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WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is expected to weigh in this week on Iran’s latest offer to resume its compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but neither side is offering a definitive path to revive the agreement, which has been on life-support since former President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018.
US officials say they expect to respond to Iran’s comments on a European draft proposal as early as Wednesday, after which there is expected to be another exchange of technical details followed by a meeting of the joint commission that oversees the deal. The new developments, including stepped-up public messaging campaigns by both Tehran and Washington, suggest that an agreement could be near.
Despite the forward movement, numerous hurdles remain. And key sticking points could still unravel efforts to bring back the 2015 deal under which Iran received billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program intended to prevent it from developing an atomic weapon.
Even US supporters of an agreement are no longer referring to the “longer and stronger” deal that they had initially set out to win when indirect negotiations with Iran began last spring. And, on the Iranian side, demands for greater US sanctions relief than the administration appears willing or able to promise could undercut the push to revive the agreement.
In Washington, the Biden administration faces considerable political opposition to returning to the 2015 deal from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who remain unconvinced that it is in US national security interests.
“I intend to systematically fight the implementation of this catastrophic deal, and will work with my colleagues to ensure that it is blocked and eventually reversed in January 2025,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
The recent indictment of an Iranian for plotting to murder Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton and the attack by an apparent Iran sympathizer on the author Salman Rushdie have further contributed to doubts that Iran can be trusted.
The latest draft does not include Tehran’s demand that the US lift the terrorism designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Iran has stepped back from a demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency close its investigation into unexplained traces of uranium at three undeclared sites, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing efforts to resurrect the deal.
But, rescinding the terrorism designation imposed by Trump was never a realistic demand. Not only does it fall outside the scope of the nuclear deal, it was made virtually impossible since the Bolton plot indictment, ongoing Iranian threats to other former US officials, and the Rushdie attack.
And, while Iran may have agreed to a mechanism to eventually return to the deal without the IAEA investigation being closed up front, it has said that its actual compliance with an agreement remains contingent on getting a clean bill of health from the agency.
The senior administration official said a “deal is closer than it was two weeks ago,” but cautioned that the outcome remains uncertain “as some gaps remain.”
And, Iranian officials on Tuesday bristled at the suggestion that they’ve stepped back from their demands to re-enter the deal.
Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian adviser to the indirect talks in Vienna, took to Twitter on Tuesday to assert that removing the IRGC from the State Department’s foreign terrorism list was never a precondition and insisted that “no deal will be implemented before the IAEA Board of Directors PERMANENTLY closes the false accusations file.”
Meanwhile, America’s top ally in the Middle East, Israel, has become increasingly alarmed at the apparent movement toward a deal. Israel’s alternate prime minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday called on the Biden administration to resist forging ahead with a deal with the Iranians.
“I call on President Biden and the American administration to refrain, even now at this last minute, from signing the agreement with Iran,” Bennett said in a statement.
He noted that Israel is not party to the 2015 agreement signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security — the US, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China as well as Germany — but that Israel would be directly affected and reserved all rights to its self-defense.
“One way or another, the State of Israel is not a party to the agreement,” Bennett said. “Israel is not committed to any of the restrictions stemming from the agreement and will utilize all available tools to prevent the Iranian nuclear program from advancing.”
At the direction of current Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Israel’s national security adviser Eyal Hulata is in Washington this week for talks with Biden administration officials, including a Tuesday meeting with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said Sullivan underscored Biden’s steadfast “commitment to ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon” during his conversation with Hulata.
The White House insists that the terms under discussion include the key underpinnings of the 2015 deal. The US would lift hundreds of sanctions the Trump administration re-imposed when it withdrew from the deal in 2018. And Iran would roll back its nuclear program to the limits set by the original nuclear deal, including caps on enrichment, how much material it can stockpile and the operation of advanced centrifuges needed to enrich.
However, it remains unclear what exactly would happen to Iran’s current stockpile of highly enriched uranium and what it would be required to do with the advanced centrifuges it has been spinning. The White House has said both would be “removed” but has not offered details.
As of the last public count, Iran has a stockpile of some 3,800 kilograms (8,370 pounds) of enriched uranium. Under the deal, Tehran could enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity, while maintaining a stockpile of uranium of 300 kilograms (660 pounds) under constant scrutiny of surveillance cameras and international inspectors.
