Diplomacy: Cutting Iran some slack and giving them the whole rope

Khamenei can make abominable statements, but the muted response from the world indicated to Jerusalem that everyone’s mind was already made up: This train was bound for “success.”

Some 10 days ago, in front of about 50,000 Basij militiamen, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei referred to Israel as the “unclean rabid dog” of the region and predicted its demise. His words were greeted with chants of “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.” That was a pretty routine development, actually – just another day in the neighborhood.

But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in Moscow at the time, took angry note of the words.

 Senior officials in the prime minister’s entourage barely hid their frustration – not necessarily with Khamenei’s words, which were considered pretty much standard fare from the Supreme Leader – but with the world’s failure, with the exception of France, to immediately condemn them.“The Iranians deny our past and repeat their commitment to wipe the State of Israel off the map,” he told a gathering of local Jewish leaders in his Moscow hotel, located in the shadow of Red Square. “This reminds us of the dark regimes of the past that plotted against us first and then against all of humanity.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the remarks the next day in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calling them “inflammatory” and “unnecessary,” and adding that “at this moment when we are trying to negotiate what can and can’t be achieved, the last thing we need is names back and forth.”

Only later in the day, when Israel’s irritation became clear, did Samantha Powers, the US ambassador to the UN, call the words “abhorrent” during a CNN interview.

Israel knows full well what Khamenei thinks about it – it also knows what Washington thinks about these types of statements. What miffed Jerusalem was the sense that with the peace train roaring into the Geneva station (this all took place just as the Geneva talks that led to the interim agreement with Iran were set to begin), none of the members of the P5+1 driving that train – the US, China, Russia, France, Britain or Germany – were going to let anything happen to upset the journey.

Khamenei could make abominable statements, but the muted response from the world indicated to Jerusalem that everyone’s mind was already made up: This train was bound for “success.”

Echoes of this were also evident on Tuesday, when Iran publicly disputed the details of the agreement – formally known as the Joint Plan of Action – that the White House made public on Sunday.

“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham was quoted as telling the Farsi press. “Some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true.”

But even these disputes, these discrepancies, were summarily papered over by parties involved in the negotiations. These differences were dismissed as each side just trying to spin the agreement to their advantage for their domestic audiences.

In Jerusalem, this all brought back bad memories of Yasser Arafat’s memorable May 1994 speech at a mosque in Johannesburg, just after the signing of the Oslo Accords and just before Israel handed Gaza over to Palestinian administrative control.

During that speech, Arafat called for a jihad over Jerusalem (though he said later he meant a “jihad for peace”) and indicated the Oslo Accords were only a tactical move that could later be done away with.

The backers of Oslo explained away his words by saying that he did not really mean them and that they were only intended for domestic Islamic consumption.

The problem was, as events such as the second intifada later proved, those words did seem to reflect his mindset.

Former National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror alluded to the problem in an op-ed he penned this week for The New York Times. The six powers negotiating with Tehran, he wrote, “have shown that they wanted an agreement more than Iran did. The party that was targeted by the sanctions has achieved more than the parties that imposed them.”

And if you want an agreement so, so bad, chances are that when you get it you will then be blind to violations.

Or, as former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller wrote in Politico this week, “No matter how imperfect, negotiators and US officials get very attached to their negotiations and agreements. Those who labored to produce this interim agreement will become very invested in their handiwork and move to defend it vigorously.”

Miller, who was a major player in the Oslo process, said he’s “seen this movie” before and even been an actor in it, having “succumbed to these same sentiments several times over the years. The process – with all its historic resonance – will acquire a legitimacy and authority that will steel the administration against arguments that point out its deficiencies.”

Even if Iran “fudges some aspects of the deal,” Miller wrote, “there will be great pressure and temptation to try to work things out even at the risk of not strictly enforcing the agreement.”

And this is exactly the type of development that Israel will be carefully watching, and warning about, in the coming weeks.

