. doesn’t have a lot of leverage, and, while sanctions make people feel good, I can’t imagine them accomplishing much except to give Maduro another reason to attack the United States.

“It also risks alienating Latin American governments,” which, with the Vatican and under the auspices of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), have taken the lead in trying to mediate Venezuela’s divisions through dialogue between Maduro and moderate opposition forces.

“I just can’t imagine any Latin American governments seeing this as a good idea or helpful under present circumstances,” he told IPS.

“The U.S. has tried hard not to become the centre of the debate, realising – correctly, in my opinion – that it would only help the Maduro government point to Washington as the source of the protests and distract attention from the genuine and legitimate grievances that have given rise to the protests,” added John Walsh, a Venezuela specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

“One of the tacks that has been available to (Maduro) to get out of the dialogue and major compromises that it might force him to take is the ability to reframe the protest movement and the opposition as people in thrall to or actually taking orders from the ‘Empire’ as part of an international conspiracy to de-stabilise the government and push Chavismo out of power.”

Indeed, this has been the position taken by the Obama administration throughout the most recent crisis, which began in late February with student demonstrators demanding that Maduro step down.

In hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee two weeks ago, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson stressed Washington’s support for the UNASUR-led initiative.

“This is not a U.S.-Venezuela issue; it is an internal Venezuelan issue,” she told the senators. “…We have strongly resisted attempts to be used as a distraction from Venezuela’s real problems.”

The Senate bill, which is considered almost certain to pass if Majority Leader Harry Reid permits it to go to the floor, comes after the government-opposition dialogue – in which the foreign ministers of Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador have acted as UNASUR’s representatives – broke down last week over, among other issues, opposition demands that all political prisoners be freed.

In a report entitled ‘Venezuela: Tipping Point’ and released Wednesday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned that failure to resolve the stand-off could plunge the country into yet more violence, “leaving it unable to address soaring criminality and economic decline and exposing the inability of regional inter-governmental bodies to manage the continent’s conflicts.”

Since February, at least 42 people have died in confrontations between security forces and pro-government gangs known as “colectivos” and opposition forces.

While some opposition sectors have reportedly used violence, independent human rights groups have blamed most of the casualties on the government and its allies. In a harsh report issued earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused security forces of severely beating and, in some cases, shooting at point-blank range, peaceful protesters, subjecting detainees to severe abuse sometimes amounting to torture, and, in some cases collaborating with the colectivos in their attacks on protestors and bystanders.

The increased repression, as well as the impasse in the dialogue, has intensified concern here about the likelihood of further polarisation that will strengthen hard-liners on both sides.

In its report, the ICG called for all sides to consider the appointment of an international facilitator, possibly from the U.N. system, to join the UNASUR-Vatican effort, as well as the deployment of a U.N. technical mission to support it.

While the administration opposes sanctions at this point, one senior State Department official said it hoped to intensify discussions with regional governments, beginning with Kerry’s visit to Mexico, about what more can be done to get the dialogue back on track.

“The real question is for them to sort of compare notes on what they’re hearing out of Venezuela, whether we think the efforts that UNASUR and the Vatican are making are working, and what more can we do from outside that process to either help it along or to be ready to do something more,” the official said.

“(T)he last thing we want to do is torpedo any dialogue that might lead to action, but we’re just as frustrated as the Senate is that nothing has happened yet.”

Kerry reflected that frustration Wednesday, accusing the government of a “total failure …to demonstrate good-faith actions to implement those things that they agreed to do approximately a month ago.”

“I think more high-level consultations with other governments about how they see the situation and to work with them could be helpful,” said IAD’s Shifter.

“But the critical country is Brazil, and, unfortunately, (U.S.) relations with Brazil aren’t good because of the Snowden affair that led to the postponement of (President Dilma) Rousseff’s state visit that was supposed to take place late last year.”

(END)

BDS and Rabbis For Palestine. Credit: Mike Gifford/cc by 2.0

By Emile Nakhleh
WASHINGTON, May 3 2014 (IPS)

The recent suspension of the U.S. -engineered Israeli-Palestinian talks signals a much deeper reality than the immediate factors that caused it. The peace process and the two-state solution, which for years were on life support, are now dead.

It is time for the United States and the rest of the international community to stop the 20-year old quixotic effort to resurrect a dead “process” and to seriously begin exploring other avenues for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.

The two-state solution has been a convenient policy position that allowed negotiations to go on and on, prompted primarily by the argument that no credible alternatives existed. Many governments, diplomats, negotiators, politicians, academics, NGOs, and consultants on both sides of the Atlantic and in the region have staked their life-long careers on the two-state paradigm.

Dozens of international agreements and declarations and thousands of meetings have been held all around the globe on the so-called modalities of a two-state solution. Unfortunately, all have come to naught.

Whenever the two-state approach was questioned over the years, its defenders would quickly ask, “What’s the alternative?” and would dismiss the “one-state” suggestion and similar options as non-starters. The retort has always been that no Israeli government would dare contemplate any proposal that involves Israelis and Palestinians living together in one political entity.

Palestinian nationalists and ruling economic and political elites, who benefited from their association with the PLO power structure, whether in Ramallah or elsewhere, supported the two-state formula despite their belief that Oslo was a hollow victory that would never lead to statehood. They went along because in the view of one Palestinian at the time, “It was the only game in town.”

The Arab states that advocated this approach drew comfort from the rhetoric because it appealed to Western countries, especially the United States. Yet, these states have failed to commit the necessary resources and political capital and seriously pursue their “Arab Peace Initiative” to its intended conclusion.

Official Arab leaders’ rhetoric continued to extol their unwavering commitment to Palestine, but they gave priority to their separate national interests, which often included unofficial economic, political, and intelligence contacts with Israel.

Successive Israeli governments played a similar game. Whenever the discussions of establishing a Palestinian state got serious, they advanced new conditions and “redlines”, which made it more difficult for Palestinian leaders to accept. The entire negotiating enterprise was reduced to talks about talks, resulting in decoupling the negotiation “process” from the envisioned “peace”.

The pro-Israeli lobby in Washington has successfully erected a solid pro-Israeli stand in the United States Congress. Such support, which has always been identified with right-wing policies in Israel, has severely constrained the diplomatic flexibility of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

In lieu of a political settlement, Western countries and the United Nations provided massive aid programmes to Palestinians, and Palestinian leaders and ruling elites benefited disproportionately from the largesse, resulting in newfound wealth and rampant corruption. In the absence of government accountability and transparency, it’s not clear where the huge chunks of the money went.

While rhetorically committed to a two-state solution, high-level PA officials have not been uncomfortable with this arrangement of the political status quo under Israeli occupation. So much so, in fact, that a Palestinian intellectual has described the situation as “The National Sell-out of a Homeland.”

I have supported the two-state solution for almost five decades. Based on my field research in the Occupied Territories in the late 1970s, I published a short book titled “The West Bank and Gaza: Toward the Making of a Palestinian State,” which argued for the creation of a Palestinian state in those parts of Palestine.

In reaction, self-proclaimed Palestinian nationalists, including the current Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, attacked me publicly for “advocating an American position.” Some pro-Palestinian newspapers in the Gulf derisively described me as a “Palestinian American Sadatist”, a reference to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel.

Of course, 10 years later, the PLO formally supported the two-state approach and proceeded with the Oslo agreement.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the two-state option is simply no longer viable. The two parties and the international community must search for other options that could accommodate the two peoples living together.

I reached this position fully cognizant of the realities on the ground – Israeli occupation, Palestinian factionalism, and rising poverty and frustration among Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel – and the lack of credible alternatives to the two-state approach.

As more and more Palestinians search for alternatives, they are transforming their confrontation with the Israeli occupation and anti-Arab discrimination in Israel to a peaceful struggle for human rights, justice, and economic self-sufficiency. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) has become the global rallying cry against Israeli occupation and continued settlement construction.

Some members of the Israeli cabinet, on the other hand, have begun talking publicly about taking “unilateral actions” on the West Bank, including annexing Area C and the major settlement blocs. Meanwhile, Israeli security forces continue to enter Area A, which is nominally ruled by the PA, at their whim.

In the absence of a Palestinian state, the Israeli government will be faced with a growing Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel, which, taken together, constitutes almost 50 percent of the total population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.

The international community and the two peoples should begin a serious exploration of new modalities based on justice, fairness, and equality. These could range from a unitary state to confederal arrangements that guarantee Palestinians equal rights, privileges and responsibilities. But all of them require an end to the occupation.

Some critics might consider this approach Pollyannaish, but it’s not unthinkable in light of the demonstrated failure of the two-state approach.

Emile Nakhleh is a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, and author of ‘A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World’.

Muscovites at the entrance to Red Square. Experts say the impact of any strong Western sanctions would be felt by ordinary Russians. Credit: Pavol Stracansky/IPS.

By Pavol Stracansky
MOSCOW, Mar 20 2014 (IPS)

As the West imposes what have been called the most comprehensive sanctions on Russia since the end of the Cold War, many ordinary Russians say they have no fear of any economic measures the United States or the European Union may take against their country.

Since the Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula at the end of last month, Western leaders have been threatening Moscow with economic sanctions.

The threat of sanctions sent stocks on Russian exchanges tumbling and added to what has been a massive capital flight – when investors pull money out of a country’s economy – since the start of the year.There is resolute confidence among many ordinary Russians that Russia is more than strong enough to withstand any economic assault.

Economists say that the already ailing Russian economy could be severely affected if harsh, targeted sanctions were implemented.

The referendum in Crimea at the weekend – condemned by much of the international community as illegitimate and illegal and which has resulted in the region being set to become part of Russia within possibly months – has now brought the first round of those sanctions.

So far, the EU sanctions will see EU-wide assets of 21 Russian and Crimean individuals identified as linked to unrest in Crimea frozen while those same people face a travel ban. The U.S. sanctions are similar but apply to 11 people.

And although widely seen as limited in scope, further measures have been pledged by the U.S. and the EU if Russia does not move to de-escalate the crisis.

While the Russian government and other politicians have responded by preparing a series of counter measures, there is resolute confidence among many ordinary Russians that Russia is more than strong enough, economically and politically, to withstand any economic assault the West launches at it. The street mood seems defiant, even if economists warn of consequences in the face of strong sanctions.

This confidence is being bolstered by reports in the Russian media, much of which is controlled by the Kremlin.

Since the invasion of Crimea, local media has portrayed the West as colluding with an illegal and reprobate Ukrainian government bent on oppressing the majority ethnic Russian population in Crimea.

It has also played on the widespread belief among Russians that Crimea is naturally a part of Russia – it was made part of Ukraine in 1954 by then Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev. Russian media has now posited Russia as a liberator securing the safety of its citizens in a land unfairly taken from it.

It has also emphasised the country’s military might. On Sunday the head of the state broadcasting network Russia Today, Dmitri Kiselev, spoke on his news show of how Russia remained the only country in the world capable of reducing the U.S. to “radioactive ash”.

Such talk has created a renewed sense of Russian power among many. In a survey by the independent Levada polling agency released this week, two thirds of Russians see Russia as a global superpower – up 16 percent since 2011.

Crucially, newspapers have carried reports saying that the sanctions will only push Russia closer to China and other Asian states and strengthen economic ties with them, replacing any lost trade with the West.

