Tag Archives: Iran

Congress Deals Obama Defeat on Iran Sanctions

In a major defeat for President Obama, Congress overwhelmingly ignored the Obama administration’s plea to not extend the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 because Obama officials claimed this could lead Tehran to back out of the president’s legacy nuclear deal with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA).  Yesterday, the Senate voted to reapprove the Act by a vote of 99-0.  The House vote was nearly unanimous.

These veto-proof votes against President Obama did not just reflect his lame duck status.  Most members of Congress realize the JCPOA is a dangerous agreement that has worsened international security.  It has not stopped Iran from conducting nuclear weapons-related work and there are several reports of Iranian cheating on the deal.

Moreover, almost every member of Congress – even the minority who still support the nuclear deal –recognize that despite President Obama’s claim that the JCPOA would improve Iranian behavior and U.S.-Iran relations, both have significantly worsened since the agreement was announced in July 2015.

The Iran Sanctions Act targets non-nuclear Iranian WMD programs and Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. Extending it will send a message to Iran that the United States demands that it cease its sponsorship of terrorism and not develop ballistic missiles, chemical weapons or biological weapons.

The Iran Sanctions Act also has nuclear sanctions that were suspended under the JCPOA but theoretically can be “snapped back” if Iran violates the agreement.  Iran has already violated the agreement and this law could give the Trump administration leverage to renegotiate or dismantle the JCPOA.

Predictably, Iranian officials are claiming the extension of these sanctions violates the JCPOA and threatened to retaliate.  The truth is that the JCPOA was negotiated to keep laws like the Iran Sanctions Act in place.  It’s also unlikely that Iran will pull out of the JCPOA over the extension of the Act since it is so favorable to Iran.

The extension of the Iran Sanctions Act does not solve the problem of how the Trump administration should deal with the JCPOA which Mr. Trump has called a disaster and one of the worst international agreements ever negotiated.  The Trump administration needs to decide whether to renegotiate the agreement, tear it up, or stick with the deal in hope that Iran will withdraw.  (I strongly recommend the first two options.)

Whatever Mr. Trump decides to do on the Iran deal, the overwhelming congressional votes extending the Iran Sanctions indicate strong bipartisan concerns about the threat from Iran that probably will translate into bipartisan congressional support for a significant change in policy toward the JCPOA by the Trump administration.

Houthi Attack on US Adds to Yemen Conflict

On Saturday October 8th an airstrike led by Saudi Arabia targeted a funeral being held in Houthi rebel occupied Sana’a, Yemen. The attack killed 140 and leaving more than 600 wounded.

The funeral was for Sheikh Ali al-Rawishan, the father of Galal al-Rawishan who is a Houthi ally. Galal al-Rawishan serves as the interior minister for the Houthi rebel government. Rawishan is a member of the Khawlan tribe, one of many tribes that surround Sana’a.

The coalition aimed to take out Houthi leaders and allies. Several senior military commanders and soldiers attended the funeral, and several were killed in the airstrikes. The mayor of Sana’a, Abdulqader Hilal, was also killed. Hilal was neutral in the war between the Yemen government and the Houthis and who sought to be a lead negotiator between the two sides.

Conflict in Yemen erupted in 2014 when the Shia Houthis, took over Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government fled south to Aden. The Houthis are allied with the former president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh and backed by Iran. President Hadi is backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies, most notably the United Arab Emirates. Both sides are fighting for control of Yemen.

This attack was the deadliest attack by Saudi Arabia against the Houthis since March 2015, when they started a campaign of airstrikes.

The United States has advised the Saudi Arabia-led coalition not to continue the air campaign and stressed that civilian casualties need to end. During the last 18 months several hospitals, schools and homes have been destroyed causing a public relations problem for the Saudi-coalition.

The US has historically backed Saudi Arabia, and has done so publicly in the Yemeni campaign. However the US has also been supplying air support to Iranian-linked Shia militias fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. The US preoccupation with first achieving, and then supporting the Iran Nuclear Deal, even in the wake of Iranian provocation, has confused and frustrated traditional regional allies.

One such provocation was the firing of two anti-ship missiles from Houthi positions targeting US warships in the Red Sea. Both appeared to have splashed harmlessly after U.S. Ships deployed countermeasures.

On October 13th 4 am local time, the US military launched missiles strikes in Houthi-occupied Yemen, striking 3 coastal radar sites. This is the first direct US attack against the Houthis in the Yemen conflict.

The attacks have since continued. Sunday, October 16th a missile was again fired at the USS Mason and one on the USS Ponce. The warships were not hit.

Iran responded by deploying two vessels to the Red Sea, calling it an anti-piracy action to protect critical trade routes.

Iran plays an important but not visible role in these attacks. The Iranians back the Houthis because they are Shiite and putting pressure on the Saudi government. If the Houthi forces successfully secured Yemen, they would be able to target shipping in the Red Sea, an important sea channel for Saudi oil. The Houthi missile attacks, while unsuccessful against modern U.S. warship, reflect the danger of permitting an Iranian-backed force controlling these strategic areas.