After weeks of shouting from every rooftop and behind every microphone against the agreement, once it was signed, Netanyahu quickly shifted gears. True, he did not embrace the agreement, still telling the Likud faction on Monday it was a “bad deal,” but then he announced that an Israeli team would go to Washington to discuss what a permanent agreement should look like.

What was agreed upon in Geneva is an interim deal that restrains Iran’s nuclear progress in certain areas, in exchange for sanctions relief, and gives the P5+1 and Iran time to negotiate a comprehensive deal without worry that while the talks are continuing, Iranian centrifuges are spinning the country to a nuclear bomb.

And it is that comprehensive agreement that Israel will now try to impact. Which raises the question of what this Israeli engagement will look like, or deal with. Obviously, officials say, it will be an Israeli attempt to ensure that the comprehensive agreement includes elements that Israel believes are essential to halting – not just restraining or freezing – Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It will also, however, include Israel nudging the P5+1 not to surrender to the temptation to turn a blind eye to Iranian infractions or a less than full implementation of what was agreed.

During this engagement, Israel is also expected to raise another issue that it feels has been lost in the conversation over Iran’s nuclear program – and that is Iran itself: Iran the exporter of terrorism, Iran the enabler of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran the serial trampler of human rights.

Much was written in the West this week about how the Geneva agreement, and the US-Iranian secret talks that gave birth to it, heralded perhaps an end to the US-Iranian Cold War that lasted since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the takeover of the US embassy there.

Any analogy with the US-Soviet Cold War, however, is faulty. The USSoviet Cold War ceased to exist when the Iron Wall came tumbling down and the Soviet regime became a historical footnote. The Cold War did not end while the Soviet Union was subjugating its people.

But those now advocating an end to the US-Iran Cold War are doing so without any fundamental change in the Islamic Republic’s regime: it continues to repress its own people and export its violent brand of Islamic revolution around the world. Iran, in short, has not changed, it is the same Iran. What is changing dramatically is the West’s perception of it.

Officials in Jerusalem said this week that Israel was dumbstruck by the degree to which the Iranian nuclear dossier, and attempts to deal with it, have been so completely isolated from the wider regional context and Iran’s singular role as negative actor in the region.

ISRAEL’S CONCERN over the years about a nuclear Iran has not only been that if it gets a nuclear weapon it may actually use it, but rather about how much more mischief a nuclear Iran could cause; how much more damage its proxies – Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas – could unleash knowing that they had an Iranian nuclear umbrella above them.

Israel has also warned that this becomes a problem not only when Iran assembles a bomb, but even as early as when it becomes a nuclear threshold state, meaning a state with the capacity to build a bomb when it makes the decision to do so – a position that Iran, according to Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, is already in.

Yet in the recent talks, Iran’s role in Syria, and with Hezbollah, has been left entirely out of the discussion.

Kerry, in a BBC interview three weeks ago, when asked how Iran’s role with Syria and Hezbollah were factoring into the discussions, said forthrightly, “Well, we’re not there. We’re not in a larger discussion. We’re not having a geopolitical conversation right now.”

Kerry was asked in the interview, which followed an inconclusive round of talks in Geneva, whether Hezbollah or the conflict in Syria came up in his talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

“I think we spent 30 seconds on Syria,” he said.

Which, from Israel’s perspective, is problematic. Granted, the main concern is Iran’s nuclear program, but all the talk with Iran, the new atmosphere, is creating a sense in Jerusalem that Iran’s other activities are being overlooked, if not legitimized.

While in the past the US administration, at least during the first year of Obama’s presidency, drew linkage between Iran and solving the Palestinian issue, today it is carefully delinking the nuclear issue from Iran’s behavior in the region; partly – sources in Jerusalem suspect – so as not to endanger some diplomatic agreement on the nuclear issue. All of this, of course, will impact on another key issue, and that is the negotiations with the Palestinians.

Kerry will come back to the region this week, and in his talks with Netanyahu the focus will not only be Iran, but also the Palestinians, the State Department said.

When he was last here three weeks ago, deep divisions between him and Netanyahu emerged both regarding the Palestinian track and the Iranians.

