We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication.
AS WE GO TO PRESS: WITH NUKE DEAL IN SIGHT, US AND IRAN DIG IN —American and Iranian negotiators struggled Monday to clear the final obstacles to an agreement aimed at eliminating the threat of a nuclear-armed Tehran. Weary diplomats expected to push past their fourth missed deadline in less than two weeks. As a midnight target for a deal approached, diplomats said the nuts and bolts of the written nuclear accord had been settled days ago. And Iranian President Hassan Rouhani briefly raised expectations of an imminent breakthrough by proclaiming on Twitter: “Iran Deal is the victory of diplomacy & mutual respect over the outdated paradigm of exclusion & coercion. And this is a good beginning.” But only minutes later, Rouhani’s tweet was deleted. He then retransmitted it, adding the word “If” in front of “Iran Deal” to reflect that negotiators weren’t there yet…(New York Times, July 13, 2015)
Committee to Examine the Implications of a Nuclear Agreement with Iran: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 9, 2015 — Below is Chairman Royce’s opening statement as prepared for delivery at the hearing…
Iran Made Illegal Purchases of Nuclear Weapons Technology Last Month: Benjamin Weinthal & Emanuele Ottolenghi, Weekly Standard, July 10, 2015— The question is not whether Iran can be trusted to uphold the nuclear deal now being negotiated in Vienna (it can’t), but whether the Obama administration and its P5+1 partners can be trusted to punish Iran when it violates the agreement?
Turkey’s Syrian Kurdish Problem: Jonathan Spyer, Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2015 — Syrian Kurdish forces this week succeeded in turning back a murderous and determined attempt by the forces of Islamic State to claw back control of areas of northern Syria recently liberated by the Kurds. The cost was high, nevertheless.
Why Lebanon’s Sunnis Support ISIS: Hilal Khashan, Middle East Quarterly, Summer, 2015 — The claim by a recent public opinion poll that only 1 percent of adult Lebanese Sunnis are supportive of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) must be taken with a large pinch of salt since “there is a vast gulf between how people say they behave and how they actually behave.”
Journalist ‘Punks’ Iranian Negotiating Team in Vienna (Video): Israel Video Network, 2015
Michael Oren Interviewed by Daniel Pipes: Middle East Forum, June 24, 2015
Turkey’s Wrong Bet on Syria: Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute, July 1, 2015
Lebanon’s Growing Fragility: Benedetta Berti, Institute for National Security Studies, June 11, 2015
COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE THE IMPLICATIONS OF A
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 9, 2015
[July 9, 2015] at 10:00 a.m., as the Obama Administration works to complete a final nuclear deal with Iran, U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will convene a hearing entitled, “Implications of a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.” The hearing is the first in a series of hearings the Committee will convene to examine the Obama Administration’s anticipated nuclear agreement with Iran. Below is Chairman Royce’s opening statement as prepared for delivery at the hearing:
This morning, the Committee continues to examine the Obama Administration’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran as we get set for a congressional review of a possible, and hugely consequential, agreement. As we speak, U.S. negotiators in Vienna face another deadline. But to be clear, there is no push from Congress to conclude these negotiations in the next few hours. If the Administration negotiates a sound agreement, it shouldn’t matter if the congressional review period is 30 or 60 days.
While we don’t have an agreement in front of us, we know the troubling outline taking shape. Just a few months ago, 367 Members of Congress signed a letter Ranking Member Engel and I led stating that any final agreement must last for multiple decades and include full disclosure of Iran’s past efforts to build a nuclear weapon, a dramatic reduction in the number of centrifuges, as well as intrusive inspection and verification measures.
A few weeks ago, several of President Obama’s former advisors signed an open letter echoing these concerns, and warned that these negotiations may fall short of meeting the Administration’s own standard of a “good” agreement. Indeed, one witness with us today wrote back when these negotiations began (November 2013) that a “good enough” agreement would have Tehran giving up “all but a minimal enrichment capacity,” agree to intrusive inspections and guarantee the re-imposition of sanctions.
