Category Archives: Iran

European Union, Iran, NATO, Russia, United Nations, United States

Moscow says the United States should drop its European Missile Shield…

EUROPEAN MISSILE SHIELD

Russia has urged the United States to scrap plans to station parts of its European missile shield system now that Iran has reached agreement with world powers to limit its nuclear program.

Moscow has long opposed the plan, which it sees as a threat to its nuclear deterrence, and has pledged to retaliate if the missile shield in Europe goes ahead. Washington has previously assured Moscow the shield was meant as a protection from ‘rogue’ states like Iran, and not directed against Russia.

Since the agreement in July was made, under which Tehran has agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of UN, US and EU sanctions, Moscow has stepped up its rhetoric against the missile shield.

The latest diplomatic spat threatens to further worsen relations between Moscow and Washington, now at their lowest point since the cold war because of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said in the last few days that Barack Obama ‘was not telling the truth’ in comments he made in 2009 linking the need for a missile shield to what the president called the ‘real threat’ from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity.

At the time of making those comments, Mr Obama said: ‘As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defence system that is cost-effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defence construction in Europe will be removed.’

Moscow insists those comments mean that with the resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, Washington should now walk away from the missile shield plan.

However, sceptics in America (and elsewhere) will argue that even if the agreement was fully implemented it did not annul the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles that Mr Obama referred to back in 2009. Under the July deal, UN sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program will stay in place for eight years.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Government, said: ‘As long as Iran goes on developing and deploying ballistic missiles, the U.S. together with its allies and partners will be working to ensure protection from this threat, including through deploying the NATO missile shield system.’

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has ruled out the possibility of using mid-range ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads to target Europe. Mr Ryabkov said: ‘So I conclude that the U.S. administration is artificially stitching arguments together behind a decision to continue and increase the pace of creating the European missile shield that was in fact taken for different reasons.’

If the shield goes ahead, Russia has said it would retaliate, including by deploying short-range Iskander ballistic missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad, on the border with NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

Mr Ryabkov also said Russia and Iran had agreed on two bilateral deals as part of implementing the wider nuclear agreement, and were now discussing the details.

He said Russia would take in some 8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for supplies of natural uranium. Moscow and Tehran would also produce medical isotopes at Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

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Iran, Islamic State, Saudi Arabia, United States, Yemen

Saudi Arabia’s new tactic in Yemen is a risky military gamble…

YEMEN’S CIVIL WAR

Events in Yemen over the past week have taken on a new dimension. Whilst the civil war in Yemen continues apace, in which a Saudi-backed coalition has been battling Iranian-supported Houthi rebels, the tactics of the coalition has changed somewhat following the landing of at least one armoured brigade at the southern port of Aden. According to reports, the 3,000-strong combined Saudi and United Arab Emirates (UAE) force, equipped with French Leclerc main battle tanks, Russian BMD-3 infantry fighting vehicles and U.S. mine-resistant troop carriers, then set-off on August 2 for the Houthi-held military base at al-Anad, about 65km (40 miles) to the north.

Two days later, and bombarded from the air and heavily outgunned, the Houthis swiftly fled into the surrounding hills. Pro-government forces were back in control of the strategically important base which had, until recently, been used by America for launching drone strikes against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Anad is the biggest air base in Yemen and, once repaired and restored, could be used by Saudi and UAE transport aircraft and fighter-bombers to widen the scope of the offensive and to drive the Houthis out of much of the south.

Localised reports suggest that the Saudi and UAE forces are only there to help train anti-Houthi fighters, but there is little doubt that the high-tech and advanced weaponry is being operated by professionals. They are being assisted by tribal fighters who support the internationally-backed government that the Houthis drove out. They know the territory and geography well and can hold ground once it has been taken. But it now looks increasingly clear as if the coalition has decided that only well-equipped regular forces and commandos can bring the campaign against the Houthis to a conclusion.

Yet this is both a major escalation and a military gamble. The Houthi insurgents have nowhere near the level of sophisticated weaponry being deployed against them, and the history of conventional foreign forces fighting in conditions of chaotic irregular warfare is not encouraging, either. Early gains can often be followed by military stalemate and quagmire.

How the Houthis’ Iranian backers will respond if the Houthis are seen to be facing defeat is another unknown. Iran, whose involvement is anyway limited, can do little to resupply the Houthis, whose airports having been bombed and ports blockaded. Besides, it is at full stretch in its fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – and, certainly not the moment to turn a small-scale proxy war into a wider conflict with the Gulf Arabs.

Even if the Iranians show restraint, the Saudi coalition could still run into trouble in other ways. It has, for example, made some unlikely allies in its effort to crush the Houthis in the form of al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, both of which are treated with suspicion at home. Friends like that will call into question the continued support of America, who consider AQAP the most deadly al-Qaeda franchise. And Egypt’s President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, regards the Brotherhood as a much greater threat than the Houthis. With the humanitarian situation in Yemen also increasingly desperate, the chances of anyone emerging a winner in this conflict are remote.

Map of the conflict zone in Yemen's civil war.

Map of the conflict zone in Yemen’s civil war.

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Government, Iran, Politics, Society, United Nations, United States

Iran and nuclear talks…

IRAN

Intro: Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way

The lengthy and protracted talks in Lausanne between Iran and six world powers in forging a deal to constrain its nuclear programme ran straight through the March 31st deadline. The cause of the overrun (and hence the need for more haggling) has been due to the tension between the fuzzy declaration of principles that the Iranians would prefer and the detailed framework agreement that the United States would need to persuade a sceptical Congress to postpone a vote on new sanctions on April 14th.