Following this week’s agreement, those divisions are likely only to deepen.

Any agreement with the Palestinians will obviously necessitate Israel taking serious security risks.

Netanyahu’s likelihood to take those risks as a nuclear-threshold Iran has its fingers deep inside Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, will likely be less than if an agreement had been reached that dismantled Iran’s nuclear weapons capability altogether. As a result, if the Kerry-Netanyahu meetings were uncomfortable in early November, chances are that this time they will be even more so, on both the marquee issues: Iran and the Palestinians.

Asked if Netanyahu should not be reticent about publicly fighting with the US and Obama over any of this, one senior diplomatic official replied that if Netanyahu does not speak up now – even against American policy – on an issue as cardinal to Israel’s security as a nuclear Iran, then when exactly should he speak out?

Jerusalem post

Geneva: A Historic and Dangerous Agreement

In terms of nuclear infrastructure Iran will be as close to getting the bomb in six months as it is today. Geneva leaves Iran with something it was never granted before: the right to enrich uranium. It decouples technologies from the activities of a regime that has sponsored terrorism, deceived IAEA inspectors, and systematically refused to meet the requirements imposed by the

 United Nations. And we all know how selective sanctions work: Nobody complies. Far from concessions, Westerners can expect more intransigence.

The idea, according to the U.S. administration, is to stimulate the Iranian leaders' appetite to lead them into more concessions in exchange for improving Iran's economy.

The agreement reached by the group of countries known as P-5+1½ (that is, the five permanent U.N. Security Council powers plus Germany and the European Union representative) with Iran regarding its nuclear program has been rated by its proponents—President Obama's followers—as a "historic agreement," while opponents—primarily Israel and the Gulf monarchies—have criticized the deal since they consider it to be a "historic mistake." It's actually both, a historic mistaken agreement.

Why is it mistaken? Very simple: In the first place, because the agreement leaves Iranian uranium enrichment capabilities intact. Iran has only pledged to freeze production of 3.5%-enriched uranium for just six months, so that its stock hasn't increased at the end of that period. However, Iran isn't required to dismantle its centrifuges, close to 20,000 today, which may be revamped when they suffer damage or get old. Therefore, in terms of nuclear infrastructure, Iran will be as close to getting its bomb in six months as it is already today. The agreement is focused on the product, not on the process to achieve it, which remains intact. Certainly, Iran agrees to get rid of its 20%-enriched uranium, degrading it from military use; yet that's not as important as keeping the capabilities to raise again the level of enrichment when it deems it appropriate. Indeed, Geneva leaves Iran with something it was never granted before: The right to enrich uranium, an activity that the U.N. demanded to be completely halted.

In the second place, it's mistaken because, in exchange for something that doesn't exist today—increasing its enrichment capacity, which is a future possibility— Iran is granted real and tangible rewards, such as the partial lifting of painstakingly-imposed sanctions, an effort that took years to achieve. The Teheran regime's coffers will get over USD $7 billion in a short period of time. The idea, according to the U.S. administration, is to stimulate the Iranian leaders' appetite to lead them into more concessions, in exchange for improving Iran's economy. However, what can happen is quite the opposite. Once relieved of the social pressure exerted by citizens, disgruntled with how these leaders have managed the country and the hard living conditions they imposed, the regime of the ayatollahs will feel stronger and better equipped to negotiate from a position of advantage. Far from major concessions, Westerners can expect more intransigence.
In the third place, it's mistaken because the agreement is not only limited in time, but also limited in its conception: It only addresses the technical aspects of the nuclear program and leaves behind everything around it. The deal says nothing of other essential components, such as the knowledge and technology to make a nuclear warhead, and collateral programs regarding long-range missiles that can go on uninterrupted. Even worse, it decouples these technologies from the nature and activities of a regime that, as everyone knows well, has sponsored terrorism, has deceived IAEA inspectors, and systematically refused to meet the requirements imposed by the UN. Nothing is said about Iran's ambitions of regional dominance, or about its links to Bashar al-Assad, whom Iran has directly propped up in power, or about Hezbollah and Hamas. This agreement strongly recalls the one President Obama allowed Putin to make regarding Syria's chemical weapons. Although these weapons are no longer used, the killings go on by other means. Decoupling Iran's nuclear program from the repressive, violent, and expansionist nature of the regime in Teheran cannot yield a happy outcome.

