Mediaboss Marketing

Editors Note: One of President-elect Bidens most pressing foreign policy questions will be whether, and how, to reengage with Iran over its nuclear program. American Enterprise Institutes Kenneth Pollack argues that hopes to negotiate a better agreement are, for now, unrealistic and that the window for action will not be open for long.

Daniel Byman

***

Despite the welter of conflicting actions and statements coming from senior Iranian leaders, it seems that Tehran would welcome a quick return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era nuclear agreement, by the incoming Biden administration. However, Iran appears to be signaling that the opportunity to do so will be brief, and if the United States does not immediately resume compliance with the terms of the original agreement, that window will close quickly and perhaps permanently. The Biden administrations best approach will be to pursue complementary near-term and long-term strategies simultaneously to bring Iran back into compliance with the limits on its nuclear program while raising the stakes of Tehrans adventurism in the region and paving the way to a follow-on agreement.

The Signal in the Noise

Irans leaders have made a number of statements and taken several actions that have created confusion regarding their likely response to an offer by the incoming Biden administration for both parties to return to the terms of the 2015 JCPOA. Five key statements and actions provide the greatest insight into Irans likely course of action:

Taken together, these signs suggest that Iran is trying to welcome Americas return to the original JCPOA, while warning it against any effort to expand or add on to that deal.

Khameneis statement is the most important by far. Not only is he Irans ultimate decision-maker, but he also has been hypercritical of the JCPOAwhich has raised the prospect that he might be uninterested in returning to it even if the Biden administration is. His remarks in December indicate that he wants economic relief in exchange for returning to the agreement and probably hopes that this will placate the tens of millions of Iranians unhappy over not just the impact of U.S. sanctions but also the pandemic and Irans long-standing corruption and mismanagement. Indeed, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told the Majlis on Dec. 13 that he expected Iran to quickly reach 2.3 million barrels per day of oil exports as soon as the United States lifts sanctionsa major jump from the 500,000-600,000 barrels per day it has been exporting over the past few months. Such a public statement also speaks to the desire of Irans leaders to reassure their country that help is on the way.

These various suggestions also indicate that the key issue for Khamenei and other Iranian leaders is not reentry into the agreement, but the prospect that the United States will seek to expand the terms of the JCPOA or negotiate a follow-on pact that would further restrict Irans nuclear program. That is a reasonable concern on their part since President-elect Biden has made no secret of his desire to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Irans nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile program. It is that prospect that Tehran appears determined to foreclose ahead of time.

Irans hard-liners largely hate the JCPOA, and they have consistently opposed it on the basis that it was too generous to the United States and too disadvantageous to the Iranians. Khamenei may not want to force them to accept a new deal that imposes even more restrictions on Iran, or he may simply agree with them.

Alternatively or additionally, Khamenei may not feel there is anything else the United States can offer him to make a revised JCPOA or a follow-on agreement worthwhile for Iran. Khamenei always saw the JCPOA as a simple transaction between the United States and Iran: ending sanctions for accepting nuclear constraints. He may believe that the JCPOA already gives him everything he wants or everything he can realistically expect from the United States, more so since it seems highly unlikely that the U.S. Congress would repeal any of the sanctions legislation on Iran. And the U.S. sanctions pertaining to Irans support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and the like will probably remain in place regardless of any further concessions Tehran might make on its nuclear program.

Consequently, the Rouhani and Khamenei statements should be seen as affirmations that Iran would rejoin the JCPOA on its original terms if the United States did the same. The Majlis bill complements this in Iranian eyes as a marker that the regime is uninterested in lengthy negotiationsthe kind that would be required for a revision of the JCPOA or a follow-on agreement. And the new enrichment activity and the construction at Fordow and Natanz are probably meant to put further pressure on the United States to return to the original deal quickly, lest the Iranians expand their nuclear facilities in ways that Washington would find alarming.

