Boris Johnson Holds the Future of the Fatally Flawed Iran Deal in his Hands
By: John Bolton
Biden’s eagerness to rejoin the agreement is disastrous for the Middle East. The Prime Minister must show him that another way is possible
News that Iran is fabricating uranium metal, reported to International Atomic Energy Agency’s members on February 10, sent shock waves through national-security circles globally. Uranium metal’s most common use is forming the hollow sphere of highly-enriched uranium at the core of nuclear weapons. When imploded, the compressed uranium reaches critical mass and detonates in an uncontrolled fission chain reaction.
Predictably, Iran concocted alternative pretenses for its uranium-metal work, which fooled no one. Indeed, this is simply one more opening for Tehran to make public illicit work already undertaken, but previously undisclosed. The mullahs are upping the stakes ahead of any negotiations with the Biden Administration, which is overly eager to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA).
The United Kingdom’s reaction to Iran’s latest ploy will be critical. The JCPOA was long a Holy Grail for the European Union, which the willfully blind Obama administration was delighted to embrace. Washington’s withdrawal from the deal amounted to sacrilege for the EU and its US arms-control acolytes. But however ambitious to rejoin Biden’s team may be, the world has changed dramatically since America’s departure in 2018.
In particular, the Middle East has shifted tectonically. Israel now has full diplomatic relations with Bahrain and the UAE, and with others likely in the very near future. The shared reality that Iran is the greatest threat to regional peace and security is largely driving this quickening Arab-Israeli rapprochement. The former adversaries will not react kindly to outsider efforts to expose them to more imminent danger from Iran. Tehran’s aid to Yemen’s Houthi terrorists; arming Shia militia groups in Iraq; and backing the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, all demonstrate Iran’s hegemonic Middle Eastern ambitions. This is an appalling time to restore top cover for the mullahs’ pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Here, Boris Johnson’s role is central. Prior British governments, including while Johnson was foreign secretary, supported the deal. But that was then, and this is now, especially given London’s new freedom from acting in lock-step with Berlin and Paris. Consider what Iran has been up to.
In January, Tehran admitted enriching uranium above JCPOA-permitted levels, which, some argued, showed the risks caused by Washington’s withdrawal. The real problem, however, is the deal itself, which should never have allowed Iran any enrichment capability.
Enriching to reactor-grade levels of U-235 (nearly 4 per cent) using the centrifuge method, as Iran does, completes roughly 70 per cent of the work necessary to reach weapons-grade levels (typically 90 per cent-plus). Continuing to 20 per cent, which Iran did, encompassed 15 to 20 per cent of the additional work required to attain weapons-grade. Although the maths may seem puzzling to laymen (it certainly did to me at first), this is simply a matter of basic physics. Merely bringing the US back into the deal will not resolve its inherent fatal flaw.
The “speed” with which Iran produced uranium metal is significant. Tehran assured the IAEA in mid-December it would likely take four-five months, not less than two, to fabricate metal. IAEA’s bone-dry reports reveal time and again Iran failing to disclose nuclear-related activity until the agency stumbles onto it. This follows a pattern Jim Baker once called “cheat and then retreat”: Iran admits to illicit nuclear-weapons activity only when public disclosure is imminent and inevitable, or when it seems advantageous to do so.
Now, regarding uranium metal, Tehran is likely revealing previously existing capabilities, under the pretext that, America having withdrawn from the JCPOA, Iran is freed of its commitments. Of course, knowledge cannot be unlearned, so Iran benefits by putting new subjects for bargaining on the table well before any diplomatic moves by President Biden.
When the UN Security Council terminated its ban on selling conventional weapons to Iran last autumn, even the EU admitted this was a severe mistake in the nuclear deal. So too are the JCPOA’s sunset provisions on other restrictions on Iran, and the grossly inadequate scope of IAEA inspection rights. Worst of all, the deal does not even touch on Iran’s ballistic missile programs, its support for terrorism or its belligerent conventional military activities in the region.
Instead of America rejoining the failed JCPOA, we should instead be comprehensively rethinking how to deal with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Its ideological fervor is undimmed, even as its menace grows. The Biden Administration does not get this point. The Johnson government would be doing itself and Biden a huge favor by thinking strategically about Iran, and not simply reprising past mistakes.