Finally, it's wrong for the way it was done. President Obama kept U.S. allies in the region as well as his European partners out of the loop. In fact, France refused to sign the agreement during the first round of the Geneva talks after Paris found an agreed-upon text by the Americans, leaving acceptance as the only choice.
That brings us to why this agreement is very dangerous. It jeopardizes the sanctions regime as we all know how selective sanctions work: Nobody complies. Furthermore, this interim arrangement leads to a profound reconfiguration of the entire region according to the new U.S. orientation to advance a comprehensive dialogue with Iran, which leaves Israel and Saudi Arabia behind — America's traditional allies in the region. Obama apparently wants to restore good relations with Teheran and nothing else matters as long as it's achieved, even if this requires turning a blind eye to Syria, accepting a pro-Iranian government in Iraq, reaching a tacit understanding with the Hezbollah terrorists, and allowing Iran to become virtually a nuclear state — that is, with the capability to produce a nuclear bomb in no time. The problem is that the U.S. Administration just doesn't seem to understand the Middle East: that no one in the region is going to sit idly. The nuclear proliferation that America didn't want is going to be the only thing it will get, due to its rushed desire to sign a deal with Iran.

This agreement is based on a double delusion: That we can trust Iran and that, if Iranians don't honor the deal, we will be able to impose new sanctions. And yet, what it actually does is to put an end to the sanctions regime without the ayatollahs putting an end to their stated ambitions. In six months, Iran will not be further from a nuclear bomb but we will be further from the capacity to impose more sanctions.

Rafael Bardaji is Senior Advisor for international security to former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar. He served in Spain's government as National Security Advisor from 1996-2004. Mr. Bardaji is the Director of Foreign Policy at FAES, a think tank in Madrid and the Executive Director of Friends of Israel Initiative.

Well I never : Iran FM Zarif Strikes Different Tone in Tehran, Says Nuclear Activities To Go On as Normal

Despite the so-called 'deal' Iran looks set to break it. Well a child of five could have predicted this while world leaders swallowed the lie

Despite an international treaty to the contrary, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, upon arrival at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport on Sunday, ”underlined that all Iran’s nuclear sites will go on their normal activities” and that “none of Iran’s nuclear programs would stop,” the semi-official Iranian FARS news agency reported on Monday.

“The Iranian top diplomat underlined that no nuclear material would be taken out of Iran and none of Iran’s nuclear centers would shut down, but will continue to work by transparency,” FARS wrote, adding that he also “pointed out that nuclear weapon is an inhuman weapon and contrary to our beliefs and religious viewpoints.”

Zarif’s tone certainly differed from that of the document that Iran agreed to, though it was factually correct, as according to the deal, nuclear enrichment programs are not required to fully stop, but to be reduced to minimal levels of 5% from a 20% currently.

Early on Sunday, the world powers, led by the U.S., agreed to partially lift sanctions on Tehran for six months in exchange for the Islamic Republic allowing deeper inspections into its nuclear facilities and placing limits on uranium enrichment.

According to reports on Monday, secret, back-channel talks between Washington and Tehran have been ongoing for a year.

FARS also reported on Monday that Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht confirmed that the agreement would release $8 billion of Iran’s blocked assets by the U.S. administration. The figure was not included in the text of the agreement shared with media, which had estimated the value at $6 billion out of the $100 billion reportedly frozen.

The algemeiner 

Netanyahu says Iran nuclear deal is 'historic mistake'

Bennett: "Israel does not see itself as bound by this bad, this very bad agreement that has been signed."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu characterized the agreement signed with Iran early Sunday morning as a historic mistake.