Since the Yemen war broke out, the United Nations has stated that more than 10,000 have been killed and 4,00 have been civilians.  The war has left 3 million people displaced causing a countrywide famine.  That number will most likely continue to increase as the Yemeni civil war resumes. Iran will not abandon it’s proxies in Yemen because they continue to seek to challenge Saudi Arabia and the gulf alliance in the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia cannot end it’s campaign without successfully ending the Houthi ability to successfully target it’s assets and trade routes, a threat which clearly still exists.

Justice Against State Sponsors of Terror—But Not Iran?

When the House of Representatives returns from summer recess on 6 September, among the urgent things it must consider is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism (JASTA) bill. It passed the Senate in May and is now before the House Judiciary Committee. In lining up support for the bill, JASTA sponsor Sen. John R. Cornyn (R-TX) and backers like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appealed to the understandable angst of New Yorkers and others who suffered through the horror of the 9/11 attacks. JASTA aims to limit sovereign immunity for nations and officials accused of being responsible for terrorism inside the United States.

The Iran Lobby, which went into hyperdrive to support the Obama-Kerry nuclear deal with Iran, is now gleefully ramping up support for JASTA as a measure to hold Saudi Arabia to blame for 9/11, hoping it will allow Tehran to continue to evade responsibility for its own documented role in the devastating attacks 15 years ago. The bill’s sponsors also ignore the fallout of JASTA’s curtailing of sovereign immunity: Saudi Arabia may be sued, but the United States will be also sued for claims of terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and a host of other battlefields.

Admittedly, the House of Saud has come late to the counterterrorism battle—and only after its own rule was threatened. There is no doubt that the Saudi government and individuals used their oil billions to fund the Global Islamic Movement by constructing mosques, publishing textbooks, and supporting orthodox Al-Azhar and other top graduates as imams in Islamic Centers across the United States and elsewhere. Riyadh also backs the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood and its swarm of front groups. But when jihad terror took aim at the Saudi royals themselves—with the 2003 bombings, al-Qa’eda attacks, Iranian instigation of unrest in the Shi’ite eastern provinces, and strikes by the Islamic State—their minds concentrated rather wonderfully.

The feared Saudi Mukhabarat security service cracked down hard on internal jihadis, instituted close surveillance of domestic mosques, and arrested imams preaching sedition and violence. Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a prominent Shi’ite cleric, was executed in January along with 46 others convicted of sedition and promoting terrorism. In 2014, Saudi Arabia even designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Clearly shaken by surging aggression from Iran and the Islamic State, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of 34 Muslim states, declared support of President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi’s Egyptian regime, announced its support for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (a democratic opposition group), and are now in talks with Israel. Their U.S.-educated Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is also shaking things up internally and abroad.

So much for Saudi Arabia’s transformation. It is Iran that continues a nuclear weapons program at a breakneck pace that was supposed to have been halted in its tracks. It is the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Qods Force with thousands of foreign Shi’ite mercenaries who fight as a Shi’a ‘Liberation Army’ to defend Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Yemen proxies. It is Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah who boasts about funds he gets from a topped-off Iranian treasury. And it is IRGC motorboats that harass U.S. Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf and dare to seize and film U.S. Navy personnel.

Recently, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, fresh from diplomatic successes that saved his country’s nuclear program, took a victory lap around a clutch of Latin American countries. They included Cuba and Venezuela, known for their hostility to the U.S. and for helping to expand the Hizballah footprint. Even the schizoid Department of State belatedly recognized Iran’s hostility, and in mid-August issued a warning to Americans traveling to Iran because of the risk the mullahs might kidnap them for more ransom.

Under the nuclear deal umbrella, egged on by the Iran Lobby, and given carte blanche by a slavish media, the Obama administration is racing to complete its blueprint for a Middle East subordinated to Iran’s nuclear-powered hegemony. Even former senior U.S. military commanders are becoming uneasy with the chaos, compounded by the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region on earth.

 While the Saudis remain adversaries in the global jihad, that should not inhibit a necessary partnership with the Riyadh government. We and they continue to face the menace of a nuclear-capable Iranian regime whose apocalyptic beliefs include accelerating the return of the 12th Imam to usher in Armageddon and the End Times.

Obama’s desire to burnish his legacy must not be allowed to complete the withdrawal of all American influence and power in a region so desperately in need of sober leadership.

Why Was Iran Given Secret Exemptions from Key Nuclear-Deal Requirements?

In an important report issued yesterday, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C. arms-control think tank, revealed that Iran was secretly granted exemptions to the July 2015 nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) so it could meet compliance requirements for what the agreement calls “Implementation Day” — when Iran was to receive an estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief.

Not coincidentally, the same day Implementation Day was announced (January 18), U.S. officials also announced a swap of 18 Iranian prisoners held by the United States for five U.S. citizens who had been illegally held by Iran. An additional 14 Iranians were removed from an INTERPOL wanted list.

The Institute report cites an unnamed official who said that without these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the JCPOA by Implementation Day.

