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Iran Nuclear Deal Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 03, 2017 8 Comments
The Treasury Department has announced new sanctions against Iran after the regime performed a ballistic missile test earlier this week. From CNN:
The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning individuals and companies connected to Iran's ballistic missile program and those providing support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force.

Posted by David Gerstman on January 02, 2017 17 Comments
In a New Year's announcement, North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un stated that his nation was on the verge of launching its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - a missile capable of both carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the United States. This threat could President-elect Donald Trump's first major foreign policy challenge, coming as it does after nuclear bomb tests of varying success by the North Koreans.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 26, 2016 13 Comments
President Barack Obama's legacy at the UN will be marked by the year 2016. The year was bookmarked by the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2231 in January, giving U.N. authority to the Iran Nuclear Deal, and resolution 2334 last week, purporting to declare illegal the presence of Jews in areas in which form a key part of Jewish history. In the case of the Iran deal, the United States led the Security Council and voted for the resolution enshrining the nuclear deal into what passes for international law. In the case of the more recent resolution, the United States abstained, according to some incoherent reasons spouted by US Ambassador Samantha Power, but it looks like, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charges, that Obama orchestrated it. (Yesterday, Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes charged that Israel had "ironclad information" that Obama was indeed behind the maneuver.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2016 5 Comments
The media is all consumed with fat-shaming and Trump's 2005 comments. In the meantime, the Obama administration further proved that the Iranian nuclear deal was misrepresented to the public and that it was about empowering Iran as a regional power. The AP reports, US further eases Iran sanctions after nuclear deal (h/t Jonathan Schanzer Twitter):
The Obama administration is further easing sanctions on Iran, making it easier for foreign firms to do business with the country following last year's nuclear deal.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 01, 2016 10 Comments
The controversy with the American prisoner release by Iran continues to grow as The Wall Street Journal reports the Obama administration agreed to lift sanctions on the same day of the release:
The U.N. Security Council’s delisting of the two banks, Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International, was part of a package of tightly scripted agreements—the others were a controversial prisoner swap and transfer of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran—that were finalized between the U.S. and Iran on Jan. 17, the day the Americans were freed.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 22, 2016 6 Comments
Obama administration will be allowing plane makers Airbus and Boeing to sell jetliners to Iran, clearing the way for one of the most high-profile business deals since the lifting of nuclear sanction on Islamic Republic earlier this year. The easing of commercial restrictions is part of President Obama-led initiative to reward Iran for signing a Nuclear Agreement in July last year. According to U.S. Treasury's own assessment, as early as March 2016, Iran's civilian airliners were being used to illegally transport terrorist combatants and arms shipment in conflict zones across the Middle East. Iran's state-controlled airlines are not regular commercial operations geared towards customer satisfaction, but are made to carry out regime-sanctioned covert operations to arm and replenish the ranks of Syrian army, Hezbollah and other terrorist outfits under the guise their commercial flights -- coordinated by Iran's mafia-like Shia-Islamist ‘Revolutionary Guards’.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 30, 2016 16 Comments
Iran has deployed the Russian-made S-300 missile system to fortify its underground nuclear facility at Fordo. Tehran’s decision to deploy the missile system at the site should set alarm bells ringing for the Obama administration. Prior to the Nuclear Deal, the installation at Fordo was used by Iran to enrich Uranium, vital component for building a nuclear bomb. The enrichment process was to be halted at the location under the Obama-sponsored agreement. According the deal, Iran was required to repurpose the centrifuges at Fordo and turn one of its major nuclear installation into a ‘medical research facility’, dedicated to ‘medical imaging’. Deploying missile system that fires rockets twice as big as the average patriot missiles, makes Iran's Fordo clearly the best protected 'medical facility' in the world. For those waiting to hear the thunderous sound of that ‘snap back’ promised by President Obama in the run-up the Iran Deal -- please don't hold your breath.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 19, 2016 18 Comments
Sen. Ben Sasse is not impressed with the Obama Administration's latest spin on the Iran Deal. Earlier this week, the Republican Senator from Nebraska threw down some real talk on the much touted Iran Deal. "The Iran Deal is the Obama Administration's greatest victory in its ongoing war against facts," Sen. Sasse begins. In two minutes, Sasse picks apart three of the biggest Iran Deal lies.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 17, 2016 11 Comments
Since the revelation that the Obama Administration forked over $400 million to Iran in exchange for right around the time American hostages were released, speculation that the cash was a ransom payment has dogged the administration and the Justice Department. Timing is everything, especially in determining what really went down. New reports suggest the $400 million was held until after the Americans were released from Iranian custody, making the whole ordeal look an awful lot like a ransom payment and subsequent prisoner release. The Obama Administration denied the payment was ransom, but said it was part of $1.7 billion settlement from 1979.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 03, 2016 23 Comments
The U.S. sent $400 million to Iran in January just as the country decided to release four Americans. The administration claims they did not pay a ransom, but many have raised their eyebrows. President Barack Obama said the payment "represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi."

