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Russia Warns West it May Change Stance On Iran, in Retaliation Over Sanctions

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsBy Fox News.

Russia reportedly is prepared to change its stand on Iran nuclear talks in a high-stakes gamble to counter expanded sanctions by the United States and the European Union over Crimea.

After the Obama administration on Monday hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions — a move criticized by Republican lawmakers as too timid — Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted Wednesday by the Interfax news agency as saying the country may have to alter its position on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow since the disputed Crimea region voted to join Russia over the weekend, and Vladimir Putin’s government moved to annex the peninsula.

NATO and U.S. leaders say they’re prepared to do more.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the administration is looking to expand the sanctions further. “If you look at the executive orders, they provide a great deal of flexibility and an expansive range potential designations for sanctions including Russian government officials, the arms sector of Russia, and individuals who, while not holding positions within the Russian government, have influence over or provide material support to senior Russian government officials,” he said.

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Russian forces seize two Ukrainian bases in Crimea

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Maria Kiselyova.

The United States warned Moscow it was on a “dark path” to isolation on Wednesday as Russian troops seized two Ukrainian naval bases, including a headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol where they raised their flag.

The dramatic seizure came as Russia and the West dug in for a long confrontation over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, with the United States and Europe groping for ways to increase pressure on a defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“As long as Russia continues on this dark path, they will face increasing political and economic isolation,” said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, referring to reports of armed attacks against Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea.

Biden was in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, as part of a quick trip to reassure Baltic allies worried about what an emboldened Russia might mean for their nations. Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, are NATO members.

“There is an attempt, using brutal force, to redraw borders of the European states and to destroy the postwar architecture of Europe,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said.

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Defense Minister Says U.S. Will Not Lead; ‘Israel Can Only Rely on Itself’

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Photo Credit: White HouseIn a wide-ranging discussion reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel’s plain-speaking defence minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Tehran has the upper hand in nuclear negotiations, and dismissed the idea of Israeli dependence on the United States to lead an action against Iran’s nuclear program, saying that Israel can only rely on itself.

“We had thought the ones who should lead the campaign against Iran [would be] the United States,” said Ya’alon, speaking during an event at Tel Aviv University. “But at some stage the United States entered into negotiations with them, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians were better.”

If Israel had ever expected the United States to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, that is not about to happen, Ya’alon said: “Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves.”

Ya’alon issued a sharp critique of Washington’s attitude toward Iran, suggesting President Barack Obama would prefer to delay any confrontation until it could be passed on to his successor. “People know that Iran cheats,” Ya’alon said. “But comfortable Westerners prefer to put off confrontation – if possible, to next year, or the next president. But in the end, it will blow up.”

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It is Time to Remove the Persian Mask

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Photo Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet & Cie / Creative Commons Iran is a threat to the United States, not just her allies abroad. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, one of the first things the new Iranian government did was seize the American Embassy, taking 52 of our embassy officials hostage and holding them for 444 days. This is commemorated every year on November 4th, by the annual “Death to America Day,” replete with chanting and burning of the America flag. It is Iran that bombed our Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 sleeping American Marines. It is Iran that maimed and killed thousands of American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan with their IEDs. It is Iran that has constantly armed Hizb’allah and Hamas, and it is Iran that this month sent a ship bound to Hamas-controlled Gaza that had within it containers of long-range missiles that could easily reached much of Europe and the Arab states, let alone all of Israel.

By framing the conversation as involving Israel alone, which the Iranian regime regards as only “the Minor Satan”, focus has been taken off of the very real threat that Iran poses to the United States, which they regard as “the Great Satan.”

Many in the international community have been willfully taken in by the duplicitous strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a merciless, brutal regime has executed close to 95 people in the last few months, and over 500 in this past year for the “crimes” of being a member of a religious minority, for being against the regime, or of being accused of homosexuality. In June of 2009, millions of beautiful, freedom-loving dissidents took to the streets, and were bludgeoned to death or mysteriously disappeared into the notorious Evin Prison, never to be heard from again.

As the late Soviet dissident Andre Sakharov once said, “If you want to understand what a nation’s foreign policy will look like, look at the way, they treat their dissident population.”

The threat posed by a nuclear Iran is real and it is imminent, even to us, here in the United States. This holiday of Purim, it about time we remove their masks.

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Iraq Signs Deal to Buy Arms, Ammunition from Iran

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Photo Credit: APIran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million, according to documents seen by Reuters – a move that would break a U.N. embargo on weapons sales by Tehran.

The agreement was reached at the end of November, the documents showed, just weeks after Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returned from lobbying the Obama administration in Washington for extra weapons to fight al Qaeda-linked militants.

Some in Washington are nervous about providing sensitive U.S. military equipment to a country they worry is becoming too close to Iran. Several Iraqi lawmakers said Maliki had made the deal because he was fed up with delays in U.S. arms deliveries.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister would not confirm or deny the sale, but said such a deal would be understandable given Iraq’s current security troubles.

“We are launching a war against terrorism and we want to win this war. Nothing prevents us from buying arms and ammunition from any party and it’s only ammunition helping us to fight terrorists,” said the spokesman, Ali Mussawi.

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Hagel Misstates Administration Policy on Iran Nukes (Again)

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Photo Credit: APDefense Department officials acknowledged to Fox News that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, while speaking to a Jewish congregation at a Maryland synagogue on Tuesday, appeared to have misstated the administration’s policy on Iran — by saying the country should not be allowed the “capacity” to develop a nuclear weapon.