But that’s not even close to where negotiations are today. The “most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history” – the President’s promise – has turned into “managed access,” with the Iranians having a big say in where international inspectors can and can’t go. “Managed access” is a big back away from the “anywhere, anytime” terms the Administration once demanded.
But to be clear, under this agreement, Iran doesn’t even have to cheat to be a step away from the bomb. Iran is not required to dismantle key bomb making technology; it is permitted a vast enrichment capacity, and is allowed to continue its research and development to gain an industrialized nuclear program once this agreement begins to expire in as little as ten years. That is hardly “decades.” That is hardly “all but minimal” enrichment.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop its ballistic missile capabilities. After Iran’s Supreme Leader called demands to restrict its missile program “a stupid, idiotic expectation,” U.S. negotiators backed off this key demand. Instead, Iran is still able to “mass produce” its ballistic missiles, as the Supreme Leader has ordered. We ought to be concerned. Really concerned. One witness told the Committee last month that, “no country that has not aspired to possess nuclear weapons has ever opted to sustain” a costly, long-range missile program. Already, U.S. intelligence estimates Iran to have the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Simply put, countries build ICBMs to deliver nukes.
Not to mention that the terrorist state of Iran will be flush with cash. Reportedly, Iran will receive as much as $150 billion under this agreement – some 25 times the annual budget of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. Such a huge amount will breathe life into Iran’s economy and fund a new generation of terrorism in the region and beyond. At every step in this process – whether it’s enrichment capacity, missile development or sanctions relief, the Obama Administration has discounted the fundamental nature of the regime in Tehran. “Death to America” isn’t domestic spin – it is the regime’s rallying cry.
As one witness concludes –“President Obama is agreeing to dismantle the sanctions regime – permanently. In return, Tehran is agreeing to slow the development of its nuclear program – temporarily.” That’s a bad deal for us: permanent concessions in exchange for temporary benefits, and that’s only if Iran doesn’t cheat, like North Korea did. So Iran is left a few steps away from the bomb and more able to dominate the region. How does that make us and our allies more secure? Or conflict less likely? That is the bottom line this Committee has and will continue to look at. Few issues are more important.
IRAN MADE ILLEGAL PURCHASES OF NUCLEAR
Benjamin Weinthal & Emanuele Ottolenghi
Weekly Standard, July 10, 2015
The question is not whether Iran can be trusted to uphold the nuclear deal now being negotiated in Vienna (it can’t), but whether the Obama administration and its P5+1 partners can be trusted to punish Iran when it violates the agreement?
Experience shows that unless Iran violates the deal egregiously, the temptation will be to ignore it. For instance, Iran got away with selling more oil than it should have under the interim agreement. More ominously, Tehran repeatedly pushed the envelope on technical aspects of the agreement—such as caps on its uranium stockpile—and got away with it. The Obama administration and other Western powers have so much invested in their diplomatic efforts that they’ll deny such violations ever occurred.
More evidence of Iranian violations has now surfaced. Two reports regarding Iran’s attempts to illicitly and clandestinely procure technology for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs have recently been published. They show that Iran’s procurement continues apace, if not faster than before the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013. But fear of potentially embarrassing negotiators and derailing negotiations has made some states reluctant to report Tehran’s illegal efforts. If these countries have hesitated to expose Iran during the negotiations, it is more likely they will refrain from reporting after a deal is struck.
The first report was released last month by the U.N. panel of experts in charge of reporting compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iran. The panel noted that U.N. member states had not reported significant violations of U.N. sanctions and speculated as to why: either Iran was complying, or countries did not wish to interfere with negotiations.
The second report, released last week by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, is less ambiguous. The agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, confirmed to us that Iran continues to seek illicit technology for its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.