Maria Yemelianenko, 29, a supermarket worker in Moscow, seemed to sum up the general mood among Russians towards Western sanctions. She told IPS: “Russia is a huge country and sanctions could not affect us like they have with other countries in the past. We have a lot of our own resources.

“I am sure President Putin knows what he is doing, and the people of Russia will not go hungry.”

But while many Russian politicians have dismissed the potential effects of sanctions, not everyone is convinced there will not be some repercussions for the Russian economy.

Alexei Kudrin, a member of the Presidium of the Russian president’s Economic Council, was quoted by the Yandex.ru news website as saying that economic growth could be affected negatively and that both foreign and domestic investment could be hurt.

Dmitry Seleznev, 52, an economist at a large agricultural production company in St Petersburg, told IPS that the Russian economy would feel the effects of sanctions.

He said: “Investment growth will fall, the economy may lose its chance to come out of its current stagnation and exports could fall.”

Some economic fallout from the Crimean crisis has already been seen. Russian stocks have been losing heavily since the start of the year, but the falls deepened in the run-up to the referendum at the weekend.

Global investment houses issued warnings last week that foreign investors were pulling their money out of the country at a record rate because of Russia’s involvement in Crimea and that as of the end of last week, financial outflows from Russia had reached 45 billion dollars since the start of 2014 – a 60 percent rise from the first quarter of 2013.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecasts have also been slashed and some stock market analysts have spoken of long-term damage being done to Russia’s ability to attract investment because of negative perceptions of Russia among foreign investors.

Other experts believe though that while the current sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the EU are limited, further sanctions would indeed have the potential to make life ‘difficult’ for ordinary Russians.

Ian Bond, Director of Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Reform think-tank in London, told IPS: “The EU may be forced into a position where it has to apply broader sanctions, for example, to shut Russian banks out of European financial markets. And the U.S. can make life really difficult by denying Russia access to the U.S. system for dollar transactions.

“That sanction has had a major impact on the Iranian economy, for example, and would be noticed by ordinary Russians.”

He added that at that point support for President Putin, which is currently high among the general Russian population, could begin to wane.

He said: “Whether Putin’s popularity would be affected depends on how effective his propaganda operation is. So far it seems to be working well – his popularity in Russia seems to have risen since the takeover of Crimea, and a lot of people seem to be swallowing the fairytale that the new Ukrainian government is full of fascists and anti-Semites.”

One asset manager running a Russian equity fund who spoke to IPS, but asked not to be named, said that Russia’s economy would be in trouble if people’s worst fears were realised and the current situation escalated into armed conflict.

“The country would then be facing huge economic problems,” he said.

This is one thing which Russians do not want though. Despite their support for Crimea’s return to Russia and positive view of Moscow’s role in effecting that change, recent polls have shown a majority are against any Russian involvement in a military conflict in Ukraine.

“The referendum in Crimea went peacefully and people will probably eventually understand it was the will of the people there,” said Sergei Mishkhin, a 20-year-old student in Moscow.” I want Russia to have friendly relations with all countries. We are just hoping for peace.”

Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Hassan Rouhani tried to persuade world business leaders to invest in Iran, especially in its hydrocarbon and automobile sectors. 

Hassan Rouhani. Credit: Mojtaba Salimi/CC-BY-SA-3.0

His appeal is not likely to set off a gold rush; investors will wait to see if the nuclear agreement with the P5+1 is successfully concluded sometime this summer.

But broadening his call for engagement with the rest of the world beyond the nuclear deal indicates that his initiative is more than a charm offensive; it represents deeper social and economic change in Iran.

The implicit assumption behind the “charm offensive” discourse is that the Iranian leadership is only engaging in talks because it needs to gain some respite from sanctions to buy time to reach nuclear weapon capability.

But luring foreign investors into Iran does not fit well with that strategy because any gains would only become apparent after the nuclear deal is concluded and would be reversed as soon as the deal falls apart and sanctions are once again implemented.

From Rouhani’s perspective, an open invitation to foreign investors risks expanding the ranks of his domestic foes beyond the growing opposition to the nuclear deal. Why add Islamists and leftists opposed to the penetration of Western culture and capital unless he really believes he can turn Iran into a hospitable place for outside investment?

Mark Landler of the New York Times played down Rouhani’s appeal by noting its “eerie echo” to a similar pitch by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami in 2004, which was followed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ascendance a year later and a decade of hostility.

Suggesting that Rouhani’s Davos promises might end similarly ignores several important differences between the two presidents and between the Iran of 2014 and that of 2004. Ignoring the obvious — in 2004 Khatami was on his way out while Rouhani is just starting his first term — there are at least two other distinctions.

Philosophically, Khatami and Rouhani share a moderate view of coexistence with the West, but when it comes to economic integration, they read from very different scripts.

Iran’s economy in 2014 bears little resemblance to that of a decade earlier. In 2004, thanks to a massive oil boom, Iran was bursting with economic optimism and feeling prosperous without foreign investment. Since the 1970s, except during the reconstruction period after the war with Iraq, Iran has not sought or depended on foreign investment for its economic growth. 

Higher oil prices nearly tripled the oil revenues in Khatami’s last budget in 2004 compared to his first in 1998. Unemployment had been declining steadily, from 14.3 percent in 2000 to 10.3 percent in 2004, and inflation seemed low by today’s standards — averaging 14 percent per year instead of 35 percent in the last two years.

Today, after several years of harsh sanctions, Iran’s economy is in deep trouble and the government is broke. While inflation is coming down, unemployment is still above 14 percent (above 25 percent for youth). The 4.2 billion dollars that the U.S. is releasing as part of the interim Geneva agreement adds only five percent to this year’s budget. It will not go very far in bringing public investment even close to its historical record of more than 15 percent of the GDP.

Public investment for the Iranian year starting this March is only 15 billion dollars, which is four percent of the GDP. It is not even enough to pay for the repair of — much less build new — public infrastructure or assist the private sector. The government actually owes private contractors about 20 billion dollars for work they have already performed on various public projects.

The private sector is also in a serious bind. In addition to unpaid government bills, the depressed economy has cut demand for its products, leaving many employers short of cash to even pay their workers. The auto industry, which was a focus of Rouhani’s appeal at Davos, is producing at less than half its capacity. The interim agreement restores the auto industry’s access to critical imports, but additional capital is what they need to create new jobs.

While financial necessity may be Rouhani’s reason for inviting foreign businesses to Iran, he also has reasons to be optimistic about the outcome of their engagement. First, he knows that more than three decades of revolutionary rhetoric and eight years of failed populist economic policies under President Ahmadinejad have tired out the general population and caused a major shift in the attitudes of Iran’s intellectual and technocratic classes.

There is now a wider consensus in favour of private enterprise and engagement with the global economy than during the time of the Shah. This is why Rouhani has the most pro-business economic team in Iran’s history.

Second, in the last 10 years, Iran’s workforce has become younger, better educated, and less expensive — all attractive features for foreign capital. The loss of value in Iran’s currency last year has brought labour costs in Iran below that of China. Were it not for their lower productivity, Iranian industrial workers would be able to outcompete East Asian workers. Foreign investment along with its superior technology and management is what Iran needs to raise its workers’ productivity.

The fate of global engagement for the Islamic Republic is not solely determined by these economic calculations. Many in the highest position of political power in Iran view rapprochement with the United States, which Rouhani considers a condition for meaningful global engagement, with deep suspicion.

They fear that hostility toward the Islamic Republic runs deeper than the nuclear issue. They point to new sanctions legislation before the U.S. Senate that requires Iran to make concessions unrelated to the nuclear dispute. A New York Times editorial did much to justify their fears by recommending that “Iran’s full reintegration into the international system” should depend on its “ending the hostility toward Israel.”

For Rouhani, after Davos, the path to global engagement remains uphill.

*Djavad Salehi-Isfahani conducts research on the economics of the Middle East and is currently a professor of economics at Virginia Tech. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and is also serving as the Dubai Initiative fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Students of communication at the University of Havana. Coursera was recently forced to suspend service in Iran, Sudan and Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Bryant Harris
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 2014 (IPS)

Even as the United States and European Union begin to lift some sanctions on Iran, U.S. law continues to prohibit some businesses that provide non-controversial services, such as online education, from operating in Iran and other countries.

Coursera, a California-based company that works with top-tier universities around the world to provide free online university-level classes to millions of students, has recently suspended service in Iran, Sudan and Cuba. "When you have something like an embargo, which is so large and overreaching, you can’t really fine tune it to include certain things and not include other things." -- Lisa Ndecky Llanos

“The interpretation of the export control regulations in the context of [massive open online courses] has been ambiguous up until now and we had been operating under one interpretation of the law,” Coursera wrote in a statement to its participating faculty on Tuesday.

“Last week, Coursera received definitive guidance indicating that access to the course experience is considered a service, and all services are highly restricted by export controls.”

Because the U.S. government’s strict interpretation of services includes functions as far-reaching as the grading of assignments and the operation of discussion forums, Coursera has had to cease operations in certain countries or face legal repercussions.

While the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the body of the Treasury Department responsible for implementing sanctions, does not comment on specific licences, it points to licensing exemptions for educational purposes.

“OFAC has a favourable licensing policy to authorise U.S. persons to engage in certain targeted educational, cultural and sports exchange programmes,” a Treasury spokesperson told IPS. “Of course, under a favourable licensing policy, U.S. persons need to come in and seek a license – without that, we cannot act.”

Coursera has stated that it remains committed to taking action to operate in Iran, Sudan, and Cuba once more.

“Coursera is working very closely with the U.S. Department of State and Office of Foreign Assets Control to secure permissions to reinstate site access for students in sanctioned countries,” Coursera wrote on Tuesday in a blog update concerning the issue. “The Department of State and Coursera are aligned in our goals and we are working tirelessly to ensure that blockage is not permanent.”

While Coursera initially interrupted its service in Syria as well, the State Department later informed the company that OFAC had a general license in place in Syria for institutions working to increase access to education. Since then, Coursera has restored access to its classes for Syrian students.

However, unlike in Syria, OFAC sanctions programmes on Iran, Sudan and Cuba, do not have a general educational license exemption. Nonetheless, Coursera remains committed to operating in those countries again.

Disenfranchising Iranians

Coursera is not the first education programme that has been adversely affected by U.S. sanctions. Educational Testing Service (ETS) was prohibited from administering the TOEFL test, an English proficiency exam that non-native English speakers have to pass in order to enter most American universities, in Iran in 2010.

Because TOEFL qualifies as an education programme, ETS was eligible to apply for an exemption with OFAC. But it could only do so after considerable difficulty, including finding a bank able to legally facilitate financial transactions with Iran.

“So-called exemptions on sanctions are extremely cumbersome,” Jamal Abdi, the policy director of the National Iranian American Council, a non-profit advocacy group, told IPS. “Iranian students have really been hit by these sanctions, particularly Iranian students who want to study abroad.”

Rather than navigate OFAC’s bureaucratic maze to apply for exemptions and risk potential criminal persecution, businesses often opt instead for blanket discrimination against Iranians. Recently, TCF Bank terminated the accounts of Iranian students studying at the University of Minnesota over fear of violating sanctions.

“The cost of violating sanctions is well known to these companies, so they tend to be extremely cautious,” Abdi said. “But the cost of violating civil rights is not known to them and they cast a wide net in disenfranchising Iranians.”

