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[Housecarl]

(172) 06-27-2015-to-07-03-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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Hummmm...........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/18/how-iran-got-what-it-wanted-from-the-nuclear-deal/

12:48 pm ET
Jul 18, 2015

Think Tank

How Iran Got What It Wanted From the Nuclear Deal

By Aaron David Miller

The Iran nuclear deal brings to mind, of all things, the Rolling Stones. The Stones were wrong when they sang that you can’t always get what you want. In the agreement announced this week, the Obama administration got what it needed. Iran, however, got what it wanted—and secured the better deal. Consider:

Narrow U.S. goals: President Barack Obama’s objectives in negotiating with the mullahs were specific and focused. Despite the constraints of a global economic sanctions regime and strategic cyberattacks by the U.S. and Israel, Iran’s nuclear program was accelerating. The Israelis were increasingly alarmed and in 2012 were close to taking military action. A mechanism was needed to slow Iran’s progress not just for the remainder of the Obama administration but beyond. The deal that emerged will reduce and slow Iran’s nuclear program while also making it more transparent. The accord has its flaws—but it looks likely to satisfy President Obama’s needs: preempt an Israeli military strike; make the use of U.S. military force unnecessary; defuse a potential global crisis over the nuclear issue; and set a precedent in nuclear arms control that, should the deal be sustained, will hand the Obama administration at least one signal achievement in a chaotic and disorderly Middle East.

Iran’s broader achievement: But if the U.S. president got what he needed, the mullahs got what they wanted. This is not to suggest that Tehran is led by a bunch of strategic geniuses who conceded nothing. Had sanctions not been so devastatingly effective, the mullahs would have continued to run their “resistance economy” and not accepted constraints on their nuclear program. Unlike U.S. administrations that measure their political life in four- to eight-year increments, Iran’s supreme leader was thinking along much broader lines: how to secure the regime and the 1979 Islamic revolution. Doing that required managing public opinion by getting out from under a sanctions regime, getting Iran’s economy once again open for business, retaining enough of a nuclear infrastructure to preserve weaponization options for the future, and finding sufficient revenue to secure Iranian influence in the region. In short, in exchange for a nuclear weapon it doesn’t possess—and, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, has yet to make a final decision to develop—Iran will get billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief, which leads to new legitimacy without giving up future options in the nuclear area.

Little likelihood of cheating: Why would Iran cheat? This agreement gives Iranian leaders a good deal of what they wanted without forcing them to abandon their putative nuclear weapons’ aspirations. For the next six months it is in Iran’s interest to consolidate support for the agreement at home, maintain an image of respectability to the international community, and do everything it can to abide by the deal’s terms. Iran is expected to push–largely by banking on the Russians and Chinese—for the coming U.N. Security Council resolution to meet its requirements. Iran must comply with a separate accord it concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency on satisfying disclosure of possible military dimensions of its nuclear program and ensuring that the IAEA is in a position to validate by year’s end that Iran has complied with its commitments so that sanctions can be lifted and assets unfrozen. If the nuclear agreement collapses, the mullahs will want to make sure that the fault lies not with them but with Congress.

The regional edge: Remember the Arab Spring? Now think about a Persian one. Iran is rising as the Arab world melts down. And while Iran’s allies are pretty weak on their own, they can be effective compared with even weaker parties. For now, Iran doesn’t have to flex its muscles. Geography and demography give it natural advantages in a Shiite-dominated Iraq; at relatively low-cost support for the Houthi rebels, Iran and its proxies have the Saudis bogged down in Yemen; and in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is weakening but the opposition is divided and Islamic State also appears to be checked. U.S. government thinking is that once Iran gains access to its $100 billion in frozen oil revenue, it won’t spend the majority on its regional allies. But Tehran doesn’t need to do that: Spending 10% to 20% would maintain its regional influence. Right now, there appears to be little advantage to cooperating in some meaningful detente with Washington to defuse these crisis areas. In fact, such efforts might create problems as the regime tries to sell the accord to its hard-line constituency.

Given its objectives, the Obama administration didn’t negotiate a bad agreement. Iran just got a much better one.

Aaron David Miller is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and most recently the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” He is on Twitter: @AaronDMiller2.

RELATED IN THINK TANK:

Iran Nuclear Deal Is a Win for Rouhani. What’s Next?

How the Iran Nuclear Deal Stands to Inflame U.S.-Saudi Tensions

Reagan, Nixon and Lessons for Obama’s Iran Deal

How Would Iran Nuclear Deal Affect Broader U.S. Strategy?

Is Obama Building, or Hurting, a Case for Iran Nuclear Deal?

Why Opposition in Congress Is Unlikely to Stop Iran Nuclear Deal

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Five Things to Watch for in the Wake of Iran Nuclear Deal

Suppose Iran Doesn’t Cheat but Abides by a Nuclear Deal. What Then?

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://rapidnewsnetwork.com/obama-official-admits-iran-could-use-money-to-fund-terror/78112/

Obama Official Admits Iran Could Use Money To Fund Terror

Contributed by Angel Wallace on July 18, 2015 at 9:33 am

“He will work with Israel to further explore ongoing efforts to identify solutions to some of their most critical security challenges – countering Iran’s destabilizing activities and preventing terror attacks”, Cook said.

An additional squadron of F-35 fighter jets may also be included in a future USA aid package.

Ya’alon, like the vast majority of Israeli politicians, publicly condemns the nuclear deal reached with Iran by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russian Federation and Germany.

With sanctions, Iran has been importing basmati rice, sugar, soymeal and corn from India since 2011 through a rupee account held with the UCO bank at a premium to global prices.

Washington: US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter heads next week to Israel and Saudi Arabia – a diplomatic charm offensives to two countries that have expressed serious concerns over the Iran nuclear deal.

The world has had to make significant sacrifices, in some cases, to reduce their purchase of Iranian oil, ” a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call.

Barring basmati rice exports, which may remain at about 1 million tonnes per annum due to India’s monopoly, Iran will likely switch to Brazil, Argentina and the United States for purchases of sugar, soymeal and corn.

Carter is traveling to Israel next week to meet with counterparts.

Rice, in an interview with Reuters, gave a strong indication that some of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would be shipped to Russian Federation as a result of the historic deal, saying the U.S. would not be concerned by that. His trip to Saudi Arabia has not been announced previously. With the deal now done, the question of Iran paying a premium for produce is completely ruled out, he said, adding that India’s exporters stand to lose revenue once western sanctions are lifted.

By “bad behavior” Rice is presumably referring to Iran’s funding of terrorist organizations, and its expanding military operations throughout areas such as Yemen.

Rice said that the Obama administration trusts those countries whose relations with Iran are normalized to carry out inspections of the Islamic Republic’s sensitive nuclear sites.

“Obviously if oil prices come down, it will affect the revenue streams of the oil-producing countries”.

Speaking Wednesday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Rice explained that sanctions relief, for Iran, is mostly about economic opportunity.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.voanews.com/content/russias-stake-in-iran-nuclear-deal/2867710.html

Russia's Stake in Iran Nuclear Deal

Jonas Bernstein
July 18, 2015 12:29 PM

U.S. President Barack Obama said Russia was a "help" in securing the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program.

In addition to that praise, printed in the New York Times, Obama talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone Wednesday, thanking Putin for Russia's role in the negotiations.

Simon Saradzhyan, a researcher at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, said Obama was underestimating the role Russia played in securing the agreement.

For starters, Saradzhyan said, Moscow refrained from vetoing the U.N. sanctions that ultimately forced Iran to “negotiate in earnest.”

“This deal would not have happened if Russia had not supported it,” Saradzhyan said.

Russia's motivations

He also said that while Moscow’s relations with the West have deteriorated over Ukraine, Russia sees preventing the emergence of another nuclear armed power near its borders as a vital national interest.

“Especially if that neighbor has had a long history of competing with Russia for control of territories and influence in such strategically important areas as the South Caucasus,” Saradzhyan said.

Steven Pifer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, said, “At the end of the day, Russia does not want to see Iran with nuclear weapons."

“So they basically share with the other P5 nations and Germany the interest in trying to freeze Iran’s nuclear program," Pifer said.

Saradzhyan said Russia also feared the U.S. and some of its allies might take military action against Iran if the nuclear talks failed, which would have “a strong destabilizing impact on regional security.”

Moscow, he added, also worried about the possibility of “regime change” in Iran, which would create “another pressure point on Russia in what its leadership sees as a wide-ranging competition with the West for influence over Russia’s neighbors.”

Valuable contribution

Pavel Baev, a research professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, agreed that “the most valuable Russian contribution” to the Iran nuclear deal was “refraining from playing the role of a spoiler.”

Baev noted that while Putin in April lifted Russia’s self-imposed embargo on delivering S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, Moscow did not move forward with the deliveries. (Russia announced in June that it would deliver the S-300s sometime next year. Tehran signed an $800 million contract for them in 2007.)

Baev said Moscow's decision not to derail the Iranian nuclear agreement was largely the result of outside pressure.

“I think the main influence was China, which wanted the deal to be concluded and now aims at expanding the energy business with Iran,” Baev said. “Firmly expressed wishes from Beijing cannot be ignored by Moscow in the present state of Russia-China relations.”

Oil revenues

Some analysts predict that if Iran, with the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, fully reenters the international energy markets, this will have a negative impact on Russia’s economy, already battered by low world oil prices and economic sanctions over Ukraine.

"If all goes full speed, then Iran, as a serious competitor to Russia, will have big advantages in the oil trade,” Georgy Mirsky, a professor at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, told VOA’s Russian service.

Mirsky said Russia can partially offset these losses of oil market share by selling arms to Iran once the U.N. arms embargo is lifted.

He also said that Moscow can gain diplomatically with both Iran and the West – by stressing to Iran the role it played in getting the sanctions lifted and while stressing to the West that it supported the efforts to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Harvard’s Saradzhyan said Russia and Iran “need each other” to protect transit corridors in the Caspian Sea region, prevent NATO from expanding into the South Caucasus region and ensure “stability” in Central Asia.

“Of course, it is important for Russia that Iran not only doesn’t gravitate toward the West, but also doesn’t become a spoiler in Russia’s own North Caucasus by supporting Islamist insurgency there,” he said.

Influence to wane

Baev, on the other hand, believes Russia’s influence with Iran is now likely to wane.

“As for the nature of Russia-Iran relations – well, it was easy for Moscow to play the role of ‘good neighbor’ when Iran was isolated," he said.

"But it is now far more important for Tehran to cultivate ties with China, India, and Turkey, and to downplay its opposition to U.S. ‘hegemony.' So I cannot see any benefit from this deal for bilateral (Russian-Iranian) ties," Baev said.

Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, agrees that Russian-Iranian relations are likely to cool.

"Russia has always positioned itself as a friend of Iran, as a mediator in the negotiations – in any case, it had a status different from the other countries involved,” Malashenko told VOA’s Russian service.

“Iran always looked at this quite favorably, but after the signing (of the nuclear agreement), the Iranians' need for Russia will not be as great as it was, and Iran will take steps toward the West. And anything aimed at rapprochement with the West is regarded negatively in Russia," he said.

Still, Pifer, of the Brookings Institution, said Iran will remain important for Russia geopolitically – as an “entry point” to the Middle East.