John Bolton is a former US national security adviser
(This article was originally published in The Telegraph of the UK)
And:
Why Iran Considers Biden a 'Weak' President
Arabs are turning to the Biden administration with the frank plea: Your weak approach to Iran's regime is already threatening whatever precarious stability exists in the Middle East. It is already emboldening terrorist groups. |
It is only one month into his term in office, and US President Joe Biden is already facing criticism from Arabs over his administration's soft policy toward Iran.
The Arabs say they are worried because Iran sees Biden as a "weak" president, and that is why the mullahs in Tehran and their proxies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon have increased their terrorist attacks in the Middle East.
"In Tehran's eyes, Biden is a pushover," wrote Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Ashraq Al-Awsat.
"It has only been four weeks since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, but Iran has already tested him on several fronts. First, thousands of the Iran-backed Houthi militia rushed to threaten the densely populated city of Marib in Yemen. Afterwards, Iranian militias targeted Basra and Baghdad, and more recently, Erbil and Iraqi Kurdistan, with dozens of missiles, killing and wounding several individuals in a US facility. Then Lokman Slim, Iran's most prominent and vocal opponent in Beirut, was murdered and his body was found on the sidewalk."
Slim, a prominent Lebanese publisher who criticized Hezbollah, was found earlier this month shot dead in a car in southern Lebanon.
Al-Rashed pointed out that Iran "does not deny responsibility for all these events that were organized by its affiliated militias in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon."
According to Al-Rashed, all these attacks were "a test of Biden's administration, and so far, we did not see anything from Washington except for verbal condemnation. This is an expected start on both sides; Iranian provocations and American silence."
If the Biden administration wants Iran to return to the negotiating table and discuss the nuclear deal and the war in Yemen, the Saudi columnist advised, "then President Biden needs to flex his muscles."
Another Saudi columnist, Hella Al-Mashouh, also criticized the Biden administration's soft approach toward Iran. She specifically criticized the Biden administration's recent decision to revoke designation of Yemen's Houthi militia as a terrorist group. The decision reversed actions taken by the former US administration of President Donald Trump regarding the Iran-backed militia.
Commenting on the decision, Al-Mashouh wrote:
"Today, we are facing an imminent Iranian threat and a lenient American administration policy toward this danger. We will face this Iranian threat over the next four years. The question that arises here: Who benefits from this Iranian terrorism and tampering with the region? Syria is devastated, and Hezbollah is dominating Lebanon, which is collapsing economically, politically and socially. Iraq is being flooded with weapons and militias of Iranian terrorism. The Houthis and Al Qaeda are tampering with a disintegrated and ravaged Yemen. So what next? Who will deal with the head of the snake?"
Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf newspaper Akhbar Al-Khaleej, predicted that Iran and its proxies would step up their terror attacks in the Middle East in the next few years.
Zahra said that the recent escalation of terror attacks by Iran's militias in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon were aimed at "practicing direct terrorism" against the Biden administration to force it make the concessions Tehran wants from the US. According to Zahra:
"The Iranian message to Biden is clear. It wants him to understand that Iran has many terrorist cards and can undermine security and stability in the region and present his administration with major challenges. The Iranian regime, in other words, wants to force the Biden administration to yield to its demands regarding sanctions and the nuclear agreement. The Iranian regime bases its calculations on the basis that Biden is weak with regard to the nuclear file."
Zahra pointed out that Iran knows that many Biden administration officials, especially those concerned with the issue of relations with Iran and the nuclear agreement, are the same people who worked in the Obama administration:
"Most of these people are sympathetic to Iran in general, and it is not possible for them to engage with it in any form of confrontation. Iran knows that Biden does not have Trump's resolve and strength in dealing with it. Biden, for example, does not dare to take a step like the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. Iran is testing Biden's weakness."
Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, was assassinated in a targeted US drone strike on January 3, 2020 in Baghdad.
Iraqi journalist and political analyst Ahmed Al-Adhame said that the recent terror attack on a US facility in Iraq "came because of the failed policies of the Biden administration toward Iran." Al-Adhame noted that the US administration gave orders to withdraw the aircraft carrier Nimitiz from the Middle East, a move that further emboldened Iran and its proxies.
Arabs are turning to the Biden administration with the frank plea: Your weak approach to the Iranian regime is already threatening whatever precarious stability exists in the Middle East. It is already emboldening terrorist groups. We are begging you: do not back down to Iranian threats.
Such messages show that many Arabs share Israel's concern over US and European efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. It is, frankly, the last thing the Arabs want. It will only lead to war and set back the region more years than one would care to count.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
And:
Iran’s Zarif Says US Must First Lift Sanctions Before Talks to Revive
2015 Deal
Tehran said on Sunday the United States must first lift sanctions on Iran if it wants to talk about salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal, reiterating its stance that it will not make the first move to restore the pact with major powers.