Iran has had a long history of trying to obtain nuclear technology from German companies, particularly by seeking ways to transport merchandise in circumvention of international sanctions. Since November 2013, Tehran has sought industry computers, high-speed cameras, cable fiber, and pumps for its nuclear and missile program. It appears that Iran’s readiness to negotiate does not reflect any substantive policy change. Rather, it is a diplomatic tactic retreat forced by economic distress, not a strategic rethinking of its priorities.
Iran’s cheating should give Western negotiators additional resolve to impose ironclad guarantees in the agreement. They should compel Iran to reveal its past activities, including its post-JPOA procurement efforts, and impose tough, intrusive, “anytime, anywhere” inspections before sanctions are suspended, let alone lifted.
Instead, the lack of reporting to the U.N. despite evidence of cheating suggests a lack of resolve on the part of Western nations, and their willingness to downplay all but the most egregious violations. This does not bode well for the future. If Western powers are reluctant to penalize Iran for trying to evade sanctions because they’re afraid of spoiling the negotiations, what will happen in the future when Western powers have even more invested in preserving an agreement?
TURKEY’S SYRIAN KURDISH PROBLEM
Jonathan Spyer
Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2015
Syrian Kurdish forces this week succeeded in turning back a murderous and determined attempt by the forces of Islamic State to claw back control of areas of northern Syria recently liberated by the Kurds. The cost was high, nevertheless. Recent Kurdish successes, meanwhile, have raised the specter of a Turkish armed intervention in northern Syria to crush the growing Kurdish autonomous zones along the border.
So where do things stand in the bloody war between the Kurds and the Sunni jihadists over Syria’s north? And is there a realistic possibility that Erdogan might intervene? First of all, it should be noted that the Islamic State offensives this week carried all the hallmarks of barbaric brutality with which this organization has become associated. This needs emphasizing because the slaughter of 223 civilians in Kobani last week failed to gain the global media attention it deserved. It was overshadowed by the attack in Tunisia against Western tourists, and the bombing of the Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait.
But more broadly, the Islamic State offensive was a further indication of the relative decline in the fortunes of the Islamic State in northern Syria since the beginning of this year. The failure to destroy the Kurdish Kobani enclave, acknowledged in January, was the first stage in the slow rollback of Islamic State in Syria’s north. Since then, the Kurds, supported by US air power, have pushed the jihadists further back in the direction of the east and south. This culminated last week in the taking of the strategically important border town of Tel Abyad and the linking of two of the three Kurdish cantons along the Syrian-Turkish border – Kobani and Jazeera.
The Kurds then pushed eastward to Ain Issa, bringing them to 50 km from the capital of Islamic State in Raqqa. It was at this point that Islamic State launched its counterattacks against Kobani, then against Tel Abyad, and also against the regime army in Hasaka. These attacks have all now been repulsed, which means the situation, in spite of the Kurdish losses, remains substantively unchanged.
The Islamic State retreat spells reversal but not yet disaster for the jihadists. It is unlikely that the Kurdish YPG and its rebel allies will wish to push further south and east. The Kurdish interest is in securing the cantons and areas of Kurdish majority , not in launching a general war for the destruction of Islamic State. Unsubstantiated claims of Kurdish expulsion of Arab and Turkmen populations following the conquest of Tel Abyad show the complications inevitably encountered by the Kurdish YPG when operating outside of areas of Kurdish majority population.
But it is precisely the YPG’s determination to secure Kurdish majority areas that has the Turks worried. With the Jazeera and Kobani cantons now united, the Kurds control a long contiguous stretch of the Syria-Turkey border. The Turks fear that the Kurds could seek to unite the canton of Kobani/Jazeera with the third autonomous zone, further west, around the city of Afrin. This prospect is what has led to the jitters in the senior reaches of Turkey’s leadership.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a series of statements in recent days saying that Turkey would never allow the formation of another state in northern Syria. This is an allusion to the possibility of a Kurdish state. The presence of the Islamic State clearly exercises the Turkish leader less. Since then, official Turkish media have begun to discuss the creation of a 112 km by 48 km buffer zone west of the Kobani enclave, taking in the town of Jarabulus and its environs. Evidently, the Turks are keen to establish Jarabulus, west of the Euphrates, as a redline beyond which the Kurds dare not advance without risking Turkish retribution.