“If you’re looking at the broader section of the Middle East – from the Mediterranean to, say, Pakistan – Iran is kind of the best Russian entry point,” he said.

“You could argue Syria is (that entry point), but Syria is such a mess. So I think geopolitically they see the possibility to cultivate a relationship with Iran that will have benefits in terms of a presence in that area," Pifer added.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.voltairenet.org/article188204.html

Ayatollah Khamenei’s sermon on the nuclear agreement

by Ali Khamenei
Voltaire Network | Tehran (Iran) | 18 July 2015

Most of the second sermon of Ayatollah Khamenei in the Eid al-Fitr congregational prayers was devoted to several points about the nuclear issue.

In the first point, he appreciated those who were involved in the lengthy and breathtaking nuclear negotiations, particularly the endeavors and efforts made by the nuclear negotiating team, saying, “For the [final] approval of the drawn up text, a legal course must be followed. Of course, whether or not this text is approved, the negotiators will be rewarded, God willing.”

Addressing those who are to review the “drawn-up nuclear text,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Do your job with care based on the country’s expediencies and national interests, so that you would be able to present the outcome of your reviews to the nation and to God with your head held high.”

Reiterating Iran’s determination to confront any exploitation of the “drawn-up text,” the Leader said, “Whether or not this drawn-up text is approved, we will allow nobody to harm the basic principles of the Islamic Establishment.”

Referring to the current atmosphere of threat and the enemies’ focus on Iran’s defense issues, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “With God’s grace, the country’s defense capabilities and security domain will be safeguarded and the Islamic Republic will never give in to the excessive demands of the enemies.”

Continued support for the allies of the Islamic Republic in the region was another point which the Leader of the Islamic Revolution highlighted in his discussion of the nuclear issue.

Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Whether or not this drafted text is approved through legal process in the country, the Iranian nation will not stop supporting the oppressed nation of Palestine, Yemen, Bahrain as well as the nations and governments of Syria, Iraq and the honest combatants in Lebanon and Palestine.”

Noting that the policy of the nation and the Islamic Republic Establishment will by no means change vis-à-vis the United States, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution added, “We will have no negotiations with America regarding bilateral, regional and global issues unless in exceptional cases like the nuclear [issue], which has had precedent.”

Sharply criticizing the US policies on “supporting the terrorist and infanticidal Zionist regime while labeling terrorist the devoted combatants of Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Our policies are 180 degrees opposite of America’s policies in the region. Therefore, how can we negotiate with them?”

Ayatollah Khamenei then referred to ranting by US officials in recent days following the conclusion of nuclear talks, saying, “These days, both statesmen and stateswomen in America have no option but to rant in order to resolve domestic problems, but there is no truth in their bombastic rhetoric.”

The Leader referred to the US allegation of having blocked production of nuclear weapons in Iran, saying, “Years ago, we issued a fatwa, based on Islamic teachings, forbidding the production of nuclear weapons, and we face religious obstacle for the production of these weapons, but Americans who have sometimes owned up to the significance of this fatwa, keep lying in their propaganda and ranting, and claim that their threat has blocked the production of nuclear weapon by Iran.”

“The incumbent officials of America speak about the surrender of the Iranian nation. Of course, five former presidents after the [1979 Islamic] Revolution had these wishes in mind, but they either died or got lost in history, and like them, you may only dream of Iran’s surrender.”

Referring to the current US president confessing to his country’s past mistakes with regard to Iran, including the August 19, 1953 coup d’état in Iran and Washington’s support for former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “That is just the tip of the iceberg and there are many mistakes which Americans still refuse to admit to.”

Ayatollah Khamenei recommended the US officials to reconsider their current mistakes so that their successors would not have to acknowledge their current mistakes.

Reiterating the daily growing strength of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Leader said, “For around 12 years, six big countries of the world have been trying to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear industry and, as some people said, dismantle the nuts and bolts of Iran’s nuclear industry, but today, they have been forced to accept and tolerate the spinning of several thousand centrifuges and the continuation of [nuclear] research and development in Iran, and this means nothing but the strength of the Iranian nation.”

Ayatollah Khamenei stated that the growing power and strength of the Islamic Republic stems from the steadfastness and resistance of the nation, as well as the bravery and creativity of Iranian scientists. Honoring the martyred nuclear scientists and their followers and families, the Leader said, “May God bestow His mercy on a nation which has stood by its word in this way.”

In the concluding part of his second sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the incumbent US president’s remarks about his country’s ability to destroy the Iranian Army, saying, “In the past, such remarks were interpreted “boasting among strangers” [who are not aware of the inability of the person who is boasting].”

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution addressed American officials, emphasizing, “We welcome no war, nor do we initiate any war, but if any war happens, the one who will emerge loser will be the aggressive and criminal America.”

Ali Khamenei

 

[Housecarl]

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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...or-next-us-president/articleshow/48127207.cms

Scuttling Iran nuclear deal might not be easy for next US president

By AP | 18 Jul, 2015, 09.32PM IST

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential contenders are unhappy with President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and vow to rescind the agreement, some on their first day in office.

But it may not be that easy.

If Iran lives up to its obligations, a new president could face big obstacles in turning that campaign promise into US policy. Among them: resistance from longtime American allies, an unraveling of the carefully crafted international sanctions, and damage to US standing with the rest of the world, according to foreign policy experts.

"The president does not have infinite ability to get other countries to go along with them," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "One of the consequences is the United States would be increasingly isolated at a time when Iran is increasingly integrated with the rest of the world."

Both Obama and Republicans know firsthand the difficulties of dismantling major policies, a task that only gets harder the longer a policy has been in place.

After more than six years in office, Obama has failed to achieve his promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison, despite signing an executive order authorizing its closure on his first day in office. And more than five years after Obama's health care overhaul became law, Republicans have been unable to find a legal or legislative means for repealing the sweeping measure.

While some elements of the nuclear accord don't go into effect immediately, the centerpiece of the agreement is expected to be implemented quickly. If Iran curbs its nuclear program as promised, it will receive billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.

To Republican presidential candidates, rolling back that quid pro quo would be a top priority if they were to win the White House.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he would "terminate the bad deal with Iran on day one" and work to persuade allies to reinstate economic sanctions lifted under the deal. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry concurred, saying one of his first actions in office would be to "invalidate the president's Iran agreement."

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, said that while he would consult with allies about the deal on his first day in office, he was inclined to "move toward the abrogation of it." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told The Associated Press he would withdraw from a deal even if allies objected.

The next president has no legal obligation to implement the nuclear agreement, which is a political document, not a binding treaty.

But if there's no sign Iran is cheating, it's unlikely the European allies, who spent nearly two years negotiating alongside the US, would be compelled to walk away and reinstate sanctions. And it's nearly impossible to imagine Russia and China, which partnered with the US, Britain, France and Germany in the talks, following a Republican president's lead.

"Shattering something like this with the British and the French and the Germans _ that has consequences," said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former Obama State Department official. "A new president isn't going to want to lead off like that."

To be sure, a US president with a friendly Congress could unilaterally reinstate American sanctions on Iran. But the economic impact would be far less if other countries didn't follow Washington's lead.

Beyond Europe's interests, the White House says US partners in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, will also likely have boosted their financial ties and oil purchases with Iran by the time a new president takes office in January 2017.

A wealthier, more globally integrated Iran is a scary prospect to opponents of the deal. Republicans contend Obama signed off on a weak deal with Iran, leaving the Islamic Republic on the brink of building a bomb. Some say the president should have left the negotiating table, increased economic pressure on Iran, then resumed the talks with greater leverage.

The president says the only realistic alternative to the diplomatic agreement is war.

Congress has 60 days to review the Iran deal. While lawmakers can't block the agreement itself, they can try to pass new sanctions on Iran or block the president from waiving existing penalties.

Some Republicans say the White House is trying to pre-empt congressional actions by seeking an endorsement of the nuclear deal at the United Nations Security Council next week. Republican Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote Obama a letter urging him to postpone the UN vote until after Congress considers the agreement.

The White House says the UN vote has no bearing on the status of unilateral American sanctions on Iran.

But Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under former President George W. Bush, says the White House's push for quick UN action seems to have a longer-term goal than circumventing this Congress. Seeking the United Nations' stamp of approval for the deal, Hayden said, appears to be "for the express purpose of locking in the next president of the United States."

 

[Housecarl]

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http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/iran-nuclear-rouhani-idINL5N0ZY0C420150718

Commodities | Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:41pm IST

Iran's Rouhani: nuclear deal will lead to closer relations with neighbours

DUBAI, July 18

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said he spoke to the ruler of the Gulf Arab state of Qatar over the telephone on Saturday and expected a nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers would improve relations with neighbours.

"No doubt, deal will lead Iran to closer relations w/ neighbors, esp Qatar," Rouhani wrote on his official Twitter page.

(Reporting By Sylvia Westall and Noah Browning; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-saudi-security-idUSKCN0PS0GQ20150718

World | Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:59am EDT
Related: World, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia says arrests 431 Islamic State suspects, thwarts bombings

DUBAI

Saudi Arabia has arrested 431 people suspected of belonging to Islamic State cells and thwarted attacks on mosques, security forces and a diplomatic mission, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

The announcement came after a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near the kingdom's highest security prison on Thursday, killing the driver and wounding two security officials in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

A string of deadly attacks carried out by followers of the ultra-hardline militant group based in Iraq and Syria has fueled concerns about a growing threat of militancy in the world's top oil exporter.

"The number arrested to date is 431, most of them citizens, in addition to participants from other nationalities ... six successive suicide operations which targeted mosques in the Eastern province on every Friday timed with assassinations of security men were thwarted," the ministry statement posted on the official news agency SPA said.

"Terrorist plots to target a diplomatic mission, security and government facilities in Sharurah province and the assassination of security men were thwarted," it said.

The ministry did not elaborate on when the men were detained, but previous announcements that scores of suspects have been arrested suggest it was over the course of months.

Their alleged offences cited by the ministry ranged from smuggling explosives, surveying potential attack sites, providing transport and material support to bombers, smuggling in explosives from abroad and manufacturing suicide vests.

Islamic State has called on supporters to carry out attacks in the kingdom and killed 25 people in two suicide bombings at Shi'ite Muslim mosques in the country's east in May.

A Saudi man, reportedly aided by several other men from the kingdom, blew himself up in a Shi'ite mosque and killed 27 worshippers in June.

The group says its priority target is the Arabian peninsula and in particular Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's holiest places, from where it plans to expel Shi'ite Muslims.

The interior ministry said the suspects arrested in the kingdom were carrying out "schemes directed from trouble spots abroad and are aimed at inciting sectarian strife and chaos."

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel next week to Saudi Arabia as part of the Obama administration's efforts to convince skeptical allies in the region about the benefits of the Iran nuclear deal.

In an interview with the New York Times this week, President Obama urged America's traditional Sunni allies in the Gulf to better embrace their Shi'ite citizens.

"My argument has been to my allies in the region, let's stop giving Iran opportunities for mischief. Strengthen your own societies. Be inclusive," Obama said.


