American and European officials on Wednesday deepened their criticism of what is increasingly being seen
as deliberate Iranian foot-dragging on Tehran's obligations to come
clean regarding the so-called possible military dimensions (PMDs) of
Iran's atomic program, a reference to a range of activities from the
military's involvement in producing nuclear material to outright work on
potential nuclear munitions. The UN's nuclear watchdog (IAEA)
has for years been striving to increase transparency around those
activities, and has more recently conducted negotiations with Iran in
parallel to talks between the Islamic republic and the P5+1 global
powers aimed at putting Iran's nuclear program beyond use for
weaponization. PMD issues are nonetheless considered a core component of
the P5+1's overall efforts, and a Wednesday Reuters article on the
issue noted that
"U.S. officials say it is vital for Iran to resolve the IAEA's
questions if parallel negotiations" are to continue. A Thursday Reuters
article conveyed statements from Israeli officials echoing the
sentiments, condemning
what they described as "false" accounts by Iranian officials regarding
PMD-related issues. Long-standing Western demands that Tehran fully
account for PMD-related work - codified
among other places in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution
1929 - have emerged as a central component of ongoing talks between the
P5+1 global powers and Iran. The PMD issue has also become tangled in
broader controversies regarding Washington's role in the region and the
world. Analysts - to say nothing of the U.S.'s traditional Middle
Eastern allies - have in recent weeks become increasing clear in
insisting that Iran's willingness to disclose its past activities is now functionally a test of whether Washington is willing or able to extract genuine concessions from the Islamic republic.
Comments
made on Wednesday by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -
which had the cleric boast that Iran has successfully maneuvered
Washington past the possibility of using military force against Tehran's
nuclear program - continued to garner attention through Thursday, with
the New York Daily News describing the comments
as a "direct affront to President Obama's military strategy" and noting
that they were made as Khamenei stood in front of banners proclaiming
"America Cannot Do a Damn Thing." The Iranian leader's remarks
were widely viewed as a direct response to President Obama's recent West
Point speech, in which he declared that "some of [America's] most
costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to
rush into military adventures." The New York Daily News noted
that, when asked to comment on Khamenei's read of the President's West
Point remarks, the White House returned a statement that the White House
"reserve[s] all options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon." Khamenei's speech came a few weeks after a different one,
in which he had described the expectation that Iran will address
concerns related to its ballistic missile program - an expectation long emphasized by Obama administration officials, and one that Tehran is legally bound
to meet - as "stupid" and "idiotic." The stream of comments risk
cascading beyond the diplomatic arena, and impacting the ongoing debate
between the White House and Congress over the appropriate amount of
pressure to bring to bear on Iran. Administration officials have leaned heavily
on assertions that new legislation targeting Iran was unacceptable,
lest it erode a delicate "Spirit of Geneva" established by the interim
Joint Plan of Action (JPA). Repeated speeches in which the Iranian
Supreme Leader mocks the American president are potentially in tension
with those arguments.
Hurriyet Daily News reported Thursday
that Iran is looking to deepen the involvement of the Turkish financial
sector in its oil and gas trade with Ankara, and is more specifically
seeking "another Turkish lender to take part in its oil transactions
along with the state-owned Halkbank." Tehran's moves were
revealed by Turkey's Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz, who explained
that the Iranians were uncomfortable with Halkbank being the single
channel for the $30 billion in expected trade. Hurriyet read
the new developments alongside years of energy-driven transactions
between Turkey and Iran in which "Turkey has bought natural gas and oil
from Iran through an indirect system whereby Iranian exporters received
payments through Halkbank Turkish Lira accounts and used that money to
buy gold," after which "[t]he bulk of that gold was then shipped from
Turkey to Dubai, where Iran could import or sell it for foreign
currency." Those trade arrangements had in turn long been heatedly
condemned by Western analysts and diplomats not just for busting through
Western sanctions on Iran - though certainly for that - but also for exposing large swaths of the international banking system to illicit finance schemes. Top figures from Halkbank itself had last December
been implicated in a massive graft scandal that involved accusations
involving billions of dollars related to energy and gold schemes. Agence
France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday conveyed a leak sourced to an Iranian official revealing that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani would visit Turkey.
Veteran Israeli military analyst Amos Harel on Thursday assessed that
a future war between Israel and Hezbollah seems increasingly likely -
his exact language was that the relative quiet that has existed along
the Jewish state's northern border "since the end of the Second Lebanon
War nearly eight years ago... won't necessarily last long" - and that
Hezbollah may use the deterioration to launch a spectacular ground
operation against Israel. The suggestion is not a new one, and was being publicly analyzed
by Israeli military experts well over a year ago. Harel unpacked a more
recent anonymously penned analysis in Israel's military magazine Maarachot
- penned by N., a lieutenant colonel in intelligence - pointing to
boasts by Hezbollah leaders about "conquering the Galilee" that may be
reflective of genuine intentions. The article in turn described an
August 2012 Hezbollah military exercise that involved 10,000 fighters
and included attacks on targets deep in Israeli territory. The concerns
come alongside other ones involving Hezbollah boasts - by and large
backed by genuine capabilities - that the Iran-backed terror group intends to saturation-bomb
Israeli population centers. Israeli leaders have for their part been
explicit that they will take whatever measures are necessary to shorten a
future conflagration with Hezbollah, and that Lebanese institutions and
infrastructure used by the organization will not be immune.
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