President Joe Biden’s administration said last week it was ready
to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the accord, which aimed to
prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons while lifting most international
sanctions.
Former President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 and
reimposed sanctions on Iran, which in turn gradually began breaching terms of
the agreement.
But Iran and the United States have been at odds over who should
take the first step to revive the accord. Iran insists the United States must
first rescind US sanctions while Washington says Tehran must first return to
compliance.
“The US will not be able to rejoin the nuclear pact before it
lifts sanctions. … Once everybody implements their side of obligations, there
will be talks,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Iran’s
English-language Press TV.
“Biden claims that Trump’s maximum pressure policy was maximum
failure … but they have not changed that policy (towards Iran). The United
States is addicted to pressure, sanctions and bullying. … It does not work with
Iran.”
Iran has been hard hit by the sanctions, as well as by the
economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
SNAP INSPECTIONS
Further complicating efforts to revive the deal, Iran’s
hardline-dominated parliament passed a law last year that obliges the
government to end implementation of the Additional Protocol from Feb. 23 if
sanctions are not lifted.
Under the deal, Iran is applying the Additional Protocol, which
grants the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the power to carry out
short-notice inspections at locations not declared to it.
“This is not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum. …
Like in any democracy, we have to implement the law passed by the parliament. …
The move (to end snap inspections) is not abandoning the deal,” Zarif said.
“The minute they come back to full compliance; we will come back
to full compliance.”
The United States and European parties to the deal have warned
Iran against obstructing the IAEA’s snap inspections.
Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director-general who is in Tehran to
discuss the agency’s “essential verification activities,” met on Sunday with
Iran’s nuclear energy chief, state media reported.
Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, tweeted that Ali
Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, and Grossi held
“fruitful talks based on mutual respect.”
Zarif said: “We will talk to Mr. Grossi about respecting the laws
of our country … but at the same time not creating an impasse for him to
continue to carry out the obligations to show Iran’s nuclear program is
peaceful.”
And:
Signs Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Never Halted
Samples collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at two Iranian sites where Tehran has not reported any nuclear activity showed traces of radioactivity. Although the IAEA refrained from naming the sites in its quarterly report of June 5, 2020, they were identified last year by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington. The identification was based on information extracted from the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled out of Tehran and into Israel in January 2018.
The first site visited by IAEA inspectors in August 2020 was a
pilot plant for uranium conversion, with an emphasis on the production of UF6
(uranium hexafluoride, a uranium compound which, in its gaseous phase, enables
the enrichment of uranium by centrifuges). This site, located about 47 miles
southeast of Tehran, operated under the aegis of the Amad military nuclear
program. In documents from the Iranian nuclear archive, this location is
referred to as the “Tehran Site.” The facility was dismantled in 2004.
The other site was Marivan, located near the town of Abadeh in central Iran. This facility, also part of the Amad program, was designed to conduct “cold tests” of nuclear weapons (that is, to simulate activation of a nuclear explosive device using natural uranium rather than weapons-grade uranium). This included operating a multipoint explosive system for the activation of a nuclear weapon, as well as the development of its neutron initiator.
According to satellite imagery published by ISIS, Iran razed part
of the Marivan facility in July 2019, more than a year before they allowed IAEA
inspectors access to it. It is likely that this was done to prevent exposure of
nuclear activities that had taken place there in the past. (This was not the
first time the Islamic regime had razed nuclear sites: it did so at the
Lavizan-Shian facility in Tehran in 2004 and the Parchin facility in 2012.) It
is possible that the traces of radioactive materials found in samples taken by
IAEA inspectors in August 2020 indicate renewed efforts to develop a neutron
initiator for nuclear weapons previously conducted at the Marivan site.
The IAEA report of June 5, 2020 referred to a third location as
well. Though its name was not revealed in the report, it was implied that it
was the facility the regime had previously operated in Lavizan-Shian. This
suspicion was based on the fact that between 2002 and 2003, a metallic natural
uranium disc was found at the site that had been processed by drilling and
hydriding (compressing hydrogen atoms inside uranium), an activity Iran neither
reported to the IAEA nor provided an explanation for. This finding suggests
that the regime had attempted to develop a UD3 neutron initiator at the site.
In addition to all of the above, Iran periodically intensifies its
confrontation with the IAEA, causing great concern to the United States and the
West. The following are examples:
· Iran began enriching
uranium to 20%, a level that can serve as a springboard to 90% (weapons-grade).