The Kurds responded swiftly to the Turkish threat. Murat Karayilan, a senior official and former leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), made clear that should the Turkish Army enter Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), this would trigger Kurdish military action north of the border in Turkey itself.
Interestingly, if such a buffer zone were to be established by Turkey, this would in effect constitute an intervention in Syria by Turkey not only directed against the Kurds but also de facto in defense of Islamic State. It is the Sunni jihadists who control the area immediately west of the Kobani enclave.
Such an intervention would be in direct contradiction to US and Western policy in northern Syria. It would also be contrary to the will of the leading parties of the opposition; and if it resulted in the deaths of Turkish soldiers, it would likely be unpopular domestically, at a time when Erdogan’s AKP has just suffered an electoral setback. The Turkish military is also known to be unenthusiastic about the idea.
Syria as a whole and northwest Syria in particular are a confusing mass of rival political and military groups. The potential for a Turkish force to become sucked into bloody local conflicts with no clear objective and no clear exit strategy would be immense. A Kurdish push to unite Kobani with Afrin and move decisively west of the Euphrates is probably also unlikely for the moment, precisely because of the risk of Turkish intervention and also of clashes with other strong rebel formations in the area.
For all these reasons, a unilateral Turkish intervention in northern Syria is probably not imminent. Rather, Turkey most likely wishes to serve notice to the West of the seriousness of its concerns regarding Kurdish advances. Still, the events in northern Syria demonstrate just how strange regional diplomacy and strategy have become. The United States appears to have found an effective and courageous ground partner in northern Syria (the Kurdish YPG). That partner, however, is a franchise of an organization (the PKK) that is on the EU and US list of terrorist organizations – for now, at least. This partnership is proving effective at driving back the Islamic State. But Turkey, a NATO ally in good standing, maintains deeply ambiguous relations with Islamic State, while openly backing an equally murderous franchise of al-Qaida further west (Jabhat al-Nusra).
The Islamist agenda of the current Turkish government is notable at a region-wide level – for example, in its domiciling and support for Hamas cells engaged in violence against Israelis, and in its support for deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. This pattern of preferences is reflected in its stances in northern Syria. As of now, the battle in northern Syria between two very different quasi-state entities – the Kurdish cantons and the Islamic State – looks set to continue. The Kurds currently have the advantage. The recent, furious response of the jihadists in Tel Abyad and Kobani reflects this. But the war appears far from conclusion.
WHY LEBANON’S SUNNIS SUPPORT ISIS
Hilal Khashan
Middle East Quarterly, Summer, 2015
The claim by a recent public opinion poll that only 1 percent of adult Lebanese Sunnis are supportive of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) must be taken with a large pinch of salt since “there is a vast gulf between how people say they behave and how they actually behave.” In fact, since Lebanese Sunnis are willing to support whoever can defeat their enemies and restore their pride, many of them find ISIS appealing for quite a few reasons: They have an aversion to Shiites and feel estranged from the Lebanese state while harboring nostalgia for the caliphate. Many admire power in any form, and others have a predisposition to anomic terrorism.
The rise to preeminence of Lebanese Shiites began after the Amal movement evicted the Lebanese army from the southern suburbs of Beirut in February 1984. A year later, Hezbollah made its debut and formed a militia to fight the Israel Defense Forces and its Southern Lebanese Army surrogate. The Sunnis thus lost political prerogatives that had accrued to them from the 1943 National Covenant with the Maronites. Having already lost the support of the Palestine Liberation Organization due to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Sunnis suddenly found themselves giving way to a new Shiite contender that enjoyed strong regional support.