In 2012, Apple refused to sell products to people speaking Persian in their stores, citing the U.S. embargo on doing business in Iran.

But Abdi said Apple experienced public backlash for this decision. “The company has changed its policies as a result,” he noted, “even if they deny that was the reason.”

U.S. interests

In addition to hindering access to education, some analysts and legal experts argue that the sanctions actively undermine U.S. interests around the world.

Ebrahim Afsah, an associate professor in international law at the University of Copenhagen, teaches a Coursera class called Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World, which has thousands of participants worldwide, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

Afsah says he was particularly upset when he learned about the effect of U.S. sanctions on access to his course.

“I don’t think there’s a conceivable scenario where this could harm U.S. interests, so I don’t think it’s a very wise way of forming legislation – and it’s certainly counterproductive,” Afsah told IPS.

Afsah believes that courses such as his serve as valuable tools for students living in Middle Eastern countries, particularly those with rigid state control over educational systems. He says the course allow students to openly engage in debate and to learn about their peers in other countries in a less polemical atmosphere.

“My course in particular has done a good job bringing these people together and making these people aware of some of the problems they encounter, not least the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shias, which we’ve had some very good discussion on,” Afsah said.

As the U.S. seeks to contain a rapidly spiralling conflict between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, fostering increased intellectual understanding between people in the region is essential to combating the very sectarian agendas the U.S. government seeks to contain.

Lisa Ndecky Llanos, of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based think tank, attributes Coursera’s closure in these countries to the far-reaching nature of overzealous embargos.

“This situation with Coursera is a way of showing that when you have something like an embargo, which is so large and overreaching, you can’t really fine tune it to include certain things and not include other things,” Ndecky Llanos told IPS.

Although sanctions on Cuba are ostensibly intended to force President Raul Castro to implement government reforms, the side effects of the sanctions run counter to stated U.S. interests, she said.

“The stated U.S. policy is that they want to enable Cubans to access information and be a part of a global community, but in this instance the policy is doing the exact opposite of that,” Ndecky Llanos said.

“U.S. sanctions have really isolated Cuba and the Cuban people. That’s not the intention of the sanctions but it’s the result, and it’s harming Cubans not to have access to sites like this and, in the grander scheme, quick Internet access and telephone services.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses the ministerial-level meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement on Sep. 27, 2013. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 2014 (IPS)

After 34 years of enmity, Tehran and Washington are heavily invested in the success of a deal over Iran’s nuclear programme achieved through teamwork. Now the political future of Iran’s new moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, depends on this issue.

“Resolving the nuclear impasse is President Rouhani’s signature policy initiative,” Mohsen Milani, a professor of politics at the University of South Florida, told IPS.“The analogy is with President Obama’s affordable health care act - if he doesn’t succeed with that, his legacy will be in big trouble." -- Prof. Mohsen Milani

“If he can’t bring about a nuclear resolution, he will not be able to pursue his other major foreign and domestic policy initiatives, hardliners will have a better chance to gain a majority in the 2016 parliamentary elections and his re-election will be jeopardised,” said the Iran expert.

“The analogy is with President Obama’s affordable health care act – if he doesn’t succeed with that, his legacy will be in big trouble,” he said.

The Joint Plan of Action, a historic first-phase agreement reached in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) on Nov. 24 is scheduled for implementation on Jan. 20.

During the “first step” of the deal, Iran will scale back and limit significant parts of its controversial nuclear programme in exchange for limited sanctions relief. The “final step” of a “comprehensive solution” includes the dismantling of the sanctions regime, according to the text.

Since Nov. 24, the Rouhani administration, which inherited an isolated and economically ailing Iran after winning the June presidential election, has been touting its achievement at home and abroad.

“The Geneva accord means the great powers’ surrender to the great Iranian nation,” said Rouhani during a Jan. 14 speech in Ahvaz, the capital of Iran’s oil-producing Khuzestan province.

“The Geneva accord means breaking the dam of sanctions that was unduly imposed on the dear and peace-loving Iranian nation,” declared the centrist cleric to a cheering crowd.

Iran is also expected to repeat its readiness for a new era in international relations when Rouhani attends the World Economic Forum in Davos next week. The last Iranian leader to attend was the reformist President Mohammad Khatami a decade ago.

But while foreign investors may be eager to cash in on Iranian markets that have been heavily restricted due to sanctions, many barriers need to be lifted before they will be confident enough to do so.

Beyond the logistical and technical complexities involved in the implementation of the monumental accord, the deal also faces external challenges.

The Barack Obama administration is trying to prevent Congress from passing new sanctions on Iran, warning they can derail a peaceful solution to the nuclear conflict and even lead to war.

While no vote has been scheduled on the “Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013,” which would impose sweeping new sanctions against Tehran if it fails to comply with the terms of the Nov. 24 accord or reach a comprehensive deal within one year, Obama is still battling a heavily pro-sanctions Congress.

On Thursday, Obama even targeted Senate fellow Democrats by urging them to resist new sanctions while the deal is being implemented during a meeting about his legislative agenda.

“The president did speak passionately about how we have to seize this opportunity,” Senator Jeff Merkley told the Associated Press. “If Iran isn’t willing in the end to make the decisions that are necessary to make it work, he’ll be ready to sign the bill to tighten those sanctions. But we’ve got to give this six months.”

So sensitive are the negotiations that the Obama administration only released a nine-page text of the implementation details to lawmakers and senior aides with security clearances on Thursday after serious pressure.

Meanwhile, Iranian hardliners who oppose any U.S.-Iran rapprochement would use any failure of the deal, particularly the imposition of new sanctions, as proof that the Rouhani administration is not fit to lead Iran or protect its interests.

“He campaigned on a pledge to lift the sanctions, end Iran’s isolation and resolve in an honourable and peaceful way Iran’s nuclear impasse with the West,” said Milani. “A lot of people voted for him precisely for that pledge.”

Having lost their political upper hand after failing to unite in producing an attractive presidential candidate in June, these hardliners are currently sidelined.

Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who issued multiple public messages of support for Iranian diplomats during and after the Geneva talks, has urged domestic critics to support Rouhani’s efforts on the nuclear issue.

But the Ayatollah has also repeatedly said he does not trust the West to keep up its side of the bargain.

“No one should be under the illusion that the enemies of the Islamic revolution have today given up their enmity,” he said during a speech in the holy city of Qom on Jan. 9.

“Of course, it’s possible any enemy might have no choice but to step back, but the enemy and the enemy’s front-line must not be ignored,” he said.

The Rouhani government has warned of repercussions if new sanctions are passed while negotiations are in process.

“U.S. sanctions against Iran have had no positive results,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told a Russian Newspaper on Jan. 16.

“If radical legislators make an effort to increase sanctions, they will not like the results,” said the lead nuclear negotiator, who also recently warned that “the entire deal is dead” if new sanctions are issued.

“I do believe the Iranians when they say they would quit the talks if more sanctions are imposed,” Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told IPS.

“If Congress passes such legislation but not by a veto-proof margin, I think the impact would be serious – a short walk out – but not necessarily fatal,” said the Iran expert, who last visited Iran for Rouhani’s inauguration in August.

“However, it would undermine Obama’s credibility severely if he is perceived as incapable of controlling even the Democratic-led Senate and that would have negative implications for negotiating a comprehensive deal,” she added.

In what looks to be a clear victory – at least for now – for President Barack Obama, a major effort by the Israel lobby and its most powerful constituent, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to pass a new sanctions bill against Iran has stalled in the U.S. Senate.

While the legislation, the “Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013,” had gathered 59 co-sponsors in the 100-member upper chambre by last week, opposition to it among Democrats appears to have mounted in recent days.

That opposition apparently prompted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who controls the floor calendar, to back away from a previous commitment to permit a vote on the measure some time over the next few weeks. As a result, AIPAC is now reportedly hoping to get the bill through the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

Democratic resistance to the bill, which its critics say is designed to scuttle the Nov. 24 Joint Plan of Action (JPA) between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) and any chances for a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, has grown stronger since Sunday’s successful conclusion of an implementation agreement between the two sides and by Obama’s explicit pledge to veto the bill if it comes to his desk.

Even one of the bill’s 16 Democratic co-sponsors, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, said this week that he saw no need for a vote “as long as there is progress” in implementing the Nov. 24 accord.

The accord, which formally takes effect Jan. 20, will ease some economic sanctions that have been imposed against Iran and ban any new ones in exchange for Tehran’s freezing and, in some cases, a rolling back key elements of its nuclear programme pending the negotiation within a year of a comprehensive agreement designed to prevent Tehran from achieving a nuclear “breakout capacity”, or the ability to build a bomb within a short period of time.

That goal is widely considered to be the single-most important – and potentially dangerous, both politically and strategically — foreign policy challenge facing Obama in his second term.

While Obama has pledged to use all means necessary, including taking military action, to prevent Tehran from obtaining a bomb, he has made little secret of his strong desire to avoid becoming engaged in yet another war in the Middle East, a desire that appears widely held both within the foreign policy and military elite, as well as the general public, according to recent opinion polls.

For its part, Iran has long said it has no intention of building a bomb. But it has also insisted that any final agreement must recognise its “right” under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium to levels consistent with the needs of a civil nuclear programme.

While the administration and the other P5+1 powers appear inclined to accept a deal that would, among other things, permit limited enrichment under an enhanced inspection regime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that any final accord should effectively dismantle Iran’s nuclear programme, including its enrichment capabilities.

Netanyahu’s demands are largely reflected in the pending Senate bill which is named for its co-sponsors, Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, each of whom received more campaign money from AIPAC-related political-action committees than any other senatorial candidates during their runs for office – in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The bill would impose sweeping new sanctions against Tehran if it fails either to comply with the terms of the Nov. 24 accord or reach a comprehensive accord within one year. Such sanctions would also take effect if Iran conducts a test for ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 500 kms or if it is found to have directly or by proxy supported a terrorist attack against U.S. individuals or property.

While the bill’s supporters insist that those provisions will strengthen the administration’s hand in negotiations over a comprehensive agreement, critics, including administration officials, argue that they violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Nov. 24 agreement and would, if passed, open up Washington to charges by its P5+1 partners, as well as Iran, of bad faith.

The bill also requires that any final agreement include, among other things, “dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment  …capabilities” – a condition that Tehran has already declared a deal-breaker.

And it calls for Washington to provide military and other support to Israel if its government “is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program” – a provision that was denounced on the Senate floor by Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, as “let(ting) Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war.” In a detailed speech Tuesday, she also described the bill as facilitating a “march to war.”

All of these provisions have lent credibility to the administration’s charge that the main purpose of the legislation is to sabotage the Nov. 24 deal and the negotiations, rather than support to them.

When first introduced nearly a month ago, the bill was co-sponsored by 26 senators, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, apparently in order to give it a bipartisan cast. But all but three of the additional 33 co-sponsors are Republicans, thus making it an increasingly partisan issue.

Eleven Democratic committee chairs, including Feinstein and Senate Armed Services Committee chief Carl Levin, have come out against a vote on the bill, as has Reid’s deputy, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who, like Reid, normally defers to AIPAC’s wishes.

In recent days, a number of other influential voices have come out in opposition to the bill. Bill Clinton’s second-term national security adviser, Sandy Berger, warned that a vote on the legislation now raised the “risk of upending the negotiations before they start,” while former Sen. Dick Lugar, until last year the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, told a Yale University audience Wednesday that Congress “ought to give diplomacy a chance.”