The exemptions were granted by the JCPOA’s “Joint Commission,” composed of the parties to the agreement: Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia. Some of the exemptions were significant and allowed Iran to not report activities with nuclear weapons-related applications. These exemptions were:

  • Allowing Iran to violate a cap of 300 kg for its enriched-uranium stockpile under certain circumstances.  The Commission gave Iran an exemption for reactor-grade enriched UF6 (uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for enrichment centrifuges) in the form of low-level and sludge waste.  This may have been a minor violation although the report said the amount of this material is unknown.
  • Ignoring “lab contaminant” UF6 enriched to 20 percent uranium-235 judged as “unrecoverable.” Although this may also be a minor violation, the report says the amount of this material and how it was judged unrecoverable is not known.
  • Exemption for large “hot cells.” The JCPOA allows Iran to operate or build hot cells (shielded chambers used to handle radioactive substances), but to ensure they are used for peaceful purposes such as producing medical radionuclides, Iran agreed that for 15 years these cells will be limited to no more than six cubic meters. The Commission gave Iran an exemption to operate 22 larger hot cells. According to the Institute report, these larger cells could be secretly misused for plutonium-separation experiments. The Institute also raised concerns that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not adequately monitoring Iran’s hot cells and that Iran is exploiting this exemption to win approval to operate more hot cells with volumes greater than six cubic meters. This is a potentially serious exemption because plutonium-separation experiments have only one purpose: developing the capability to produce plutonium nuclear-weapons fuel. The report also noted two other secret decisions by the Joint Commission.
  • The Commission agreed to a loophole on a 130-ton cap for Iran’s heavy-water stockpile by allowing Tehran to store large amounts of heavy water in Oman that remain under Iran’s control. Heavy water is a nuclear proliferation concern because it is used in a reactor design that produces large amounts of plutonium. Under the JCPOA, Iran will be permitted to operate a redesigned heavy-water reactor that will produce less plutonium than the original design and will require less heavy water. The Institute also expressed concern that Iran is producing more heavy water than it needs and far faster than experts had predicted. The Institute worries that this loophole and America’s purchase of some of Iran’s heavy-water risks legitimizing Iran as a seller of heavy-water on the global market without Tehran demonstrating that it will abide by international nonproliferation norms for the sale and procurement of this substance.
  • The Commission established a technical working group to evaluate a small amount of enriched uranium remaining in the equipment of a nuclear plant. The Institute said it is unknown whether the working group will give Iran an exemption for this enriched uranium.

THE JCPOA’S DISTURBING PATTERN OF SECRECY

Except for the hot-cells exemption and the heavy-water loophole, these issues are probably minor violations that the Commission could have easily publicly justified. The fact that this was done in secret is consistent with a pattern that began earlier this year when observers noted that the IAEA’s Iran reports became much shorter and no longer contains key figures and details on Iran’s nuclear program. I explained in a March 9, 2016 NRO article that the IAEA probably started dumbing down its Iran reports because the West conceded to Iran’s demand for vague IAEA reports during the nuclear talks in a secret side deal that the Obama administration failed to disclose to Congress.

One the most notorious JCPOA secret side deals, discovered by accident during a July 2015 trip to IAEA headquarters by Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressman Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), concerned an agreement between the IAEA and Iran allowing Iran to inspect itself for evidence of past nuclear weapons work. Obama officials said that because this was a confidential agreement between Iran and the IAEA, they were unable to send a copy to Congress. I wrote in NRO last August that this agreement probably was in fact a ploy by the Obama administration to conceal a controversial aspect of the JCPOA from Congress by moving it into an agreement that Congress could not access. This secret side deal infuriated many Republican congressmen who believed it violated the Corker-Cardin Act’s requirements that the administration turn over to Congress all documentation associated with the JCPOA for a congressional review before Congress voted on the agreement last September.

And of course there is the shipment of $400 million in cash secretly flown to Tehran from Geneva last January to win the release of four Americans held by Iran. This secret payment, revealed on August 3, 2016 by the Wall Street Journal, amounted to ransom and was not briefed to Congress. Making the story worse was a later revelation by journalist Claudia Rosett of 13 transfers of $99,999,999.99 from the Treasury Department to the State Department on January 19, 2016 to pay an undisclosed “foreign claim.” It is widely believed these 13 payments represent an additional $1.3 billion payment to Iran which Congress was also not informed of.

WAS CONGRESS NOTIFIED ABOUT THE IMPLEMENTATION-DAY EXEMPTIONS?

It is unclear whether and how the Obama administration informed Congress about the JCPOA’s secret exemptions and loopholes described in the Institute’s report.

The report says the Obama administration “informed Congress of key Joint Commission decisions on Implementation Day but in a confidential matter.” This indicates Congress was not informed before Implementation Day about the exemptions. I also note Implementation Day (January 16, 2016) fell on a Saturday, which means there was no one around in Congress that day to receive notification of the exemptions.

I am concerned that the report’s language indicates the Obama administration did not provide full details of the Joint Commission’s decisions to Congress and that any information it did provide was not made available to most members — it probably was contained in classified documents sent only to top congressional leaders, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committees.

James Rosen reported on Fox News’ Special Report last night that a congressional source told him senior congressional aides were briefed on the Joint Commission’s decisions. However, Rosen also noted that Democratic senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), one of the JCPOA’s leading critics and a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was never briefed on the Commission’s decisions or the exemptions.