(Reporting by Noah Browning; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.business-standard.com/ar...cal-shells-evidence-shows-115071800703_1.html

ISIS has fired chemical shells, evidence shows

C J Chivers
July 18, 2015 Last Updated at 21:27 IST

The Islamic State appears to have manufactured rudimentary chemical warfare shells and attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria with them as many as three times in recent weeks, according to field investigators, Kurdish officials and a Western ordnance disposal technician who examined the incidents and recovered one of the shells.

The development, which the investigators said involved toxic industrial or agricultural chemicals repurposed as weapons, signaled a potential escalation of the group's capabilities, though it was not entirely without precedent.

Beginning more than a decade ago, Sunni militants in Iraq have occasionally used chlorine or old chemical warfare shells in makeshift bombs against American and Iraqi government forces. And Kurdish forces have claimed that militants affiliated with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, used a chlorine-based chemical in at least one suicide truck bomb in Iraq this year.

Firing chemical mortar shells across distances, however, as opposed to dispersing toxic chemicals via truck bombs or stationary devices, would be a new tactic for the group, and would require its munitions makers to overcome a significantly more difficult technical challenge.

Chemical weapons, internationally condemned and banned in most of the world, are often less lethal than conventional munitions, including when used in improvised fashion. But they are indiscriminate by nature and difficult to defend against without specialised equipment - traits that lend them potent psychological and political effects.

In the clearest recent incident, a 120-millimeter chemical mortar shell struck sandbag fortifications at a Kurdish military position near Mosul Dam on June 21 or 22, the investigators said, and caused several Kurdish fighters near where it landed to become ill.

The shell did not explode and was recovered nearly intact on June 29 by Gregory Robin, a former French military ordnance disposal technician who now works for Sahan Research, a think tank partnered with Conflict Armament Research, a private organisation that has been documenting and tracing weapons used in the conflict. Both research groups are registered in Britain.

The tail of the shell had been broken, Robin said by telephone on Friday, and was leaking a liquid that emanated a powerful odor of chlorine and caused irritation to the airways and eyes.

It was the first time, according to Robin and James Bevan, the director of Conflict Armament Research, that such a shell had been found in the conflict.

In an internal report to the Kurdish government in Iraq, the research groups noted that the mortar shell appeared to have been manufactured in an "ISIS workshop by casting iron into mold method. The mortar contains a warhead filled with a chemical agent, most probably chlorine."

Conflict Armament Research and Sahan Research often work with the Kurdistan Region Security Council. Robin and Bevan said the council had contracted a laboratory to analyse residue samples removed from the weapon.

"Soon we should have an exact composition of the chemical in this projectile, but I am certain it is chlorine," Robin said.

He added, "What I don't know is what kind of burster charge it had," referring to the small explosive charge intended to break open the shell and distribute its liquid contents. The shell had not exploded, he said, because, inexplicably, it did not contain a fuse.

Whether any finding from tests underwritten by Kurdish authorities would be internationally recognised is uncertain, as the Kurdish forces are party to the conflict.

The week after Robin collected the shell, on July 6, another investigator found evidence that the research groups said indicated two separate attacks with chemical projectiles in Kurdish territory in the northeastern corner of Syria.

Those attacks, at Tel Brak and Hasakah, occurred in late June and appeared to involve shells or small rockets containing an industrial chemical sometimes used as a pesticide, the investigators said.

In the incidents in Syria, Bevan said, multiple shells struck in agricultural fields near three buildings used by Kurdish militia forces known as the YPG, or Peoples Protection Units, in Tel Brak. More shells, he said, landed in civilian areas in Hasakah; at least one struck a civilian home.


©2015 The New York Times New Service

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-algeria-security-idUSKCN0PS0N720150718

World | Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:13pm EDT
Related: World

Militant attack kills 11 Algerian soldiers: security source

ALGIERS

At least 11 Algerian soldiers were killed after they were attacked by Islamist militant gunmen west of the capital Algiers, a security source said on Saturday.

The source did not give further details about the attack which took place on Thursday night in the Ain Defla area.

Algeria has found stability after a 1990s war with armed Islamist groups. But al Qaeda-allied fighters and a splinter armed group loyal to Islamic State are still active in pockets of the country, mostly in remote mountain areas.


(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Pravin Char)

 

[Housecarl]

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World | Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:35am EDT
Related: World

Russia's Putin orders formation of new military reserve force

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the creation of a new reserve armed force as part of steps to improve training and military readiness at a time of international tensions with the West over Ukraine.

The new reserve force has been discussed for several years and was first ordered by Putin in 2012 shortly after his re-election as President. The latest decree was published late on Friday.

It will be distinct from Russia's existing military reserves because the part-time personnel will be paid a monthly sum and train regularly.

Russia already has several million military reservists consisting of ex-servicemen, but they do little training as there are restrictions on how often they can be called up.

Defence Ministry officials have previously said that the new reserve force was envisaged at around 5,000 men to begin with, a small figure in a country with around 750,000 frontline troops.

The creation of the new reserve force had been delayed by a lack of financing, Russian media reported. Putin's decree ordered the government to find financing for the new force from the existing defense ministry budget.


(Reporting by Jason Bush and Maria Tsvetkova, editing by Louise Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN0PS08T20150718

World | Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:18am EDT
Related: World, Yemen

Anti-Houthi forces advance in Yemen amid heavy Arab air strikes

ADEN/SANAA

Local fighters and army forces in Yemen wrested two military bases from Houthi forces overnight, residents and officials said, building on a week of gains against the country's dominant faction.

The advances come a day after Yemen's government in exile declared the key southern city of Aden "liberated", in their biggest victory yet in a Saudi-led air campaign and civil war that has raged almost four months and killed more than 3,500 people.

Saudi-backed Yemeni forces backed up by air strikes seized the Labuza army base in Lahj province north of the port city and the headquarters of the 117th armored division in eastern Shabwa province some 230km (145 miles) away.

Residents said sporadic clashes continued on Saturday inside Aden as local fighters aimed to root out remaining Houthis.

Officials in the anti-Houthi forces say the offensive was planned for weeks and benefited from training and arms deliveries from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In a presidential decree, Yemen's exiled leader Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Riyadh named Aden's main thoroughfare after Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Saturday as a gesture of gratitude.

The war in Yemen has pitted the Sunni Muslim Gulf states, which support the exiled government, against the Shi'ite Houthis allied to Iran, in a conflict that has further raised the stakes as the Middle East grapples with regional rivalries and sectarian strife.

But power struggles have simmered for years in the impoverished and conflict-wracked country, and fighters in Yemen's south -- the setting for most of the recent battles -- have long sought independence from the North, the Houthis' home.

Residents said Houthi forces and their allies in Yemen's army made an attempt to regroup and take back northern fringes of Aden on Friday, firing rockets at the Khor Maksar district.

Their push was repelled, anti-Houthi fighters said, and an offensive backed by air strikes is underway to take Anad air base, one of Yemen's largest, 60 km (40 miles) north of Aden.

Islamic State in Yemen issued a statement and several photographs online on Saturday claiming for the first time to have taken part in the clashes in Aden.

It showed masked fighters in two pickup trucks and images of bound men it said were detained Houthi snipers.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly attacks on the Houthis in the capital Sanaa, but has not been known to have confronted the group in battle.

The Houthis say their campaign in Aden was aimed at rooting out hardline Islamic militants and a corrupt government.


(Writing by Noah Browning, editing by Louise Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-separatists-weapons-withdrawal-russia/27136014.html

Ukraine Rebels Claim Readiness To Pull Back Tanks, Smaller Arms

July 18, 2015

Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine say they are prepared to pull back smaller-caliber weapons from much of the line of contact with Kyiv’s forces.

Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a self-proclaimed leader of the rebels operating in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said on July 18 that his forces are ready to pull back tanks and armored vehicles outfitted with weapons under 100mm 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the front line.

A spokesman for the Donetsk separatists, Denis Pushilin, called the move a “unilateral step” ahead of a July 21 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk focused on the implementation of February cease-fire.

Three civilians and one Ukrainian soldier have been reported killed over the past day in fighting in the country’s east. Ukrainian authorities and the rebels traded accusations of responsibility for the deaths.

More than 6,500 people have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatists erupted in April 2014.

Kyiv and the West accuse Russia backing the rebels, a charge Moscow denies despite mounting evidence of such support.

Based on reporting by AP, Interfax, and AFP

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...ves_way_to_china_in_brics_and_sco_108246.html

July 17, 2015

Russia Gives Way to China in BRICS and SCO

By Sarah Lain

This month saw a super summit of two organisations that are significant for both Russia and China. The 7th BRICS summit and 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, both held in Ufa, Russia, included the typical member-state declarations confirming cooperation on major issues such as counter-terrorism, ensuring stability and enhancing global economic development.

There were also strong indications, however, that these multilateral organisations are fast becoming platforms for China to promote its own projects, namely the Silk Road Economic Belt. Announced by President Xi Jinping at Nazarbaev University in 2013, the Silk Road is a key foreign policy vision for Beijing aimed at enhancing global trade, connectivity, financial integration and cultural understanding.

Although so far the project seems more of an umbrella term for large Chinese-funded energy and infrastructure projects in Central and South Asia, it has become a centrepiece of China's bilateral and multilateral relations and discussions. The growing references within the SCO on how it can participate in, and facilitate, the development of China's Silk Road Economic Belt initiative are subtly eroding Russia's position.

The biggest achievements of the BRICS summit were the ratification of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and the US$100 billion reserve currency pool known as the Contingent Reserves Arrangement (CRA). China will be the largest donor to the CRA, providing US$41 billion with Russia giving US$18 billion, reflecting China's economic pre-eminence in the organisation. The creation of these two institutions was in fact officially announced at the 2014 summit in Brazil, but they came into force at Ufa.

The NDB, headquartered in Shanghai, will fund infrastructure and sustainable development projects in both BRICS and non-BRICS emerging markets. The Chinese Government has specifically identified the NDB as an institution that will facilitate the Silk Road's goal of financial integration.

Until recently, Moscow has been relatively quiet in its assessment of China's Silk Road Economic Belt proposal, in part because it was unclear what it actually means for Russia. But in May, Russia explicitly acknowledged the value of China's project, with Xi Jinping and Putin signing a joint declaration on integrating the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU; a Kazakh-initiated but Russian-led economic integration project with members including Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan). On the sidelines of the SCO summit, Xi and Putin discussed 'concrete projects' for such integration. Gui Congyou, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's European-Central Asian Affairs Department, noted that both sides were willing to see the SCO as a platform for such integration.

Russia is acutely aware that it cannot, and will not try to, compete with China's growing global economic influence, even if this extends into Russia's traditional sphere of influence in Central Asia. However, it's clear that China's dominance in both its bilateral relationship with Russia and within the multilateral organisations it has traditionally co-led with Moscow is increasing. As such, it's difficult to see how the Silk Road Economic Belt and the EEU could fully integrate, particularly given the much broader remit of the former. Instead, at least on a symbolic level, it's more likely that the EEU project will be subsumed by the wider Chinese project.