The Narrow Window

All of this suggests that the time frame for bringing Iran back to the JCPOA might be very tight. First, if the analysis of the various, seemingly contradictory Iranian statements above is correct, then if the Biden administration were to insist on trying to renegotiate the terms of the JCPOA or negotiating a follow-on agreement before resuming U.S. compliance with it, the Iranians might walk away from the entire agreement. That seems to be what they are signaling, although that might just be a bluff.

Even though Rouhani and the moderatesand apparently even Khameneiwould prefer to see the JCPOA reinstated and the sanctions lifted, there is reason to believe that this is a preference, not a necessity. Khamenei in particular may be willing to weather the sanctions indefinitely if he does not get his way.

Iran has already withstood the sanctions for three years without caving in to the demands of the Trump administration, and Tehran may be ready to hold out longer if its only alternative is to agree to terms it finds unacceptable. Khamenei has repeatedly agreed with the hard-liners that the United States should not have been trusted to keep the terms of the original agreement. Irans hard-liners have always seen the countrys economic health as less important than its security, ideological purity and nationalist aspirations. Many of them seem to prefer an autarkic resistance economy to Rouhanis policy of nuclear cooperation with the West.

Moreover, Irans presidential elections loom in June 2021, and they do not bode well for lengthy negotiations over the JCPOA. Although Iranian presidential elections are incredibly unpredictable, what evidence we do have strongly indicates that a hard-liner will succeed Rouhani. Before the 2020 Majlis elections, Irans Council of Guardians disqualified more than 50 percent of those who applied to run for election, including 75 percent of the members of the outgoing assembly and virtually all of the reformist and moderate candidates. The favoritism toward the various hard-line factions was so outrageous that the reformists called for a boycott of the elections, resulting in the lowest turnout in Iranian history. There is no reason to expect anything different from the presidential elections.

Removing Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif from Irans internal conversation and replacing them with hard-liners is likely to be equally problematic for U.S.-Iran negotiations down the line. Given the hard-line dominance of the rest of the Iranian regime, it is unclear who would even make the argument in favor of such negotiations during Tehrans deliberationslet alone argue for further compromises to get an agreement.

In addition, whatever the Biden administration does, a hard-line Iranian leadership is likely to spin it to justify discontinuing negotiations with Washington. If the United States returns to the JCPOA, Irans hard-liners are likely to argue that Tehran got everything that Khamenei wanted and does not need anything else. And if the United States hasnt rejoined the deal by that point in time, Irans leadership would probably conclude that the United States is not interested in doing so and is only interested in squeezing more out of the Iranians than they are willing to give.

The Long and the Short of a New American Approach

If the Biden administration is going to navigate the obstacle course that Tehran is trying to lay out for it, it is going to have to employ differing but complementary short-term and long-term approaches to Iran. This will be difficult, both because shifting from one approach to the other requires knowing when to do so and because changing gears will require the administration to devote more energy and effort to the Iranian nuclear problem than it probably would like given the vast range of other problems the United States already faces.

First and foremost, the new administration will need to negotiate a quick return to the original terms of the JCPOA and temporarily set aside any ambitions of getting a follow-on agreement for now. Americas first need is to get the Iranians to cease and desist from their nuclear activities in violation of the JCPOA because these are undermining both the agreement and the wider security of the region. Moreover, doing so is the best way to change the harmful narrative created by President Trump that the United States is the rogue state, unwilling to abide by the terms of an international agreement (and a U.N. Security Council resolution). The rest of the world needs to understand that this is a different administration and that Iran is the problem, not America.

Nevertheless, quickly rejoining the JCPOA will almost certainly require the United States to forgo its desire to improve it. That would instead have to become a longer-term goal. And for that to happento get the Iranians to agree to new negotiations, let alone get them to agree to a more restrictive follow-on agreementthe United States would have to develop new leverage against Tehran.

That might include the threat of reimposing sanctions, but it probably shouldnt. First, it will not help Americas international support to once again renege on the original agreement or even to threaten to do so. That would, in turn, make it hard to get the international support for sanctions that helped Obama get an agreement where Trump failed. Second, at the most practical level, reimposing the sanctions was not enough to get Tehran to agree to renegotiate the JCPOA with Trump. There is no reason to believe it would create greater success for Biden.