Directly contrasting US President Barack Obama who praised the agreement as opening a "new path toward a world that is more secure," Netanyahu – speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting -- said the world has become more dangerous as a result.

For the first time, he said, the leading powers of the world agreed to uranium enrichment in Iran, while removing sanctions that it has taken years to build up in exchange for "cosmetic Iranian concession that are possible to do away with in a matter of weeks.""What was agreed last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, it is a historic mistake," he said. "Today the world has become much more dangerous because the most dangerous regime in the world took a significant step to getting the most dangerous weapon in the world."

Netanyahu said the consequences of this deal threaten many countries, including Israel. He reiterated what he has said in the past, that Israel is not obligated by the agreement.

"Iran is committed to Israel's destruction, and Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself by itself against any threat" he said. "I want to make clear as the prime minister of Israel, Israel will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability."

Netanyahu's government denounced world powers' nuclear agreement with Iran on Sunday as a "bad deal" to which Israel would not be bound.

Yet Israeli officials stopped short of threatening unilateral military action that could further isolate the Jewish state and imperil its bedrock alliance with Washington, saying more time was needed to assess the agreement.

"This is a bad deal. It grants Iran exactly what it wanted - both a significant easing in sanctions and preservation of the most significant parts of its nuclear program," an official in Netanyahu's office said.

Netanyahu's sentiments were echoed by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who called the deal a "historic mistake" and a "surrender to the Iranian charm and smiles offensive, and to Iranian fraud, which is aimed at gaining time, without the Iranian nuclear program being substantially harmed."

Speaking from Canada, where he is attending a conference of defense ministers, Ya'alon said the agreement "allows Iran to enter the family nations despite being the most active and flourishing activator of terrorism in the world, which sends its deadly and uncurbed deadly arms across the globe, first and foremost against Western states, as regime representative sit at the able in Geneva."

The Iranian nuclear program threatens not only Israel and other Middle East countries, but also world peace, Ya'alon warned. "To leave in the regime's hands capabilities for continuing the nuclear program means that the world today is a less safe place. Instead of rolling the program back, the regime in Tehran has gained time, which will allow it on the one hand to seek a nuclear bomb, and on the other, breathing space due to the lightening of sanctions," the defense minister continued.

Hours ago, before the deal was signed, the regime in Tehran was facing heavy economic pressure that threatened its existence, and which could have forced it to choose between survival and continuing the program, Ya'alon stated.

"But now, due to short-term considerations and a lack of determination by the West, the Iranian regime is receiving legitimacy for continuing the military nuclear project, and its global terrorist activities, while its international isolation is lifted and its economy is strengthened," he added. 

Aimed at ending a dangerous standoff, the agreement between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia was nailed down after more than four days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva.

But the deal still appeared to fall far short of Netanyahu's demand for a total rollback of the Iranian nuclear program.

"You stand and shout out until you're blue in the face, and you try to understand why they're not listening. The world wanted an agreement," Finance Minister Yair Lapid, a member of Netanyahu's security cabinet, told Israel's Army Radio.

"We also said that a diplomatic accord would be good. A diplomatic accord is certainly better than war, a diplomatic accord is better than a situation of permanent confrontation - just not this agreement."

Lapid said that Israel had to pore over the deal: "For example, we still don't understand exactly what stepping up the monitoring (on Iran's facilities) means. This is a detailed matter. God really is in the small details."

President Shimon Peres said that the deal was temporary, not permanent and would be  better discussed after seeing its results. 

"Like all nations we also prefer a diplomatic solution over any other solution," Peres said. 

"I turn to the Iranian people and say: We are not your enemies and you do not have to be your enemies. We have never threatened you so why are you threatening us?

Peres urged the Iranians to chose peace and to turn Iran into a responsible nation that is not involved in terror and is not a nuclear threat.

Economic Minister Naftali Bennett, another security cabinet member, told Army Radio in a separate interview: "Israel does not see itself as bound by this bad, this very bad agreement that has been signed."