Of course, Russia and the EEU could benefit from greater investment under the auspices of the Silk Road Economic Belt. The Russian-led economic project has recently suffered from a variety of tensions, including a Russian economic down-turn, trade spats between members and at least the short-term loss of Ukraine. It could use a boost from China. China would certainly benefit from wider access to the single EEU market. Connectivity, a Silk Road priority, could certainly improve, as already highlighted by China's agreement to invest US$5.8 billion into the Kazan-Moscow railway, and to extend it to link Kazakhstan and China.

However, such cooperation will likely be on China's terms, and will be tagged more to the success of the overarching Silk Road Economic Belt project. As Alexander Gabuev has pointed out, China will invest 'only if it sees benefits'.

China's Silk Road Economic Belt priorities align with and complement those of the mulitilateral organisations that met in Ufa. This helps protect Beijing against any accusations of Chinese dominance within the groups. However, the increasing discussion of the Chinese project in both summits indicates that these organisations could subtly become instruments of Beijing's foreign policy. The wording of the BRICS summit declaration directly echoed the goals outlined for the Silk Road Economic Belt, mentioning the need to strengthen connectivity, unimpeded trade and people-to-people connections. This demonstrates the prioritisation of Chinese foreign policy through its multilateral organisations. Thus, the hierarchy within BRICS and SCO is shifting in favour of Chinese goals.

Russia appears to have fully accepted this. Although it continues to support the SCO's security mandate, in the lead-up to the summit Moscow has been willing to endorse a stronger economic mandate for the organisation. This is something Russia has historically resisted, as reflected in its previous opposition to the SCO Development Bank. To reap the benefits of closer relations with China, and in light of its shrinking economic options with the West, Russia appears willing to accept some loss of status in favour of China.


This article originally appears at the Lowy Interpreter.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9584112/al-qaeda-has-become-the-middle-easts-moderate-option/

Isis or al-Qa’eda? The Arab states have chosen the devil they know

Fear of Isis is leading the Arab states to lend support to the lesser of two evils

Ahmed Rashid 18 July 2015
132 Comments

After plunging Syria into five years of a bloody civil war that has killed 300,000 and displaced 10 million, Bashar al-Assad is preparing for the endgame. He has been digging a bunker for himself, creating an enclave in the mountains around the coastal city of Latakia where his community, the Alawites, are in a majority. The Iranians are helping him set up this new retreat, but his hope of hanging on to Syria is dying. The question being asked in the region is not whether he’ll survive, but who will run Damascus once he falls — and what will happen should the country be split along ethnic and sectarian lines.

When considering the future, Syrian moderate rebel groups don’t feature much in the equation. They have little standing in the pecking order because the US and the Arabs have failed to support them. Ash Carter, the US defence secretary, stunned the Senate last week when he admitted that the Pentagon had trained just 60 moderate Syrians to fight Isis — a far cry from the planned 5,400 announced last year. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the contingent of 3,500 American soldiers dispatched to train the Iraqi army have ended up training only 2,600 Iraqi soldiers. This is clearly no way to win a war — either against Isis, or the Assad regime.

The Arab world, which has been anxiously watching all of this for years now, is coming to some hard conclusions. Assad is finished — this much is clear. So who’s next? If the answer is not the five-dozen moderates trained by the Pentagon, it will be one of the two extremist militias who control the most territory in Syria: Isis and al-Qa’eda (called by its local name Jabhat al-Nusra). A horrible choice, you might argue, but for many it’s the only choice.

The Arab Gulf states and Turkey have already made up their mind. They are heavily arming, funding and talking to al-Qa’eda, regarding it as a safer bet than Isis. It might once have seemed unimaginable but Isis has surpassed even al-Qa’eda in the brutal horrors it inflicts on its victims.

So could al-Qa’eda, once considered the most deadly terrorist organisation in the world, end up with their own state; as masters of the caliphate, with the support of their neighbours? And if so, how on earth did we reach such a surreal and sorry state of affairs?

The first thing to note is that neither Washington nor London have any enthusiasm for backing al-Qa’eda. Its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remains on the USA hit list and there’s a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture. Backing al-Qa’eda is too bitter a pill for the West, with the memories of 9/11 and 7/7 so vivid. So it’s easy to see why US diplomats are appalled by the turn of events in Syria. But if the Obama administration is not prepared to deploy troops on the ground to tackle Isis, it cannot criticise its own allies (such as Saudi Arabia) if they want to cosy up to al-Qa’eda.

The West offers no decent alternative plan. Its policy on the Middle East has been riven by contradictions, and characterised by a lack of commitment and a state of denial. So it’s the Middle Eastern states that have started calling the shots (as arguably they must do) and it’s they who have chosen al-Qa’eda as their new ally. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf Emirates are supporting al-Qa’eda with arms, money and a strategic dialogue. While the Gulf states are following Saudi Arabia’s lead and are also petrified of Isis terrorist hits in their vulnerable city states, such as the recent beach attack in Tunisia and the several Isis bomb blasts in Saudi Arabia, the Turks are deeply concerned that Syrian Kurds will carve out a separate state for themselves and draw Turkey’s own Kurds in.

But its not just al-Qa’eda in Syria; other al-Qa’eda offshoots are also being redefined as friends, not foes. In Yemen, Washington has long pursued a drone campaign against the group known as al-Qa’eda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has included the recent killing of Nasir al-Wuhayshi, its leader. Washington believes that AQAP is still trying to target the US mainland. Yet many of America’s Arab allies are now essentially siding with AQAP in a Saudi-led war against Iran. Why? Because, as so many countries learn in wartime, the enemy of one’s enemy can become one’s ally. No matter how ugly the enemy. These Arab states consider Iran as a larger national security threat than AQAP.

So, on the battlefields of Syria and Yemen, the Arab states are not only opposing American attacks on al-Qa’eda but actively offering support to its leader, al-Zawahiri. So two quite separate super-wars are now being fought. The first is the war waged by the US and its western allies in an attempt to defeat al-Qa’eda and Isis in Syria and Yemen. Significantly the Arab states are taking no part in this war and providing the Americans with no intelligence.

The second war is being fought by all the regional Arab states and Turkey — against Assad and other Iranian-backed forces in the region, as well as Isis. In this war, the Arab states openly avoid bombing or attacking al-Qa’eda in Syria and AQAP — and, indeed, provide both with logistical support. This is because both al-Qa’eda offshoots have now declared aims which are shared by the Arab states: they want to topple the Assad regime and oppose Iran.

Things have been moving so fast that any western policy forged more than a year ago is now hopelessly out of date. Not only has Isis come from nowhere to run a chunk of territory the size of Great Britain — in both Iraq and Syria — but it can claim to have terrorist hit squads in a dozen countries stretching from Tunisia to Pakistan. Isis now has affiliated militant groups in at least 11 countries, including Nigeria and Russia. As the newspapers document daily, Isis is also adept at grooming and recruiting young western Muslims — from Luton to Lagos — and persuading them to join the jihad. It is succeeding in its state-building project and rapidly adapting to change.

But while the world’s focus has been on Isis and its stunning transformation, the equally dramatic changes in al-Qa’eda have barely been scrutinised. Although depleted by years of drone strikes, it is still a major presence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. It continues to inspire Afghan and Pakistani militants, who provide sanctuaries to keep its leadership alive. And unlike Isis, which demands absolute subjugation of the inhabitants of any territory it conquers (‘surrender or be executed’), it is cooperating with other anti-Assad groups. Al-Qa’eda recently joined the ‘Army of Conquest’, an Islamist alliance of rebel militias in northern Syria.

While Isis depends on foreign recruits, fighters for al-Nusra, al-Qa’eda’s Syrian arm, are almost wholly Syrian — making them more committed to Syria’s future. They have toned down their aims of implementing a brutal version of Islamic law. Most significantly, in recent interviews, al-Nusra leaders have vowed not to attack targets in the West. This is quite a departure from Osama bin Laden’s concept of ‘global jihad’, and a new leaning towards more ‘nationalist jihadism’.

Some reports suggest that al–Zawahiri has even called off attacks on the US. If true, this shows a very un-Isis-like ability to put vendetta and revenge to one side for the sake of a more enticing goal. It’s true that al-Zawahiri loathes America, all the more because his wife and two children were killed in a drone strike. Yet he is proving able to play the long game. Al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Mohammed al’Julani, recently told Al Jazeera that ‘the instructions that we have are not to use al-Sham [Syria] as a base to launch attacks on the West or Europe — so as not to muddy the current war’.

It’s not just talk. Al-Qa’eda most dramatically demonstrated its new soft line when AQAP seized the Yemeni province of Hadramut this spring. It inflicted little damage, executed nobody, declined to run the local government and instead installed a council of elders to govern.

How long would this new less violent attitude last? Nobody knows. Perhaps it is just tactics to win support on the ground. It might only become really clear when it’s too late. The Arabs may be right to conclude that there are at least some grounds for thinking that al-Qa’eda is evolving.

However the real test will be whether al-Qa’eda will truly tolerate minorities and let other sorts of Muslims exist, as and when they gain power? One indicator is Afghanistan, where al-Qa’eda and their Taleban allies have not attacked or massacred Afghan Shias since 11 September 2001. Before the US invasion they did so openly.

But it is too early to say what al-Qa’eda’s long-term attitude to minorities will be. Meanwhile, Arab states have shown little sympathy for non-Muslim minorities and Shias when they are being attacked by Isis.

Things are now moving fast. A relationship is evolving and formal talks between the Arab states and al-Qa’eda may soon take place without the West at the table. It’s a strategic decision: the Arabs regard an extremist victory in Syria as inevitable so they have decided to go with al-Qa’eda as the lesser of the two evils — especially if that evil is willing to resist Iran. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, since he came to the throne in January, has pursued a far more aggressive policy toward Iran and Syria. For the US and Europe it will be extremely difficult in terms of domestic politics and national security to strike a relationship with al-Qa’eda, but ultimately that may be the only choice, especially if the West’s Arab allies are going ahead.

Just a few years ago, the ‘war on terror’ was defined as extinguishing al-Qa’eda. Now, for many of our Arab allies, it means shoring up al-Qa’eda and praying that they’re not as bad as had once been believed. One thing in all this murky double-dealing is clear: the US and Britain are paying a bitter price for refusing to remove Assad when they genuinely had the chance four years ago. Acting has its risks, but failing to act has its consequences too — as we will all now find out.


Ahmed Rashid is the best selling author of numerous books on militant Islam. His latest book is Pakistan on the Brink - The Future of America, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 18 July 2015

 

[brudog]

Thanks for the updates.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150718/ml--egypt-0eb177b73f.html

Militants kill 5 at military checkpoints in Egypt's Sinai

Jul 18, 5:05 PM (ET)
By MERRIT KENNEDY

CAIRO (AP) — Militants in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula attacked two military checkpoints, killing at least five soldiers Saturday in the latest violence there targeting security forces, officials and state media said.

Egyptian military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said in a statement that an attack on a single checkpoint killed 3 soldiers and wounded 4 others. It was not immediately clear why the numbers differed.

Egypt's state-run MENA news agency reported that an attack near the town of Sheikh Zuweid sparked clashes with the militants.

Egyptian security officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters, said militants launched the attacks on two checkpoints using rocket-propelled grenades.

Both of the checkpoints were the sites of a major assault claimed by the Sinai affiliate of the Islamic State group on July 1. The military has said that multi-checkpoint assault killed at least 17 soldiers. Officials from several branches of Egypt's security forces previously told the AP that the attack killed dozens more.