For Iran, any deal would require the staged lifting of sanctions. The Americans want precise numbers on how many uranium enrichment centrifuges Iran can activate, the exact quantities of uranium held and how much plutonium can be discharged at the reactor at Arak. At this stage, though, the Iranians want to avoid the specifics on its nuclear limits, while eager to secure firm commitments on the lifting of sanctions – particularly those imposed by the United Nations. For its part, the West wants automatic ‘snap-back’ on sanctions if any serious violation by Iran is detected, but Iran has rejected this demand.

Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way. But if the process collapses, the accord would amount to no more than a brave effort that met with failure.

The broad aim in Lausanne is to leave Iran free from most of the sanctions and far enough from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But the apparent inability to nail down critical details and the number of issues that remain unresolved means that the next phase of talks are likely to be even tougher. For America and its allies, forestalling Iran on the building of a nuclear weapon is first and foremost, as this would reduce the incentives for other regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to move towards the nuclear threshold themselves.

The yardstick is Iran’s ‘breakout capability’. This is the time it would take to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one device. Extending it from a couple of months, the situation today, to at least a year is a sensible and quantifiable goal. Iran had previously indicated it would cut its number of operating centrifuges to about 6,500. Not yet agreed is the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran will be allowed to stockpile – a variable which directly links to the number of centrifuges it can keep.

Iran requires low-enriched uranium for its medical and other civilian projects, but such stockpiles can easily be enriched to weapons grade material. However, the biggest problems which still need to be tackled lie elsewhere. There remains ambiguity about what rights the Iranians will have to continue nuclear research and development. Iran is working on centrifuges up to 20 times faster than today’s which they want to start deploying when the agreement’s first ten years are up. Better centrifuges would reduce the size of the covert enrichment facilities that Iran would need to build a weapon if it were so intent on escaping the agreement’s scriptures. That’s a real concern, as detection by the West would be far more difficult.

This leads to the issue on which everything else will eventually hinge. Iran has a long history of deception about its nuclear programme. For instance, it only declared its two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow following exposure by U.S. intelligence. A highly intrusive inspection and verification regime is thus essential, and would have to continue long after other elements of an agreement expire. Compliance would mean inspectors from the IAEA being able to inspect any facility, declared or otherwise, civil or military, on demand.

IAEA powers are far more sweeping than those which exist under the safeguard agreements that are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the ‘additional protocol’ granted to the IAEA, inspectors are allowed not only to verify that declared nuclear material is not being squirrelled away for military use but also to check for undeclared nuclear material and activities. In Iran’s case, such powers for the IAEA are seen as essential.

For a deal to be concluded in June, Tehran will have to consent to such a rigorous inspection regime. It will also have to address a string of questions posed by the IAEA over the ‘possible military dimensions’ of its nuclear programme. On March 23rd IAEA’s director, Yukiya Amano, said that Iran had only replied to one of those questions. Parchin, a military base which the IAEA believes may have been used for testing the high-explosive fuses that are needed to implode, and thus set off, the uranium or plutonium at the core of a bomb, remains strictly out of bounds. Nor has the agency been given access to some of Iran’s leading scientists such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the physicist and Revolutionary Guard officer who is alleged to be at the heart of the research on weapons development.

The IAEA’s report on Iran in February stated that it ‘remains concerned about the possible existence – of undisclosed nuclear-related activities – including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.’ Iran insists it will only sign up to strict new inspections when all the main elements of the deal are in place.

II

IT WOULD APPEAR that the talks in Lausanne concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions are nearing a deal. But there will be questions as to whether the agreement is a good one, or whether indeed it allows Iran to keep a stockpile of centrifuges that can then be used to produce weapons grade enriched uranium. Analysts will be scrutinising the deal for signs of how this agreement will help move towards global security.

Iran continues to insist that it wants the nuclear technology for power plants and peaceful purposes only. It would be fair to say that there is a degree of scepticism around that as, Israel, for instance, remains very concerned and has threatened to attack Iran if it feels that is the only way to protect itself from nuclear attack. Israel’s rhetoric should not just be taken as soundbites. Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes in protection of its sovereignty over the years as far back as 1981. Then it carried out the world’s first airstrike against a nuclear plant when its jets bombed a French-built site in Iraq. Perhaps under US pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not played up past threats to attack Iran.

Whilst the Israelis are not party to the talks that is not to say they are in favour of how the talks are going. The deal being proposed in Switzerland now has taken some 18-months to arrive at. Mr Netanyahu has reiterated his opposition to the draft, saying it ‘bears out all of our fears, and even more than that’. Others, like the British, insist that any deal must put the bomb beyond the reach of Iran. But the problem here is that Israel does not believe that the restrictions being imposed would do that if Iran chose to suddenly abandon the agreement and gear up its nuclear programme through clandestine means.

There are only eight countries that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. It is widely believed that Israel also has nuclear weapons, a point the country is deliberately vague about.

The sceptics will always say that any deal will simply legitimise parts of the process and therefore make it easier for Iran to build a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so. There will also be long-term doubts about keeping all the necessary equipment and expertise for bomb-making out of Iran. How can we ever be sure the sanctions being applied are effective and fully-working for which they were intended?

In a passive sense, and in the long-term, it is surely better to have negotiations that keep Iran talking to the international community, as isolation would probably work against long-term peace and security.

Putting the bomb beyond reach is imperative. And the processes involved to make sure that does indeed happen must be verifiable, with confidence and accountability in that verification process.

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