Congress needs to get to the bottom of this. My guess is that the alleged briefings given to senior congressional staff probably were incomplete and, like most JCPOA documents, mired in incomprehensible technical jargon to confuse the issue of the exemptions. If Senator Menendez did not know about the exemptions, I refuse to believe a clear briefing was provided on them to Congress.

WHY THE SECRECY SURROUNDING THE NUCLEAR DEAL?

The bottom line in the Institute for Science and International Security’s report is that the excessive secrecy of the JCPOA is preventing the American people and the U.S. Congress from assessing Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement. I agree. The IAEA provided minute details of Iran’s compliance with its nuclear agreements for many years until January 2016. Although some experts have said this information is not being released because of Iranian demands, when controversial matters such as new exemptions granted Iran and the $400 million ransom payment are kept secret and not clearly disclosed to Congress, the only explanation is that this information is being deliberately withheld to protect the nuclear agreement from Congress.

That’s obviously what happened with the exemptions which indicate major new weaknesses in the nuclear deal. If Congress knew about this last January it would have led to hearings and negative press coverage which would have spoiled the victory laps the administration was taking to celebrate Iran’s “compliance” with the president’s legacy nuclear agreement with Iran. This lack of transparency is an effort by the administration to maintain the fiction that the JCPOA is a great achievement by preventing Congress and the American people from knowing how weak and dangerous this agreement really is.

That’s not the way our system of government is supposed to operate. Congress is a co-equal branch of government and has oversight responsibility of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. It is unacceptable for the Executive Branch to collaborate with foreign powers, U.S. enemies, and international organizations to hide crucial national security information from congressional oversight. This is just the latest reason why, if he wins the presidency, Donald Trump should tear up this dangerous and fraudulent nuclear deal on his first day in office.

The Anatomy of a Deception

The media and much of the Republican establishment have caught on to only part of a story about a shady deal that the Obama administration made with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a deal that took a rather labyrinthine and bizarre form. What they are talking about is bad enough, which involves paying a ransom for hostages, opening up Americans to kidnappings and imprisonment whenever they travel abroad.

The part of the story that they are missing, however, is that what the administration did was highly illegal, according to statutes we still have on our books.

On August 3rd, a story broke that an unmarked cargo plane loaded with $400 million in foreign currency landed in Tehran as part of a United States payment to Iran. Coincidentally this happened the very same day that three American hostages were released.

The next day President Obama took to the airwaves, and emphatically stated, “We do not pay ransom for hostages. We didn’t here, and we won’t in the future.” He went on to describe how he has met with various American families whose loved ones are being held hostage around the globe, and that we simply do not pay ransom because that would encourage more hostage taking in the future. “Those families know we have a policy that we don’t pay ransom,” Obama said. “And the notion that we would somehow start now, in this high-profile way, and announce it to the world, even as we’re looking in the faces of other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage, and saying to them we don’t pay ransom, defies logic,” President Obama added.

However, Washington is abuzz with the news from the Thursday, August 18th Wall Street Journal that an Iranian cargo plane from Iran Air went on a trip to Geneva where pellets were loaded onto it, with foreign currencies including Swiss francs and euros. One of the hostages, Pastor Saeed Abedini, had said that he was kept waiting at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran on January 16th, until the morning of January 17th, and “was told by a senior Iranian intelligence official that their departure was contingent upon the movements of a second airplane,” according to reports.

Another aspect of the story is that Iran Air is the official airplane used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to transfer weapons and manpower to Syria to fight for President Bashar Assad’s brutal dictatorship and to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran Air had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for ferrying weapons and supplies until January 16th of this year, the very same date these foreign currencies were being ferried to Tehran.

Interestingly, January 16th was also “Implementation Day” of the agreement.

Why did President Obama feel it was necessary to deceive the American public about this and to transmit the funds in such a convoluted and bizarre way?

For starters, Americans have a well-warranted distrust for Iran. This began with the 1979 Khomeini Revolution, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy and took embassy officials hostage. It continued through the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, to that of the Khobar Towers in 1996, and to the IEDs found with Farsi imprints on them that sent American servicemen and women back home in body bags or with missing limbs.

A story in The Hill from February 17, 2016 reports that only 3 in 10 Americans approve of the nuclear deal with Iran.

The second and much more compelling reason is because what Obama did is patently illegal, and the Obama administration was aware of that. In fact, while arguing for the deal, they had reassured a skeptical Congress that these statutes would remain on the books.

The reason that they had to reassure Congress is simply because it is a well-known fact that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The State Department’s most recent report on State Sponsors of Terrorism reads:

“Designated as a State Sponsor of terrorism in 1984, Iran continued on its terrorist-related activity in 2015, including support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In 2015, Iran increased its assistance to Iraqi Shia terrorist groups…Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF)-to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. The IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.”

Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. prosecutor for the southern district of New York, argues in a recent National Review story that the financial sanctions, which were put in place in the 1980s because of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, still remain in place today. In fact, while making the case to support the JCPOA, Obama constantly promised Congress that the Iran-related terrorism sanctions would remain in place, and, (again), on January 16th, the U.S. Treasury Department reaffirmed that commitment. As Mr. McCarthy writes, “Treasury’s published guidance regarding Iran states that, in general, ‘the clearing of U.S. dollar — or other currency — denominated transactions through the U.S. financial system or involving a U.S. person remain prohibited[.]’”

And on the afternoon of August 18th, because of that morning’s Wall Street Journal story, State Department spokesman John Kirby admitted that this was ransom money.

This obvious deception is somewhat emblematic of the entire way this nefarious deal was made between the Obama administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran, including running to the United Nations to have the deal enshrined in international law before going back to Congress and having it approved. The Obama administration refused to acknowledge that this was a treaty, and required 2/3 of the Senate to ratify it. Instead, they dubbed it as “political commitments” and never even allowed the Senate to vote on approving it, even as required of a regular bill, which would require 2/3 to reject it.

The deception was gradual and implemental.

I will never forget sitting in the audience at the AIPAC Policy Conference in 2007, and listening to then Senator Barack Obama pledge that “the world must work to stop Iran’s uranium enrichment program,” amidst rapturous applause.

According to a piece in the Washington Free Beacon, since 2008 until April 2015, Obama promised no less than 28 times that he would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

And as soon as he entered office in 2009, U.S. secret negotiations immediately began with Iran, with Oman acting as the intermediary.

David Samuels revealed in his May 5, 2016 profile of Ben Rhodes in the New York Times Magazine that the Obama administration created “an echo chamber,” in which a crop of newly minted experts acted as cheerleaders, and ventriloquist dummies “were saying things that validated what we were giving them to say,” according to Rhodes.

The Obama administration must have known that no matter who was elected president of Iran, Khamenei and the ruling mullahs had the final say on everything. Yet, when Rouhani was elected, President Obama used his bully pulpit to further the myth that Rouhani was a moderate, and that therefore we had a small “window of opportunity” for a nuclear agreement.

Yes, we now have a nuclear agreement with Iran. And Iran now has an internationally condoned path towards a nuclear bomb, if they wait 10 to 15 years, plus it is permitted to operate more than 5,000 nuclear centrifuges, plus another 1000 in Fordow, (the rest are put in storage but not dismantled), plus, according to the Congressional Research Service, at least 120 billion dollars in unfrozen assets, plus 1.7 billion dollars which the administration claims is part of a pre-1979 deal we had made with Iran that was cancelled after the Islamic revolution, (of which the $400 million of ransom money is simply a part), plus an estimated $12 billion relief from the JPOA, plus lucrative deals with Boeing and other companies that Secretary of State John Kerry has been globetrotting, encouraging international businesses to participate in, as well as an enhanced capacity to produce weapons grade uranium, and a replacement of outdated centrifuges with more modern ones, which were all negotiated as part of the agreement.

Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who now works for the Center for Security Policy, has written in his brilliant new book, Obamabomb, A Dangerous and Growing National Security Fraud, “The JCPOA was negotiated and sold to the America people by the Obama administration with unprecedented deception, dishonesty and stealth. The United States made indefensible concessions because of the obsession by Obama officials to strike a legacy nuclear agreement for President Obama.” Mr. Fleitz argues that at best, the agreement will leave Iran with an industrial-sized nuclear program, with the world’s international blessings. He feels, however, that the more likely scenario will be that Iran will use the provisions of the nuclear agreement to continue to produce greater amounts of weapons grade uranium in a much shorter time, with advanced, more modern centrifuges.

This deal is perhaps the worst example of international diplomacy in history; with none other than the world’s leading state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, at a time when the free Western world is being plagued a scourge of exactly such terrorism. The Obama administration must be aware of that. Otherwise, why would they go to such extraordinary lengths to deceive the American people?

And as the sun rises in the morning, the government of Iran has already abducted more Americans to hold for future ransoms.

Another Example of the Obama Admin’s Dishonest Campaign to Sell Iran Nuke Deal

Over the last few months, a lot of new information has come out on how the Obama White House misled the American public, Congress and the news media about the nuclear deal with Iran before Congress voted on the agreement last September.

According to a May 5, 2016 New York Times profile of National Security Council Adviser Ben Rhodes, the Obama administration used false narratives to promote the nuclear deal and conducted a campaign to manipulate and mislead journalists as part of a media “echo chamber.”

Several liberal organizations helped facilitate this echo chamber.  One of the most notorious was the far-left Ploughshares Fund which sought and received funding from liberal philanthropist George Soros. This included an April 2015 request for $750,000 to use mainstream media to counter opponents of the nuclear deal and parrot White House talking points.

Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has called for an investigation on whether large payments by Ploughshares to National Public Radio slanted NPR’s coverage of the nuclear deal and kept congressmen who opposed the agreement off the air.

The latest disclosure on how Ploughshares funding may still be distorting the debate over the nuclear deal concerns a Washington Post contributor.