The appearance of Rafiq Hariri on the political scene in 1992 revived Sunni hopes, but his assassination in February 2005 put a damper on their expectations. In May 2008, Hezbollah stormed mostly Sunni west Beirut and, in a matter of hours, liquidated the militia of the Future Trend movement, headed by Hariri’s son Saad. So after a long period of Shiite ascendance, the Sunni street rejoiced when an ISIS offensive rapidly seized Mosul and a large swath of Iraqi territory in June 2014. As a neighborhood leader in Tripoli put it: “Iraq witnessed a Sunni triumph against Shiite oppression. Forcing Tripoli’s Sunnis to denounce ISIS amounts to coercing them to exercise political self-suppression.” The truth of the matter is that “hatred for Iran and Hezbollah has made every Lebanese Sunni heartily supportive of ISIS, even if its brutal methods will eventually affect them adversely.”
When Hezbollah shattered the main Sunni leadership, the Lebanese army watched but decided not to interfere. Weak Sunni leadership, both clerical and political, created a vacuum and caused the sect to drift apart and turn to radical Islamic leaders. One such leader was Salafi sheikh Ahmad al-Asir, whose movement had enjoyed the support and loyalty of hundreds of Sidon’s families. They were routed from the city by the Lebanese army and Hezbollah in June 2013. Going underground after the debacle, Asir transferred allegiance from an-Nusra’s Abu Muhammad Julani to ISIS’s Abu Bakr Baghdadi. This defection also underscored the eclipse of the Sunni clerical institution Dar al-Fatwa, which in recent years had been the subject of financial scandals and political weakness. The decimation of the office of the Sunni prime minister, to whom Dar al-Fatwa reports, rendered it rudderless, and it lost its traditional role maintaining the cohesion of the Sunni community.
In addition, some government officials privately admit that ISIS has established itself in Lebanese Sunni areas, including Beirut, and there are examples to support this belief. Government-salaried Sunni clerics in Sidon, the hometown of former prime minister Saad Hariri, were impelled to react angrily to the spate of pro-ISIS wall graffiti in that city and warned that unless the trend was arrested, “Sidon would become a fertile land for breeding terrorism.” The Lebanese army frequently implements large-scale security measures in Sidon, despite insisting that “there is no fostering environment for ISIS in the city.”
In Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city and its most important Sunni hub, Future Trend parliamentary deputies continue to refuse to admit publicly that ISIS is present in the city, but their denials have failed to hide “the existence of a radical Islamic environment in the city.” Several attacks on Lebanese army patrols and pro-Hariri activists in Tripoli succeeded in preventing formation of Iraqi-type awakening councils. But the city is fully controlled by the army, internal security forces, and military intelligence. ISIS supporters are mainly located in its at-Tibbane neighborhood and are well known to the authorities, which choose to ignore them. Pro-ISIS rallies outside mosques are commonplace in Tripoli after Friday prayers. The twin explosions in January 2015 that rocked Tripoli’s Alawite Jabal Muhsin sector were ordered by ISIS operatives in Rumye prison in the hills overlooking Beirut. It was only then that the embarrassed Interior Ministry decided to dismantle ISIS’s operations room in the prison’s Block-B. Even a cursory look at the situation leads to the conclusion that “ISIS does not need to come to Tripoli. It is already there.” Dealing with the threat posed by ISIS is probably why the Interior and Justice portfolios in Tammam Salam’s cabinet were given to Future Trend figures…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Journalist ‘Punks’ Iranian Negotiating Team in Vienna (Video): Israel Video Network, 2015—Iran’s nuclear program is under the global-political microscope, but its human rights record has been virtually ignored, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly lamented.
Michael Oren Interviewed by Daniel Pipes: Middle East Forum, June 24, 2015
Turkey’s Wrong Bet on Syria: Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute, July 1, 2015—It was supposed to be Turkish gambit: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s days in power were numbered; the Nusayri (Alawite) man would be toppled by Syria’s Sunni majority in a popular revolt.
Lebanon’s Growing Fragility: Benedetta Berti, Institute for National Security Studies, June 11, 2015—In the past few weeks, as Lebanon passed the one-year mark without a President, domestic tensions have yet again taken a turn for the worse.