Last year, the main insurgent organization operating in Sinai pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State group, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria.

An Egyptian navy vessel was targeted Thursday by militants affiliated with the Islamic State group, who claimed they destroyed it with a rocket while it was anchored off the Sinai's Mediterranean coast. Samir said at the time that the vessel caught fire in an exchange of fire with "terrorists" on the shore and that there were no fatalities among its crew members.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-mideast-crisis-airstrikes-idUSKCN0PS0ME20150718

World | Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:47pm EDT
Related: World

U.S., allies target Islamic State with 23 air strikes in Iraq: military

WASHINGTON

The United States and its allies bombarded Islamic State in Iraq on Friday with 23 air strikes, hitting the militant group near Tal Afar and Ramadi, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

Referring to the militant group as Daesh, Col. Wayne Morotto, chief of public affairs for the Combined Joint Task Force, said in a statement: "When coalition assets detect and positively identify Daesh targets, we strike them relentlessly and our strikes exact a heavy toll on this brutal enemy."

Nearly half the strikes, 10, hit targets near Tal Afar, where they destroyed an Islamic State building and vehicles and damaged tactical units, staging areas, weapons caches and a command and control center, according to the military.

Five strikes near Ramadi destroyed Islamic State improvised explosive devices, vehicles and fighting positions, while also hitting tactical units, military said.

Separately, coalition forces also launched eight air strikes in Syria with most, five, hitting targets near Al Hasakah, the U.S. military said.


(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Pravin Char)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/chinas-assertiveness-could-worsen-warns-japan-military-chief/

China’s Assertiveness Could Worsen, Japan Military Chief Warns

Admiral Kawano sees a worrying future as Beijing seeks to expand its regional reach.

By Prashanth Parameswaran
July 18, 2015

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China’s assertiveness in Asia could worsen in the future as Beijing seeks to expand its regional reach, Japan’s top military commander Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano said Thursday.

“My sense is that this trend will continue into the future where China will go beyond the island chain in the Pacific. So if anything, I believe the situation would worsen,” Kawano said in translated remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

In the South China Sea specifically, Kawano noted that at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue this year, which he attended, the Chinese representative did not deny that China would consider more provocative actions in the future, like using the artificial islands it has built for military purposes or establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) just like it did over the East China Sea in 2013 (See: “Confronting China’s ‘New’ Military Challenge in the South China Sea”).

“The representative from China did not deny the possibility of declaring an ADIZ in the South China Sea. The representative also did not deny the possibility [that] the man-made islands… could be used for military purposes as well,” he said.

These signals, Kawano said, were worrying for Japan, considering the importance of these sea lanes to its economy and security.

In response, Richard Armitage, a pivotal figure in U.S.-Japan relations who last served deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, said that if China does declare an ADIZ in the South China Sea, the United States should respond the way it did following Beijing’s declaration of an East China Sea ADIZ. In that case, Washington flew two warplanes over the East China Sea without informing Beijing in advance, effectively defying its zone just days after China had declared it. Pentagon officials said that the flights were meant to send a clear message to China that the United States would not permit China to restrict freedom of overflight or navigation.

“China has no ability to do much more than to declare a zone. We should make sure it does not stand,” Armitage said as he engaged in a conversation with Kawano.

Kawano is on a visit to Washington, D.C. from July 15 to 18 based on an invitation by General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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Posted for fair use.....
https://news.vice.com/article/the-uk-isnt-bombing-the-islamic-state-in-syria-but-british-pilots-are

Defense & Security

The UK Isn't Bombing the Islamic State in Syria ¡ª but British Pilots Are

By VICE News
July 17, 2015 | 2:55 am

Britain's Ministry of Defense today admitted that its pilots have conducted air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militant targets in Syria while embedded with other military forces ¡ª even though the UK's parliament has only approved operations in neighboring Iraq.

Defense officials confirmed on Friday that pilots acting under the command of other forces, such as the United States and Canada, have conducted strikes following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the human rights group Reprieve.

In 2013, the House of Commons voted against any military action in Syria by 285 votes to 272.

"The UK itself is not conducting air strikes in Syria," the ministry said in a statement on Friday. "But we do have a long-standing embed program with allies, where small numbers of UK personnel act under the command of host nations."

The ministry claimed that there are currently no British pilots operating in the region, but added that "when embedded, UK personnel are effectively operating as foreign troops."

Related: Iraq Just Closed Their Border With Jordan To Battle the Islamic State¤w

In a statement sent to VICE News, Reprieve ¡ª the organization who revealed the strikes ¡ª said that British personnel's participation in the strikes had happened "despite the government's claim that there would be a vote in parliament before any such action took place."

Reprieve's FOI found that UK personnel embedded with US and other forces "operating in Syrian airspace," "include pilots flying¡*strike missions."

Jennifer Gibson, a staff attorney at Reprieve, said that the documents seen by the NGO indicate that this behavior had been going on for some time, "making the current debate over whether Britain should carry out such strikes somewhat obsolete. It is alarming that parliament and the public have been kept in the dark about this for so long.

"We need an open and honest debate about UK involvement in Iraq and Syria. We can't have that, though, until the UK comes clean about what actions its personnel are already undertaking," Gibson added.

Former chief of British air staff Michael Graydon told BBC Radio 4 that UK military members act for other forces in an "exchange program" that has existed for years.

"They're totally embedded in the operations of those squadrons," Graydon said. "They bring, I think, great credit to our nation in that process and equally they learn a great deal which they bring back to the country and they're with those squadrons for two, up to three years."

 

[vestige]

"China’s Assertiveness Could Worsen, Japan Military Chief Warns"


Understatement of the year.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/07/18/revisiting_the_power_of_american_deterrence.html

July 18, 2015

Revisiting the Power of American Deterrence

By Blake McMahon & Adam Lowther

President Obama announced on Tuesday that the international community and Iran had struck a 10-year deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Reaction in the United States has been mixed. Some view the deal as a positive step toward normalizing US-Iran relations—bringing the Middle East back from the brink of large-scale nuclear proliferation—while others see the Obama administration’s deal as a fool’s errand. In the end, time will tell who is right.

One thing that is already clear about the future, however, is that deterrence will remain a pivotal goal of U.S. strategy toward Iran and other potential foes. Because the costs of armed conflict against these adversaries are high, policymakers will look for ways to protect American interests without engaging in open warfare. In this context, it is useful to step back and take a larger look at deterrence and how it works.

The essence of the concept of deterrence can be found in the word itself; the root of “deterrence” is the Latin deterre, which means to frighten away. The Department of Defense defines deterrence in similar, yet more specific, terms as “The prevention from action by fear of the consequences. Deterrence is a state of mind brought about by the existence of a credible threat of unacceptable counteraction.” Simply put, deterrence occurs when one can make an adversary believe that the consequences of behaving undesirably will outweigh the benefits.

Deterrence has most frequently been explored through the lens of the Cold War, when the promise of massive nuclear retaliation kept the world from plunging into global thermonuclear warfare. Yet the concept of deterrence encompasses a much broader range of human behaviors, and existed long before the advent of nuclear weapons or the countries that wield them.

In fact, the logic underlying deterrence has been around for centuries. During the Peloponnesian Wars in ancient Greece, for example, Sparta threatened to launch an invasion of Attica if Athens carried out an attack against Potidaea. The long peace between Rome and its rival Persia in the fifth century AD was not due to a lack of potential for conflict, but rather because certain strategic and economic conditions made successful deterrence possible.

Efforts to deter undesirable actions by others take place at all levels of government, in business, education, and our interactions with others. One can find examples in virtually every aspect of human interactions. For instance, drivers often see signs that read “Fines Doubled” near construction zones. If it were the desire of the highway patrol to collect the most fines possible, they would not warn drivers of the situation. By visibly raising the consequences of speeding in a dangerous area the authorities are deterring drivers from behaving in undesirable ways.

Yet as history has shown, deterrence often fails; adversaries attack and drivers run red lights. So what separates deterrence successes from these failures? The key is to establish the credibility of deterrent threats. That is to say, one must be able to instill a sincere belief in adversaries that the promise of counteraction will be carried out if they fail to comply with the threat.

Making a deterrent threat seem credible, however, is often easier said than done. Adversaries may doubt the willingness of an actor to carry out a threat, especially when doing so is costly or risky. Adversaries may also question the ability of an actor to create consequences that are sufficiently harsh. In general, threats to defend one’s own borders—“direct deterrence”—are deemed to be more inherently credible than promises to defend allies in “extended deterrence.” It is easier to promise to sacrifice blood and treasure in defense of yourself than in defense of others.

Concerns about credibility are manifest in the actions that governments take to establish it. In large part, these strategies are consistent with advice provided by the Roman strategist Vegetius, who wrote, “Si vis pacem, para belum”; if you desire peace, prepare for war.

His premise was simple. A powerful military would have a greater chance of deterring an adversary from taking an undesirable action than a weaker military, because a stronger military could more easily punish a potential aggressor. Vegetius’ point is no less valid today than it was almost 2,000 years ago. The United States, for example, develops powerful weapons like tanks, aircraft carriers, and fighter aircraft not in the hope that it will have an opportunity to use them, but rather in the hope that their visible existence will deter adversaries from threatening our interests.

Countries can also increase the credibility of threats by placing their forces at an enhanced state of readiness or deploying them to forward locations. This type of strategy was clearly used during the Cold War, when the United States maintained a large military force in Western Europe to deter a Soviet invasion.

Such actions establish credibility in two primary ways. First, making military forces ready for war increases the likelihood of victory if deterrence fails, and therefore makes it more likely that deterrence can succeed. Adversaries are less likely to pick fights they will lose. Unfortunately, tight budgets and two long wars have hurt America’s military to the point where General Ray Odierno, the Army Chief of Staff, warned in April that the U.S. Army was only at 33 percent readiness. In order to deter Iran and other adversaries through military means, the United States must maintain the ability to fight and win if necessary.

Second, military mobilizations are costly. Because only resolved governments would be willing to pay such costs, deploying or readying military forces helps to signal a country’s commitment to defend itself or its allies. In this light, the potential “Carrier Gap” in the Persian Gulf is concerning to the extent that the lack of a permanent carrier presence may lead policymakers in Tehran to doubt the United States’ willingness and ability to counter their moves in the region.

Conclusion

Today, the United States finds itself in untested waters not only in its relationship with Iran, but also with a resurgent Russia and an increasingly assertive China. Despite these strategic concerns, Washington is faced with serious budgetary constraints that will force policymakers to choose among competing priorities for spending at home and abroad. It is worth noting that deterrence is by no means cheap. However, it is certainly less expensive than war, which creates a dilemma for politicians faced with ever expending demands for social welfare spending.

While considering these imperatives, it is important to remember that when the capabilities and readiness that underpin deterrence are cut, the risks and costs associated with deterrence failure are more likely to be realized. The study of deterrence reveals that preparing to fight against adversaries will help to ensure that conflicts—and their truly unfortunate consequences—never actually occur.

Thus, as Congress debates how to respond to the deal struck with Iran, it is important to remember that American deterrence—in all of its many forms—remains an important part of the equation.


Dr. Adam Lowther was a petty officer in the U.S. Navy and serves as a research professor at the Air Force Research Institute. Dr. Blake McMahon is a Research Professor at the U.S. Air Force Research Institute, and his research agenda focuses on the role of strategic uncertainty in the security realm, most notably in the context of civil-military relations

 

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Shiite rebel shelling in Yemen near Aden kills at least 45

Jul 19, 5:57 PM (ET)
By AHMED AL-HAJ

(AP) Fighters against Shiite rebels known as Houthis gather in front of the airport in...
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SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen randomly shelled a town Sunday outside of Aden after losing control of some the port city's neighborhoods, killing at least 45 people and wounding 120, officials said.

The violence highlighted the bloody chaos of the civil war gripping the Arab world's poorest country, which also has been the target of Saudi-led, U.S.-backed airstrikes since late March.

A leader with the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, denied shelling Dar Saad, a town just north of Aden and long home to fighters resisting their advances. But Yemeni medical officials and a doctor with an international aid organization said the shelling clearly came from the north and east of Dar Saad — areas under rebel control.

Aden, the scene of some of the war's fiercest ground battles, saw Saudi-backed troops and fighters seize from the Houthis some of its neighborhoods and its international airport last week. Sunday's shelling in Dar Saad appeared to be a way to both punish those resisting the Houthis, as well as halt the advance of their opponents.

(AP) Fighters against Shiite rebels known as Houthis gather at the frontline of fighting...
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Yemeni medical and military officials said hundreds of residents fled Dar Saad amid the shelling as ambulance rushed through the streets, sirens wailing. They said the shelling killed at least 45 people and wounded 120, all believed to be civilians.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to brief journalists.

Abdu Mohammed Madrabi, 65, said he was in line outside the post office to collect his pension when the shells hit, causing chaos. Madrabi, who was wounded in the neck, back and leg, said many private cars carried the wounded to hospitals because there weren't enough ambulances.

The shelling was intense in the neighborhood of Sharqiya, hundreds of meters from the post office.

"It's been one shell after the other since the morning," said Arwa Mohammed, a resident of Sharqiya locked up in one room with her seven-member family for safety. "We are feeling the house is going to collapse over our head."

(AP) Fighters against Shiite rebels known as Houthis gather at a street in the port city...
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Anis Othman, a neighbor of Mohammed, also described a scene of pandemonium.

"Balls of fire are falling over our heads amid the screams of children and women," he said. "Why all that shelling? There are no weapons or fighters here. They (the rebels) want to terrorize us and drive us out. This is only rancor and hate."

Zeifullah al-Shami, a Houthi leader, denied targeting civilians in the shelling, saying his forces were engaging the rivals on the front lines.

"This is part of the media deception," he said. "We didn't kill civilians."

However, the rebels had vowed to retaliate after losing ground in Aden. The rebels now are largely based in Aden's western neighborhood of Tawahi, as well as bases east of Aden and in Lahj province, north of the city. Saudi-backed fighters also are advancing on a military air base in Lahj province.

Sunday night, anti-Houthi forces linked up in Tawahi from the north and south at the state television building, a Yemeni military official said. He claimed anti-Houthi forces fully controlled the area and said they were searching residences for rebels, some of whom had fled to nearby mountains.

Witnesses and anti-Houthi forces said bodies littered the streets. Locals said loudspeakers were blaring in the streets urging the Houthis to surrender.

In the city of Taiz, Yemen's third largest, fighting raged on the ground, residents said, with a gas facility burning after it was hit. In the capital, Sanaa, satellite channel Ghazal said Houthi militias had stormed its building.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to journalists, and the residents declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

The fighting in Yemen pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is now based in Saudi Arabia.

The rebels seized Sanaa in September. Fierce fighting in Aden broke in March, sparking the Saudi-led airstrikes. More than 3,000 people have been killed since, including more than 1,400 civilians, according to United Nations agencies.

The conflict has left 20 million Yemenis without access to safe drinking water and uprooted more than 1 million people from their homes, the U.N. has said.

Hassan Boucenine, the head of Doctors Without Borders in Yemen, called the situation in Dar Saad "very, very difficult." He said his medical facilities had received 50 wounded people and 25 corpses.

"There will be more," he said.

---

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

 

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World | Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:18pm EDT
Related: World, Libya

Libyan planes sink ship, attack another near Benghazi: spokesmen

BENGHAZI, Libya | By Ayman al-Warfalli

Libyan war planes on Sunday sank one ship and attacked a second vessel near the eastern city of Benghazi, military spokesmen for the country's internationally recognized government said on Monday.

There was no eyewitness report or independent confirmation for the strike near the town of Mareesa that was also reported by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television network.

"The vessel was sunk because it had loaded fighters, weapons and ammunition to support terrorism in the eastern region," air force spokesman Nasser al-Hassi said early on Monday.

Mohamed El Hejazi, a spokesman for Khalifa Haftar, top army commander of the official government based in eastern Libya, said the strike had also targeted a second vessel which had been carrying weapons in the same area.

A Reuters reporter had on Sunday war heard planes circling above Benghazi, which is about 20 km (12 miles) from Mareesa.

Tripoli-based state oil firm NOC has accused the eastern government of having three times bombed oil tankers that the eastern forces had said carried weapons and ammunition.

Libya is in chaos, with two governments and parliaments with their own armed forces fighting for control four years after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.

The official government is based in the east since losing the capital a year ago to a rival group, which set up its own administration. Both have attacked each other with aircraft.

In May, planes from Libya's recognized government attacked an oil tanker docked outside the central city of Sirte, wounding three people and setting the ship on fire.

In January, Greece complained about the bombing of a Greek-operated tanker anchored off the Libyan coast that killed two crewman. Greece said it said was carrying heavy fuel, while Libya's official government said it was carrying weapons.

Both governments control limited territory in the oil producer. Islamic State militants have exploited a security vacuum to expand in Libya, beheading and kidnapping foreigners while also attacking foreign missions in Tripoli and fighting with forces of both governments.


(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli, Mostafa Hashem and Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Eric Walsh and Andrea Ricci)

 

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Politics | Sun Jul 19, 2015 4:09pm EDT
Related: World, Politics, Israel

U.S. aims to shift Israel focus to security ties after Iran deal

TEL AVIV | By Phil Stewart


U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said it plainly just before landing in Israel, where officials are fuming over the Iran nuclear deal: "I'm not going to change anybody's mind in Israel. That's not the purpose of my trip."

Carter, making the first visit by a U.S. cabinet official to

Israel since last week's landmark agreement to curb Iran's

nuclear program, aims instead to move away from political

tensions over the accord to more cool-headed, nuts-and-bolts

discussions on deepening security ties.

Increased U.S. military-related support is expected to be on the table. But Israeli and U.S. officials have played down the prospects of any looming announcements.

"Friends can disagree but we have decades of rock-solid

cooperation with Israel," Carter told reporters traveling with

him.

Carter's mission will not be an easy one.

The United States and Israel fundamentally differ on whether

the Iran nuclear deal makes both countries safer. President Barack Obama says it does; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it does not.

Israel fears that Tehran's economic gains from a lifting of

Western sanctions could boost Iranian-backed guerrillas in

Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. It could also lead to

an arms race with Arab states unfriendly to Israel.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest

authority in Iran, did little to alleviate those concerns in a

fiery speech marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan on

Saturday.

Khamenei said the nuclear deal would not change Iran's

policy in supporting allies in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen,

Lebanon and among the Palestinians.

Obama has stressed that taking the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon off the table increases the security of Israel, the United States and its allies. U.S. officials have also signaled they are not changing a longstanding U.S. defense strategy that is underpinned by the threat of a hostile Iran.

"Neither the deal nor everything else we're doing to advance

our military strategy in the region assumes anything about

Iranian behavior," Carter said.

"There’s nothing in those 100 pages that places any

limitations on the United States or what it does to defend ...

its friends and allies including Israel."

Carter also cited the U.S. commitment to allies to guard

against potential Iranian aggression.



'DON'T ANTICIPATE A SHIFT'

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of

anonymity, said Iran was likely to keep trying to take advantage

of fragile states in the Middle East, saying: "I don't anticipate a shift in their activities."

Israel has a strong army, is believed to have the region's

only nuclear arsenal, and receives about $3 billion a year in

military-related support from the United States. That amount is expected to increase following the Iran deal, and Carter cited a range of security issues to discuss.

"We don’t have any big package or announcement or thing to

bring to the Israelis that we’re bargaining over," the senior

U.S. defense official said.

After Israel, Carter will head this week to Jordan and Saudi

Arabia. Iran is the predominant Shi'ite Muslim power, hostile

not only to Israel but to Washington's Sunni Muslim-ruled

Arab friends, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Allies of Riyadh and Tehran have fought decades of sectarian

proxy wars in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former head of

the kingdom's intelligence services, wrote last week that the

nuclear deal would allow Iran to "wreak havoc in the region."

But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir signaled

a willingness during a visit last week in Washington to discuss

ways to strengthen security ties.

Carter said he aimed to work on advancing commitments made

to Gulf leaders in May when Obama hosted them at Camp David.


(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney and Howard Goller)

 

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Middle East

U.N. Vote on Iran Nuclear Deal Irks Congress

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER
JULY 19, 2015

WASHINGTON — During the closed-door talks in Vienna on limiting Iran’s nuclear program, Secretary of State John Kerry argued that the United Nations Security Council should not vote on lifting sanctions on Iran until Congress had a chance to review the deal.

But he ran into a wall of opposition from Iran, Russia and even the United States’ closest European allies, who argued successfully that Security Council action should come first, according to Western officials.

On Sunday, as the Obama administration submitted the Iran nuclear agreement to Congress for what promises to be a raucous 60-day debate, Mr. Kerry and President Obama began grappling with the fallout of that decision, which has complicated their efforts to secure much needed support within their own party.

At least two senior Democrats have joined the Republican leadership in complaining that the Security Council action, expected Monday morning, would pre-empt the congressional debate. Their concern is that it would signal the international community’s intention to dismantle the sanctions — if Iran meets the nuclear terms of the accord — before American lawmakers have had time to vote on it.

Asked if she thought Democratic lawmakers would support the deal, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “the jury is out.”

Mr. Kerry expressed little sympathy on Sunday for congressional demands that the Security Council delay its vote, insisting that lawmakers will still have ample opportunity to carry out their review.

A provision inserted into the agreement at the behest of American negotiators, he said, stipulates that the deal will not take effect until 90 days after the Security Council formally endorses the accord — giving Congress time for action.

Mr. Kerry, a former senator from Massachusetts, scolded some of his erstwhile colleagues. “It’s presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“They have a right to have a vote” at the United Nations, Mr. Kerry added, referring to his negotiating partners, who include the four other permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany. “But we prevailed on them to delay the implementation of that vote out of respect for our Congress, so we wouldn’t be jamming them.”

The congressional review, which formally begins on Monday, will focus on an array of contentious issues, including the duration of the agreement, the strength of inspection provisions and the procedures for reimposing sanctions if the Iranians violate the agreement. Critics have also complained that the lifting of sanctions and the eventual end of an arms embargo will empower Iran to act against American interests around the world.

