Iran news in brief, 30 June 2015

Appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing democracy

Professor Raymond Tanter, cofounder of the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), wrote an article on Monday in The Hill about the misguided policy of successive US governments towards Iran’s main democratic opposition group. The following is the full text of Prof. Tanter’s article:

Source: The Hill, Congress Blog
Published date: June 29, 2015

Appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing democracy
By Raymond Tanter

Concessions characterize Washington’s policy in nuclear talks with Tehran. Running out of ways to concede, there are rumors the ayatollahs may ask Washington to place the main opposition that rejects clerical rule — prodemocracy organizations — on the chopping block.

Will the U.S. administrations reach out to Tehran by sacrificing the main Iranian prodemocracy opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) / Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or broader parliament in exile, of which it is a part — the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)? If the executive branch takes such action, many Washington pundits believe that Congress would see this as a shameful policy for our nation, and may wish to act.

London, Paris and Washington fall victim to the chess players from Tehran whose end game repeatedly trumps the major powers. But the prodemocracy opposition also plays chess. The NCRI just announced that it plans to hold another press conference about Iran’s negotiating tactics to extract concessions from the United States to maintain its nuclear infrastructure intact.

We are approaching the end game of the nuclear deadline, June 30. With too little progress, expect Tehran to demand concessions about PMOI members in Camp Liberty, Iraq, held in prison-like circumstances for the Iranian regime.

In 2002, during the invasion of Iraq, Tehran asked the Bush administration to bomb PMOI bases in Iraq, which the U.S. did despite the group’s nonbelligerent posture. Washington received Iran’s pledge not to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs, which Tehran soon violated.

During the summer 2009 uprising in Iran, the PMOI was active in fomenting dissent; its main residence, Camp Ashraf, was attacked by pro-Tehran Iraqi forces. The State Department first blamed the PMOI.

In September 2013, Baghdad’s swat teams entered Camp Ashraf and executed 52 unarmed PMOI members by shooting at them at point blank range and tying their hands in the back before execution. The State Department claimed a close ally of Iran, Nouri al-Maliki, had nothing to do with the murder or with the seven people including six female hostages.

On Nov. 13, 2015, in a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Bret McGurk, deputy assistance secretary of State for Near East Affairs, said, “In that attack there was no foreknowledge from the highest levels of the Iraqi government.” Tehran “cheered” the murders, as the Obama administration secretly negotiated with Iran before the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action.

The PMOI has been the enemy of Tehran for decades. Tehran pays more attention and dislikes it more than all other opposition organizations combined, according to one quantitative study. Why? The PMOI has been responsible for much of what we know about the nuclear program of Iran, including the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and heavy water facility in Arak.

A June 19 2003 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms the PMOI as first source:

"During the General Conference, the Director General met with the Vice President, and asked that Iran confirm whether it was building a large underground nuclear related facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant at Arak, as reported in the media in August 2002 …

"During his visit [to Iran], the Director General was informed by Iran of its uranium enrichment programme, which was described as including two new facilities located at Natanz …. These two facilities were declared to the Agency for the first time during that visit … Iran also confirmed … the heavy water production plant [NCRI August 2002, Arak]."

Regarding a February 2015 PMOI revelation of a secret site, Lavizan-3, Iran is suspected of conducting tests and enrichment with advanced centrifuge machines. And Fordow underground enrichment facility near Qom is another NCRI revelation.

NCRI intelligence revealed, during September 2009, sites in and near Tehran, where Tehran may be working on detonators for nuclear warheads. Prompted by such publicity, it acknowledged in September existence of a uranium enrichment facility about 20 miles north of Qom. By January 2012, Iran admitted enrichment at the site: Fordow.

A day after the NCRI revelation of a covert site, Lavizan-3, Secretary John Kerry appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee; he said the powers hoped to close off a covert pathway to the bomb, but admitted, “Covert, of course, is the hardest.” “You need to have verification and intrusive inspection to be able to find covert facilities.” On February 25, Kerry had called for enhanced inspections to catch Iranian cheating, but on April 9, Tehran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said its “military sites cannot be inspected under the excuse of nuclear supervision.”

According to my research, it is time to have intrusive IAEA inspection, “anytime, anywhere,” of hidden sites; have inspectors take samples from the environment in secret facilities. Doing less, Washington may find itself at the end of the line of Churchill’s adage that an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat the appeaser last. For Washington to think that instead of pressuring Tehran to comply, it may have better success by demonizing the PMOI members in Camp Liberty, would be wishful thinking and a dangerous path to follow.

Tanter cofounded the Iran Policy Committee (IPC) and serves as its president and of Iran Policy Committee Publishing. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee on the Present Danger, and was for about a decade an adjunct scholar at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

US Congress sends warning to Obama on Iran nuclear deal - FOX NEWS

NCRI - Some 368 Members of the US House of Representatives have written to President Barack Obama, stressing that any international nuclear deal with the Iranian regime must ensure that international inspectors can visit all Iranian military bases, Rep. Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has said.

