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TV: Bennett-Blinken phone call on Iran was 'long and tough' | The Times of Israel 2 December 2021, 8:34 pmEdit

Unnamed sources tell Channel 12 news that Prime Minister Naftali Bennetts call today with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was long and tough, with the Israeli leader making clear that Israel opposes the notion of a less for less nuclear deal with Iran.

Blinken today said hed had a very good talk with Bennett, adding that we have exactly the same strategic objectives.

Channel 12s reporters assert that relations with Washington are encountering something of a crisis over the Iranian issue, as evidenced by Mossad chief David Barneas tough remarks today on a potential bad deal with Tehran (see below).

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (L) meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Willard Hotel in Washington on August 25, 2021. (Avi Ohayon / GPO)

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Excerpt from:
TV: Bennett-Blinken phone call on Iran was 'long and tough' - The Times of Israel

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Mariano Grossi, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian pictured meeting in Tehran, on Tuesday. Grossi pressed for greater access in the Islamic Republic ahead of diplomatic talks restarting over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Vahid Salemi/AP hide caption

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Mariano Grossi, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian pictured meeting in Tehran, on Tuesday. Grossi pressed for greater access in the Islamic Republic ahead of diplomatic talks restarting over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal begin again Monday in Vienna. It'll be the seventh round of meetings between the United States, Iran, European powers and China but the first in nearly six months.

And a lot has happened since the last round to raise the stakes for any deal.

To recap, the 2015 deal gave Iran relief from economic sanctions in return for limits on its nuclear program. President Trump abandoned the agreement in 2018, reimposing the sanctions the U.S. had lifted. Iran responded with a public, step-by-step ramping up of the machinery used to enrich uranium the nuclear fuel needed for a bomb.

Iran and the U.S. along with the other world powers involved in the deal say they want to restore it. But they've been stuck on who takes the first steps.

Since the talks stalled, Iran has elected a new, hard-line president who's heightened his country's demands for any new agreement. And in the background, there's been a series of attacks on Iran's nuclear program, suspected to originate in Israel, including the assassination of a leading Iranian scientist a year ago. That raises the risk of conflict at the bargaining table.

The Trump administration argued that the agreement worked out by the Obama White House was too short parts of it expire in 2025 and should have required fundamental changes in Iran's policies. When Trump reimposed sanctions, he cut off most of Iran's oil sales. When other partners in the deal the European Union, China, Russia objected, the U.S. threatened that any company doing business with Iran would also be cut off from business with the U.S. Most of those sanctions are still in place and Iranians feel the economic pain. That's leverage for Biden's negotiators now.

In response to the U.S. exit, Iran methodically broke the deal's limits its conservative parliament even passed a law to require those breaches. The country has since stockpiled more enriched uranium than the deal allows. And it has enriched its supply well beyond the levels stipulated in the deal, that is, closer to the levels of enrichment needed for a weapon.

Back when the U.S. was in the deal and Iran was complying with it, analysts said its program was frozen and at least a year away from making enough enriched uranium needed for a bomb. Now, experts say it could be a month away if Iran wanted to go for it. (But making an actual bomb, testing it and loading it on missiles could take a year or two.) Perhaps most troubling, Iran has restricted access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, an atomic watchdog that monitors its nuclear sites. They could be missing out on vital information.

To get back in the deal, the U.S. would need to unspool the complicated web of sanctions. Iran would have to open up again to inspectors, dismantle equipment, and ship out uranium or reduce its levels of enrichment. Either way, Iran has already learned more about how to make a nuclear weapon in the process.

Amid resentment over the country's poor economy and disappointment in the collapse of the deal, Iranians elected President Ibrahim Raisi in June. He's more of a hard-liner than his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani, who had agreed to the deal in 2015. Raisi seems determined to show he can get a better deal for his people.

The man expected to lead the negotiations for Iran recently said these shouldn't even be called, "nuclear talks." He claims they're about sanctions. "We do not have nuclear talks," Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani told state media, "because the nuclear issue was fully agreed in 2015."

Iranian officials say, basically, that since it was the U.S. that first broke the deal, it should be the U.S. that makes the first moves to get it going again by lifting all the sanctions. And, burned by Trump's withdrawal, they say they want a guarantee the deal will remain in force even after the next U.S. presidential election a promise probably not possible under the U.S. system.

U.S. officials see the new posturing on the other side and say it's up to Iran to prove it's interested in a deal. Speaking to NPR last week, U.S. negotiator Robert Malley tempered expectations. "If [Iran is] dragging their feet at the negotiating table, accelerating their pace with their nuclear program, that will be their answer to whether they want to go back into the deal," Malley said. "And it will be a negative one if that's what they choose to do."