In terms of sanctions relief, Iran has been demanding that the administration pledge that a future president not be allowed to re-impose the lifted penalties as Trump did and promise that Congress will repeal statutory sanctions legislation passed initially to force
Iran back to the negotiating table. The administration is in no position to guarantee either. “Reports that we have accepted or are considering new concessions to Iran as part of reentering the 2015 nuclear deal are categorically false,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
HEBRON: A Palestinian was shot dead Friday after stabbing an Israeli soldier at an army post near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and the Palestinian health ministry said. “An assailant armed with a knife” approached a military post and stabbed a soldier, the army said in a statement, adding that another soldier opened fire and “neutralized” the assailant. It said the “moderately” wounded soldier was “evacuated to a hospital for medical attention, while fully conscious, and his family has been informed.” The Palestinian health ministry said it had been informed of the death of a young man near Hebron, but did not immediately identify him. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it captured the territory from Jordan. About 475,000 Jewish settlers currently live in the West Bank in communities considered illegal by most of the international community, alongside some 2.8 million Palestinians.
DUBAI: Iran’s navy seized two American sea drones in the Red Sea before letting them go Friday, officials said, in the latest maritime incident involving the US Navy’s new drone fleet in the Mideast. Iranian state television aired footage it said came from the deck of the Iranian navy’s Jamaran destroyer, where lifejacket-wearing sailors examined two Saildrone Explorers. They tossed one overboard as another warship could be seen in the distance. State TV said the Iranian navy found “several unmanned spying vessels abandoned in the international maritime routes” on Thursday. “After two warnings to an American destroyer to prevent possible incidents, Jamaran seized the two vessels,” state TV said. “After securing the international shipping waterway, the Naval Squadron No. 84 released the vessels in a safe area.” It added: “The US Navy was warned to avoid repeating similar incidents in future.” A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the incident before the military offered a formal statement, identified the seized drones as Saildrone Explorers. Those drones are commercially available and used by a variety of clients, including scientists, to monitor open waters. Two American destroyers in the Red Sea, as well as Navy helicopters, responded to the incident, the official said. They called the Iranian destroyer over the radio and followed the vessel until it released the drones Friday morning, the official said. “We have them in our custody,” the official said. “We continue our operations across the region.” This marks the second such incident in recent days as negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers hang in the balance. The earlier incident involved Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, not its regular navy, and occurred in the Arabian Gulf. The Guard towed a Saildrone Explorer before releasing it as an American warship trailed it. Iran had criticized the US Navy for releasing a “Hollywood” video of the incident, only to do the same Friday in the Red Sea incident. The 5th Fleet launched its unmanned Task Force 59 last year. Drones used by the Navy include ultra-endurance aerial surveillance drones, surface ships like the Sea Hawk and the Sea Hunter and smaller underwater drones that resemble torpedoes. The 5th Fleet’s area of responsibility includes the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf through which 20 percent of all oil passes. It also stretches as far as the Red Sea reaches near the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt leading to the Mediterranean, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen. The region has seen a series of maritime attacks in recent years. Off Yemen in the Red Sea, bomb-laden drone boats and mines set adrift by Yemen’s Houthi rebels have damaged vessels amid that country’s yearslong war. Near the United Arab Emirates and the Strait of Hormuz, oil tankers have been seized by Iranian forces. Others have been attacked in incidents the Navy blames on Iran. Those attacks came about a year after then-President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw from Iran’s nuclear deal, in which sanctions on Tehran were lifted in exchange for it drastically limiting its enrichment of uranium. Negotiations to revive the accord now hang in the balance. The US cast doubt Friday on Iran’s latest written response over the talks. Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels as officials openly suggest Tehran could build a nuclear bomb if it wishes to. Iran has maintained its program is peaceful, though Western nations and international inspectors say Tehran had a military nuclear program up until 2003.
AMMAN: Jordan said its pressure on Israel had halted all international flights from Eilat’s Ramon Airport.
Transport Minister Wajih Azaizeh said the country’s objection to the airport in the Red Sea port city had pushed the facility to only operate domestic flights.
According to the flight departure list on the airport’s website, there were no international flights scheduled for the next two weeks.
The only scheduled departures from the airport up to Sept. 16 were Arkia Israeli Airlines and Israir Airlines flights into Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.
Israeli airport authorities had previously announced that Palestinians in the West Bank could travel internationally via the airport, leading Jordan to step up its diplomatic efforts with the Palestinians to cancel the decision.
Before Israel’s announcement, Palestinians wishing to travel abroad had to first enter Jordan through the King Hussein Bridge in the Jordan Valley and then go to Amman for international flights.
Without giving further details, Azaizeh only said that no international flights were operating from the airport thanks to Jordan’s objection.