In response, the White House has stepped up its campaign to argue that a congressional rebuff would bring about the very outcome lawmakers want to avoid: the collapse of sanctions and an Iran on the threshold of having a nuclear weapon.

“If Congress says ‘no’ to this deal, then there will be no restraints on Iran,” Mr. Kerry told “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “There will be no sanctions left. Our friends in this effort will desert us.”

So far that argument has failed to impress Republicans, who have long pressed for tough sanctions and have viewed the idea of the Security Council voting first as an affront to the United States’ role as the ultimate check on Iran.

But some Democrats have also voiced concern that the administration may be trying to box them in by agreeing to swiftly proceed with a Council vote that will reduce the international pressure on Tehran.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat, sent a joint letter to Mr. Obama last week urging him to postpone the Council vote until after Congress has voted on the accord.

Some legal experts, including those who have worked for Republican administrations, say congressional fears that Security Council action would tie the hands of the United States are misplaced.

The adoption of a new Security Council resolution that lays out the terms for lifting United Nations sanctions, and which is already circulating in draft form, would not legally require the United States to lifts its sanctions on Iran, said John B. Bellinger III, who served as the legal adviser for the State Department and the National Security Council during the administration of George W. Bush.

“The draft resolution appears to have been carefully crafted by administration lawyers to avoid imposing binding legal obligations on the United States before Congress considers the JCPOA,” he wrote on the Lawfare blog, using the abbreviation for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran agreement is formally known.

The Obama administration had hoped to sidestep this highly charged political debate by persuading its negotiating partners in Vienna to let Congress vote first. But the Iranians wanted to ensure a Security Council vote as soon as possible to get the international community behind a road map for sanctions relief.

The Russians also wanted speedy action at the United Nations, if only to underscore the authority of the Council and their own influence. For some of the Europeans, Council action was seen as a way to reinforce the multilateral character of the negotiations.

When the congressional review period doubled to 60 days after a July 9 deadline was missed, Mr. Kerry’s hopes of persuading the United States’ negotiating partners to delay going to the United Nations dimmed further.

The compromise American diplomats engineered — stipulating that the “adoption date” of the agreement would come 90 days after the Security Council endorsement — was intended as a way to provide time for Congress to complete its review while accepting the allies’ argument that the adoption of the Council resolution should be a significant step and not an afterthought.

Even after an endorsement, United Nations sanctions would not be lifted until the Iranians take the required steps under the deal.

As strenuously as administration officials have pressed their case, many in Congress do not yet appear to be persuaded. On Friday, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, a senior Democrat in the House, joined House Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, in urging that the United Nations vote be delayed.

“I believe that waiting to go to the United Nations until such time as Congress has acted would be consistent with the intent and substance of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act,” said Mr. Hoyer, the House minority whip, referring to the legislation Mr. Obama reluctantly signed in May that will give Congress 60 days this summer to debate the Iran agreement.

Related Coverage

Ayatollah Khamenei, Backing Iran Negotiators, Endorses Nuclear Deal
JULY 18, 2015

Iranian Hard-Liners Say Nuclear Accord Crosses Their Red Lines
JULY 16, 2015

Obama Begins 60-Day Campaign to Win Over Iran Deal Skeptics at Home and Abroad
JULY 15, 2015

Republican Lawmakers Vow Fight to Derail Nuclear Deal
JULY 14, 2015

 

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UN Security Council Expected to Approve Iran Nuclear Deal

Victoria Macchi, Smita Nordwall, Chris Hannas
July 20, 2015 12:35 AM

WASHINGTON — The U.N. Security Council is expected to give its approval Monday to the agreement Iran and a group of six world powers struck last week to limit the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The 15-member Council is voting Monday morning, and since the five permanent, veto-holding Council members are signatories to the agreement, the resolution is almost certain to be adopted.

Once passed, the deal would go into effect after no later than 90 days. The next key milestone would come after the U.N. nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - issues a report, expected in December, on the resolution of past and present issues with Iran's nuclear program. That is when Iran would see relief from the sanctions that have hurt its economy.

The U.N. vote comes as U.S. lawmakers begin their own review of the agreement.

President Barack Obama's administration sent it to Congress on Sunday, setting off a 60-day review period. Lawmakers can choose to approve the deal or reject it and refuse to lift congressionally-imposed sanctions against Iran. Obama has said he would veto any rejection.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted President Obama will have a “real challenge” getting the pact through a skeptical, Republican-led Congress, and criticized it as “the best deal acceptable to Iran, rather than one that might actually end Iran’s nuclear program."

Selling the deal

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is on a tour of the Middle East as part of efforts to ease fears about the nuclear deal. Carter began the trip in Israel Sunday and will travel to Saudi Arabia, Iran's main regional rival, as well as Jordan.

On Tuesday, Carter will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has called the deal a "historic mistake" that would only make it easier for Iran to back its proxies in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has officially said it supports the deal, although it is also thought to have similar concerns to Israel's that the agreement will enhance the Shi'ite power’s influence across the Middle East.

“One of the reasons this deal is a good one is that it does nothing to prevent the military option... which we are preserving and continually improving,” Carter told reporters en route to Tel Aviv. “But the point of the nuclear deal is to get the result of no Iranian nuclear weapon without carrying out a military strike.”

He said he does not expect to change Israeli officials’ minds about the deal, but said the two countries could “agree to disagree.”

Kerry's defense

In a series of high-profile television appearances Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the American public for the first time since signing off on the Iran nuclear deal last week.

Kerry said the agreement, which culminated from months of talks between the top diplomats of Iran and the group that includes the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany, likely won't restart diplomatic relations with Tehran.

A visit by the secretary to Iran is "not being contemplated," Kerry told ABC News’ program This Week.

"We don't have relations at this point," he added.

The accord followed several rounds of intense negotiations to limit Tehran's atomic program to civilian use.

Iranian reaction

On Saturday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei commented the deal does not signal cooperation with the U.S. and its allies on other issues, triggering a stern response from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"If anyone thought that the sweeping concessions for Iran would bring about a change in its policy, they have received a decisive answer over the weekend..." Netanyahu said Sunday during a weekly Cabinet meeting. "The Iranians don't even make an effort to hide the fact that they will use the hundreds of billions of dollars they will receive in this deal to arm their terror machine."

In an interview that aired Sunday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he isn't idealistic about what the deal means for diplomatic relations with Iran.

"We shouldn't be naive or starry-eyed in any way about the regime that we are dealing with. I am certainly not," he told NBC's Meet the Press. "I spoke to [Iranian] President Rouhani yesterday and said we want to see a change in approach that Iran takes to issues like Syria and Yemen and to terrorism in the region and we want the change in behavior that should follow from that change. So we are not starry-eyed at all and I would reassure our Gulf allies about that, but actually taking the nuclear weapon issue of the table -- that is a success.”

 

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Sectors | Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:30am IST

RPT-Nuclear deal could herald major change within and beyond Iran

(Repeats story unchanged)

* U.S.-Iran engagement could shift regional power balance

* Rouhani and moderates get big boost from nuclear deal

* Two elections due next year, economy is key issue

By Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT, July 19 (Reuters) - An unlikely group in the Middle East has found common ground in recent days: Saudi Arabia, Israel and hardliners within Iran have all made clear they consider the landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers a very bad idea.

All of these players feel a direct threat to their power and influence as a result of last Tuesday's agreement.

For the first time in more than three decades, Iran, a country with a highly educated population of some 80 million and huge oil and gas reserves, is poised to rejoin the international community and the result could be profound change both inside and outside the country.

"The geopolitical structure of the Middle East is changing," said Saeed Leylaz, a prominent economist based in Tehran who worked as an advisor to former president Mohammad Khatami. "And Iran's geopolitical importance is increasing."

Many observers say the Islamic Republic is likely to use the influx of cash from the lifting of sanctions to stabilise its damaged economy, but Saudi Arabia and Israel are concerned it will further destabilise the region by shoring up proxy military forces with extra weapons and funds.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, did little to alleviate these concerns in a fiery speech marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan on Saturday.

He said the nuclear deal would not change Iran's policy in supporting allies in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon and among the Palestinians.

"The policies of America in the region are 180 degrees apart from the policies of the Islamic Republic," Khamenei said.

Iran's extensive involvement in conflicts across the region has left America's long-standing allies questioning why a deal was struck at all.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal a "historic mistake" while Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who served as the ambassador to the U.S. for more than two decades, wrote that it would "wreak havoc in the Middle East".


SHAKING HANDS WITH 'SATAN'

While the U.S. is unlikely to abandon its traditional allies, engaging Iran for the first time in years could shift the balance of power in the region, observers say.

And despite Khamenei's anti-U.S. rhetoric, Iranian officials will need to work with their American counterparts as the deal is implemented.

"The entire history of this region in the past four decades has been based on the assumption that Iran is outside the region. That there is a tight alliance between Arabs and the United States for managing the Middle East that doesn't include Iran," said Vali Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former advisor to the U.S. State department.

"The nuclear deal does change that. Whether the Arabs should be worried about it is an open question but they're definitely shocked by it and are reacting to it."

But it is perhaps inside Iran where the impact of the deal will be felt most.

The taboo of talking to the "Great Satan", the term Iranian officials have used to refer to the United States for years, has been broken. That presents a threat to hardliners who see Iran's anti-American stance as a pillar of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"The symbolic impact of making a deal is much bigger in Iran than in the United States," said Nasr. "The idea of shaking hands with the so-called Great Satan, arriving at an agreement with them, the symbolism of the foreign minister huddling with the American secretary of state - these really change the entire political narrative in Iran."

Reaction to the deal highlighted the splits between moderates and hardliners in Iran. Conservative politicians and news outlets expressed scepticism about both it and the intentions of the world powers, while moderate politicians and news outlets portrayed it as a big opportunity for the country.

Khamenei's response has been ambiguous: he thanked the negotiating team but has not given the deal a ringing endorsement. Supporting the negotiators was a political risk and by avoiding overt approval of the final deal, he can avert criticism if it falls apart, observers say.

"He is giving himself a lot of plausible deniability," said Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University. "He's hinting to the more radical elements not to attack the deal too aggressively but he's also not telling them not to attack it. He's keeping his options open."


PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS

There is a lot at stake: President Hassan Rouhani and his moderate allies have received a huge boost from the deal.

In street celebrations after the announcement, many Iranians praised Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif with slogans and placards. The question now is whether moderates can use that political capital to deliver on Rouhani's campaign promises to improve human rights in the country and reform the economy, observers say.

There are two key elections coming up next year: one is for the majles, or parliament, where dozens of moderate candidates have been prevented from running by the Guardian Council, a governmental vetting body, since 2008. If the Council tries that in next year's vote, it could provoke strong reactions from Rouhani or the millions who voted for him, observers say.

Potentially even more significant is an election for the Assembly of Experts, a body that selects the Supreme Leader. This Assembly, which will serve for eight years, may select the next one, possibly altering Iran's course for years to come.

"The moderates have now delivered a massive victory that had not been possible before," said Nasr. "The question is - can they translate this into victory in upcoming polls in Iran?"

For ordinary Iranians, the most important issue is whether the lifting of sanctions, which have battered the economy, will improve their daily lives. The sanctions are only part of the problem, observers say. The Iranian economy is also hamstrung by aging infrastructure, poor management and widespread corruption.