Thus, to get such a follow-on agreement, Biden would have to manufacture more leverage against Tehran than Trump did with his maximum pressure campaign. The only realistic way is to do the one thing that Trump refused to do. The one thing that appears to be dearer to Irans hard-liners than a flourishing economy (other than threatening regime change) is their creeping dominance of the Middle East. Biden would have to halt the expansion of Iranian influence across the region and probably start to roll back the gains that Tehran has made in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Gulf over the past 12 years.

On the plus side, containing and rolling back Iranian expansionism is also what all of Americas regional allies and many of its global allies want most from the United States, although the latter seek a more restrained version than the former.

Indeed, at its broadest level, such a policy should be designed to reengage with the problems of the Middle East and shore up the United Statess regional allies across the board to prevent Iran from picking off any more of them, while giving them the strength and confidence needed to reform domestically and refrain from dangerous foreign adventures (like the Saudi and Emirati intervention in Yemen).

Rhetorically, it would require President Biden early on to publicly reaffirm Americas commitment to the Carter Doctrine and its Reagan Corollary, which pledge the United States to defend its Gulf allies, including by responding to Iranian attacks on Gulf oil exports in ways that Trump would not. In particular, Trumps refusal to respond to Iranian attacks on oil tankers carrying Saudi and Emirati oil in the summer of 2019 or the stunning Iranian drone attack on Saudi Arabias irreplaceable Abqaiq oil processing facility in September 2019 terrified Americas allies from Beirut to Jerusalem, and Rabat to Riyadh.

Militarily, reengaging the Middle East should not conjure images of the surge in Iraq. The current light U.S. military footprint is perfectly adequate. It just should not get much smaller. In an ideal world, it would also be better to bring U.S. troop levels in Iraq back up to about 5,000 and in Syria, to 2,000the right numbers for the actual missions, and the size of those forces before Trumps gratuitous, politically motivated troop cuts.

In the economic realm, it would be enormously helpful to commit at least $1 billion to help Iraq avert impending financial disaster. Likewise, Jordan looks like Irans next target, and an additional $300-$500 million for Amman would go a long way toward shoring up the Hashemite monarchy. American diplomats could also use the prospect of additional aid to help countries such as Bahrain, Morocco and even Egypt push ahead with their sluggish reform agendas.

None of this will break the bank, even in these unprecedented times. All of it will be enormously helpful in allowing the United States to help its allies withstand Irans regional offensive and to threaten that which Irans hard-liners cherish most, their sway across the Arab world. For better and worse, such modest American reengagement with the Middle East is the only realistic way for the Biden administration to acquire the leverage it would need to bring a recalcitrant Iran around to agree to a follow-on to the JCPOA that addresses the weaknesses in the original agreement.

And that would allow Biden to leave the situation in the Middle East better than what he inherited and better than what he was able to accomplish the last time around, when he was vice president and saddled with a similar set of problems in this difficult part of the world.

Read more from the original source:
Prospects for U.S.-Iran Relations at the Start of the Biden Administration - Lawfare

President Trumps incitement of criminal mob violence and occupation of the Capitol makes clear there is no limitation whatever on the abuse of power he may commit in the next two weeks he remains in office. Outrageous as his incendiary performance was on Wednesday, I fear he may incite something far more dangerous in the next few days: his long-desired war with Iran.

Could he possibly be so delusional as to imagine that such a war would be in the interests of the nation or region or even his own short-term interests? His behavior and evident state of mind this week and over the last two months answers that question.

The dispatch this week of B-52s nonstop round-trip from North Dakota to the Iranian coast the fourth such flight in seven weeks, one at years end along with his build-up of US forces in the area, is a warning not only to Iran but to us.

In mid-November, as these flights began, the president had to be dissuaded at the highest levels from directing an unprovoked attack on Iran nuclear facilities. But an attack provoked by Iran (or by militias in Iraq aligned with Iran) was not ruled out.