There was no official reaction from Israeli authorities to his statement.
The Jordanian tourism sector expressed concern about the Israeli decision, saying it would lead to a “sharp drop” in the number of Palestinians traveling abroad through the country.
The Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents had expected a drop of 65 percent in the number of Palestinians visiting Jordan should they decide to travel abroad through Israel.
It called on the government to intervene, solve the problem, and simplify entry procedures for Palestinians traveling to Jordan.
The hospitality sector had also warned of a “significant” profit loss of more than 50 percent because of Israel’s airport decision.
The society said around 500,000 Palestinians entered Jordan through the bridge for tourism, transit tourism, or to visit relatives and friends in Jordan.
The Palestinian-Jordanian Business Forum called on Palestinians to boycott Ramon Airport, citing the consequences for Jordan’s economy.
It said the Israelis’ failure to operate the airport was the reason behind allowing the Palestinians to use it.
A senior Palestinian official, who requested anonymity, told Arab News that the Israelis’ aversion to traveling through Ramon Airport was the reason behind allowing Palestinians to use it.
“They (Israelis) are never generous with us,” the official said. “They erect barriers everywhere in the West Bank and prevent us from working, let alone traveling abroad. This ‘sudden generosity’ had to do primarily with their citizens’ (Israelis’) declination (disinclination) to use Ramon Airport and using us to operate it.”
The King Hussein Bridge has experienced overcrowding, with Jordanians and Palestinians accusing the Israelis of intentionally complicating procedures on the crossing to push Palestinians to travel through Ramon Airport.
During a recent meeting with his Jordanian counterpart in Amman, Bishr al-Khasawneh, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ishtayeh said the Israelis were hindering Palestinians' movement and complicating their travel procedures.
“If (the) Israelis’ point is to facilitate Palestinians’ travel, they should open Jerusalem International Airport,” Ishtayeh said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs previously said the airport’s establishment would violate Jordanian airspace and international law, especially Article 1 of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944 and the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
In 2019, Jordan submitted an official complaint to the ICAO about Ramon Airport and the violations.
CHICAGO: Although President Bashar Assad continues to survive the civil war that has gripped Syria since 2011, he controls only 60 percent of the country and his regime’s largest source of revenue is now drug trafficking, according to an expert on the nation’s geopolitical history.
Charles Lister, a senior fellow and director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, told the Ray Hanania Radio Show on Wednesday that for the past several years the Syrian regime has turned to the distribution of Captagon, a methamphetamine-based drug often referred to as “the poor man’s cocaine,” as its main source of export revenue.
He described Syria as a “narco-state” that in 2021 generated more than $30 billion from the illegal distribution of the drug, mainly in the Gulf region. This compares with only $800 million a year from legitimate exports, he added.
“As a result of the crisis in Syria, and the fact that it has sustained for so long, the Syrian regime has now become a narco-state of global significance, an issue that almost never reaches our TV screens and our newspapers,” said Lister.
“But last year, 2021, the Syrian regime, in a series of factories across the country run mostly by the (Syrian Army’s) 4th (Armored) Division, which is run by Bashar Assad’s brother, Maher, exported roughly $30 billion of methamphetamine, called Captagon, mostly around the Middle East. $30 billion.
“To put that number into perspective, the legal exports of Syria that same year were worth $800 million. So the drug industry, an illegal drug industry run by the regime, is now literally the only element of importance of the Syrian economy.
“This is a narco-state in the heart of the Middle East exporting drugs mostly to the Gulf, that has enormous significance for regional stability. The Europeans are beginning to get worried about it reaching their shores. Several ports in Africa have seized Syrian-made Captagon over the past couple of years.”
Just this week, Saudi authorities seized narcotics with a street value of up to $1 billion and arrested eight expatriates in what is believed to be the Kingdom’s largest-known smuggling attempt and biggest-ever drug bust.
Officers found 47 million amphetamine pills hidden in a shipment of flour during a raid on a warehouse in Riyadh, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The drugs have an estimated street value of between $470 million and more than $1 billion, based on figures cited in the International Addiction Review journal.
Six Syrians and two Pakistanis were arrested, Maj. Mohammed Al-Najidi, a spokesperson for the Saudi Narcotics Control, told the SPA.
Syria is effectively partitioned and controlled by several major geopolitical powers. Russia and the Syrian regime controls about 60 percent of the country, including the central spine and western regions. The US and its partners control about 30 percent of the country in north east and east. Turkey and its opposition partners occupy between 9 and 12 percent of the north and northwest of the country.