Similarly, former Pentagon chief Bob Gates, currently touting his memoir of his years under Obama and President George W. Bush, warned Tuesday that enacting new sanctions would be “a terrible mistake” and a “strategic error.”

Several prominent newspapers, including the New York Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, USA Today, the Denver Post, and the strongly pro-Israel Washington Post, have also editorialised against the bill in recent days.

The bill, moreover, appears to have created dissension within the organised Jewish community, which ordinarily rallies behind AIPAC’s legislative agenda.

While progressive Jewish groups, notably J Street and Americans for Peace Now, joined 60 other grassroots religious, humanitarian, anti-war, and civic-action organisations in actively opposing the bill by flooding Democratic senators with emails, petitions and phone calls over the past few days, more conservative Jewish groups and influential opinion-shapers, such as New York Times columnists Tom Friedman and Jeffrey Goldberg, also defended the administration’s opposition.

Rabbi Jack Moline, the director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), publicly accused AIPAC of using “strong-arm tactics, essentially threatening people that if they didn’t vote a particular way, that somehow that makes them anti-Israel or means the abandonment of the Jewish community.”

“The bill before the U.S. Senate …will not achieve the denuclearization of Iran,” Goldberg, a self-described “Iran hawk,” wrote in his Bloomberg column this week. “What it could do is move the U.S. closer to war with Iran and, crucially, make Iran appear – even to many of the U.S.’s allies – to be the victim of American intransigence, even aggression.”

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

This week’s introduction by a bipartisan group of 26 senators of a new sanctions bill against Iran could result in the biggest test of the political clout of the Israel lobby here in decades.

The government of President Hassan Rouhani has warned repeatedly that the demand that Iran dismantle its nuclear programme entirely is a deal-breaker. Credit: Mojtaba Salimi/cc by 2.0.

The White House, which says the bill could well derail ongoing negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and five other powers over Tehran’s nuclear programme and destroy the international coalition behind the existing sanctions regime, has already warned that it will veto the bill if it passes Congress in its present form.

The new bill, co-sponsored by two of Congress’s biggest beneficiaries of campaign contributions by political action committees closely linked to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), would impose sweeping new sanctions against Tehran if it fails either to comply with the interim deal it struck last month in Geneva with the P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) or reach a comprehensive accord with the great powers within one year.

To be acceptable, however, such an accord, according to the bill, would require Iran to effectively dismantle virtually its entire nuclear programme, including any enrichment of uranium on its own soil, as demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The government of President Hassan Rouhani has warned repeatedly that such a demand is a deal-breaker, and even Secretary of State John Kerry has said that a zero-enrichment position is a non-starter.

The bill, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, also calls for Washington to provide military and other support to Israel if its government “is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program.”

The introduction of the bill Thursday by Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez followed unsuccessful efforts by both men to get some sanctions legislation passed since the Geneva accord was signed Nov. 24.

Kirk at first tried to move legislation that would have imposed new sanctions immediately in direct contradiction to a pledge by the P5+1 in the Geneva accord to forgo any new sanctions for the six-month life of the agreement in exchange for, among other things, enhanced international inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities and a freeze on most of its nuclear programme.

Unable to make headway, Kirk then worked with Menendez to draw up the new bill which, because of its prospective application, would not, according to them, violate the agreement. They had initially planned to attach it to a defence bill before the holiday recess. But the Democratic leadership, which controls the calendar, refused to go along.

Their hope now is to pass it – either as a free-standing measure or as an amendment to another must-pass bill after Congress reconvenes Jan. 6.

To highlight its bipartisan support, the two sponsors gathered a dozen other senators from each party to co-sponsor it.

Republicans, many of whom reflexively oppose President Barack Obama’s positions on any issue and whose core constituencies include Christian Zionists, are almost certain to support the bill by an overwhelming margin. If the bill gets to the floor, the main battle will thus take place within the Democratic majority.

The latter find themselves torn between, on the one hand, their loyalty to Obama and their fear that new sanctions will indeed derail negotiations and thus make war more likely, and, on the other, their general antipathy for Iran and the influence exerted by AIPAC and associated groups as a result of the questionable perception that Israel’s security is uppermost in the minds of Jewish voters and campaign contributors (who, by some estimates, provide as much as 40 percent of political donations to Democrats in national campaigns).

The administration clearly hopes the Democratic leadership will prevent the bill from coming to a vote, but, if it does, persuading most of the Democrats who have already endorsed the bill to change their minds will be an uphill fight. If the bill passes, the administration will have to muster 34 senators of the 100 senators to sustain a veto – a difficult but not impossible task, according to Congressional sources.

That battle has already been joined. Against the 13 Democratic senators who signed onto the Kirk-Menendez bill, 10 Democratic Senate committee chairs urged Majority Leader Harry Reid, who controls the upper chamber’s calendar, to forestall any new sanctions legislation.

“As negotiations are ongoing, we believe that new sanctions would play into the hands of those in Iran who are most eager to see negotiations fail,” wrote the 10, who included the chairs of the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, respectively. They also noted that a new intelligence community assessment had concluded that “new sanctions would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”

Their letter was followed by the veto threat by White House spokesman Jay Carney and a strong denunciation of the bill by State Department spokesperson Marie Harf. She accused the sponsors of “directly contradict[ing] the administration work. …If Congress passes this bill, …it would be proactively taking an action that would undermine American diplomacy and make peaceful resolution to this issue less possible.”

But none of that has deterred key Israel lobby institutions. “Far from being a step which will make war more likely, as some claim, enhanced sanctions together with negotiations will sustain the utmost pressure on a regime that poses a threat to America and our closest allies in the Middle East,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) argued Thursday.

And, in a slap at both the administration and the Senate chairs,  the Conference of Major American Jewish Organisations complained about criticisms of the bill’s proponents. “Some of the terminology and characterizations used in the latest days, including accusations of warmongering and sabotage, are inappropriate and counterproductive,” it said.

Since it lost a major battle with former President Ronald Reagan over a huge arms sale to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, the Israel lobby has generally avoided directly confronting a sitting president, but, at this point, it appears determined to take on Obama over Iran.

For some observers, its opposition is difficult to understand, particularly because key members of the Israeli national security establishment have conspicuously declined to join Netanyahu in denouncing the Geneva deal.

“I’m amazed that they’ve taken it this far,” said Keith Weissman, a former AIPAC specialist on Iran. “Bottom line is that if the Iranians comply with the terms of the deal – which it seems like they are doing so far, despite some internal resistance – they are further from breakout capacity [to produce a nuclear weapon] than they were before the deal.”

But Douglas Bloomfield, a former senior AIPAC executive, suggested the motivation may be of a more practical nature. “It’s good for business,” he told IPS. “AIPAC has spent the last 20 years very, very effectively making a strong case against Iran, and Iran has been a great asset to them.”

“They want to show they’re not going to give up on this; they’ve built a huge financial and political base on it. …Most of the Jewish groups and all of Congress have been on auto-pilot on Iran; nobody ever thought you might actually get a deal… In AIPAC’s case, they’re terrified they’re going to lose their major fund-raising appeal.”

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

Western tech companies are often confused as to what type of digital products they are actually allowed to unblock in sanctioned countries. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Ramy Srour
WASHINGTON, Dec 6 2013 (IPS)

Aliakbar Mousavi is a former member of the Iranian parliament and an internet freedom and human rights advocate now living in Washington, DC. In 2006, he was arrested and jailed by the Iranian government for urging human rights reforms.

But the authorities are not the only ones to shoulder blame for quelling dissent, he says. Mousavi told IPS that the U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear programme are also stifling freedom of expression in his country. “There is really no reason why U.S. sanctions should be inadvertently doing the work of oppressive governments.” -- Danielle Kehl

“People in Iran are suffering because of technology-related sanctions. After the 2009 revolution, Iranians were being arrested and had their private e-mails and information exposed,” he said.

The problem, activists say, is that even though the U.S. government has recently created some exceptions to protect the flow of information in sanctioned countries, regulations are still unclear.

This has led to a situation in which U.S. and other Western tech companies are confused as to what type of digital products they are actually allowed to unblock in sanctioned countries.

“One of my friends, who is also an influential person in Iran, was jailed and accused of conspiring against the regime,” Mousavi said. “After they arrested him, they got hold of his e-mails and showed them to him. He simply couldn’t deny their accusations, even though his e-mails were private.”

Mousavi said that those e-mails came from a Yahoo account. After these incidents, together with a group of Iranian activists, he tried to convince Yahoo to protect their personal information from the Iranian government at the time.

After nearly three years of exhortations, he said, Yahoo’s new president took charge and the company agreed to put in place new protections. At the same time, he noted, Iranians are still finding it difficult to open e-mail accounts because of sanctions still in place.

Last month, Iran and a group of six world powers that includes the U.S. struck an interim nuclear deal to ease sanctions on the Iranian government in return for a partial freeze of nuclear activities.

However, looking at the broader picture, experts here are urging the U.S. government to better protect internet freedoms when it imposes sanctions on countries with questionable human rights records, such as Iran.

“There is really no reason why U.S. sanctions should be inadvertently doing the work of oppressive governments,” Danielle Kehl, a researcher at the New America Foundation (NAF), a non-partisan think tank here, said Thursday at the launch of a new report that criticises some aspects of the U.S. sanctions approach in Iran and beyond.

Kehl points to how unclear sanctions regulations have curtailed the ability of ordinary citizens to share and access information over the internet in countries where U.S. sanctions are in place.

“Expression that seems most threatening to the state is not political manifestos on democracy, but exposés on the foibles and corruption of leaders,” Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of the PEN American Centre, an advocacy group advancing free expression, told IPS.

“This reality is much more troubling under repressive regimes like those in Syria, Iran and North Korea, where people can be killed or jailed for speaking out.”

Chilling effect

“We’re still seeing a chilling effect caused by these sanctions,” Jamal Abdi, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an advocacy group here, told IPS. And the recent exemptions the U.S. government has put forward to protect internet freedom in sanctioned Iran haven’t been enough, he said.

“Companies that could be taking advantage [of the exemptions] aren’t doing so, because they see it as too perilous because of all the risks, and as generally not being in their economic interest,” he said.

According to the report, the problem is that “the lack of legal clarity and fear of political or economic repercussions often discourage American companies from attempting to export their products to sanctioned countries.”

“Some specific examples include Google apps, mobile apps, Skype credit, or antivirus programmes such as McAfee and AVG,” the NAF’s Kehl told IPS.

Although the U.S. government currently imposes comprehensive sanctions on a set of different countries, including Cuba, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, much of the discussion has focused on Iran, partially because of the recent nuclear deal and the country’s history of stifling freedom of expression.

“Sanctions regulations in some cases effectively aid repressive regimes that seek to control access to information within their borders,” the report argues.

Lack of clarity

In recent years, the U.S. government and Congress have enacted some legislation and regulations that would facilitate the provision of technology in sanctioned countries.

In May 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department published a new license that allows companies to export software and services to Iran that are “incident to the exchange of personal communications over the internet, such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail … sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging.”

Although the license (known as General License D) does grant greater internet freedoms for Iranians, experts note a continued lack of clarity, especially when it comes to the difference between an exemption and an authorisation.