US military and intelligence agencies have frequently, as in Vietnam and Iraq, provided presidents with false information that offered pretexts to attack our perceived adversaries. Or theyve suggested covert actions that could provoke the adversaries to some response that justifies a US retaliation.

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Irans top nuclear scientist, in November was probably intended to be such a provocation. If so, it has failed so far, as did the assassination exactly a year ago of General Suleimani.

But time is now short to generate an exchange of violent actions and reactions that will serve to block resumption of the Iran nuclear deal by the incoming Biden administration: a pre-eminent goal not only of Donald Trump but of the allies he has helped bring together in recent months, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Evidently it would take more than individual murders to induce Iran to risk responses justifying a large-scale air attack before Trump leaves office. But US military and covert planning staffs are up to the task of attempting to meet that challenge, on schedule.

I was a participant-observer of such planning myself, with respect to Vietnam half a century ago. On 3 September 1964 just a month after I had become special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, John T McNaughton a memo came across my desk in the Pentagon written by my boss. He was recommending actions likely at some point to provoke a military DRV [North Vietnam] response likely to provide good grounds for us to escalate if we wished.

Such actions that would tend deliberately to provoke a DRV reaction (sic), as spelled out five days later by McNaughtons counterpart at the state department, the assistant secretary of state William Bundy, might include running US naval patrols increasingly close to the North Vietnamese coast ie running them within the 12-mile coastal waters the North Vietnamese claimed: as close to the beach as necessary, to get a response that might justify what McNaughton called a full-fledged squeeze on North Vietnam [a progressively all-out bombing campaign], which would follow especially if a US ship were sunk.

I have little doubt that such contingency planning, directed by the Oval Office, for provoking, if necessary, an excuse for attacking Iran while this administration is still in office exists right now, in safes and computers in the Pentagon, CIA and the White House. That means there are officials in those agencies perhaps one sitting at my old desk in the Pentagon who have seen on their secure computer screens highly classified recommendations exactly like the McNaughton and Bundy memos that came across my desk in September 1964.

I will always regret that I did not copy and convey those memos along with many other files in the top-secret safe in my office at that time, all giving the lie to the presidents false campaign promises that same fall that we seek no wider war to Senator Fulbrights foreign relations committee in September 1964 rather than five years later in 1969, or to the press in 1971. A wars worth of lives might have been saved.

Current documents or digital files that contemplate provoking or retaliating to Iranian actions covertly provoked by us should not remain secret another moment from the US Congress and the American public, lest we be presented with a disastrous fait accompli before January 20, instigating a war potentially worse than Vietnam plus all the wars of the Middle East combined. It is neither too late for such plans to be carried out by this deranged president nor for an informed public and Congress to block him from doing so.

I am urging courageous whistleblowing today, this week, not months or years from now, after bombs have begun falling. It could be the most patriotic act of a lifetime.

Link:
Donald Trump's parting gift to the world? It may be war with Iran - The Guardian

Perhaps no other country will be as directly affected by the outcome of the U.S. election as Iran.

As the U.S. undergoes a bumpy transition of power between President-elect Joe Biden and a recalcitrant President Donald Trump who is refusing to concede the election and continues pushing a narrative of baseless election fraud accusations, Iranian political experts and observers are taking a watch and wait stance for now -- as they ponder the best path forward to negotiate easing sanctions that have strangled Iran's economy.

President-elect Joe Biden, left, and President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration instituted a "maximum pressure" policy against Iran amid increasing tensions between the two countries after the administration accused Iran of launching nearly a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones from its territory in an attack on a key Saudi oil facility in September.

The Trump administration also withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in May 2018, reimposing sanctions that encompassed Iran's oil industry.

With oil being Iran's major source of revenue, strict sanctions excluded the country from related international markets and severely damaged its already ailing economy with high inflation and dramatic devaluation of the rial -- the Islamic Republic's currency.