The regime announced on Jan. 28 that it had accumulated 17 kg of 20% enriched
uranium and intends to reach an annual production capacity of 120 kg. Note that
150-200 kg of 20% enriched uranium are required to reach 15-20 kg of 90%
enriched uranium. (According to other calculations, Iran could accumulate 90%
enriched uranium for its first bomb within a matter of a few months.)
· Iran recently
installed three cascades at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, each
containing 174 advanced IR-2m centrifuges. They were scheduled to go into
operation as early as Jan. 30, with the aim of reaching 1,000 operational
centrifuges of this type at Natanz within three months. Iran also began
installing two cascades, each with about 170 of the more advanced IR-6
centrifuges, at the Fordow enrichment facility.
· On Jan. 13, Iran
informed the IAEA that it was researching the production of metallic uranium —
an activity which, if true, is another violation of the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement. Britain, France, and Germany
have expressed concern that the metallic uranium produced by Iran will be used
for nuclear weapons development.
· Iran has not yet
provided the IAEA with a plausible explanation for the low-enriched uranium
particles found by agency inspectors in 2019 in samples taken from a warehouse
at the Turquzabad site in Tehran. An IAEA report from last November said the particulate
compounds were similar to particulates found in Iran in the past that turned
out to have been from imported centrifuge components (purchased from Pakistan,
according to earlier publications). This theory was backed up by the fact that
the particles included (among other things) the uranium-236 isotope, which does
not exist in nature but is formed as a result of neutron capture by the
uranium-235 nucleus — a process that takes place inside a nuclear reactor. As
far as is known, it is unlikely that the process of manufacturing the
particulates containing uranium-236 took place in Iran.
The problem of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is now largely in
the hands of Joe Biden, though he is not enthusiastic about taking it on. Biden
stated during his election campaign that he intends to return the United States
to the JCPOA, albeit with amendments, and remove the sanctions imposed on Iran
by the Trump administration, but it is doubtful that he has formulated a clear
policy on this issue so far. He did, however, announce on Feb. 8 that the
United States will not lift sanctions until Iran fulfills its obligations under
the JCPOA.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on Feb. 1 that the breakout
time in which Iran might ramp up enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade “has
gone from beyond a year [under the deal] to about three or four months.” He
also said an agreement with Iran should be “longer and stronger.” However, many
of Biden’s newly appointed officials (including Blinken) are former members of
Barack Obama’s administration who were deeply involved in negotiating the
JCPOA. The appointment of Robert Malley as US envoy to Iran raises particular
concerns. If the United States does return to a courtship of Tehran, the task
of dealing with the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons may be left primarily to
Israel.
IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Raphael Ofek, a BESA Center Research
Associate, is an expert in the field of nuclear physics and technology who
served as a senior analyst in the Israeli intelligence community.
This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat
Center for Strategic Studies.
Finally:
Why not?
Why Beijing
Loves Biden and Paris
The U.S. rejoins a climate pact that gives
China a free carbon ride.
By The Editorial Board
The U.S. officially rejoined the Paris climate accord on Friday to much media and European applause. Our guess is that China is the most pleased because it knows the accord will restrict American energy while Beijing gets a decade-long free ride.
Paris is a voluntary agreement, and
nations submit their own commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The
Obama Administration vowed to slash emissions 26% or more from 2005 levels by
2025, but the Trump Administration withdrew from the accord. President Biden
has now pledged to reach “net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden is committing the U.S. without
submitting the Paris agreement to the Senate as a treaty. They know it would
never get a two-thirds vote for approval, and probably not even a simple
majority. Yet the Administration will cite Paris to justify sweeping
environmental regulations to raise the cost of fossil fuels and subsidize
renewable energy and electric vehicles. It will bypass Congress for much of
this.
The economic damage will be real.
A 2017
analysis of the Obama Paris commitments, by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the American Council for Capital Formation, predicted a $250
billion reduction in GDP and some 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025.
Meanwhile, China emitted nearly twice as much CO2 as the U.S. in
2018. Yet under Paris, Beijing gets a pass to increase its emissions until
2030. In 2020 China’s coal plants produced some 4,874 terawatt hours of
energy—an increase of nearly 15% since it joined the pact, according to S&P
Global Platts.