“Congress needs to show more flexibility in the way it issues exemptions, because that will leave more room for executive agencies … to issue adequate safeguard regulations such as General License D,” Kehl told IPS.

And this flexibility, activists say, should leave more room for ordinary citizens to conduct basic financial transactions.

“Remember that simply authorising a product doesn’t mean that people can actually use it,” Mousavi told IPS.

“So far, Iranians have been able to use free software but can’t use most of the important ones – like antivirus and security programmes – that come with a payment, because these companies are still not allowed to process payments coming from Iranian accounts.”

“What we need,” he continued, “are more clarifications and executive orders coming from the U.S.” that would allow ordinary Iranians to express themselves freely.

A new poll following the election of President Hassan Rouhani says that a majority of Iranians oppose Iran’s intervention in Syria and Iraq and believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite their government’s claims to the contrary.

President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Sep. 13, 2013. Credit: kremlin.ru/cc by 3.0

The poll, released Friday and conducted Aug. 26-Sep. 22, of 1,205 Iranians in face-to-face interviews by a subcontractor for Zogby Research Services, also indicated that Rouhani had relatively lukewarm support at the time and that many Iranians would like to see a more democratic political system in their country.

The results jibe with the June presidential elections in which Rouhani won a bare majority of votes, albeit against half a dozen other candidates. Half of those polled after the election either opposed Rouhani or said that his victory would make no difference in their lives.

This reporter gained a similar impression of Iranian scepticism about their new president during a visit to Tehran in early August.

Not surprisingly, given the impact of draconian sanctions and mismanagement by the previous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad government on the Iranian economy, the poll found that only 36 percent of Iranians said they were better off now than five years ago, compared to 43 percent who said they were worse off. However, the same percentage – 43 percent – said they expected their lives to improve under the Rouhani administration.

Among the most interesting findings were those related to foreign policy. The poll found that 54 percent believe Iran’s intervention in Syria has had negative consequences – perhaps a reflection of the financial drain on Iran of the war in Syria and of the unpopularity of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Nearly the same proportion of the Iranian population – 52 percent – also opposed Iranian involvement in Iraq, which is ruled by a Shi’ite Muslim government friendly to Tehran. Iranian activities in support of fellow Shi’ites in Lebanon and Bahrain were only slightly more popular, while only in Yemen and Afghanistan did a majority of Iranians say their country’s actions have had a positive impact.

Jim Zogby, director of Zogby Research Services, told IPS that Iranians know “Syria has become a huge problem in the world and they don’t want to have more problems with the world.”

The low marks for ties to Iraq may reflect “lingering anti-Iraq sentiment” stemming from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Zogby said.

Iranian attitudes toward democracy and the nuclear issue were also interesting. While a plurality of Iranians (29 percent) listed unemployment as their top priority, a quarter of the population rated advancing democracy first.

Other major priorities included protecting personal and civil rights (23 percent); increasing rights for women (19 percent); ending corruption (18 percent); and political or governmental reform (18 percent).

According to the poll, only a tiny fraction – six percent – listed continuing Iran’s uranium enrichment as a top priority. Yet 55 percent agreed with the statement that “my country has ambitions to produce nuclear weapons” compared to 37 percent who believe the government’s assertions that the programme is purely peaceful.

The Iranian government insists that it is not aiming to produce weapons and signed an agreement in Geneva Nov. 24 to constrain its nuclear programme in return for modest sanctions relief.

In a strong show of nationalism, 96 percent said continuing the nuclear programme was worth the pain of sanctions. Only seven percent listed resolving the stand-off with the world over the Iranian nuclear programme so sanctions could be lifted as their top priority and only five percent put improving relations with the United States and the West at the head of their list.

Zogby said it was not surprising that Iranians would give a low priority to the nuclear programme yet “when you push that button [and question Iran’s rights], the nationalism takes off.”

He noted those who identified themselves as Rouhani supporters were more inclined to affirm Iran’s right to nuclear weapons than Rouhani opponents – 76 percent compared to 61 percent.

The poll results, Zogby said, suggest that Iranians do not consider Rouhani an exemplar of the reformist Green Movement that convulsed the country during and following 2009 presidential elections, but rather as an establishment figure.

“His supporters are more in the hardline camp,” Zogby said.

Questions have arisen on the Obama administration's commitment to concluding a final pact that would lift economic sanctions on Iran. Photo credit: Mark Skrobola

By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON, Nov 26 2013 (IPS)

The “first step” agreement between Iran and the United States that was sealed in Geneva over the weekend is supposed to lead to the negotiation of a “comprehensive settlement” of the nuclear issue over the next six months, though the latter has gotten little attention.

But within hours of the agreement, there are already indications from senior U.S. officials that the Barack Obama administration is not fully committed to the conclusion of a final pact, under which economic sanctions would be completely lifted.

The administration has apparently developed reservations about such an “end state” agreement despite concessions by the government of President Hassan Rouhani that were more far-reaching than could have been anticipated a few months ago.

In fact the Rouhani government’s moves to reassure the West may have spurred hopes on the part of senior officials of the Obama administration that the United States can achieve its minimum aims in reducing Iran’s breakout capacity without giving up its trump cards—the harsh sanctions on Iran’s oil expert and banking sectors.

The signs of uncertain U.S. commitment to the “end state” agreement came in a background press briefing by unidentified senior U.S. officials in Geneva via teleconference late Saturday night. The officials repeatedly suggested that it was a question of “whether” there could be an “end state” agreement rather than how it could be achieved.

“What we are going to explore with the Iranians and our P5+1 partners over the next six months,” said one of the officials, “is whether there can be an agreed upon comprehensive solution that assures us that the Iranian programme is peaceful.”

The same official prefaced that remark by stating, “In terms of the ‘end state’, we do not recognise a right for Iran to enrich uranium.”

Later in the briefing, a senior official repeated the same point in slightly different words. “What the next six months will determine is whether there can be an agreement that…gives us assurance that the Iranian programme is peaceful.”

Three more times during the briefing the unnamed officials referred to the negotiation of the “comprehensive solution” outlined in the deal agreed to Sunday morning as an open-ended question rather than an objective of U.S. policy.

“We’ll see whether we can achieve an end state that allows for Iran to have peaceful nuclear energy,” said one of the officials.

Those carefully formulated statements in the background briefing do not reflect difficulties in identifying what arrangements would provide the necessary assurances of a peaceful nuclear programme. Secretary of State John Kerry declared at a press appearance in Geneva, “Folks, it is not hard to prove peaceful intention if that’s what you want to do.”

The background briefing suggested that in next six months, Iran would have to “deal with” U.N. Security Council resolutions, which call for Iran to suspend all enrichment activities as well as all work on its heavy reactor in Arak.

Similarly, the unnamed officials said Iran “must come into compliance with its obligations under the NPT and its obligations to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency].”

Those statements appeared to suggest that the administration would be insisting on a complete end to all enrichment, at least temporarily, and an end to all work on Arak.

The actual text of the agreement reached on Sunday states, however, that both the six powers of the P5+1 and Iran “will be responsible for conclusion and implementation of mutual near-term measures,” apparently referring to the measures necessary to bring Security Council consideration of the Iran nuclear issue to a conclusion.

The Obama administration has yet to release an official text of the “first step” agreement, although the official Iran Fars new agency released a text over the weekend.

Iran has demonstrated its determination to achieve such an agreement by effectively freezing and even partially reversing its nuclear programme while giving the IAEA daily access to Iran’s enrichment sites.

The Washington Post story on Sunday cited Western officials in Geneva as saying that the Iranian concessions “not only halt Iran’s nuclear advances but also make it virtually impossible for Tehran to build a nuclear weapon without being detected.”

But since the early secret contacts with Iran in August and September, the Obama administration has been revising its negotiating calculus in light of the apparent Iranian eagerness to get a deal.

In mid-October, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that the White House and State and Treasury departments were interested in an idea first proposed in early October by Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who had lobbied the Obama administration successfully for the sanctions aimed at cutting Iranian oil export revenues.

The Dubowitz proposal was to allow Iran access to some of its own money that was sitting in frozen accounts abroad in return for “verified concessions” that would reduce Iranian nuclear capabilities.

Meanwhile the United States and other powers would maintain the entire structure of the sanctions regime, at least in the interim period, without any change, Goldberg reported, “barring something like total capitulation” by Iran.

The scheme would give greater rewards for dismantling all but a limited number of safeguards than for lesser concessions, according to Goldberg’s report, based on information from “several officials”.

And if Iran refused, the plan would call for even more punishing sanctions against Iran’s natural gas sector.

That was essentially the policy that the Obama administration adopted in the negotiations in Geneva. In the first step agreement, Iran agreed to stop all enrichment to 20 percent, reduce the existing 20 percent-enriched stockpile to zero, convert all low enriched uranium to a form that cannot be enriched to higher level and allow IAEA inspectors daily access to enrichment sites.

In return for concessions representing many of its key negotiating chips, Iran got no relief from sanctions and less than seven billion dollars in benefits, according to the official U.S. estimate.

But the Iranian concessions will hold only for six months, and Iran has made such far-reaching concessions before in negotiations on a preliminary that anticipated a later comprehensive agreement and then resumed the activities it had suspended.

In the Paris Agreement of Nov. 15, 2004 with the foreign ministers of the UK, Germany, France, Iran agreed “on a voluntary basis, to continue and extend an existing suspension of enrichment to include all enrichment related and reprocessing activities”.

That meant that Iran was giving up all work on the manufacture, assembly, installation and testing of centrifuges or their components. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was under the impression it was an open-ended suspension and initially opposed it.

Khamenei relented only after Hassan Rouhani, then the chief nuclear policy coordinator and now president, and other officials, assured him that it was a temporary measure that would endure only until an agreement was reached that legitimised Iran’s enrichment or the determination that the Europeans were not serious, according to Ambassador Hossein Mousavian’s nuclear memoirs.

After the Europeans refused to negotiate on an Iranian proposal for a comprehensive settlement in March 2005 that would have provided assurances against enrichment to weapons grade, Khamenei pulled the plug on the talks, and Iran ended its suspension of enrichment-related activities.

The United States had long depended on its dominant military power to wage “coercive diplomacy” with Tehran, with threat of an attack on Iran as its trump card. But during the George W. Bush administration, that threat begn to lose its credibility as it became clear that the U.S. military was opposed to war with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Obama administration officials are now acting as though they believe the sanctions represent a diplomatic trump card that is far more effective than the “military option” that it had been lost.

Some news stories on the “first step” agreement have referred to the possibility that the negotiations on the final settlement could stall, and the status quo might continue. But the remarks by senior U.S. officials suggest the administration may be hoping for precisely such an outcome.

Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Israel, Saudi Arabia, and some of the other ArabGulf states are deeply sceptical of the Barack Obama administration’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran limiting its nuclear programme and to improve U.S.-Iranian relations generally.

Washington’s traditional Middle Eastern allies warn that the Islamic Republic cannot be trusted, and that Washington must not reach a deal with Iran that either fails to adequately limit Iranian nuclear ambitions, or which Tehran has no intention of abiding by even if it does.Better ties offer the best opportunity to change how Tehran calculates the costs and benefits of hostile behaviour toward Washington's traditional allies in the Middle East.