Some experts say there is no other way for the U.S. and Iran to repair relations but to negotiate and make up.

However, when it comes to negotiating with America, Iran's conservative and moderate parties take different approaches.

President Hassan Rouhani, who is known to be affiliated with the moderate side of Iran's political spectrum, expressed hope that President-elect Biden would lift sanctions on Iran and return to the JCPOA.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani chairs a cabinet meeting in Tehran, Nov. 11, 2020. Rouhani vowed to take "any opportunity" to lift US sanctions on Tehran, following President Donald Trump's loss to Democratic election rival Joe Biden.

"We feel that the atmosphere is prepared for closer relations and better interaction with all friendly countries," President Rouhani said in the weekly government session on Wednesday, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported."The man whose term is about to end would call the JCPOA the worst agreement ever which he wanted to terminate The new man has said that he wants to return to the JCPOA," he added.

Indirectly addressing his conservative rivals, Rouhani also said that "no one should waste the opportunity to lift sanctions."

Rouhani's remarks after the U.S. election have provoked backlash from Iran's conservatives who are against negotiating with the White House no matter which American political party is at the helm.

"Controlling inflation and resolving many of the country's problems have nothing to do with negotiation or sanctions," Iranian conservative Kayhan Daily wrote in a political editorial on Thursday.

The editorial described the Rouhani administration's hope to negotiate with Biden's government as a "wasteland of tact and mirage of negotiation."

However, some experts believe that even Iran's conservatives would welcome an end to sanctions and a move toward easing the relationship with the U.S.

Mehdi Motaharnia, a political expert, told ABC News that while the Trump administration wanted "to curb Iran's behavior and political activities," he believes Iranian conservatives still "welcome renegotiation."

Adding to the political rhetoric among Iran's two main parties on how to approach a new U.S. administration, is the country's own upcoming presidential election which will be held in about six months.

However, Motaharnia said it does not matter which party takes the seat in Iran's 2021 election.

"It does not make much of a difference who leads the government in Iran, as this institution is not the core of the state here, but an executive power who runs bureaucratic affairs," Motaharnia added, implying that the major foreign policy decisions are made by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Regardless of all assumptions about the possibility of Biden's more lenient policy toward Iran, Motaharnia does not think the president-elect will make a radical change in America's stance on Iran.

"It is true that the problem of the two countries has turned 'nuclearized.' But, besides the nuclear issue, Iran's missile program and its support of the so-called terrorist groups, the two countries need to discuss the core problem between them," Motaharnia said.

To him, this "core" issue started since the takeover of the American embassy after the Islamic Revolution 42 years ago.

"The two countries need to start from agreeing on what they mean by 'negotiation'... Iran's policy, as the Supreme Leader has said, is 'no negotiation, no war,' and that of the U.S. is 'either negotiation, or war,'" Motaharnia said.

Motaharnia also said the U.S. needs Iran on its side if it wants to have an upper hand in the "new global order."

Read the original post:
Iran watching and waiting after US election - ABC News

Irans Foreign Ministry on Saturday denied a report that Israeli agents had fatally shot Al Qaedas second-ranking leader on the streets of Tehran, likening it to a Hollywood scenario manufactured by American and Zionist officials.

The ministry issued the denial to Iranian reporters in the wake of a report Friday by The New York Times, which quoted intelligence officials as saying that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed by two motorcycle-riding assassins on Aug. 7.

That day was the anniversary of the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people. Mr. al-Masri was accused of being one of the masterminds of the attacks.

The killing of Mr. al-Masri and his daughter was carried out by Israeli agents at the behest of the United States, The Times reported.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, a foreign ministry spokesman, denied any presence of Al Qaeda members in Iran. And he warned American media outlets not to fall for the trap of Hollywood scenarios fed to them by American and Zionist officials, according to the ministrys website.

Mr. al-Masris death had been rumored but never confirmed until The Timess report.