Mr. Royce, a Republican Congressman from California, told 'Sunday Morning Futures' on FOX NEWS: "So far, Iran has turned down all of the four key objectives that the United States had in this agreement, including having inspectors on military bases and the ability to go anywhere, any time for those international inspectors. That has flatly been turned down by the ayatollah. ... But at the same time, every other key objective has been turned down. The agreement now would apparently lift sanctions at the front end instead of at the back end of the agreement, thus giving Iran an enormous amount of money and the IAEA will not get their 12 questions answered about Iran's ongoing nuclear program, the tests they've already done."

"So this has been quite a blunder so far in terms of our handling of the negotiation on the US side," Mr. Royce said. "The international inspectors apparently will not have the ability to go onto military bases. And this is the same problem we had with the North Korean agreement. In the North Korean agreement, the inability to actually access sites led to North Korea getting a nuclear weapon."

Fox News' senior correspondent, Eric Shawn, told the program: "Despite their protestations of optimism, more potential deal breakers come from Iran's defiant supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. No inspections of military sites, no interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists, no 10 year nuclear restrictions, which, by the way, has already been agreed to. And the lifting of all sanctions immediately when that deal is signed."

"Critics predict that would help Iran further fund terrorism and say the White House needs to heed the warnings of the Iranian opposition, like the group, The National Council of Resistance of Iran, instead of relying on Teheran's claims it does not want to develop a nuclear bomb," he said.

Mr. Shawn pointed out that the June 30 deadline for an international agreement has slipped further back to July 9 when the agreement has to be submitted for Congressional review.

Asked whether a postponement of the deadline for several days would make a difference to the outcome of the talks, Mr. Royce said: "I think this is all the zeal for the deal. We saw the same attitudes in dealing with the North Korean regime at the time."

"The warning signs were there. Without verification, without the ability to have international inspectors go onto those military sites and be able to get the questions answered, without the ability to talk to those Iranian scientists, this deal wouldn't be worth the paper it is written on and the result would be the same as the North Korean agreement," he said.

"So I think now is the time for the United States to push back. The administration has had a warning. I sent a letter, with 367 co-authors on that letter, to the president's desk. That's the vast majority of the House saying the four things that need to be in this agreement, and I detailed them, they're not in that agreement. We need to push back now with the international community and get verification."

Eric Shawn Reports: Will world leaders find a nuclear deal?

Will an Iran deal be reached and should it? 

Kuwait: national day of mourning after Friday mosque attack

U.S. Condemns Terrorist Attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia

WASHINGTON – The United States condemned “in the strongest terms” the terrorist attacks that occurred Friday in France, Kuwait and Tunisia, and following the aggression offered the three countries “any necessary support.”

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous attacks, their loved ones, and the people of all three countries,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a communique.

Earnest insisted that, as U.S. President Barack Obama told his French, Kuwaiti and Tunisian counterparts over the past few weeks, “we are resolute and united in our shared effort to fight the scourge of terrorism.”

“We stand with these nations as they respond to attacks on their soil today, and we have been in contact with appropriate counterparts in all three countries to offer any necessary support,” Earnest said.

“Terrorism has no place in any society, and the United States will continue to work closely with our international partners to combat terrorist actors and counter violent extremism around the globe,” the spokesman said.

At least 28 people were killed Friday in an attack on the Tunisian tourist resort of Susa, the same day that a suicide bombing against a Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait left at least 25 dead.

Meanwhile in southeastern France, a man was found decapitated at the entrance to a factory where an explosion was caused by a vehicle crashing into several gas cylinders.

Woman arrested taking down Confederate Flag (video)

Gay Community Press Charges against Mexican Cardinal for “Inciting Violence”

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Gay community organizations of the Mexican State of Jalisco lodged a criminal complaint on Thursday against Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez for “discrimination and inciting violence” by declaring that same-sex marriages are an “aberration.”

“We are asking he complies with the rule of law. With his statements he is fomenting homophobia and transphobia,” said Carlos Becerra, a member of “Union Diversa,” one of the 12 associations that filed the complaint with the Attorney General of Jalisco.

In a nearly six-minute video released on social networks and the Catholic channel Maria Vision, Sandoval Iñiguez said “according to the Christian revelation,” marriage is between a man and a woman, and that “the rest is deviant.”

“What you get out of this divine institution is an attack against it. It is an aberration and cannot fit in the mind of a Catholic,” he said.

The emeritus Archbishop of Guadalajara lashed out at the Supreme Court of Justice’s decision to declare unconstitutional those state laws that limit marriage to the union between man and woman, and said the highest court always legislates “against morals.”

The organizations that are pressing charges believe that these statements not only discriminate against the gay community, but also violate the Mexican and Jalisco Constitution, Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination, Penal Code of Jalisco and the Act of Religious Associations and Public Worship.

“The cardinal believes marriage between people of the same sex is not a matter of human rights, but human rights are for everyone,” said Becerra.

Although he retired as head of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara in 2011 after 17 years of service, Sandoval Iñiguez has continued to be in news with his strong opposition to abortion and same-sex marriages.

Last week he confirmed to have performed a “great exorcism,” along with other priests in the San Luis Potosi Cathedral, to rid Mexico of the evil that entered it after abortion was decriminalized in Mexico City.

When the Supreme Court in 2010 approved the reforms to the Civil Code of the Federal District to allow same-sex couples to adopt children, the Archbishop said the then head of government of the capital, Marcelo Ebrard, of bribing court ministers.