He's urged Iran to at least meet directly with the U.S., which it refuses. He and European leaders have called on Iran to stop breaking the terms of the deal. Malley told NPR that if Iran doesn't return to the deal, the U.S. would need "other efforts, diplomatic and otherwise, to try to address Iran's nuclear ambitions." He said Iran's nuclear advances could soon make it too late for a deal. "We don't have much time before we have to conclude that Iran has chosen a different path," he said.

At times, the U.S. has also raised the idea adding new conditions to the deal including possibly extending the term of the agreement or trying to include limits on Iran's ballistic missile program. Iran says those are non-starters.

Proponents of re-entering the deal say it keeps Iran from getting close to making a bomb. Even Trump's defense secretary said Iran was in compliance back when the deal was in effect. Backers of an agreement say other issues with Iran like its support for militants, human rights violations, threats against Israel and Saudi Arabia can be managed separately and more easily if the country doesn't pose a nuclear threat.

Opponents to the deal say the Iranian regime is shaky and hurting from the sanctions. They maintain Iran would make more concessions to get out of sanctions or could even eventually be brought down. Sanctions relief would give the Iranian government access to vast oil revenues it could use to destabilize the Mideast. Some Israeli officials suggest sabotage or even military strikes are preferable to keep Iran's nuclear program from advancing.

But that's seen as a risky approach that could lead to war. The Biden administration is looking to take Iran off the list of possible world flashpoints. And Iran wants to start doing business with the world. That might be enough to lead both countries to a new agreement, whether it's a return to the old deal or some half-step toward easing tensions. The latter could mean a partial deal lifting some U.S. sanctions in exchange for Iran scaling back some of the steps it's taken.

Read the original post:
Iran nuclear talks are restarting. Here's what's at stake - NPR

Arms-control talks between Iran and the great powers resume Monday with a notable absence. At Tehrans insistence, the U.S. delegation wont have a seat at the tableits members must wait in an antechamber to be briefed by the Europeans. The mullahs have always relished humiliating Americans, particularly those eager to prove their benevolent intentions. These negotiations will yield little, no matter how much money Washington releases or how ardently Biden administration officials describe any follow-on talks as important steps toward a diplomatic solution.

The clerical regimes atomic ambitions will continue to progress rapidly because the U.S. administration has no intention of trying to rescind what President Obamas nuclear deal granted: the development of high-yield, easily hidden centrifuges, the key to an unstoppable bomb program. The Islamic Republic has displayed an uncanny ability to advance its aspirations and eviscerate American red lines with impunity.

Continued here:
Irans Nuclear Negotiators Make the U.S. Sit at the Kiddie Table - The Wall Street Journal

There is a strikingly topsy-turvy, Saturnalian feel to recent qualifying matches for the 2022 football World Cup. Saudi Arabia (population 35 million) beat China (population 1.4 billion). Canada lead the US in their group. Four-time winners Italy failed to defeat lowly Northern Ireland.

Pursuing an unbeaten run full of political symbolism, unfancied Iran are also over the moon after subjugating the neighbourhood, as is their habit. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE all succumbed to the soaraway Persian Leopards.

Little, it seems, can stop Iran reaching the World Cup finals in Qatar a year from now.

Yet wait. Its time, perhaps, for a geo-strategic VAR check. Theres a big potential snag with this particular football field of dreams: military conflict in the Gulf. A shooting war with Israel and the US would definitely upset Irans chances. It could wreck the whole World Cup.

War would, of course, have many infinitely more serious consequences than disruption of a football competition. Yet this dread prospect is drawing closer as a diplomatic showdown looms in Vienna.

Irans new hardline leadership do not regard last-gasp talks on reviving the moribund 2015 nuclear deal, which resume in Austrias capital on Monday, as a negotiation. For them, its a forum for correcting past injustices. They insist that the US admit Donald Trump was wrong to renege on the deal, immediately lift all sanctions and pledge never to break its promises again. While most can agree Trumps decision was incredibly stupid, Irans other demands are beyond President Joe Bidens power to deliver.

Israel, expressing scant faith in the talks, is meanwhile making military threats. Its rightwing prime minister, Naftali Bennett, claimed last week that the Tehran regime was at the most advanced stage of its nuclear programme.

Bennetts remarks appeared aimed at Biden as much as at Iran. In any event, even if there is a return to the [2015] deal, Israel is of course not a party to the deal and is not obligated by the deal, he said. In other words, Israel may defy the US and go it alone. It is possible there will be disputes with the best of our friends, Bennett added.