According to an August 16, 2016 Washington Free Beacon by Adam Kredo, Allen Weiner, a Standord law professor and Ploughshares-funded expert, recently penned a Washington Post op-ed defending the nuclear deal but the Post failed to mention that he is on the payroll of the Ploughshares Fund.  According to Kredo, Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (where Weiner acts as a senior lecturer), received $100,000 from Ploughshares in 2015.  Weiner received a $15,000 payment from Ploughshares for a 2007 paper.

In an email to Kredo, Weiner denied speaking to anyone at Ploughshares about the nuclear deal or knowing the group’s position on the agreement.  Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt disputed Kredo’s claim that Weiner is on the Ploughshares “payroll” and said he saw no conflicts of interest.

However, on August 11, 2016, the Washington Post ran an op-ed co-authored by Weiner that defended a $400 million payment to free four U.S. prisoners held by Iran as “American diplomacy at its finest.”  Many experts believe this payment amounted to ransom and have harshly criticized the Obama administration for concealing it from Congress.

The $400 million was secretly flown to Tehran from Geneva in an unmarked plane.  The payment was made in small denominations of euros and Swiss francs.  The plane transporting the American prisoners was not allowed to take off until after the planeload of cash landed.  Iran says this was a ransom payment.  The Justice Department opposed the timing of this payment because it looked like ransom.  Weiner ignored these facts and repeated the absurd Obama administration position that this was not a ransom payment but represented America repaying an old debt to Iran.

With the Obama administration under fire for the controversial $400 million it paid to Iran, I have no doubt someone recruited Weiner as part of its Iran deal echo chamber to draft his Washington Post op-ed defending its dubious rationale for this payment.  This op-ed did not appear out of thin air.

Was Weiner on the Ploughshares “payroll” to promote the Iran deal?  There’s no evidence of this (at least yet) and he denies it.  However, given the unusual timing of his piece mimicking administration talking points that the $400 million was not a ransom payment, it seems likely Weiner is part of the White House media echo chamber to mislead the American people and Congress about the Iran deal.

Weiner’s article also suggests this echo chamber is still being used to generate false narratives for the White House to defend the nuclear deal.  Further investigation by journalists may prove that the Ploughshares Fund is still funding these distortions.

Iran Executes Nuclear Scientist

On Saturday August 6th, Iranian officials confirmed the execution of nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri for “giving vital information to the enemy.”

The execution was announced after Amiri’s mother had been handed over his body that had rope marks around the neck, indicating that he had been hanged. The information was passed on by the Mansoto, independent satellite television news station based out of London.

On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei stated that Amiri was hanged due to his connection to the United States and his giving of vital information to an enemy of Iran.

Yet, Shahram’s linkage to espionage for the United States is more confusing and muddled than bluntly put together by the Iranian judicial structure. Additionally, Amiri’s trial, detention, and execution were carried out in secret, and the evidence presented at the Iranian prosecution has yet to be unveiled.

Initially, Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in 2009 when the scientist went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. One year later, he resurfaced in the United States in videos where he claimed to have been kidnapped by the CIA and forced to co-operate.

Silence ensued, yet Amiri returned to the spotlight a month later, this time though, the scientist was seen in a Pakistani embassy in Washington D.C. He then gave a second account of his time in the United States. During this rendition, Amiri stated that he had been in the United States to voluntarily study, but wished to return home because he desperately missed his son.

Confined within the Iranian interests section of the embassy, Amiri sought to return to his home country. Two days later, Amiri’s return to Tehran was broadcast on Iranian state television and he was greeted with flowers and open arms by party officials and his family. During a subsequent interview on an Iranian talk-show circuit, Amiri claimed, “I was under the harshest mental and physical torture.”

U.S. officials, however, tell a different story of Amiri’s time in the United States. They claim that Amiri offered his services in radiation detection to the United States for a five million dollar deal in which he provided information on the country’s nuclear development. Yet, before any payments were made, Amiri left the U.S.

In May of 2011, Amiri was officially sentenced on charges of treason and disappeared from the news until August, 2016.

Amiri’s actual purpose in the United States is unknown; however, based on the purges of scientists and academics taking place in Iran in 2009, it is reasonable to conclude Amiri fled the country in fear.

Under the guise of undertaking the haaj to Mecca, Amiri sought refuge with the United States in exchange for handing over intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. If this is the case, then the explanation for Amiri’s rapid and strange return to Iran would be explained by Iranian coercive measures against the scientist’s family and friends if he refused to return.

Yet, the strange circumstance of Amiri’s situation raise questions about the possibility of an Iranian disinformation campaign. Amiri’s sad fate may be part of a larger effort to muddle United States intelligence officers and diplomatic officials understanding of the Iranian  nuclear program.

Regardless of the large questions surrounding Shahram Amiri’s curious defection from and repatriation to Iran, in announcing that it conducted a relatively secret execution of one of its nuclear scientist, Iran indicates that it still perceives the United States as  an enemy and those who aid it as traitors. Despite the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the official name of the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran) and other U.S. efforts at détente, the Islamic Republic’s drastic measures targeting Amiri ultimately highlight an unchanging attitude toward Western society and the United States in particluar.