Israeli and Saudi leaders in particular are adamant about this, and are frustrated, angry, and mystified that the Obama administration knows of their concerns about Iran, but is attempting to reach an agreement with it anyway. What their behaviour reveals is that it is not just Iran whom Israeli and Saudi leaders don’t trust, but also the Obama administration and Washington more generally.

While Israel and Saudi Arabia (among others) have had good reason to fear the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past, the strong degree of Iranian-U.S. hostility motivated Washington to contain Iran – and its doing so benefited Israel and Saudi Arabia. What Israeli and Saudi leaders now fear is that if Iranian-U.S. relations improve significantly, Washington will no longer act so strongly to contain Iran.

Indeed, the U.S. may press Israel and Saudi Arabia to soften their own policies toward Iran so as not to hinder the process of Iranian-U.S. rapprochement or Tehran’s progress in “rejoining the international community.”

Something like this may well occur. And it might not just be the Obama administration doing this. Because U.S. sanctions against Iran have been so very tight and because U.S. public opinion has viewed Iran so negatively for so very many years, there have been few vested interests in the U.S. (apart from a portion of the small Iranian-American community) willing to lobby for improved ties between Washington and Tehran.

But as Iranian-U.S. relations improve, this will change. U.S. corporations – especially petroleum firms – have long wanted to do business with Iran, but sanctions and Iran’s negative image prevented this. Improved Iranian-U.S. relations will result in U.S. business being more willing to lobby for reducing sanctions (which, they will argue, mainly benefit their competitors in Europe, Russia, and China).

Further, the prospect of improved Washington-Tehran ties may free the Armenian-American lobby to argue that better Iranian-U.S. relations would greatly help their homeland escape its over-dependence on Russia vis-à-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan (neighbours with which Armenia has long had difficult relations).

And despite its differences with Armenia, Azerbaijan – as well as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and U.S. petroleum companies active in them – would welcome the opportunity to export petroleum via Iran. Further, the U.S. military and all those concerned with containing the Taliban may see a friendly Iran as a better route for supplying Afghan government forces than either unreliable Pakistan or the long and expensive route through Russia and Central Asia.

And being a professor, I cannot help but note that cash-strapped U.S. universities would very much like to see the return of large numbers of full tuition-paying Iranian students.

If all these – and probably other unanticipated – constituencies with a strong interest in friendly Iranian-U.S. relations in the U.S. arise, then Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others who now fear Iran will find it difficult to press Washington to resume a tougher policy toward Iran in the future. Anticipation of this state of affairs is undoubtedly an important factor motivating Israeli and Saudi leaders to try to forestall an Iranian-U.S. rapprochement now before this occurs.

What they do not appreciate, though, is that improved Iranian-U.S. relations will lead to a similar process unfolding in Iran. The prospect of improved Iranian-U.S. relations will allow those who would benefit from it to argue in favour of this process and against policies that undermine it.

While it is difficult for Iranian actors to argue against the position that Iran must remain ever vigilant against U.S. hostility when U.S. policy toward Iran is indeed hostile, it will be easier for them to do so if they can point to a real prospect of an improved relationship, or better yet, an actually improved relationship that has provided benefits they do not want to lose.

To put it bluntly: when the ayatollahs and even the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards can travel to and own property in the U.S., send their children to college there, and earn money as consultants to and partners with U.S. corporations, it is doubtful that they will want to risk losing all this for the dubious benefits of issuing nuclear threats or supporting ungrateful and unprofitable allies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or Assad.

Fearful Israelis and Saudis (along with their U.S. supporters) reading this will undoubtedly claim that the Iranians want to “have their cake and eat it too” through benefiting from improved economic ties with the West in order to more easily build up their military strength and support their militant allies.

But while those who fear Iran may believe otherwise, it will simply be impossible for Tehran to build and maintain good relations with the U.S. while at the same time pursuing hostile policies toward Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others. The rapprochement process – and all of Iran’s benefits from it – would quickly end if it did despite the growing U.S. and Iranian domestic constituencies seeking better relations.

The growth of these constituencies, though, could be powerful forces acting to forestall counter-productive Iranian behaviour.

Hostile Iranian-U.S. relations have not served to put an end to hostile Iranian policies toward Israel and Saudi Arabia in the past, and are unlikely to do so in the future. An improved Iranian-U.S. relationship will not lead to Iran becoming friends with Israel and Saudi Arabia (which, of course, are not exactly friends with each other).

Better ties between Washington and Tehran, though, offer the best opportunity to change how Tehran calculates the costs and benefits of hostile behaviour (if not hostile statements) toward Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East.

Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He is the author of many books and articles, including Leaving without Losing: The War on Terror after Iraq and Afghanistan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012).

The administration of President Barack Obama appears to have succeeded in preventing Congress from enacting new sanctions against Iran before the next round of nuclear-related talks between the U.S. and other great powers and Tehran scheduled for Geneva Nov. 20.

As a result, optimism that at least an interim deal may soon be achieved between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) appears once again on the rise here, amidst rumours circulating late Friday that Secretary of State John Kerry himself may lead the U.S. delegation.“The purpose of sanctions was to bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they have succeeded in doing so." -- Senator Dianne Feinstein

While some senators may still try to attach sanctions amendments to pending legislation – notably the 2014 defence authorisation bill (NDAA) to be taken up next week – most observers on Capitol Hill believe they will be highly unlikely to be voted on before Congress’s two-week Thanksgiving recess, pushing any possible new legislative action against Iran into December.

The administration had been concerned that new sanctions would strengthen hard-liners in Tehran, who would use it as evidence that Obama was either unable or unwilling to strike a deal that would not cross Iran’s “red line” – a refusal to recognise the Islamic Republic’s “right” to enrich uranium within certain limits under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Any strengthening of the hard-liners, it was feared, would force President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, to toughen their terms for a deal, making an agreement with the P5+1 much more difficult to achieve.

Defying pressure from the powerful Israel lobby, several key senators this week indicated they backed delaying action on new or pending sanctions legislation and giving the administration a chance to conclude at least an interim deal that could pave the way to a comprehensive accord on Iran’s nuclear programme within six months to a year.

“I strongly oppose any attempt to increase sanctions against Iran while P5+1 negotiations are ongoing,” said Dianne Feinstein, the influential chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a statement issued Friday.

“The purpose of sanctions was to bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they have succeeded in doing so. Tacking new sanctions onto the defence authorisation bill or any other legislation would not lead to a better deal,” she said, echoing several other colleagues, including the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin. “It would lead to no deal at all.”

The administration had hoped to conclude an interim deal last week in Geneva and negotiated a draft agreement in intensive talks between Kerry, the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Zarif, according to well-informed sources.

But the last-minute intervention by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who reportedly objected to language regarding Iran’s claims to a right to enrichment, as well as the disposition of its yet-to-be-completed Arak heavy-water reactor, resulted in changes in the draft that Zarif was unable to accept without further consultations in Tehran.

Whether Fabius’s objections – which have been variously attributed to pressure from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is home to France’s only military base in the Gulf, as well as inadequate consultation by Washington in its talks with Tehran – have been overcome remains unclear.

Preventing the Senate from approving new sanctions before next week’s negotiations, however, assumed top priority in its Iran diplomacy this past week.

Faced with an all-out campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to depict virtually any interim deal that fell short of completely dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme as a “historic mistake”, the administration held a series of high-level meetings with senators this week.

The goal was to persuade them that the pending  accord would not only halt Tehran’s nuclear advances, but would actually roll back some of its key elements, effectively lengthening the time it would take Iran to actually build a weapon if it chose to do so.

Obama himself entered the fray Thursday, insisting during a press conference that any easing of existing sanctions as part of an interim deal would be “very modest” and easily reversible if Iran failed to comply with its end of the bargain.

“…(W)hat I’ve said to members of Congress is that if, in fact, we’re serious about trying to resolve this diplomatically — because no matter how good our military is, military options are always messy, they’re always difficult, always have unintended consequences, and in this situation are never complete in terms of making us certain that they don’t then go out and pursue even more vigorously nuclear weapons in the future — if we’re serious about pursuing diplomacy, then there’s no need for us to add new sanctions on top of the sanctions that are already very effective and that brought them to the table in the first place,” Obama said.

Even as Obama was speaking, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with which Tehran had concluded an enhanced inspection plan earlier in the week, released a new report that found that Iran had slowed its nuclear progress since Rouhani took office in June.

Among other things, IAEA inspectors reported that Iran had not installed any new, highly efficient centrifuges at its Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities; that its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium – considered closest to bomb grade – had increased by only five percent over the past four months; and that work on its Arak reactor had slowed significantly.

While the administration did not react officially to the report, it appeared to further confirm to officials and some on Capitol Hill that, contrary to Netanyahu’s increasingly frequent – and sometimes apocalyptic – warnings, Tehran was indeed serious about reaching an agreement that would significantly curb its nuclear programme.

On Friday, pro-Israel hawks lost a major champion when Republican Sen. John McCain told a BBC interviewer that, though he was sceptical about prospects for a satisfactory agreement, he was “willing to give the administration a couple of months” to reach an accord.

An interim agreement, according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the well-respected Arms Control Association, is likely to include Iran’s agreement to halt all uranium enrichment to 20 percent levels and convert its existing 20 percent stockpile to oxide or lower enrichment levels.

It would also include a freeze on the introduction or operation of additional centrifuges; measures to reduce the proliferation potential of the Arak reactor, such a freeze on the manufacture of fuel assemblies; and acceptance (although not yet ratification) of a stricter IAEA inspection regime.

In exchange for these measures, the P5+1, he told IPS, may ease the current sanctions regime by releasing some Iranian oil sales-related assets that are frozen in other countries; and waiving certain sanctions on trade in gold or precious metals that were put into effect in July and/or on its auto and aircraft industries.

A final agreement, according to Kimball, would likely require Iran to roll back its overall enrichment capacity and ratify the NPT’s Additional Protocol that provides for enhanced IAEA inspections of actual and suspected nuclear facilities in exchange for the P5+1’s recognition in some form that Iran can conduct limited enrichment and a substantial scaling back of oil and financial sanctions.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

Secretary of State John Kerry addresses media in Geneva, Switzerland at the conclusion of the P5+1 talks on Iran's nuclear programme. Credit: U.S. Mission/Eric Bridiers

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 2013 (IPS)

The anticipated agreement over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme that seemed to slip away in the last stage of talks in Geneva last week is now being hotly debated on Capitol Hill.

“Right now Congress is looking at the deal that wasn’t and trying to figure out if it could be good enough to support,” Joel Rubin, who  heads policy and government affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, told IPS.

“Congress doesn’t sit on its hands and in this case they want to get involved on sanctions and whether or not to go forward with them, and this puts pressure on the [Barack] Obama administration,” he said.

Testifying Wednesday before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry – whose unexpected participation in the talks fueled speculation that a deal was in the works – said he hoped Congress would temporarily hold off on passing more sanctions because they could impede progress.

“We put these sanctions in place in order to be able to put us in the strongest position possible to be able to negotiate,” Kerry told reporters.

“We now are negotiating and the risk is that if Congress were to unilaterally move to raise sanctions, it could break faith with those negotiations and actually stop them and break them apart,” he said.

Some key members of Congress are expressing a different view.

“Tougher sanctions will serve as an incentive for Iran to verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons program,” wrote Committee member Sen. Robert Menendez in a USA Today op-ed Wednesday.