While denying intent to build a bomb, Iranians point out Israel already has a formidable, undeclared nuclear arsenal of its own, which is not subject to UN inspections. This piece of hypocrisy is too often forgotten in the west.

Conveniently ignored, too, is the fact the US is spending $1.5tn on modernising its nuclear weapons. Other parties to the Iran deal the UK, France, Russia and China are also upgrading or expanding nukes. This hardly sets a good non-proliferation example.

In Bidens White House, early optimism that Iran could be peacefully persuaded to halt its reportedly accelerating advance towards nuclear weapons capabilities has been replaced by gloom about the Vienna outcome.

There are a cascading set of consequences for all of this coming undone, a former senior official told NBC News. I just dont see how this comes to a happy conclusion.

In an apparent bid to placate Israel and pressure Iran, the White House has let it be known it will consider alternatives, including military action, should Vienna fail.

A so-called Plan B reportedly includes options for additional sanctions, including on Irans lucrative oil sales to China; covert operations; and air and missile strikes, jointly or in support of Israeli forces.

Yet in an unusual check to Israeli security officials, Bidens advisers are simultaneously briefing that Israels assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage of nuclear facilities are counter-productive. Instead of deterring the regime, such attacks, never officially admitted, are said to have had the opposite effect, just as Trumps maximum pressure campaign only increased Tehrans defiance.

The US is also privately warning that the relocation of nuclear facilities underground and improved Iranian ground-to-air and cyber defences mean military strikes may prove ineffective.

All of which strongly points to Biden adopting another, less confrontational Plan B option: an interim deal that would slow Irans nuclear activities and allow more extensive UN inspections, in return for limited sanctions relief.

Even a temporary pact would be a relief for worried European governments and Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, that have been tentatively rebuilding bridges to Tehran.

For Biden, a stop-gap deal, however unsatisfactory, could defuse, for now, a regional crisis that might otherwise suck in the US, roil his domestic and foreign agendas, and further inflate global energy prices.

Viennese fudge is perhaps the best the west can hope for. Rabid hardliners in Tehran who believe Iran can weather continuing sanctions, and argue a new agreement is not necessary, will resist a compromise. Their dangerous stupidity is a match for Trumps.

But much the same holds true for Israeli hawks who believe conflict with Iran is both inevitable and necessary for the countrys future security. In truth, this conflict, dubbed the shadow war, is already being fought with rising intensity.

Israel has conducted hundreds of unacknowledged air strikes on Iranian or Iran-linked targets, mostly but not solely in Syria, in recent years. Another attack near Homs reportedly killed two civilians last week.

Iran runs its own arms-length operations in the Gulf and elsewhere, using proxies such as Iraqi Shia militias. US officials effectively blamed Israel for provoking an armed drone strike on an American base in southern Syria last month that they said was Irans retaliation for Israeli strikes.

This sparring could quickly escalate into something far worse. As diplomacy nears the final whistle, restraining Israel may be as big a challenge for Biden as containing Iran. Yet if the World Cup qualifiers are any guide, Israel should tread carefully. It was knocked out this month.

Read more:
Nothing can stop Irans World Cup heroes. Except war, of course - The Guardian

The Iranian flag waves in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

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VIENNA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Russia on Friday chided the United States for threatening a diplomatic escalation with Iran at the U.N. nuclear watchdog next month unless it improves cooperation with the agency, saying it risked harming wider talks on the Iran nuclear deal.

The United States threatened on Thursday to confront Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency if it does not give way on at least one of several conflicts with the IAEA, especially its refusal to let the IAEA re-install cameras at a workshop after an apparent attack in June.

"I believe that demonstrates that our American counterparts lose patience but I believe all of us need to control our emotions," Russia's ambassador to the IAEA Mikhail Ulyanov told a news conference with his Chinese counterpart.

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"I don't welcome this particular statement of the U.S. delegation (at the IAEA). It's not helpful."

Indirect talks between the United States and Iran aimed at reviving the battered 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers are due to resume on Monday after a five-month break that started after the election that brought Iranian hardline President Ebrahim Raisi to power.

The 2015 deal lifted sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions against Tehran.

Iran responded by breaching many of the restrictions, reducing the time it would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it wanted to. Tehran denies that it would ever seek atomic weapons.

"The U.S. did not negotiate with the Iranians for a very long time and forgot that Iranians don't do anything under pressure. If they are under pressure, they resist," Ulyanov said, apparently referring to the fact that U.S. and Iranian envoys are not meeting directly.

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Reporting by Francois Murphy, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The rest is here:
Russia criticises U.S. over threat of escalation with Iran at IAEA - Reuters