A New Era in the Middle East (II)

TEHERAN/HANOVER/MUNICH (Own report) – Now that the sanctions are coming to a close, German enterprises are initiating major investments in Iran and multibillion-dollar gas deals with Teheran. Over the past few weeks, several business delegations have already visited Iran. The state of Bavaria will soon open a business representation in the Iranian capital. On the one hand, German business circles have their eye on the Middle East market, because Iran “is the ventricle of an economic zone comprising a cross-border population of 400 million people.” With car sales in Iran, Volkswagen would like to compensate for the slump it is suffering on other major markets, particularly China and Brazil. On the other hand, Berlin and Brussels are trying to acquire access to Iranian natural gas. The EU Commission estimates that by 2030, Iran should be annually selling 25 to 35 billion cubic meters – probably liquid – gas to the EU. BASF natural gas subsidiary Wintershall has also shown interest. During his recent visit in Teheran, Lower Saxony’s Minister of the Economy proposed the construction of a LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven as a German-Iranian joint venture. This is all happening at a time, when the conflict over Syria – with Iran and Russia on the one side and the West on the other – is escalating.

Cheney alert: Nuclear war likely, Obama violated 75-year bipartisan consensus on U.S. as ‘freedom’s defender’

U.S. President Barack Obama’s capitulation to Iran in recent nuclear negotiations will likely result in “the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney wrote in an op-ed.

“Among the many dangerous deficiencies in his nuclear deal with Iran is the irreversible damage it will do to the international nonproliferation regime contained in the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty),” the Cheneys wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Restoring American Exceptionalism”.

Greece Seeks Strategic Ties With Iran as EU Persists With Sanctions

Greece’s new ambassador to Iran said that his country seeks friendship and strategic ties as the European Union continues its sanctions regime despite breakthroughs in nuclear negotiations.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani welcomed Greece’s new ambassador to the country, who told the President that his country wants to develop a strategic partnership with Iran.

Report: ‘Geopolitics Is Back’ for 2015

The year 2015 will be rife with conflict and turmoil to a degree not seen in decades. That’s the forecast from Eurasia Group, a consulting and research firm based in the United States that focuses on examining the affects of political events and trends on international markets.

“Geopolitics is back,” says the firm’s Top Risks 2015 report, published on January 5. “As 2015 begins, political conflict among the world’s great powers is in play more than at any time since the end of the Cold War,” the report noted. “Russia is lashing out, the Middle East is fragmenting, Islamic radicalism is expanding, and Europe faces challenges on all of these fronts.”

‘Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius’

As exactly was discussed here several times, and in a most recent post:

Exclusive: Obama’s Secret Iran Détente

Paris legislator Meyer Habib, a friend of Netanyahu, called his FM in Geneva to warn of likely response should accord be signed, Israeli TV reports

A French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday.

“I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.”

Obama launches diplomacy with Tehran after quietly accepting Iran’s current nuclear capabilities

Whatever direction gives Israel the short end of the stick is the one both Iran and the current White House administration will likely choose.

Iranian President Rouhani conspicuously avoided shaking the hand President Barack Obama extended to his government at the UN Tuesday, Sept. 24, by absenting himself from the UN reception for world readers. He made this gesture under strong international spotlight to underscore the value Iran places on being respected as an equal in the negotiations ahead with the United States, Iranian sources stress.

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Obama knew the “handshake rebuff” was coming, yet he went through with his announcement of direct engagement with Iran earlier Tuesday. To give his rhetoric weight, he demonstratively instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to take charge of the pursuit of “face to face negotiations” with Tehran.

The link Obama made in his speech between the Iranian and Palestinians negotiating processes as the two focal issues of his Middle East policy was further embodied by his appointment of the same official, John Kerry, to take charge of both tracks. This has placed Israel at a disadvantage on both fronts.

Obama uses EU to confront Israel with tough interlinked choices: borders or nuclear-armed Iran

It doesn’t take a political genius to see how US Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival in Amman Tuesday, July 16, for his sixth bid to bring Israelis and the Palestinians to the table, ties in with the new EU anti-Israel funding guidelines published on the same day. To avoid a head-on clash with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US president has loosed the Europeans in full cry against Jerusalem and its policies. European Union foreign affairs executive Catherine Ashton chairs the international negotiating forum with Iran. And so, the EU has given Tehran a broad wink that it is worth its while to come to a fresh round of nuclear diplomacy while Israel is kept on the run in the settlements-cum-borders dispute.

Israel is further weakened by its own internal political difficulties.

US, EU fake Iran’s consent to discussing enrichment to fend off Israeli action

A spokesman for EU foreign executive Catherine Ashton, who heads the six-power group in nuclear negotiations with Iran, reported Monday night, June 11, that Tehran is now willing to discuss high-grade uranium enrichment in the next round of nuclear talks in Moscow on June 18-19.

The claim is false. Tehran consistently refuses to discuss its “right to enrichment” and threatened not to turn up for the Moscow session after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded last week that Iran come to the table with  “concrete plans” for curbing uranium enrichment up to 20 percent purity.

Iran has not backtracked:  Ashton got nothing new from an hour of tense conversation with senior negotiator Saeed Jalili and had to be satisfied with issuing the noncommittal statement, “The Iranians agreed on the need for Iran to engage on the (six powers’) proposals, which address its concerns on the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Full article: US, EU fake Iran’s consent to discussing enrichment to fend off Israeli action (DEBKAfile)

Israel revives military option after Obama rejects its nuclear demands of Iran

Israel has withdrawn its pledge to US President Barack Obama not to strike Iran’s nuclear sites before the November presidential election after he rejected its minimal demands for nuclear negotiations with Iran. This is reported exclusively by debkafile’s Washington sources.

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When Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the Pentagon on May 17 he was told that Obama had rejected Israel’s toned-down demands for Iran to at least to halt high-grade uranium enrichment, export its stocks of material enriched higher than 3.5 percent grade and shut down production at the Fordo nuclear plant near Qom.

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A week of consultations followed the defense minister’s return home, during which it was decided to tear up Israel’s pledge to refrain from attacking Iran during the US presidential campaign. Wednesday, May 23, the day the Baghdad talks began, Barak signaled Washington to this effect.

It was conveyed in a little-noticed early morning radio interview with the defense minister. To make sure his words reached the proper address without misunderstandings, the defense minister’s office issued a verbatim English translation from the Hebrew:

“There is no need to tell us what to do, and we have no reason to panic. Israel is very, very strong, but we do know that the Iranians are accomplished chess players and will try to achieve nuclear capabilities. Our position has not changed. The world must stop Iran from becoming nuclear. All options remain on the table.”

As the Baghdad talks went around in circles, Israel’s military option was put back firmly on the table and on the US-Iranian chessboard.

Full article: Israel revives military option after Obama rejects its nuclear demands of Iran (DEBKAfile)