“When Iran complies, sanctions can be unwound and economic relief will follow,” said the Democratic senator, who cosponsored a bipartisan letter to the president in August that pushed for more sanctions and a credible reinforcement of the “military force” option until Iran “slowed down” its nuclear activities.

While stating earlier this week that they would await Kerry’s testimony before deciding on legislation that further reduces Iran’s oil exports, several key players said they were still undecided after the hearing Wednesday.

Other senators have meanwhile said they hope to add amendments involving Iran sanctions to the National Defence Authorisation Bill.

But a former congressional aide and diplomat told IPS “nothing will be passed into law between now and next Geneva round.”

According to Rubin, “I think we were very close to a deal and I think we got pushback and everyone is talking to their capitals now about what can now be achieved and that’s a good thing.

“To expect a breakthrough after 30-plus years of almost no direct contact and a breakthrough within 30 hours is too high of a bar,” he added.

Diplomatic finger-pointing

Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were initially unified in Geneva in resisting claims that France was responsible for the lack of a signed accord over Iran’s nuclear programme on Nov. 9.

But after Kerry said the next day in Abu Dhabi that Iran had not agreed to the final draft on the table, Zarif took to Twitter to shift blame away from Iran.

“Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night? and publicly commented against it Friday morning?” he tweeted.

Stating that he is interested in an agreement that is “serious and credible”, French Foreign Minister Fabius Laurent argued that the “initial text made progress but not enough” during an interview with France Inter radio on the morning of Nov. 9 in Geneva.

France was the first to announce that no deal had been reached in the early morning hours of Nov. 9 after a marathon round of meetings between Iran and the six world powers known as the P5+1.

Speaking on the dangers of Iran’s nuclear programme on the Senate floor Wednesday, the hawkish Senator John McCain repeated thanks to the French for their role in opposing a deal in Geneva.

“We owe our French allies a great deal of credit for preventing the major powers in the negotiations, the so-called P5-plus one, from making a bad, bad, bad interim deal with Iran, a deal that could have allowed Iran to continue making progress on key aspects of its nuclear programme, and in return it would receive an easing of billions of dollars in sanctions,” he said.

Debating how to deal with Iran

Earlier Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, who shares the position of pressure-advocates Menendez, McCain and other Senate hawks on Iran, forcefully argued against Iranian uranium enrichment, something which Iran has long insisted is an inherent right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory.

“If the Iranians insist upon enriching, I think that is a non-starter, that is incredibly dangerous and you’ll wake up one day with a North Korea in the Mideast,” said Graham on the Senate floor.

But while conceding that the United States certainly prefers zero enrichment on Iranian soil, one expert argued such maximalist positions will stand in the way of a mutually agreed upon settlement.

“[I]n reality, the quest for an optimal deal that requires a permanent end to Iranian enrichment at any level would likely doom diplomacy, making the far worse outcomes of unconstrained nuclearisation or a military showdown over Tehran’s nuclear program much more likely,” Colin Kahl, the top Middle East policy official at the Defence Department for most of Obama’s first term, said in prepared remarks Wednesday at a House Foreign Affairs hearing.

Questioning the effectiveness of increasing pressure on Iran at this time, Kahl recommended significant constraints on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for “meaningful sanctions relief.”

While noting that Congress should be ready to increase pressure on Iran if no agreement is reached before the end of the year, Kahl also testified that it would be “counterproductive” to impose new sanctions on Iran at this time.

“[D]oing so risks convincing the supreme leader that Rouhani’s experiment with moderation is a fool’s errand, empowering Iranian hardliners and aggravating tensions within the P5+1 and the wider international coalition currently isolating Tehran,” he said.

P5+1 Talks on Iran's nuclear programme begin at the United Nations in Geneva on Nov. 7, 2013. Credit: U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers

By Jasmin Ramsey
GENEVA, Nov 10 2013 (IPS)

Despite rising hopes amid an unexpected turn of events, negotiations here between Iran and six world powers have ended without an agreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said Saturday that they would reconvene with the representatives of the P5+1 (Britain, China, Russia, France and the United States plus Germany) on Nov. 20.

“A lot of concrete progress has been achieved but some differences remain,” said Ashton and Zarif in a joint statement after a meeting that included all the P5+1′s foreign ministers apart from China, which sent its vice minister.

“Obviously the six countries may have differences of views, but we are working together. Hopefully we will be able to reach an agreement when we meet again,” a smiling Zarif told reporters in the early morning hours of Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry — who has spent many hours with his Iranian counterpart here since his unexpected arrival on Nov. 8 after a brief stop in Tel Aviv — was optimistic at his lone press conference following the Iran/EU presser.

“There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than when we came,” said Kerry.

“The negotiations were conducted with mutual respect, they were very serious,” said Kerry, adding: “it takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds for a long time now.”

While emphasising that the United States would not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon and would retain all options in doing so, Kerry also described “forceful diplomacy as a powerful enough weapon to actually be able to defuse the world’s most threatening weapons of mass destruction.”

While diplomats involved in negotiations over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme here have been mostly tight-lipped about the details of their meetings, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius — who was reportedly the first to announce that the talks had ended without an agreement — expressed some concerns earlier in the day.

Stating that he is interested in an agreement that is “serious and credible”, Fabius argued that the “initial text made progress but not enough” during an interview with France Inter radio on the morning of Nov. 9.

According to François Nicoullaud, France’s former ambassador to Tehran (2001–05), the French position on Iran’s nuclear programme has not changed since François Hollande replaced Nicolas Sarkozy on May 12 as president.

“We have a kind of continuity in the French administration where the people who advised Mr. Sarkozy are the same ones who advise the current administration,” the veteran French diplomat told IPS, adding that France’s relations with Iran were more positive during the Jacques Chirac administration.

“This is especially true for the Iranian nuclear case because it’s very technical and complex and the government really needs to be convinced before it changes its position,” he said.

Countering the rising notion that France had played a role in delaying a deal, Zarif, Ashton and Kerry expressed gratitude for all the foreign ministers’ contributions to the negotiations.

Kerry said the prevailing secrecy maintained by the P5+1 was a sign of the “seriousness that is taking place” and cautioned against “jumping to conclusions.”

Shortly before Zarif had warned against conspiracy theories and reiterated that differences of opinion are normal in such situations while briefing Iranian press, according to the Shargh Daily reformist newspaper.

Speculation that France had postponed a deal arose after Fabius publicly expressed concerns early on Nov. 9 over Iran’s enrichment of 20-percent grade uranium and its Arak facility, which is not yet fully operational.

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, says the Arak facility “is more than a year from being completed; it would have to be fully operational for a year to produce spent fuel that could be used to extract plutonium.”

“Iran does not have a reprocessing plant for plutonium separation; and Arak would be under IAEA safeguards the whole time,” he noted in comments printed in the Guardian.

“The Arak Reactor certainly presents a proliferation problem, but there is nothing urgent,” said Nicoullaud, a veteran diplomat who has previously authored analyses of Iran’s nuclear activities.

“The best solution would be to transform it before completion into a light-water research reactor, which would create less problems,” he said, adding: “This is perfectly feasible, with help from the outside.”

“Have we tried to sell this solution to the Iranians? I do not know,” said Nicoullaud.

While diplomats involved in the talks have provided few details to the media, it’s now become clear that the approximately six-hour meeting on Nov. 8 between Kerry, Zarif and Ashton involved the consideration of a draft agreement presented by the Iranians.

That meeting contributed to hopes that a document would soon be signed until the early morning hours of Nov. 9, when the LA Times reported that after reaching a critical stage, the negotiators were facing obstacles.

“There has been some progress, but there is still a gap,” Zarif told reporters on Saturday afternoon, according to the Fars News Agency.

Zarif acknowledged France’s concerns but insisted on Iran’s positions.

“We have an attitude and the French have theirs,” said Zarif in comments posted in Persian on the Iranian Student News Agency.

In an exclusive Nov. 7 interview with IPS News, Zarif laid out Iran’s bottom lines in these negotiations.

“We want to see a situation where Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment on Iranian territory, is respected and at the same time all sanctions are removed,” he said.

“We are prepared to address the concerns of the international community in the process,” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (far left) sitting next to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 27. Credit: European External Action Service/cc by 2.0

By Jasmin Ramsey
GENEVA, Nov 8 2013 (IPS)

Raising expectations for a deal over its controversial nuclear programme, Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that a joint statement on the framework of a nuclear deal could be issued as early as Friday here amid ongoing negotiations with the P5+1 group of world powers.

Those expectations have also been raised by an NBC report that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry — who President Barack Obama appointed to oversee the U.S. side of nuclear negotiations with Iran in September — is unexpectedly heading to Geneva now.“Neither side should be told at home or by detractors outside that they’ve been taken for a ride; you want a deal that can be presented to sceptical publics." -- Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif

While officials from all sides here have remained tight-lipped about what that deal could include, the Iranian foreign minister exclusively told IPS that Iran’s parliament could consider implementing the Additional Protocol — a voluntary legal agreement that would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) increased inspection access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities — as part of a deal if it was convinced that sanctions would be reversed.

“The additional protocol is [only] within the prerogative of the Iranian parliament to adopt and to ratify, but we can consider it if the necessary confidence is built,” Zarif told IPS in an interview Thursday evening.

“[The U.S.] should show that they are prepared to reverse the trend; that is, to stop trying to achieve their objections through pressure on Iran,” said the foreign minister.

“Iran demands respect and equal footing [that is] only done when you are prepared to accommodate the other side without trying to impose your views,” continued Zarif.

“We want to see a situation where Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment on Iranian territory, is respected and at the same time all sanctions are removed,” he said.

“We are prepared to address the concerns of the international community in the process,” he added.

Asked by IPS to elaborate on any impediments to a deal, Zarif said that Iran was seeking one that was domestically acceptable.

“For this deal to be sustainable and in fact foster confidence, it needs to be balanced,” said Zarif, a Western-educated academic who worked closely with the U.S. in 2001 in drafting the deal that led to the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.

“Neither side should be told at home or by detractors outside that they’ve been taken for a ride; you want a deal that can be presented to sceptical publics,” he said.

Zarif also rejected the possibility of Iran suspending its controversial uranium enrichment as part of the framework of a possible deal.

On Wednesday, that idea was expressed by the U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with CNN.

Menendez told the journalist Christiane Amanpour that Iran should completely “suspend” its nuclear programme before even a pause in more sanctions.

Zarif rejected that notion this evening in a follow-up CNN interview and with IPS.

“From 2003-05 we did in fact suspend [uranium enrichment]; it didn’t lead anywhere,” Zarif told IPS.

“And from 2005 until now, they’ve been pushing for suspension. The result is that in 2005 we had less than 160 centrifuges spinning, now we have 19,000,” said Zarif.

Asked what measures Iran could take to address the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, Zarif told IPS, “It is in our interest that even the perception that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons would be removed” and Iran “will do anything possible, everything reasonable, to remove those perceptions.”

Iran could address those concerns by operating its nuclear programme in a “transparent, open way with IAEA monitoring,” he said.

Although the Obama administration has recently been lobbying for a temporary pause in the implementation of more sanctions on Iran while talks are in progress, key figures in Congress are voicing resistance against the effort.

A senior administration official told reporters here Wednesday that “Our experts strongly believe that any forward progress on additional sanctions at this time would be harmful to and potentially undermine the negotiating process at a truly crucial moment.”

