Iran Nuclear

In his remarks, Einhorn stressed three fundamental requirements for a potential agreement: A final agreement should provide for as much transparency surrounding Iran's nuclear-related activities as possible, including monitoring and other confidence-building measures beyond the IAEA Additional Protocol. Iran’s timeline for nuclear breakout should be lengthened to allow the international community to intervene decisively if Iran is found in violation of agreement protocols. A deal must be accompanied by consensus among the President, the Congress, and Washington's international partners that an attempt by Iran to violate the agreement would be met with a swift and firm international response that may include use of military force.

the paper and accompanying event outlined key provisions for reaching an acceptable deal.

Frank N. von Hippel expressed his concern regarding a “sneakout” scenario, in which Iran would covertly install additional centrifuges for enrichment.

Following last week’s judgment, sheriffs have been ordered to sell Iran’s properties, empty its bank accounts and divide the proceeds between several terror victims.

Iran’s Ties to al-Qaida Pose Nagging Questions

Commercial satellite images obtained by CNN reveal that Iran is constructing a large-scale replica of a U.S. military aircraft carrier, complete with fake U.S-style airplanes, near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

more than six months after Mr. Rouhani took office, hopes of a quick economic recovery are fading among ordinary Iranians, business owners and investors, while economists say the government is running out of cash.

With the start of the Iranian new year, on Friday, the government will begin phasing out subsidies on energy, the start of a process that will send the prices of gasoline and electricity, and other utilities, soaring by nearly 90 percent, economists say.

The shortage of funds is also forcing the government to wind down a system of $12 monthly payments to nearly 60 million Iranians, with only the poorest eligible to reapply.

“We wouldn’t like to use these talks as an element of the game of raising the stakes, taking into account the sentiments in some European capitals, Brussels and Washington,” Mr. Ryabkov was quoted as saying. “But if they force us into that, we will take retaliatory measures here as well.

some experts on Iran sanctions said they would not be surprised if the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, took steps to revive delayed plans for a barter deal with the Iranians that would enable them to sell more oil, undercutting the pressure exerted on Iran by Western sanctions.

Iran has pursued a longstanding effort to buy banned components for its nuclear and missile programs in recent months, a U.S. official said on Sunday, a period when it struck an interim deal with major powers to limit its disputed atomic

Western powers pressed Iran on Wednesday to tackle suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic bomb and the United States said the issue would be central to the success of talks on a final settlement over Tehran's nuclear program.

The U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Joseph Macmanus, said it remained critical for Iran to address substantively all international concerns about the so-called possible military dimensions (PMD) of the country's nuclear program.

The 28-nation European Union voiced a similar line in its statement: "We urge Iran to cooperate fully with the agency regarding PMD issues, and to provide the agency with access to all people, documents and sites requested."

My own intuition is that the storm over Ukraine is actually mostly a displacement of the Iran debate. It seems inexplicable otherwise: a Russian takeover of the Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea fleet already was based and came and went as it pleased, changes nothing about the geo-strategic calculus in the region. What makes a bit more sense is that those who believe that Iran will never relinquish its nuclear weapons program and that, sooner or later, the U.S. must grasp the nettle and launch military strikes, look at American impotence in Ukraine and worry it’s a harbinger of the future. For Simferopol, read Natanz.

“If you look at this rationally there no reason why Russians would want to undermine the [nuclear] talks in any way but . . . at this point you can’t count on him [Putin] making calculations of cost and benefit,” says Robert Einhorn, a former US negotiator with Iran.

Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy expert in Moscow, says he expects a tightening of Russian relations with Iran and more intensive supplies of arms to Syria, where Moscow has been propping up the Assad regime.

“Russia will see no reason at all to ease US troubles in the Middle East,” Mr Lukyanov predicts.

One thing is for sure. Switzerland, aside from playing host to Rouhani’s charm offensive and negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, is not only ready to join other European companies in their business rush to Tehran; it continues to play host to Iranian procurement efforts.

According to Iran’s state-controlled media, Switzerland claimed the top export slot from Europe over the last ten months, with exports totaling $1.9 billion, a figure roughly confirmed by the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger, which cited $1.7 billion over a nearly identical time period.

the U.S. Department of Treasury identified an Iranian network of sanctions’ evaders that included European Oil Traders SA (or EOT SA) a Swiss company formerly known as MSL & Co SA.

there is an even more ominous similarity between the actions of Iran and those of pre-war Germany.

President Obama must insist on a final deal that requires Iran to fully dismantle its illegal uranium enrichment capabilities, its heavy water plutonium facility in Arak, and its nuclear weapons development efforts.

Right now, the mullahs do not take Obama seriously. They do not believe a serious U.S. military option is really "on the table."

A U.S. grand jury is investigating possible money laundering and other violations by Clearstream Banking SA and Iran’s central bank for the benefit of Iran, a federal prosecutor said in court papers filed in a New York suit involving victims of terrorist attacks.

Clearstream, a Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1) unit based in Luxembourg, agreed in January to pay $152 million to settle civil claims it violated U.S. economic sanctions on Iran. The bank used an account at an unidentified U.S. financial firm to hold $2.81 billion in securities on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran, according to the Treasury Department.

In July, Forrest agreed to release more than $1.9 billion held in a Citibank NA omnibus account for Clearstream, after concluding Iran had an interest. Those funds were used to establish a trust for victims of terrorist attacks, including those in the 1983 bombing in Lebanon, court records show.

said the official, who was in Muscat to meet with government officials and brief the private sector on the state of US sanctions against Iran since the implementation of an interim agreement over Iran's nuclear programme.

Hamid Baeidinejad, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official for Political and Legal Affairs, will lead the delegation in the negotiations, which will be held on April 3-6 in the Austrian capital of Vienna, according to the report.

The White House came under intense pressure Tuesday to deny entry to Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations because he participated in the humiliating 1979-81 hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer took on the Obama administration by firing off a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding that the US blacklist the new ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi.

“It goes against the American grain to grant a visa to someone who was part of a group that tortured American diplomats and military and ruined the lives of 52 hostages and their families. He’s just as guilty as anyone of torture,” Rosen told The Post. “It would be a travesty of justice. It would be like spitting on us.”

It is unconscionable that in the name of international diplomatic protocol the United States would be forced to host a foreign national who showed a brutal disregard of the status of diplomats when they were stationed in his country," Cruz said in a speech on the Senate floor. "This person is an acknowledged terrorist."

Cruz said his legislation would require the president to deny a visa to a U.N. applicant if the president determines the individual has engaged in terrorist activity. He said there was a bipartisan effort to get the legislation passed expeditiously.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., described it as "really kind of an in-your-face action by the Iranian government, sending a guy who was responsible for the absolutely, totally illegal incarceration of American citizens."

“For the U.S. side,…to get sufficient support domestically and abroad, the U.S. position [on the size of Iran’s enrichment program] will be pretty demanding,” Einhorn, who served as the top State Department Iran non-proliferation advisor until last summer and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said.  “If Iran wants to find a way out, I propose the practical needs issue, [which] gives them a narrative that it could explain that it won on enrichment.”

On enrichment, extending Iran’s potential “breakout” time to between six and twelve months in a final deal “could be achieved by limiting centrifuges to between 2000 and 6000 first-generation IR-1 Iranian centrifuges (or significantly lower numbers if more advanced IR-2m centrifuges are included) and reducing enriched uranium stocks, especially at the near-20 percent level,” Einhorn writes in the Brookings “requirements” paper.

“I think both parties really do have a strong incentive to get it done in six months,” Einhorn said. “I don’t think either party has an incentive to extend it.”