A new report by
the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor highlights that “in 2020, China built over
three times as much new coal power capacity as all other countries in the world
combined—the equivalent of more than one large coal plant per week.” Last year
Beijing also initiated more than 73.5 gigawatts “of new coal plant proposals,”
five times as much as “the rest of the world combined,” the report says.
The U.S. generated an estimated 788 terawatt hours of coal-fired
energy in 2020 as cheaper natural gas replaced coal. Thanks to natural gas—a
fossil fuel—the U.S. has outpaced most of the world in reducing emissions, and
in 2019 emissions reached their lowest level since 1992. Market forces, not
Paris, drove that reduction.
Paris will have
zero effect on the climate even if every nation meets its commitments. Mr.
Biden will dispatch John Kerry, his climate envoy, to lobby China and everyone
else to reduce emissions, which will also please President Xi Jinping. Mr. Xi
will be happy to make promises about the future while demanding U.S.
concessions today on Taiwan, trade and more. The Chinese Communists must sit
back and marvel as they watch the U.S. undermine its own economic strength
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Pomerantz begins to rethink?
Losing Our Privacy: Has the Line Been Crossed?
By Sherwin Pomerantz
Shoshana Zuboff, a professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School and the author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” recently wrote a powerful piece in the New York Times entitled “The Coup We Are Not Talking About.” In it, she makes the point that we can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both.
I was reminded of her article this week in watching the hullabaloo in the United States over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’ ill-timed escape from the subzero temperatures and snow of Texas to a vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
I have no intention on passing judgement on Sen. Cruz in this article. He has offered his own mea culpa on why it was irresponsible for him, as the Junior Senator from that state to leave Texas in the middle of the coldest and snowiest winter in 50 years, serious enough to force the governor to declare a state of emergency in all of the state’s 254 counties. So I will leave further judgement to his constituents.
However, what made me think about Prof. Zuboff’s article was how the press handled this whole affair. Initially Cruz told people that he never intended to escape Texas but that his daughters wanted to take a trip to Mexico and he and his wife just took them there with the intention of coming right back. That story fell apart when research indicated that they had reservations at the hotel for a number of nights, not just one. OK, good research uncovered the deception. Then the story turns a bit scary.
The media, not satisfied to leave this alone, then went digging further and said that they had proof that the trip had nothing at all to do with their daughter’s wanting to go to Mexico. How did they know that? Because they were able to secure copies of his wife’s multiple private text messages to her friends suggesting that those friends might want to consider joining the Cruz’s in their escape from Texas as they had found a great hotel deal at just $300+ per night in Cancun.
This kind of incursion into the private communication of the wife of Sen. Cruz is exactly what Prof. Zuboff warned about in her article about the epistemic coup that is taking place around us. For those not familiar with the word epistemic, not to worry, I had to look up the definition as well and it is: “of or relating to knowledge or knowing.” In a word, Zuboff’s point is that every thought we have that we commit to text and dispatch has the potential to be grabbed and misused all without the permission of the writer.
Prof. Zuboff writes:
“In an information civilization, societies are defined by questions of knowledge — how it is distributed, the authority that governs its distribution and the power that protects that authority. Who knows? Who decides who knows? Who decides who decides who knows? Surveillance capitalists now hold the answers to each question, though we never elected them to govern. This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows by asserting ownership rights over our personal information and defend that authority with the power to control critical information systems and infrastructures.”
In other words, everything we commit to text or speech and send to someone else is now available to those who control the information (e.g. Facebook, Google, Whatsapp, etc.) and can be accessed and then used for whatever purpose.
Without judging the Cruz case, one can raise a reasonable question as to whether the private texts of Sen. Cruz’s wife should have been available at all to the media researchers who went looking for additional proof that the trip was not part of some long-standing plan. After all, Heidi Cruz thought her communication was between her and her friends. Nobody asked her if it was ok to use that information. She did not give anyone permission to use it. It was simply taken because it was possible to access it and use it for whatever purpose the “surveillance capitalists,” as Zuboff calls them, decided…...and that is NOT OK! Allowing this kind of intrusion into our personal lives without our permission is a clear manifestation of George Orwell’s predictions in his novel “1984.”
Prof Zuboff concludes her long and frightening piece thus:
“Unless democracy revokes the license to steal and challenges the fundamental economics and operations of commercial surveillance, the epistemic coup will weaken and eventually transform democracy itself. We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both.”
Sadly, we are well on the road to losing democracy but we can and should still act to reign in the prerogatives of those who control the mass of information that circulates in cyberspace. The sooner democratic governments do so the better off all of us will be. Let’s just hope it is not too late.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment