(Filip Singer/EPA)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US President Barack Obama sign the ‘New START Treaty’

The United States and Russia signed a new treaty today aimed at shrinking stockpiles of nuclear warheads in a historic move that revives the push to halt the spread of atomic weapons, particularly to Iran.

President Obama, who attended the signing ceremony with Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, in Prague, said that “ramped up” negotiations were expected in the coming days over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and that they would result in another set of “strong, tough” sanctions against the Islamist regime.

“Today is an important milestone for nuclear security and non-proliferation, and for US-Russia relations,” the American leader said, speaking in a grand hall inside the Prague Castle where a year ago he gave a speech setting out his vision for a world without nuclear weapons.

The Russian President, standing at a podium next to Mr Obama, said of the treaty: “The result we have obtained is good.”
Smiling and at moments chuckling in a show of friendship, the two presidents signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which is seen as the first concrete foreign policy achievement by Mr Obama since he took office.

The agreement requires Moscow and Washington – holders of more than 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons – to slash their respective arsenals by about a third and reduce launchers by a half.

But the pact, which was already delayed because of difficulties in negotiations, could yet be undermined if either side fails to ratify the text or if Russia chooses to exercise a right to withdraw unilaterally over concerns about American plans for a missile-defence shield in Europe.
To read more click…

US and Russia sign historic nuclear treaty

An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman says Tehran is ready to negotiate with world powers, but he says the discussion about Iran’s nuclear program is a “closed case.”

The semi-official Fars new agency quotes Ramin Mehman-Parast as saying Iran is ready to talk, but only about a negotiation package it submitted last year to the so-called P5+1 group. That group is comprised of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain – plus Germany.

Iran is facing calls by the United States and its allies for new sanctions against Tehran’s nuclear program.

However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday argued against the use of additional sanctions, telling the French newspaper Le Figaro that more sanctions will do little to resolve the dispute.

Turkey is a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Mr. Erdogan is visiting France, one of the Security Council’s permanent members, for two days of talks starting Tuesday.

Iran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But the U.S. and its allies say Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with international nuclear inspectors shows it is trying to pursue nuclear weapons.

To read more click below…
Iran Ready for Negotiations, Says Spokesman

Israel will be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities by this November unless the U.S. and its allies enact “crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran,” former deputy defense minister Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh said on Wednesday in Tel Aviv.

The sanctions currently being discussed with Russia, China, and other major powers at the United Nations are likely to be a slightly-enhanced version of the U.N. sanctions already in place, which have had no impact on the Iranian regime.

And despite unanimous passage of the Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act in January, the Obama administration continues to resist efforts by Congress to impose mandatory sanctions on companies selling refined petroleum products to Iran.

In an Op-Ed in the Israeli left-wing daily, Haaretz, Sneh argues that Iran will probably have “a nuclear bomb or two” by 2011.

“An Israeli military campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country’s nuclear project for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable.”

Sneh believes that the “acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran during Obama’s term would do him a great deal of political damage,” but that the damage to Obama resulting from an Israeli strike on Iran “would be devastating.”

Nevertheless, he writes, “for practical reasons, in the absence of genuine sanctions, Israel will not be able to wait until the end of next winter, which means it would have to act around the congressional elections in November, thereby sealing Obama’s fate as president.”

Sneh does not foresee any U.S. military strikes on Iran, an analysis that is shared by most observers in Washington, who see the Obama administration moving toward containment as opposed to confrontation with Iran.

In a recent report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), military analyst Anthony Cordesman concluded that Israel will have to use low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons if it wants to take out deeply-buried nuclear sites in Iran.

“Israel is reported to possess a 200 kilogram nuclear warhead containing 6 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium that could be mounted on the sea launched cruise missiles and producing a Yield of 20 kilo tons,” Cordesman writes in the CSIS study he co-authored by Abdullah Toukan.

Israel would be most likely to launch these missiles from its Dolphin-class submarines, he added.

While Sneh is no longer in the Israeli government, his revelation of a drop-dead date for an Israeli military strike on Iran must be taken seriously, Israel-watchers in the U.S. tell Newsmax.

“Ephraim Sneh is a serious guy,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “He was deputy minister of defense and has long been focused on the issue of Iran.”

Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director for Security Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), said that what struck her most about Sneh’s comments was the shift of emphasis from resolving the Palestinian problem to Iran.

“For 30 years, he’s been saying that solving the Palestinian problem is Israel’s biggest priority. Now he’s saying, forget about the Palestinians. Iran is the problem.”

Sneh “is extremely well regarded on the left and the right,” she added. “People respect him enormously.”

In his Op-Ed, Sneh argues that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to mend its bridges with the United States, and the only way to do so is by enacting an immediate and total ban on any settlement activity, including in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

“Without international legitimacy, and with its friend mad at it, Israel would find it very difficult to act on its own” against Iran, he argued.
To read more click below…
Def. Minister: Israel Will Attack Iran by Nov.

Turk PM opposes sanctions on Iran, urges diplomacy.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that he did not favor imposing economic sanctions to pressure Iran into showing that it has no covert nuclear weapons program.

“We are of the view that sanctions is not a healthy path and…that the best route is diplomacy,” Erdgoan said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
(Reuters)

If sanctions on Iran haven’t worked, why bother again?
By Uriel Heilman · February 21, 2010

The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

1 out of 1

Other Media
The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, sanctions have been the world’s answer to Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Three times already — in 2006, 2007 and 2008 — the U.N. Security Council passed sanctions legislation aimed at obstructing Iran’s nuclear capabilities and prodding the government in Tehran into cooperating.

The result: Iran moved ahead with building clandestine nuclear facilities, installing centrifuges and enriching unranium while refusing full access to international weapons inspectors and turning down deals with the West. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report saying it had evidence of “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran to build a nuclear warhead.

Tehran repeatedly has made clear that its policy toward the West — on the nuclear issue and other matters, including last year’s disputed election — is defiance and obduracy, not cooperation or capitulation.

Now, in the face of mounting evidence that Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb continues unabated, pro-Israel groups and U.S. and European governments again are pushing for new sanctions.

Given that sanctions haven’t worked in the past, is there any hope that things will be different this time?

“We won’t know the answer until we actually try,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the main U.S. Jewish umbrella group on Mideast-related issues.

“Sanctions can have an impact if they’re the right kind of sanctions, if they’re not going to be put off,” Hoenlein said. “The question is implementation. It’s not moving fast enough. The Iranians only understand one language: They have to understand this is showdown time.”

For now the approach among Jewish organizational leaders who have led the campaign to halt Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is to continue to promote sanctions — both by the United Nations and by individual countries, including the United States. The thinking is that sanctions currently under consideration are considerably tougher than earlier rounds and must be tried before any other options can be explored.

“If we’re willing to put meaningful, painful sanctions in place, it can work,” said Josh Block, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been the main lobbying group pushing Congress for sanctions on Iran.

“Do we have the ability to create significant economic pain for the Iranian government? Yes. Are they willing to change their behavior based on that impact? We don’t know,” Block acknowledged.

The new U.N. sanctions would target Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and more severely restrict Iran’s banking industry. For enactment, nine of the U.N. Security Council’s members must vote for them, and none of the five permanent, veto-wielding members — China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — can block them.

Russia, an early holdout, is now sending signals it favors new sanctions, but China has yet to agree. Four more yes votes would be necessary from the 10 rotating members: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina , Brazil, Gabon, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Uganda. The four votes are not yet in place, insiders say, and the date for a vote on sanctions continues to be pushed back.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is set to pass broad unilateral sanctions that would target Iran’s energy sector.

As the day of reckoning with a nuclear Iran fast approaches, advocates in the Jewish community are being forced to confront the question of where to go beyond sanctions.

There are no sure answers. Sanctions have not worked so far, and the U.S. administration doesn’t appear close to considering the military option.

Even if Israel were to circumvent the United States and strike Iran, it would be hard to wipe out the country’s nuclear facilities, which are thought to include sites that are hidden, underground, scattered and heavily fortified.

Some Jewish groups have begun talking about how to live with a nuclear Iran.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of The Israel Project, said that even if sanctions couldn’t stop Iran from going nuclear, they still could help deter a nuclear Iran from using its weapons.

“The idea that the game is over if Iran has a nuclear device is mistaken,” Mizrahi told JTA. “As long as Iran hasn’t used a nuclear device to shoot anybody or give it to terrorists, we still have to give it a full-court press.”

It’s possible, she noted, that Iran already has obtained a nuclear device from North Korea or other clandestine methods.

“Even if they were to have a nuclear device and a rocket today, it would still be useful to have sanctions,” Mizrahi said. “They can still be dissuaded from using their weapons and giving them up.”

With the time remaining for effective sanctions to have an impact on the Iranian regime dwindling, is it time to go to Plan B?

“There are plan B’s,” Hoenlein said. “We have not advocated military action. We don’t believe that’s our role. We believe all options should be on the table, including that. If they don’t believe all options are on the table, they will never move.”

Plan B, he said, could entail anything from a naval blockade to military strikes. The United States does not yet appear to be at that point, but of course Israel at any point could move to its own Plan B.

Even as they concede that serious questions remain about the efficacy of new sanctions and other options, U.S. Jewish organizational leaders are canvassing the country and holding meetings around the world to warn about the dangers of a nuclear Iran — and not just so they can feel like they’re doing something or to give their audiences a reason to lay awake at night.

“I’m not trying to suggest this as a panacea,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a policy umbrella group. “We still have to get the sanctions thing passed.”

Talking about the dangers of a nuclear Iran can energize people to lobby their elected representatives, press the issue at consulates and embassies, and talk to associates with business interests overseas about the imperative to isolate Iran, he said.

The point, several Jewish officials said, is to not give up.

“Because of our history, because of our teachings, I think we’ve been taught that one cannot just sit by and watch evil win,” Gutow said, citing Theodor Herzl’s famous “Im Tirtzu” line – “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Mizrahi also cited Herzl.

“I’m not optimistic about any of these things, but as Golda Meir put it, Jews don’t have the option of being pessimists,” Mizrahi said. “If every time the world said it’s impossible for Israel to accomplish something, if they’d listened Israel wouldn’t have gone back to reclaim the land, drain the swamps and build the country. I believe very strongly in what Herzl said.”

To read more, click here
jta.org

‘Iran’s new enrichment modest’
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/02/2010 01:30

IAEA report: First batch of higher enriched uranium expected within days.
Talkbacks (7)
Iran expects to produce its first batch of higher enriched uranium within a few days but its effort is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities, according to a confidential document, the Associated Press reported overnight Wednesday.

The internal International Atomic Energy Agency document was significant in being the first glimpse at Iran’s plan to enrich uranium to 20 percent that did not rely on statements from Iranian officials.

Iran said it wants to enrich only up to 20 percent — substantially below the 90 percent-plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads — as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment.

But the West has said Teheran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Iran has denied such aspirations. But its move is viewed with concern internationally because it would create material that could then be processed into weapons-grade uranium more quickly and with less effort than Iran’s present stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium.

On Wednesday, Iranian Vice President Ail Akhbar Salehi said the process of higher enrichment was going smoothly, a day after Iranian officials announced a start of the operation, but gave no details on the scope of the new activities. The restricted IAEA document, however, indicated that, for now at least, they were modest in scale.

“It should be noted that there is currently only one cascade … that is capable of enriching” up to 20 percent, said the document. A cascade is 164 centrifuges hooked up in series that spin and re-spin uranium gas to the required enrichment level.

The document, relying on onsite reports from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, also cited Iranian experts at the enrichment site at Natanz as saying that only about 10 kilograms — 22 pounds — of low enriched uranium had been fed into the cascade for further enrichment.
Agency inspectors were told Wednesday “that it was expected that the facility would begin to produce up to 20 percent enriched … (uranium) within a few days,” said the one-page document.

Iran has over 8,000 centrifuges at its disposal, although not all are working. It has amassed about 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium.

Iran’s decision to enrich to higher levels have led to a spike in concerns about nuclear arms — and led Washington on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on several affiliates of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The US Treasury Department announced that it would freeze assets in US jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he commands, which was hit with US sanctions in 2007.

The sanctions expanded existing US unilateral penalties against elements of the Guard Corps, which Western intelligence believes has been spearheading Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said higher enrichment means Iran is getting a step closer to the ability to make nuclear weapons.

“Iran is slowly expanding its breakout capability,” Albright said in an e-mail to the AP. He said achieving the 20-percent level “would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium.”

For read more, click here
‘Iran’s new enrichment modest’

WASHINGTON—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his government would accept a nuclear fuel-swap agreement overseen by the United Nations, a deal the Obama administration has viewed as central to limiting Tehran’s ability to develop atomic weapons.

The Iranian leader’s announcement on state television Tuesday, however, was immediately greeted with skepticism by Western diplomats, who have watched Tehran flip-flop on the fuel-swap issue since it was proposed in October.

Senior U.S. officials said Mr. Ahmadinejad hadn’t conveyed an agreement to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

To read more click below..
Iran Is Ready for Nuclear Deal, Leader Says

Reporting from Washington – The State Department rejected Iran’s latest proposal for international talks Thursday in another sign of trouble for the Obama administration’s top-priority effort to engage Tehran in nuclear negotiations.

A five-page Iranian proposal distributed to foreign diplomats Wednesday “was not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran’s nuclear program,” said P.J. Crowley, the senior State Department spokesman.

At the same time, Crowley said, “We remain willing to engage Iran.”

The administration faces an approaching deadline on whether to pursue a diplomatic opening with Iran, which was one of President Obama’s trademark foreign policy ideas during his presidential campaign.

U.S. officials say Obama will decide by the end of the year whether to continue his offer of negotiations or withdraw it, and step up sanctions to force the Islamic Republic to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

In the letter, Iranian leaders pledged to “embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations,” but did not name the nuclear program as an issue for the talks. A copy of the letter was obtained by the nonprofit news organization ProPublica.

Tehran insists it has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to process uranium as part of a peaceful nuclear energy program, but U.S. and European officials allege Iran seeks to develop atomic weapons.

Though U.S. officials insisted there was still reason for hope, warning signs are mounting. Glyn Davies, the American ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said Wednesday that Iran was now capable of quickly enriching its low-grade uranium to bomb-grade material if it wished.

Pressure is increasing on the Obama administration from conservatives and pro-Israel groups to take a harder line on Iran. Lawmakers are moving ahead with legislation to penalize companies that help Iran refine or import gasoline. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said after meeting with visiting Jewish leaders Thursday that he planned to move ahead with the bill.

The administration is quietly resisting the bill, arguing that it wants to hold off on tougher sanctions until it is sure that Iran cannot be persuaded to join in talks.

Meanwhile, a number of Iran specialists say the hard-line Ahmadinejad government’s preoccupation with political rivals at home has made it less inclined to negotiate.

Ray Takeyh, who served as a senior State Department advisor on Iran until recently, noted that Iran’s leaders have accused the West of meddling and stoking the protests over the disputed June presidential election that has divided the country.

“They’re viewing the West through a very suspicious, if not conspiratorial lens, which makes the possibility of compromise very difficult for them,” said Takeyh, now with the Council on Foreign Relations.

George Perkovich, a nonproliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the significance of the week’s developments is what it shows about Iranian intentions.

“What’s becoming increasingly clear is that Iran is not interested in negotiations,” he said.

Still, a senior U.S. official insisted that the political turbulence in Iran might also make the government more open to a deal that would reduce international pressure.

“You can follow the logic of this two ways,” said the official, who declined to be identified citing the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject.

U.S. officials intend to confer with the five other world powers who have been trying to deal with the Iran issue — France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. Officials spoke Wednesday and are scheduled to meet later this month.

But there were new signs Thursday that the Russians, who have repeatedly balked at pressure to crack down on Iran, are unlikely to join a new sanctions effort.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, spoke favorably of the Iranian letter, saying in Moscow that “my impression is that there is something there to use,” according to Reuters.

Lavrov added that Russia would not take part in any international effort to halt refined oil deliveries to Iran, as some have proposed.

To read more please click below…
U.S. rejects Iran’s proposal for talks

Reuters.com
WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Iran is ready to begin wide-ranging talks with the West, but is silent on whether it will halt its uranium enrichment program, according to a copy of an Iranian proposal posted on a U.S. website on Thursday.

The five-page document, whose authenticity was confirmed by a diplomat briefed on the proposal, was released by ProPublica (www.propublica.org), an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism.

In the document, which was handed over to major powers on Wednesday, Iran said it was willing to discuss complete global nuclear disarmament in the talks, which it said could cover political-security, international and economic issues.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran voices its readiness to embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations aiming at acquiring a clear framework for cooperative relationships,” the proposal said.

However, it was silent on the demand by the major powers that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects may be a cover for developing nuclear weapons but which Tehran says is solely to produce electrical power.

Among the issues Iran said it was willing to discuss was “putting into action real and fundamental programmes toward complete disarmament and preventing development and proliferation of nuclear, chemical and microbial weapons.”

The six nations that received the proposal from Tehran — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — plan to hold a conference call among senior diplomats on Friday to decide how to respond to it.

However, differences among the so-called P5+1 have already emerged, with the United States saying that the document was “not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran’s nuclear program.”

Russia, which has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, said Iran’s latest proposals contained something to work with and ruled out oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In language that was often flowery and vague, the document proposed discussing issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “tackling the root causes of terrorism.”

It also held out the prospect of talks on economic issues including energy production, trade and investment, the global financial crisis and combating financial fraud and organized crime.

A U.S. State Department spokesman declined immediate comment on the document’s publication.
To read more please click below…
Iran ready for ‘all-encompassing’ talks -website

Iran, whose nuclear facilities are under threat of possible Israeli military strikes, proposed Wednesday that a 150-nation conference convening in September ban such attacks.

Iran says the proposal, revealed to The Associated Press by diplomats and confirmed by a senior Iranian envoy, is not linked to veiled threats by Israel of an attack as a last resort if the international community fails to persuade Tehran to freeze its nuclear activities.

Instead, all of the diplomats said the Iranian initiative seeks support for a generally worded document prohibiting all armed attacks against nuclear installations anywhere, when 150 nations convene for the September general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“We are not worried about Israel,” said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief envoy to the IAEA. “Nobody dares to do anything against Iran.”

He said an Iranian resolution will seek a worldwide ban on such attacks as a matter of principle.

“I think this is an urgent concern for all of the international community,” he said. “All member states will support the idea.”

He said his country submitted a proposal that a resolution specifying such a ban be put forward for a vote at the meeting, which begins September 14.

The IAEA’s general conference already passed a resolution in September 1990 entitled Prohibition of All Armed Attacks Against Nuclear Installations Devoted to Peaceful Purposes Whether Under Construction or in Operation.

But Soltanieh, who said his country was a key architect of that document, said a fresh resolution was called for because “nuclear installations all over the world are increasing and any sort of threatening attacks…will have radiological consequences all over the world.”

But Israeli warplanes have attacked nuclear sites before, and Iran appeared to be trying to ramp up diplomatic pressure on Israel in hopes of reducing the chances of an attack.

The country’s war planes crippled Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 to prevent Saddam Hussein from the means of developing nuclear weapons. More recently, an Israeli air attack nearly two years ago destroyed what the U.S. says was a nearly finished nuclear reactor in Syria that would have been able to produce plutonium when completed.
Israel, which is considered to have nuclear weapons, has been quiet publicly regarding its military intentions but has sent several signals to Iran.

Most recently, an Israeli submarine believed to have the capability of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles last month returned to the Mediterranean after crossing to the Red Sea in the direction of Iran, a mission seen as a warning. Also, Israel has held air force maneuvers that were described unofficially in Israel as mock attacks on Iranian targets.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden last month suggested on a talk show that the United States would not stand in Israel’s way if it chose to attack Iran to scuttle its nuclear ambitions. And the administration of President Barack Obama itself has not taken the Bush-era option of such a strike by U.S. forces off the table.

Still, Israeli strategists face far more formidable odds than they did against Iraq or Syria if contemplating any attack on Iran.
To read more click the link below…
Iran calls for global ban on striking nuclear facilities