Mr. al-Masri, who was about 58, was one of Al Qaedas founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organization after its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. The F.B.I. had offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Mr. al-Masris presence in Iran was surprising given that Iran and Al Qaeda are bitter enemies. American intelligence officials told The Times that Mr. al-Masri had been in Irans custody since 2003, but that he had been living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran since at least 2015.

In its statement Saturday, Irans foreign ministry accused the United States and Israel of leaking false information to the news media so they dont have to take responsibility for the murderous actions of this terrorist group and other groups.

Read the original post:
Iran Denies That Al Qaeda Leader Was Killed in Tehran - The New York Times

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) For over half a century, a massive graveyard on the edge of Irans capital has provided a final resting place for this countrys war dead, its celebrities and artists, its thinkers and leaders and all those in between.

But Behesht-e-Zahra is now struggling to keep up with the coronavirus pandemic ravaging Iran, with double the usual number of bodies arriving each day and grave diggers excavating thousands of new plots.

All of the crises that we have experienced at this cemetery over the past 50 years of its history have lasted for just a few days or a week at most, said Saeed Khaal, the cemeterys manager. Never before not during earthquakes or even the countrys 1980s war with Iraq has the pace of bodies flowing into Behesht-e-Zahra been so high for so long, he said.

Now we have been in a crisis for 260 days, and it is not clear how many months more we are going to be facing this crisis, he said.

With 1.6 million people buried on its grounds, which stretch across more than 5 square kilometers (1,320 acres), Behesht-e-Zahra is one of the worlds largest cemeteries and the primary one for Tehrans 8.6 million people. The golden minarets of its Imam Khomeini Shrine, the burial site of the leader of Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, are visible for kilometers (miles).

But it was not big enough for the coronavirus, which roared into Iran early this year, seeding the regions worst outbreak.

Iran has reported over 715,000 infections and said that 39,664 have died so far of the coronavirus. The country has set single-day death records 10 times over the past month. Another record came on Wednesday, with 462 deaths. Almost half of the countrys reported virus fatalities have happened in Tehran, putting pressure on the cemetery.

Far past the graves of the dead from Irans war with Iraq and those of politicians, the cemetery has expanded to a new area. Tehrans leaders announced in June that they were preparing 15,000 new graves there about 5,000 more than in a typical year. Satellite pictures from September show the plots deep enough to allow for as many as three bodies in each newly dug, each separated by a layer of dirt and bricks.

While not all of the new graves are for coronavirus victims, most are.

For Khaal, sometimes referred to as the mayor of this vast necropolis, the pace is beyond anything hes seen before.

We used to accept between 150 to 170 dead bodies every day, but these days when we are experiencing the peak of deaths, we are accepting 350 bodies on average, he told The Associated Press.

The tremendous workload is also putting a strain on the cemeterys employees, Khaal said.

Its unclear how other cemeteries in Iran are coping. In March, authorities arrested a man for posting a video online of bodies wrapped in white shrouds and zipped into black body bags at a cemetery in the Shiite holy city of Qom, alleging they all were corona-infected. Officials at that cemetery at the time said they were testing the bodies for the virus.

At Behesht-e-Zahra or Zahras Paradise in Farsi, named after a daughter of the Prophet Muhammad the bodies of known coronavirus victims arrive every day by ambulance. Mortuary attendants prepare each body for the ritual washing required for the Muslim dead. During the pandemic, that now includes the use of disinfectants.

Later, an imam recites prayers, while mourners stand on spaced-out squares that ensure they keep their distance from one another.

These days I perform about 25 to 30 death prayers (for COVID-19 victims) on average, just myself, cleric Meysam Rajavi said. There are about 12 of us who pray for the same number of the dead on a daily basis. This is a big number.

Mourners follow the body to the graveyard, where another masked staffer in gloves and disposable coveralls lowers the body to its final resting place.

The wails of loved ones echo across the expanse of freshly dug graves that await the next funeral.

___

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Mohammad Nasiri on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/moenasiri.

See the article here:
In Iran, a massive cemetery struggles to keep up with virus - Associated Press