Posted by David Gerstman on July 25, 2016 10 Comments
The Associated Press reported earlier this week that a previously secret document showed that a number of restrictions imposed by last year's nuclear deal with Iran will expire after ten years, allowing Iran to achieve a nuclear breakout time as little as three months by the end of the deal in 15 years. The AP described the concessions spelled out in the document:
The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 — 11 years after the deal was implemented — Iran will start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines. Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran will install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on July 12, 2016 3 Comments
Iran has been making repeated attempts to acquire nuclear-, chemical- and biological weapons technology from Germany, reveals the annual domestic intelligence report published by the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) last week. According to the report, last year Iran made 141 attempts to illegally secure technologies related to [nuclear, chemical, biological] proliferation in the state of NRW alone. This indicates an almost 100 percent rise compared to 83 such attempts in 2014. If this intelligence report is to be believed, than German government was aware of Iran’s continued efforts to acquire Nuclear and WMD technologies while it was pushing for a Nuclear Deal with Tehran 0n the world stage. Chancellor Merkel’s Government enthusiastically backed Obama-sponsored Nuclear Deal and was one of the six countries that worked out a nuclear agreement with Iran last year.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 21, 2016 6 Comments
As the U.S. disengages from Latin America as part of President Obama’s broader policy of reducing American presence in the world, Iran is moving in fill parts of that geopolitical vacuum, says a report published by Washington D.C. based Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS). The report used documents and legal wiretaps related to the circumstance surrounding the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman who died of a bullet shot on January 19, 2015, a day before he was going to testify before Argentina’s Congress about Buenos Aires Jewish community center bombing carried out by Iranian terrorists. The report cited by the Wall Street Journal shows how the death of Argentine prosecutor “paved the way for [Iran] to move into a new phase of its information and intelligence operations in Latin America.” WSJ concluded that unfettered access for international financial system and assets worth $150 billion given to Iran as the result of Obama-Kerry Nuclear Deal “will increase Iran’s penetration of the Western Hemisphere.” The revelation comes just days after a senior Israeli diplomat in New Delhi warned of a concrete threat of Iran-sponsored terrorism targeting Israelis in India and abroad. In February 2012, Iranian terrorists carried out a bomb attack targeting Israeli mission in New Delhi.

Posted by David Gerstman on June 05, 2016 17 Comments
In a brutal report on the administration's dishonesty regarding the nuclear deal with Iran, CNN's Jake Tapper last week concluded that Americans "have a right to know who lied to us." Tapper walked us through the basics, but let's review. The story began in February 2013, when Fox News reporter James Rosen asked then State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, "There have been reports that intermittently, and outside of the formal P-5+1 mechanisms the Obama Administration, or members of it, have conducted direct, secret, bilateral talks with Iran. Is that true or false?"

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 03, 2016 9 Comments
President Obama press advisor Jen Psaki attacked Fox News after reporter James Rosen asked for clarification over her statement about deleted footage from a 2013 press briefing about secret Iran and U.S. talks. Rosen asked then-State spokeswoman Psaki about the meeting in 2013, a year after the department denied such talks existed. Psaki admitted they took place, but Rosen found someone deleted his questions from the old video:
The department acknowledged Wednesday that several minutes of video from the 2013 briefing – at which then-State Department spokeswoman Psaki appeared to acknowledge misleading the press over the Iran nuclear deal – had been intentionally cut. The order apparently came from an official in the public affairs office, but that individual has not been identified.
Fox News published their complete email exchange, where Psaki berates Rosen for politely asking for an explanation after Psaki referred to the transcript and not the video.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 31, 2016 12 Comments

Singling Out Jews in Yellow

Shortly before the Senate vote on the nuclear deal with Iran was supposed to take place (but was filibustered by Democratic supporters of the deal), The New York Times *helpfully* provided a list letting everyone know which Jewish lawmakers were against the deal, with the names highlighted in yellow.

New york times congressional jew tracker iran deal senate

The New York Times, after the expected (and deserved) outrage, removed the "Religion" column from the list but acknowledged no wrongdoing, "[under] Times standards, the religion or ethnicity of someone in the news can be noted if that fact is relevant and the relevance is clear to readers." Nonetheless due to readers' outrage, it adjusted the list.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 25, 2016 6 Comments
How's the Iran nuclear deal working out? I'm not asking the broader foreign policy question that Tom Nichols just addressed, but how is the nuclear aspect of the deal by itself working out? According to Jonathan Broder of Newsweek, the deal is unraveling. And it is the fault of the United States.
Probably the biggest source of friction is a U.S. law that bars Iran from using the U.S. financial system and the American dollar, even indirectly. The law, enacted in 2012, was aimed at punishing Iran for a variety of alleged sins: the country’s ballistic missile program, human rights abuses and state-sponsored terrorism. Because these issues haven’t been resolved, there is virtually no chance Congress would repeal the law in the foreseeable future, experts say. As long as that statute remains in place, foreign banks holding Iran’s funds in dollars will be wary of doing business with the country.
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