“In response to a first step agreed to by Iran that halts their programme from advancing further, we are prepared to offer limited, targeted, and reversible sanctions relief,” said the official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity.

But the Senate Banking Committee is reportedly now poised to move ahead with more sanctions on Iran after the talks conclude here on Nov. 8, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, a top Republican senator on the Foreign Relations Committee also said he was preparing legislation that would prevent the loosening of sanctions on Iran.

“We’ve crafted an amendment to freeze the administration in and make it so they are unable to reduce the sanctions unless certain things occur,” Sen. Bob Corker told the Daily Beast on Wednesday.

While Iran may currently be far from reaching relief from U.S.-led sanctions targeting its oil revenues and banking sector, it may be getting closer to obtaining relief in other ways as part of a mutual deal.

“A lot of the U.S. restrictions are going to remain, but a good deal that the administration here signs off on could have a big impact on sanctions relief,” Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department policy planning official, told IPS.

“It depends what happens over the course of the next 24 hours…it’s difficult to persuade Congress to back off on any kind of pressure on Iran, but the banking committee’s decision doesn’t mean these provisions automatically become law,” said Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution.

“It’s entirely conceivable that if we see something come out of these talks, these sanctions would either not become law or be implemented,” she said.

Hopeful statements emerging from this week’s talks between Iran and the great powers have clearly set back foes of any détente between Washington and Tehran, but they are far from giving up the fight.

Arizona Rep. Trent Franks and more than a dozen of his colleagues in the House introduced a resolution calling not only for more sanctions, but also an Authorisation of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran. Credit: Gage Skidmore/cc by 3.0

Iran hawks here are pushing hard for Congress, where they enjoy the greatest influence, to approve a new set of extra-territorial sanctions – albeit with some tactical adjustments to take account of the newly hopeful mood coming out of Geneva – before the next round of talks between Tehran and the so-called P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) scheduled for Nov. 7-8 in the Swiss city.

Much will depend on how hard the administration of President Barack Obama presses sceptical Democrats – particularly those most closely associated with the powerful Israel lobby here – on putting off pending legislation at least until after the next round, and the persuasiveness of the chief U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State for Policy Wendy Sherman, in briefing lawmakers about the past week’s talks during which she also held a rare one-hour bilateral meeting with her Iranian counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.

Diplomats involved in the talks have so far been remarkably tight-lipped about the details of the proposals put forward by Araqchi and his boss, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif – a fact which is seen as a sign of the seriousness with which the proposals are being considered in western capitals. Sherman’s briefings will be held behind closed doors.

Before this week’s talks, the hawks, who have generally taken their cues from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were hoping for swift passage by the Senate of new sanctions legislation that was approved last by the House of Representatives by a 400-20 margin last July, shortly after the election of the most moderate of Iran’s presidential candidates, Hassan Rouhani.

Among other provisions, it aims to effectively embargo Iran’s oil exports by penalising foreign companies or countries that buy them. It would also freeze the cash reserves Iran is holding in foreign escrow accounts by sanctioning banks that allow Tehran access to them and target other foreign companies that do business with Iran’s shipping and automotive sectors.

The legislation’s main designers include the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has been heavily funded by wealthy U.S. businessmen close to Netanyahu’s Likud Party, such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus.

They have made little secret of their desire to wage what its Canadian executive director, Mark Dubowitz, has called “economic warfare” against Tehran that will either force it to completely abandon its nuclear programme, including giving up any uranium enrichment on its territory, or face “regime change” through the total collapse of its economy.

Even as the P5+1 convened their meeting with Zarif on the banks of Lake Geneva, Republican hawks in Congress pressed the case. Florida senator (and likely presidential hopeful) Marco Rubio introduced a resolution that not only endorsed additional sanctions, but also demanded that the president not provide any sanctions relief sought by Iran until it had verifiably dismantled its entire nuclear programme.

At the same time, Sen. Mark Kirk, a top beneficiary of campaign cash from political action committees associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), warned British Prime Minister David Cameron that any compromise that would leave Iran with the ability to enrich uranium, even at very low levels, would be comparable to Neville Chamberlain’s “appeasement” policy toward Adolf Hitler in 1938.

Some Republican zealots went even further, with Arizona Rep. Trent Franks and more than a dozen of his colleagues introducing a resolution calling not only for more sanctions, but also an Authorisation of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran which he said would “strengthen the president’s hand” in the talks, a position which Sen. Lindsay Graham, a leading hawk, has also pushed in recent months.

To most Iran experts, however, these legislative initiatives appear designed more to scuttle the negotiations than to further the prospects for success, which is broadly defined here as an accord that includes verifiable guarantees that Tehran will not be able to reach “breakout capability” to quickly build a nuclear weapon in exchange for dismantling the bilateral and multilateral sanctions regimes that have been erected against it.

“The imposition of still more sanctions, and the rattling of more sabers through legislation that refers to military force, are the sorts of Congressional actions that would be a slap in the face of a new Iranian administration that has just placed a constructive proposal on the negotiating table, would feed already understandable Iranian suspicions that the United States is interested only in regime change and not in an agreement, and thereby would weaken the Iranian incentive to make still more concessions,” wrote Paul Pillar, a retired CIA veteran who headed the U.S. intelligence community’s Middle East and South Asia analysis from 2000 to 2005, on his blog on nationalinterest.com Thursday.

That proposa is believed to have featured Iran’s willingness to place verifiable limits on all aspects and facilities that make up its nuclear programme, including its enrichment of uranium, within one year. It was apparently sufficiently serious and comprehensive to prompt an unprecedented joint statement by Zarif and the P5+1 top negotiating official, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, that described the talks as “substantive and forward looking” and will now be the subject of talks between P5+1 and Iranian technical experts in the run-up to the Nov. 7-8 meeting.

It also appears to have put the hawks, who are particularly worried that Obama could soon begin easing existing sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions as part of a confidence-building process, on the back foot.

On Friday, for example, the normally hawkish Washington Post editorial board, while noting that a final deal “would require far greater concessions than the regime appears to be contemplating,” nonetheless wrote that “it is worth exploring a settlement that permits a token amount of enrichment while locking down the program to minimise the chance of an undetected breakout.”

More surprising perhaps were remarks by Gary Samore, the Obama administration’s top proliferation hawk during his first term who now heads United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a pro-sanctions group closely allied with FDD and AIPAC, to the Financial Times.

Adding new sanctions now, he warned “would look to much of the rest of the world as if the U.S. was blowing up the negotiations. It would play into Iran’s hands, giving them an excuse to accelerate their programme,” he said, noting that Obama’s position vis-à-vis key Democrats in Congress has strengthened as a result of his clear victory this week over Republicans on the government shutdown.

Finally, one key Democratic hawk who had strongly favoured quickly adding new sanctions before this week’s talks, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez, also appears to be having second thoughts, telling Congressional Quarterly Thursday that he had not made a decision as to when sanctions should move forward.

In light of these events, sanctions proponents appear to be modifying their approach. While Samore appears to agree with the administration that the present moment to seek new legislation is not the most opportune, Dubowitz is actively promoting quick Senate passage on the pending bill subject to an amendment that would allow Obama to unfreeze Tehran’s cash reserves in foreign escrow accounts in exchange for Iranian concessions on the nuclear programme without weakening or risk unravelling the existing sanctions regime.

Such a scheme, however, would also give Congress the power to put a “hold” on Obama’s decision to permit Iran’s access to its funds, a provision that may well appeal to lawmakers sceptical of all the optimism coming out of Geneva, but that is unlikely to be viewed favourably by the White House, which resents legislative interference in its diplomacy.

And Tehran would no doubt see any new sanctions legislation – no matter how it is billed — as the latest attempt by the Israel lobby to derail negotiations before they can get up a real head of steam.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

From Tehran’s perspective, the current negotiations between Iran and the United States may be best described as a wrestling match.

Before President Hassan Rouhani’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), his boss, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke of “heroic leniency” toward the United States. Subsequently, Khamenei’s office issued a telling graphic that depicted a set of guidelines for negotiations. The graphic also called to mind an Iranian zoorkhaneh, or house of strength, where men perform traditional weightlifting and wrestling, one of the most popular sports in Iran.

According to Khamenei, the Islamic Republic is willing to engage its enemy, or show “flexibility,” in order to win the overall competition. However, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards have also laid out clear red lines for Rouhani. He is to demonstrate no weakness or “humility” with the opponent, the United States. And he should not weaken Iran’s ties and alliances with Islamic and resistance groups, especially Hezbollah.

Rouhani’s recent charm offensive has greatly raised expectations amongst those wishing for U.S.-Iran reconciliation. However, this is not Rouhani’s mandate; rather, the Islamic Republic has tasked him with negotiating the nuclear crisis away and alleviating pressures faced by the regime. Although this may not seem the perfect outcome, it nevertheless presents a unique opportunity for the United States.

It is unlikely that Khamenei and his supporters will ever change their fundamental views of America. Suspicion of the United States may be motivated by religious and cultural values, but only to a limited extent. The regime’s revolutionary ideology and geopolitical interests play a bigger role.

Khamenei sees the global order as tilted in the West’s favour. The United States is the latest of a long line of imperialist powers that have attempted to dominate the Middle East. He views his regime, which replaced Iran’s last monarch, as the focal point of resistance to Western domination.

This has meant an Iranian policy of containment with limited engagement in which Iran limits and rolls back Washington’s influence while pursuing diplomacy when it suits regime “expediency.” (The United States has also pursued a similar policy of containment).

Khamenei has said that he does not oppose negotiating with the United States in principle as long as it does not violate Iran’s interests.

For a long time, his policy seemed to work. Iran carved out a sphere of influence from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, and could count on its allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond to help maintain its interests. Iran’s economy, while never great, functioned and at times prospered until the imposition of the most punishing sanctions.

Iran earned an estimated 500 billion dollars from oil and natural gas sales during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, while its nuclear programme progressed in the face of Western opposition. Khamenei was willing to engage the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to enhance Iran’s influence, and no more.

But Ahmadinejad’s monumental incompetence made Iran the loser, not the champion. Iran’s economy is in the dumps, the people are unhappy, and Tehran’s regional influence is in decline. Khamenei needed a new wrestler, and Rouhani appears more than capable. He can manage the economy, negotiate away sanctions, and give the Iranian people a bit more freedom, but not too much.

It is not too surprising that Rouhani did not shake President Obama’s hand during the United Nations General Assembly confab. He may have a mandate to negotiate, but he cannot appear to be weak in the face of the enemy. Khamenei’s “heroic leniency” means a well-defined set of red lines and parametres, rather than gestures that call into question the very purpose of the wrestling match.

However, this does not mean that Rouhani’s diplomacy is false or that Khamenei is merely buying time. In the past, U.S. engagement with Iran has produced results. Iran’s support was crucial in establishing the government of Hamid Karzai after the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Limited engagement with Iran focusing on the nuclear programme and perhaps even Syria can work.

Real U.S. wrestlers have competed with Iranians, and have always been greeted in Iran with open arms. However, no one should expect Rouhani to change the dynamics between Iran and the United States, or apparently, to even offer his hand in friendship. The wrestling match is not over, but for now some flexibility from both sides can ensure a managed rivalry, rather than a bloody mess between a beleaguered superpower and its frustrated but determined regional rival.

Alireza Nader is a senior international policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.