“So that’s the position of this administration; it was the position of the Bush administration — that’s unequivocal. That’s stated — it’s clear,” Hagel said at the Beth El synagogue in Bethesda, Md.

But Hagel was mistaken, and it’s not the first time he has misspoken about the United States’ nuclear policy on Iran. What he described on Tuesday would be a much firmer stance than either administration has taken. The current policy is that Iran should be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon, rather than preventing its capacity to make a weapon.

Just last month the Director of National Intelligence released “The Worldwide Threat Assessment” to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Page five states clearly that Iran already has the capacity to build and deliver a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.

“Tehran has made technical progress in a number of areas — including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles — from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” DNI James Clapper wrote. “These technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.”

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Sinking Feeling: Iranian Navy Sends Message with US-Bound ‘Rust Buckets’

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Photo Credit: FARS News AgencyThe two Iranian warships headed toward U.S. waters — one of which barely survived a 1988 run-in with an American fighter jet — are a pair of “rust buckets” Tehran is using to prove to its people it can project power around the globe, naval experts said.

The commander of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet said the ships — the frigate Sabalan and Kharg, a supply ship capable of carrying helicopters — began their trip last month from the southern port city Bandar Abbas. Adm. Afshin Rezayee Haddad said the vessels had already entered the Atlantic Ocean near South Africa en route to U.S. maritime borders as part of a three-month mission. Haddad characterized the move as a response to the ongoing presence of the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet, which is based in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf.

But the British-built ships, which are reportedly carrying roughly 30 Iranian Navy academy cadets, are not militarily imposing, according to defense experts reached by FoxNews.com.

“From a tactical perspective, neither one of these ships are any good; they are an afterthought to the U.S. Navy from a warfare perspective,” said Christopher Harmer, senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “From a strategic standpoint, they are very important.”

In 1988, the 310-foot Sabalan was attacked by American forces after it fired upon an A-6 Intruder aboard the USS Enterprise following tensions in the Persian Gulf. The Iranian ship was completely decimated but did not sink, ultimately being restored and improved — something not lost on the Iranian powers, Harmer said.

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Obama Admin Pressed for Lifting Sanctions on Iranian Broadcaster Involved in Human Rights Abuses

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Photo Credit: AlgemeinerWatchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) on Tuesday called on the Obama Administration to reconsider its decision to lift sanctions on Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which had been punished for its involvement in the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses. Among other offenses IRIB has jammed foreign broadcasts, televised forced confessions and broadcast show trials of political prisoners.

UANI said that while the U.S. and world powers agreed in November to lift sanctions tied to Iran’s economy in exchange for the regime allowing increased access to its nuclear facilities, they also agreed to maintain sanctions on areas tied to human rights abuses, and should stay that course.

“We urge the Obama administration to reconsider its decision to waive sanctions on IRIB,” said Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, UANI’s CEO. “The administration repeatedly pledged that the sanctions relief it granted Iran would not include those sanctions related to human rights. It must now uphold those promises, and maintain sanctions on IRIB given IRIB’s continued role in facilitating human rights abuses in Iran.”

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Iran Says Warships Headed Close to US Borders for First Time

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Photo Credit: Free Beacon By Associated Press.

Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday.

The commander of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, the official IRNA news agency reported.

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Tehran sending ‘message’ as warships approach US

By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS.

Iranian naval fleets were on their way across the Atlantic Ocean and headed toward the US, the Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

“Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message,” Adm. Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet was quoted as saying.

According to Fars, Iran had first warned the US of its plans to deploy its naval forces along US marine borders “in the next few years” in September 2012.

Then, Iran’s Navy Commander R.-Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said the move would counter US presence in its waters in the Persian Gulf.

Fars first reported on an Iranian Navy fleet of warships making its way across the Atlantic Ocean in January 2014. At the time, they reported that the ships would sail for at least three months.

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Iranian Official Confirms Country Sought to Build Nuclear Weapons

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

A founder of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards now admits that the Islamic Republic was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. This is the first time any regime official has made such an admission, even as another report claims that one of Iran’s most radical clerics was the spiritual overseer of the nuclear weapons program.

“We pursued ways in order to gain nuclear arms,” Gen. Mohsen Rafiqdoost told the regime’s Mehr News on Saturday. “I asked Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] what his opinion was. He said do not pursue atoms, and we stopped.”

But that claim falls short of the truth. In the late 1980s, a letter by Mohsen Rezaei, then the chief commander of the Guards, asking Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Revolution, for approval of the nuclear bomb program was revealed. It showed the leader had approved of seeking nuclear weapons.

Rafiqdoost became the first minister of the Guards and was in charge of purchasing arms on the black market.

Iranian officials have for a long time denied that there ever was a nuclear bomb program and have consistently insisted that the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes to help feed its only existing nuclear power plant and ones the country plans to build.

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Iranian Official on Nuke Deal: ‘We Did Not Agree to Dismantle Anything’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mischaracterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that “we did not agree to dismantle anything.”

Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

“The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments” under the agreement that took effect Monday, Zarif said in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum.

As part of the accord, Iran was required to dilute its stockpile of uranium that had been enriched to 20%, well above the 5% level needed for power generation but still below the level for developing a nuclear weapon.

In addition, the deal mandated that Iran halt all enrichment above 5% and “dismantle the technical connections required to enrich above 5%,” according to a White House fact sheet issued in November after the initial agreement was reached.

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