Secret Ransom Payment Is More Evidence of the Enormous Fraud of the Iran Deal

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the United States secretly sent $400 million in cash on an unmarked cargo plane to Iran on January 17, 2016, to facilitate a swap that day of five innocent Americans held by Iran for seven Iranian criminals held by the U.S. Fourteen additional Iranians were removed from an INTERPOL wanted list as another part of this arrangement.

The prisoner swap was announced on the Iran deal’s Implementation Day (January 16) — when most sanctions were lifted from Iran and it received $150 billion in sanctions relief after the IAEA certified that Tehran had complied with certain requirements of the nuclear deal.

Obama officials have denied that the $400 million was a ransom payment. Instead, they say it was the first installment of an American payment to resolve a dispute over a pre-1979 arms deal with the Shah’s government.

According to the Journal article, the U.S. sent Iran wooden pallets of euros, Swiss francs, and other currencies because U.S. transactions with Iran in dollars are illegal under American law. Obama officials are asserting that the timing of the cash shipment to Iran was coincidental and that the negotiations to convince Iran to free the U.S. prisoners “were completely separate” from the nuclear talks.

If this is true, why the secrecy surrounding the cash shipment to Iran? Why did Obama fail to disclose this shipment to the American people or Congress?

I am concerned that the negotiations to free the U.S. prisoners and the ransom payment were deliberately structured by the Obama administration so that it could avoid briefing Congress before it voted on the Iran deal. Under the Corker-Cardin Act (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015), the Obama administration was required to provide to Congress for a congressional review of the Iran deal:

any additional materials related thereto, including annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.

Given the negotiating record of the nuclear talks, it is impossible to believe there was no link between the Iran deal and the release of the American prisoners. More likely, the Obama administration desperately wanted Iran to release the Americans as part of the nuclear agreement but Tehran refused until sanctions were lifted and it received a large ransom payment.

This is not the first time the Obama administration has paid ransom to Iran. It paid $500,000 each to free American hikers captured by Iran in 2011 through the government of Oman.

As I explain in my new book, Obamabomb: A Dangerous and Growing National Security Fraud, the nuclear deal with Iran and the Obama administration’s defense of it are rife with deceptions and outright lies. Contrary to Obama-administration claims, the timeline to an Iranian nuclear bomb will shorten — not lengthen — because of this deal. The agreement also has very weak verification provisions. We also know from a May 5, 2016, New York Times profile of national-security adviser Ben Rhodes that he manipulated journalists by giving them false narratives intended to promote President Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran.

Last month, the Obama administration celebrated the one-year anniversary of the nuclear deal by claiming that Iran has fully complied with the agreement. There is compelling evidence this is false and that Iran has been engaged in massive cheating. In addition, contrary to assurances by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry that the nuclear agreement would improve U.S.–Iran relations and help bring Iran into the community of nations, Iran’s behavior has worsened and our relationship with the mullahs has weakened since the nuclear deal was announced.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials are complaining that the nuclear deal has not been generous enough to Iran. Further, the White House has been so active in encouraging U.S. and international firms to do business in Iran that leading members of Congress have accused the Obama administration of being Iran’s global “lobbying shop.”

So what should the next president do about the fraudulent nuclear deal with Iran? In an NRO article in July, I argued that the best option would be to tear it up and start over, following these ten principles:

  1. Iran must cease all uranium enrichment and uranium-enrichment research.
  2. Iran cannot have a heavy-water reactor or a plant to produce heavy water.
  3. Robust verification, including allowing “anytime, anywhere” inspections by IAEA inspectors of all declared and suspect nuclear sites.
  4. Iran must fully and truthfully answer all questions about its prior nuclear-weapons-related work.
  5. Iran must curtail and agree to limitations on its ballistic-missile program.
  6. Lift sanctions in stages in response to Iranian compliance with the agreement.
  7. Iran must agree to end its meddling in regional conflicts and its sponsorship of terror.
  8. Threats by Iran to ships in the Persian Gulf, U.S. naval vessels, and American troops must cease.
  9. Iran must cease its hostility toward Israel.
  10. Iran must release all U.S. prisoners.

Hillary Clinton is certain to ignore this advice — she owns this nuclear agreement as much as President Obama does. Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the Iran deal but says he wants to renegotiate a better one. That’s a better path forward.

The Wrong Answer to the South China Sea

With conflict zones heating up around the globe, and our military continually being tasked to do more with far fewer resources, the last thing the United States Navy needs is for its opponents to have more opportunities to box it in through “lawfare.” And yet that is apparently what some would have us do in response to recent events concerning the South China Sea.

In the not-too-distant future, the Navy could be especially busy in increasingly dangerous waters. Iran, ever emboldened by its nuclear deal with President Obama, will continue to flex muscle in the Persian Gulf, as we saw when the Iranian Navy took our sailors hostage several months ago. As Libya and Syria continue to deteriorate, our navy may find itself called on to beef up its presence, and perhaps undertake combat missions, in the Mediterranean Sea. In what is undoubtedly a manifestation of Putin’s thinly veiled agenda to replay, and win, the Cold War, the Russian military is engaging in dangerous harassment of our own lawfully present Air Force assets in the Baltic Sea. China, meanwhile, continues to assert its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea, over the objections of its neighbors and in contravention of customary international law.