Neither Lapid nor Bennett would be drawn on how Israel might respond. Israel, which is widely assumed to have the Middle East's sole atomic arsenal, sees a mortal menace in a nuclear-armed Iran and has at times threatened to launch a preemptive war against its arch-foe.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Geneva deal required the Netanyahu government to conduct a strategic review.

Asked on Israel Radio whether he felt cheated by the United States for its role in the deal, Lieberman said: "Heaven forbid."

Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On on Sunday praised the agreement while criticizing the Israeli government for overlooking important components of the deal.

“The Israeli government ministers’ assault on the agreement takes attention away from the fact that clauses of the deal include the most important goal which was the dismantling and rolling back of the fast track to the bomb,” she said.

“The main sanctions that will remain imposed on Iran and the tight supervision by IAEA inspectors who will visit nuclear sites daily are indicative of the fact that this is not just an American achievement, but also an Israeli achievement,” the Meretz chief said. “This is because the goal of supervision, similar to sanctions, is to encumber the race to the bomb and remove the possibility that Iran could fool the international community without anyone taking notice.”

The deputy speaker of parliament, Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, said on Saturday the interim agreement signed between Iran and the Western powers was tantamount to the Munich Agreement of the late 1930s.

“Like Czechoslovakia at that time, which was not party to the discussions that effectively sentenced it to death, Israel today watches from the sidelines how its existential interest is being sacrificed by the Western powers,” Feiglin said.

“Any rational person understands that we are in the midst of a process leading to a nuclear-armed Iran,” he said. “For years I have warned about the dangers of the strategy adopted by Israel towards the Iranian nuclear threat.”

Feiglin said that entrusting foreign powers to secure Israel’s defense interests is “disastrous” and “much worse than that which led to the Yom Kippur War.”

The lawmaker called on the Israeli government to declare an immediate end to all contacts with the West over the Iranian question and to make clear that it would not be bound by the agreement signed.

Knesset member Eli Yishai reacted Sunday morning to the deal: "the world's countries only saw the economic interests of the deal, and not their obligation to the security of Israel."

He stressed that Israel "has to no one to trust besides god and ourselves". 

Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein said "Today more than ever we have been reminded that we can rely only on ourselves. 

He said said it would not be long before the world powers who signed the deal with Iran realize that they made a mistake. 

Referring to the Holocaust, Edelstein said: "We can only hope that history will not repeat itself."

MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) said that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and US Secretary of State John Kerry were offering Iran sanctions without demanding one centrifuge to be dismantled. "Iran can decide to create a nuclear bomb whenever it wants to," she said.

Deputy Defense Minister and Likud faction leader Danny Danon said that the agreement was excellent for Iran but dangerous for the world.

"All options are still on the table and Israel has the obligation and the ability to defend itself," Danon said. 

Home Front  Defence Minister Gilad Erdan, a security cabinet member, said the nuclear deal "makes it much more difficult, in the diplomatic sphere, to talk about a military option".

Israel's coming steps, Erdan said on Army Radio, would be to continue monitoring events in Iran along with an attempt to coordinate future moves with the United States and the other five powers that sealed Sunday's deal.

Security sources said Netanyahu has urged Israel's intelligence organs to spare no expense in crafting assessments of the situation in Iran and weighing Israel's options.

"We have six months now, and there are significant improvements that can be made in these six months," Erdan said, looking ahead to a final agreement.

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, speaking on Israeli television, said Israel "may have lost the battle over the interim agreement (but) we have not lost the war over denying Iran a military nuclear capability."

Uzi Rabi, head of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Israel's immediate options were unlikely to include a military attack.

Instead, he said, "Israel should focus on a concerted intelligence effort" to expose any violations of the deal.

Jerusalem post

Fear that deal will bolster Iran in the region : Same world, oppositerisk assessments

There is deep concern that the Geneva agreement will bolster Iran in the region; suddenly let off the ropes, Iran will once again be free to do what it can to torpedo any possible Israeli-Palestinian accommodation.

Judging from their reactions to the deal that world powers signed with Iran in Geneva early Sunday morning, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama live in different worlds.