One of the biggest benefactors of the Syrian crisis is Iran, which Lister said uses areas controlled by the Syrian regime as distribution points for weapons Tehran supplies to its partner militias that target Western and Israeli forces.
“Iran is a whole different story,” he explained. “Iran is not calling all of the shots in Syria but ever since the 1979 revolution it has sought to establish this channel of influence from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean, through to Israel and Palestine. And that, unquestionably, is what they have managed to achieve.
“In Syria, that is arguably the most strategic kind of jewel in the crown for this Iranian regional strategy. And that is precisely why we see Israel conducting these quite significant series of air strikes over recent years, targeting anything from ballistic missiles, precision-guidance technology and air-defense systems that Iran has flown in, often using its state aircraft carriers, into Damascus International Airport.
“And they have sought to truck those across the border into Lebanon. Or station them in Syria, pointed directly at Israel. For Iran, it is of absolutely enormous significance and they have arguably achieved what they needed to.”
The complex international entanglements in Syria, including the Iranian and Russian presence, means there is no immediate prospect of an end to a conflict, Lister said, in which there have been dramatic flareups, such as when Daesh struck American targets and the US responded by sending in war planes.
“Syria’s crisis is a long way from over,” he explained. “There are multiple conflicts going on in the country, not just one. And all of the root causes that gave way to the uprising and crisis in 2011, all those root causes are still there today. Most of those root causes are worse today than they were in 2011.
“Over the years, Syria’s crisis deteriorated and escalated to such an extent, and also became so complicated, that various international actors have intervened in pursuit of their own interests over the years and I think, as a result, really Syria is best described now as a geopolitical conflict. There are the Turks, there are the Iranians, the Russians, of course the Syrian government, the Israelis, the global coalition against ISIS,” he added, using another term for the terrorist group Daesh.
“And within that there is a whole variety of different terrorist organizations, as well as the opposition, the Kurds, and the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) that have backed and been our partners in the fight against ISIS. It has been an incredibly complicated crisis. At its core, it is a crisis and there are lots of layers to that.”
During the past two years, Israel has conducted at least 200 sets of air strikes on territory held by the Syrian regime, Lister said.
The regional divisions in the country have resulted in a de facto stalemate of violence and simmering tensions, he added. If there were not so many major geopolitical players involved, he suggested, the conflict might have been resolved long ago.
“If there was one (major) player, we would have seen Syria’s crisis resolved, one way or the other,” Lister said. “We would have seen it resolved through a victory over one side or the other, or through some kind of negotiated settlement.
“In reality, there is no player that holds all of the cards and that is precisely why, more than 11 years later, this crisis is still going on and all of those roots causes haven’t been resolved.
“Ultimately, I think the Russians have probably changed the dynamic imbalance in Syria the most of everyone. When they intervened in 2015, the regime was on the verge of collapse and implosion and the Russians unquestionably reversed that and put the regime back into a position of advantage. But they have clearly failed to ‘win’ the conflict in the years that have followed and that is why we are in this geopolitical stalemate.”
Lister appeared on The Ray Hanania Radio Show on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. It is broadcast on the US Arab Radio Network in Detroit and Washington D.C. and rebroadcast in Chicago on Thursdays. You can listen to the entire radio show podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow or any major podcast provider.
You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.
JEDDAH: An Israeli airstrike on Aleppo airport in northern Syrian disabled the runway just as a cargo plane linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was about to land, new satellite photos show.
The images confirm that Israel has intensified strikes on Syrian airports to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Just before Wednesday’s strike, a transponder signal on an Antonov An-74 cargo plane flown by Yas Air indicated that it was about to land at the airport. Yas Air is under US Treasury sanctions for transporting weapons on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards.
Israel also carried out a strike on Damascus airport, damaging equipment, the second such attack since June when Israeli airstrikes on the runway knocked it out of service for two weeks.
A regional diplomatic source said the strikes marked a shift in Israeli targeting. “They started to hit infrastructure used by the Iranians for ammunition supplies to Lebanon,” the source said.
The strikes also provide clues to where Iran is increasing its involvement, said Nawar Shaaban, an analyst at the Omran Centre for Strategic Studies. “The dangerous thing is that when we look at these areas that are being hit, it tells us that Iran has spread out more,” he said. “Every time we see a strike hit a new area, the reaction is, ‘Whoah, Israel hit there.’ But what we should be saying is, ‘Whoah, Iran is there’.”