As tensions continue to escalate in key maritime areas throughout the world, analysts have been raising concerns for some time that budgetary constraints imposed by Washington, D.C., via sequestration are taking their toll on the Navy’s mission-readiness and deterrence capabilities — the Navy fleet is less than half the size it was 30 years ago, and a recent mid-year review of operations-and-maintenance funding indicates an $848 million shortfall, meaning restricted flying hours and deferred ship maintenance, with implications for future deployments.

It’s not just the shrinking budget complicating the Navy’s ability to train and carry out missions. The Navy has also had to contend with environmental organizations filing lawsuits to curtail the use of sonar. Just this month, the very liberal Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which argued that the 2012 National Marine Fisheries Service rules governing the Navy’s use of sonar during peacetime operations were insufficiently protective of marine mammals affected by such sonar use — even though under the 2012 NMFS rules, “the Navy was required to shut down or delay sonar use if a marine mammal was detected near the ship,” according to the Associated Press. “Loud sonar pulses also were banned near coastlines and in certain protected waters.”

These are consequential features of the Navy’s current operating environment. Yet it is in this environment that some are suggesting that, in response to a ruling recently handed down by an international arbitration court involving China and its neighbors in the South China Sea, the United States should now ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — also known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) — so as to be better positioned to encourage China’s compliance with the court’s ruling. But while China’s provocative behavior in the South China Sea does indeed need to be countered, ratification of LOST would be an ill-advised way to go about it.

The case, brought under LOST’s mandatory dispute-resolution mechanisms before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, centered on the legality of China’s expansive maritime claims in the form of its “nine-dash line,” the outer boundary of Beijing’s territorial claim encircling vast amounts of the South China Sea and overlapping with the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of several neighboring nations. One of those nations, the Philippines (a party to LOST), brought the claim before the arbitration court, asserting that China (also a party to LOST), by drawing its nine-dash line well into the treaty-permitted EEZ of the Philippines, was in violation of LOST’s provisions governing the scope of permissible claims of maritime territory. The arbitration court held earlier this month that China’s nine-dash line, and the sovereign rights claimed over the territory it covered, were indeed not recognized under LOST. China, which has boycotted these proceedings and vowed previously to ignore any tribunal decision in this matter, has indicated that it will not comply.

Some are responding to the tribunal’s decision, and China’s determination to ignore it, by calling on the United States to ratify LOST. The thinking appears to be that without ratifying the treaty, the United States lacks the leverage and credibility with which to encourage China and other countries to adhere to international law in these matters. Such concerns are not only misplaced; they disregard the additional constraints that ratification would impose on our already stressed Navy.

The treaty itself is not the sole or original source of the international law of the sea but rather represents a codification of customary international lawon this subject over several centuries — law by which the Navy conducts itself to this day on the world’s oceans, as it has done since long before 1982, the year LOST was adopted at the United Nations. The United States has both the credibility and the means to defend this long-standing navigational regime, in the South China Sea or anywhere else, without signing up for LOST.

Ratification, while adding nothing to the Navy’s current ability to enforce international legal order in the South China Sea, would however bring with it new impediments to the Navy’s mobility globally. Articles 286 and 287 of the treaty lay out that one party to the treaty — including one with anti-American political axes to grind — may bring another party before one of several compulsory dispute-resolution bodies, the rulings of which are binding and cannot be appealed. While Article 298 provides an exemption for “military activity,” the treaty doesn’t define that activity, leaving the door open for LOST’s tribunals to rule on questions involving their own jurisdiction, as allowed for in Article 288 — so the United States cannot guarantee for itself that it won’t ever be brought before one of these forums on a specious environmental claim or, for that matter, that decisions rendered there will always favor the United States. And because the United States actually adheres to its treaty obligations, we will honor whatever rulings come out of such cases, including those adverse to our interests. (Note that China, already a party to LOST, does not share that view.)

Supporting this possibility is the fact that LOST also contains broadly written environmental-protection provisions, which could be used against the Navy not only by countries alleging environmental damage to the oceans before one of LOST’s international tribunals but by activist organizations arguing before activist American courts. What else will a court like the Ninth Circuit decide is required of the Navy the next time an environmental group sues for injunctive relief, if by then there are far-reaching and binding treaty obligations added to the mix?

In the South China Sea, and elsewhere in today’s volatile world, the Navy has enough working against it already. The last thing it needs is to be subject to an unnecessary and counterproductive United Nations treaty.

BOOK LECTURE: Obamabomb: The Fraudulent Nuclear Deal with Iran

Yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, the Center’s Fred Fleitz gave a lecture on his new book Obamabomb: The Fraudulent Nuclear Deal With Iran.  In his book he provides an in-depth analysis of the dangers of the nuclear deal with Iran and how the threats it poses to U.S. national security are growing. Fleitz discusses the dishonest campaign conducted by the Obama Administration to prevent Congress from rejecting the agreement, what is really in the deal and how Obama officials are trying to make even more concessions to Iran because Iranian officials claim the nuclear deal was not generous enough to Iran.