Diplomacy, Obama declared in a message to the nation announcing the accord, “opened up a new path toward a world that is more secure.”

Netanyahu begged to differ, telling the cabinet Sunday that “today the world has become a much more dangerous place, because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.”

Same world, yet diametrically opposed risk assessments by two very close allies.

Beyond the nuclear element, one of Jerusalem’s main concerns is that Iran – once the lynchpin of another US president’s “axis of evil” – is suddenly cleansed, receiving a stamp of approval as a legitimate member of the international community in good standing. Iran under President Hassan Rouhani has – in the six months since his election – undergone a revolutionary rebranding, a rebranding Israel could only dream of, from pariah state to “constructive” actor.

Or, as Obama enthused, if Iran “seizes this opportunity” to prove to the world that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes, then “the Iranian people will benefit from rejoining the international community, and we can begin to chip away at the mistrust between our two nations. This would provide Iran with a dignified path to forge a new beginning with the wider world based on mutual respect.”

Really? How about Iran’s part in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s massacre of tens of thousands of people? How about its continued development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads that were not even mentioned in the Geneva agreement? How about its role in exporting terrorism around the globe? How about its stoning of women accused of adultery, hanging of homosexuals and gruesome rate of executions? How about the anti- Semitic ranting of its leaders? Does all of the above really render the world a safer place, as Obama said? This agreement shows that Iran can indeed do all of the above, yet still get to be a member of the international community.

Israel’s concern about a nuclear Iran has never only – or even primarily – been that the Iranians will use a nuclear bomb on Israel, but rather that even having the weapon or the weapons capability will magnify its power in the region and embolden it and its proxies.

There is a deep concern that the Geneva agreement will indeed bolster Iran in the region.

Iran is already a nuclear threshold state, as is any state that can enrich uranium to 5%, has 18,000 centrifuges (nuclear-armed Pakistan has only 6,000) at its disposal and can “break out” with a bomb in five weeks.

But if before Saturday night Iran was a nuclear threshold state with leper status in the world, now it is a nuclear threshold state with international legitimacy.

UN Security Council resolutions on Iran called for it explicitly to suspend its enrichment; this agreement says go ahead and enrich, just not beyond 5%.

The agreement gives Iran considerable regional leverage.

Will the US or other Western countries push Iran on the Syrian issue, knowing that if they push too hard, Iran may walk away from the nuclear agreement? After investing so much time and energy into forging an agreement, none of those involved will want to do anything that could lead to its falling apart.

Two weeks ago, US Secretary of State John Kerry, following an inconclusive round of talks in Geneva, was asked in a BBC interview whether Hezbollah or the conflict in Syria came up in his talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“I think we spent 30 seconds on Syria,” Kerry said tellingly.

And the regional ramifications do not only touch on Syria (notice that Damascus praised the agreement to the moon), but will also have ramifications on the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

Firstly Iran – suddenly let off the ropes – will once again be free to do what it can to torpedo any possible Israeli-Palestinian accommodation, as any pressure on Iran to demonstrate “good behavior” in order not to scuttle a potential deal with the West is now off. Expect, therefore, a sudden upsurge again in Iranian support for Hamas, a group looking for a new patron following their split with Damascus and the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in Egypt.

The agreement will also have ramifications on the Israel-Palestinian front for a couple of other reasons. First of all, Israel will feel no compulsion now to repay a tough US or international stance on Iran with concessions to the Palestinians, since from Netanyahu’s point of view there was no strong stance on Iran.

The linkage discussed so often in the past, “Bushehr for Yitzhar” – the US stops a nuclear Iran symbolized by the nuclear reactor in Bushehr, and in return Israel gives up settlements symbolized by Yitzhar – has lost currency, for from Israel’s perspective the world is letting Iran keep Bushehr.

Also, any agreement with the Palestinians will necessitate Israel taking calculated risks. But Israel now will be much more risk averse, with Iran suddenly emboldened and enjoying new-found international legitimacy.

In addition, any possible future agreement with the Palestinians would undoubtedly necessitate ironclad security guarantees from the US. Considering the way Washington handled the Iranian file since Rouhani’s election in June, does anyone really think Netanyahu is going to place Israel’s security in the hands of US guarantees? A safer world? Maybe seen from Washington, a long way from Iran and the Middle East.

But from Jerusalem, close to Iran, and in the eye of the storm? Hardly.  -  jerusalem post

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:  For some reason, it is as if some of the
reporters - in the fine old tradition of coverage of Oslo agreements - have
not gone to the trouble of actually reading the agreement.
For example: " The final step of a comprehensive solution...would..Involve a
mutually defined enrichment program..."]



Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Following is an excerpt from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks
this evening (Sunday, 24 November 2013), at the EMET Prize
http://www.emetprize.org/English/
award ceremony in Jerusalem:


"As we learn more and more details about the agreement that was achieved
last night in Geneva, it becomes increasingly clear how bad and dangerous
this agreement is to the world, the region and Israel. Iran is receiving
billions of dollars in eased sanctions without having to pay any real price.
Iran is receiving written approval to violate UN Security Council
resolutions. To a large degree, this agreement rescues Iran from the
pressure it has been under and also gives it international legitimacy to
continue its nuclear program. This is a bad agreement."
------

Israel surprised by US course of action on Iran, officials say

Israel is surprised with the diplomatic course being taken by the US during nuclear negotiations in Geneva, including minor sanction relief, officials told Israel radio on Saturday.

During a meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of Friday's Geneva talks, the US reportedly told Israel that they would be offering minor sanctions relief to Iran.

Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in Geneva Friday in attempts to close "the important gaps" that remain between the sides before a deal can be signed. The meetings were to resume on Saturday morning.

Kerry and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met before the US Secretary of State flew to Geneva to take part in negotiations of a deal in the works that would have the international community relieve sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran freezing its nuclear activity for six months. Kerry was reportedly expected to warn the prime minister of a prospective offer.

Netanyahu harshly criticized the prospective deal after the meeting with Kerry.

According to Netanyahu Iran is getting everything it wants at this stage, and not giving anything in return, and this at a time when Iran is under intense pressure.

The Israeli officials said that the discussion between Kerry and Netanyahu on Friday was "very difficult," according to the report.

Later on Friday US President Barack Obama called Netanyahu and updated him on the negotiations and underscored his strong commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Although the specifics of the deal under discussion are not known The Guardian reported that the "first-step agreement" is understood to include four key points:

* Iran would stop weapons-grade 20 percent uranium enrichment and turn its existing stockpile into oxide, a harmless material.

* Iran would be allowed to continue 3.5% enrichment needed for power stations, but limit the number of centrifuges being used. The deal would, however, not include any demand to remove or disable any other centrifuges.

* While still being allowed to work on its plutonium reactor at Arak, Iran would agree not to activate it for the durations of the six months. The plutonium reactor could provide for another route to nuclear weapon capability.

* Iran would not use its IR-2 centrifuges that are more advanced and capable of enriching uranium three-to-five times faster than the older model.

In exchange for these steps, the US would agree to ease some "reversible" economic sanctions, the Guardian reported, possibly by releasing some Iranian funds frozen in overseas accounts. In addition, the US could possibly relax restrictions on Iran's petrochemical, motor and precious metals industries.

The meeting, between Zarif, Kerry and Ashton lasted roughly five hours and ended late on Friday night without a deal.

An EU spokesman said after the talks that they were "good," and Kerry told journalists when he arrived back at his hotel: "We're working hard."

"It was productive but still we have lots of work to do," Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters after the meeting.

A senior US State Department official said late on Friday that "Over the course of the evening, we continued to make progress as we worked to narrow the gaps."

"There is more work to do," the official said about efforts to reach a negotiated deal over Iran's nuclear ambitions. "The meetings will resume tomorrow (Saturday) morning." 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi were expected to join the nuclear talks in Geneva on Saturday, in further signs of headway towards an interim deal between Tehran and world powers. 

Jerusalem post