"Removing the sanctions is going to take a big obstacle out of the way for the Iranian economy but it doesn't mean that it's going to be a motor to push the economy on its own," said Leylaz, the economist. He added: "We are not going to have a noticeable quick change in the Iranian economy."

That could be problematic for moderates and hardliners in the country alike as the deal has raised expectations greatly among Iranians that their lives will improve.

"The key is if they don't see the dividends of this deal or engagement with the global community then exuberance and expectation can very quickly turn into frustration and anger," said Nasr. "And that's the challenge." (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

 

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World | Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:36am EDT
Related: World

Eleven killed in ambush in northern Mexico - media reports

MEXICO CITY


Eleven men were killed and five others wounded in an ambush in a rural part of northern Mexico on Saturday evening, local media reported on Sunday.

The group had been traveling on a dirt road in the San Dimas municipality in the hills in Durango state when they were ambushed by unidentified people who later fled, media quoted the state attorney general's office as saying.

The municipality is near the border with Sinaloa state, the home of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who broke out of a high-security prison earlier this month for the second time.

The 11 dead, who were all men, had bullet wounds to various parts of their bodies, according to the reports.

Representatives for the state attorney general's office and state public security ministry could not be reached for comment.


(Reporting by Christine Murray; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....The more often the Party makes these statements to the PLA, particularly with the "purge" going on, the more I wonder when one of these days I'm going to turn on the radio or computer and find out there's been a coup d'état in Beijing........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/us-china-defence-corruption-idUSKCN0PU04B20150720

World | Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:38pm EDT
Related: World

China's Xi tells army to learn from uncorrupt past

BEIJING

China's military must learn from the glorious, uncorrupt example of its revolutionary forebears and thoroughly banish the deep-rooted, pernicious influence of the army's worst corruption scandal in decades, President Xi Jinping has told officers.

Xi, who heads the military, has made weeding out corruption in the armed forces a top goal. Several senior officers have been felled, including one of China's most senior former military officers, Xu Caihou. Xu died of cancer in March.

Meeting soldiers in the northeastern city of Changchun, Xi said there can be no ambiguity when it comes to fighting graft.

"The damage caused by Xu Caihou's discipline and law-breaching activities is all-encompassing and deep-rooted," Xi said, according to a Defence Ministry statement late on Sunday.

Xu, who had been a vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission which Xi leads, died before he could be brought to trial.

The government said in October Xu had confessed to taking "massive" bribes in exchange for help in promotions.

"Thoroughly clear away the influence of the Xu Caihou case in thinking, politics, organization and work style. Return to, hold on to, and carry on the glorious traditions and excellent working style of the old Red Army," Xi said, using an informal term for Communist forces who won the Chinese civil war in 1949.

His remarks were carried in all major state-run newspapers on Monday. The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, said it was the first time Xi had mentioned Xu in public since the Xu's death.

Retired and serving officers have warned that the graft problem in the army is so serious it could affect the military's ability to wage war.

China intensified its crackdown on corruption in the military in the late 1990s, banning the People's Liberation Army from engaging in business. But the military has been involved in commercial dealings in recent years due to a lack of checks and balances, military analysts have said.


(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/inter...ense-chief-in-israel-we-can-agree-to-disagree

i24news
Published, July 20th 2015, 07:30am

US defense chief in Israel; German vice chancellor in Iran

Carter tells Israel: 'We can agree to disagree'; Gabriel tells Iran: 'you cannot question Israel's existence'

Even as Germany's vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Sunday became the first senior Western figure to visit Iran since the agreement was signed curbing its nuclear plans, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in Israel saying the deal does not mean military action is off the table if the Iranians violate its terms.

"One of the reasons why this deal is a good one is that it does nothing to prevent the military option," Carter told reporters on board his flight to Israel, the first stop on a Middle East charm offensive to ease concerns among US allies over the landmark accord.

"We are preserving and continually improving" such a military option should Iran violate the terms of the agreement, Carter said as he kicked off a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Israel has been strongly critical of the agreement struck last week between its arch-foe Iran and six world powers that would see Tehran curb its nuclear program in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

The Pentagon chief will meet his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon on Monday before holding talks Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called the deal a "historic mistake" and has hinted at a possible military response.

Carter said that he's "not going to change anybody's mind in Israel. We can agree to disagree."

In his remarks, Carter repeatedly mentioned that the Iran deal places no limitations on the US defense strategy or its military presence in the Middle East, which includes warplanes, an aircraft carrier and tens of thousands of troops.

He added that there was "a whole host of things we are doing with Israel", including working "on their qualitative military edge, ballistic missile defense, counter-terrorism activities."

In an interview he gave Sunday on ABC, Netanyahu rejected the idea that Israel could be somehow compensated for the nuclear agreement with Iran.

"How can you compensate a country, my country, against a terrorist regime that is sworn to our destruction and is going to get a path to nuclear bombs and billions of dollars," he asked, adding that no one would be speaking about a need to compensate Israel if the deal were good.

Germany wants to mediate between Israel and Iran

In Tehran, meanwhile, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel urged Iran at the start of a three-day visit to improve relations with arch-enemy Israel and said Germany would like to act as a mediator.

"You can't have a good economic relationship with Germany in the long-term if we don't discuss such issues too and try to move them along," Gabriel told a gathering of German and Iranian business people in Tehran.

"Questioning this state's (Israel's) right to existence is something that we Germans cannot accept," he said, adding that now Berlin and Tehran can re-establish closer ties it was necessary to talk about human rights.

Conscious of that diplomatic difficulty, Gabriel kicked off his trip with a plea for Iran to improve its relationship with Israel if it wanted to establish closer economic ties with Germany and other western powers.

Gabriel, who will hold talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and several ministers, said he wanted to talk to human rights representatives in a country that the United Nations says is guilty of human rights violations against women, religious minorities, journalists and activists.

Germany wants to quickly rebuild trade ties with Iran

By traveling to Tehran with a delegation of industry group representatives and company officials, Gabriel sends a strong signal that Germany wants to quickly rebuild economic and political ties with Iran.

Under an agreement struck on Tuesday, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations will be lifted in exchange for Iran agreeing long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West thought was intended to make a nuclear bomb. Tehran has always denied seeking nuclear arms.

Gabriel praised the agreement as "a first big step" and said it was now possible for trade between the countries to increase.

German industry groups have said exports from Europe's largest economy to Iran could as much as quadruple in the next few years due to the nuclear deal and companies like Volkswagen and Siemens as well as thousands of smaller family-owned firms are eager to claw back their dominant role in shipments to Iran.

Germany was once Iran's leading supplier from outside the region but in 2007 it lost that position to China, which now sends 15 to 20 times as many goods there as Germany does.

(with Reuters)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/a-new-balance-of-power-in-the-middle-east/

A New Balance of Power in the Middle East

July 20, 2015
Alessandro Bruno

The photos of the protagonists in the agreement reached between the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and the representatives of the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain, the EU, plus Germany evoke those of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan after their historic meeting in Reykjavik in 1986 to reduce nuclear armaments. Both occasions confronted nuclear proliferation, and both produced much more than anyone could have imagined. Gorbachev launched glasnost and then perestroika to save communism and adapt to the realities of his time, only to witness the collapse of the Berlin Wall just four years later. The ayatollahs of Iran have pursued nuclear research to bring the great powers to the table in order to shed the weight of international sanctions while preserving their unique theocracy. Iran’s atomic weapons program, if it ever truly had one, has been shelved and the Islamic Republic will no longer be a pariah among nations. There are no guarantees as to how Iran will use its restored prestige on the international stage, but much like Obama, President Rouhani has also taken a big risk. The lifting of sanctions implies an opening to the world. The genie of hope for Iran’s many young people – 60% of the population is under 30 years old – has been let loose and it will be impossible to repress their aspiration for more freedoms, personal and political. Yet there are no guarantees that the ayatollahs and mullahs will be relinquishing power to a more secular group of leaders in the near future.

For now, the agreement is being promoted as imposing tough controls on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as well as the acquisition of other weapons and the technology to build the ballistic missiles needed to deploy them. But, Iran has now resumed the role of great regional power and an important international player, a role it lost in the wake of the 1979 Revolution. Indeed, the agreement with Iran, far away from the atomic ambitions, represents an opportunity to change the strategic balance in the whole Middle East. This means there are better chances now to stop the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, neutralize Islamic State, and perhaps even revive the peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, Prime Minister Netanyahu notwithstanding. What was Barack Obama’s challenge with the ayatollahs could eventually provide more security for all, starting with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the very same that have criticized the agreement the most. Washington understands very well that the agreement, from a strictly military point of view, in no way stops Tehran from interfering, or engaging, in the Middle East, helping Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, or financing groups in Yemen or Bahrain to advance their common cause as Shiites.

The restrictions on nuclear ambitions will last ten years while leaving open the possibility that the Islamic Republic could accumulate material and knowledge. But, in ten years a new generation of ayatollahs, with the unclear role of the influential Revolutionary Guards, may have different views. In fact, the real hope lies less in their decision to cancel their nuclear military program outright than in the reawakening of Iranian civil society, such that it might prevail in leading the charge toward change, choosing to steer Iran to play a responsible role in the international arena. If that happens, Iran and Saudi Arabia will talk, potentially quelling the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, stifling Islamic State and various other extremists, bringing stability to Iraq and Syria, and perhaps resolving the differences that have eroded American relations with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey.

The agreement is risky and complicated and it could yield historical results far more significant than the nuclear deal with Iran. This explains the fierce reactions in the US political arena, not only from congressional leaders like Speaker of the House Republican Boehner, but also from the presidential candidates for 2016. One such example is GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who described the deal rather sensationally as “a declaration of war and a death sentence for Israel.” Indeed, the US administration should invest the strategic capital deriving from the Iran deal in relaunching Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. President Obama has nothing to lose and much to gain; he can threaten to cut off aid, if necessary, considering the friction with Netanyahu, but Obama still has a year and a half in office and wants to continue to make history and he is not at all obliged to follow the dictates of the Lobby in Washington. The peace plan should be comprehensive and resume talks where they left off in the period preceding the round of civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa, euphemistically known as the Arab Spring, including the Golan, even if Syria is in a disastrous situation for now. This is important because it would affect Lebanon and help reduce Hezbollah’s fanaticism, such that it can begin to dismantle its military component.


A new balance of power in the Middle East

Certainly, in the short term, the Vienna Agreement upsets the balance of power in the Middle East, enhancing the strategic rivalry between the ayatollahs and the Shiite Sunni-Israeli front. Iranians will be happy with investments from Europe and emerging powers, including China, but Iran’s allies have made a more strategic calculus. Syrian President Bashar Assad was the first to rejoice, providing a “greater commitment to Tehran for good causes,” or more resources for his regime as well as its other regional allies like the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraq’s government, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the opposition in Bahrain. On the skeptical side, King Abdullah of Jordan who defines the geopolitical arc from Iran to Lebanon under the influence of the ayatollahs as the Shi’ite crescent, fears that the release of economic resources adds to Tehran’s legitimacy, leaving it as the regional giant that can now use every crisis situation to pursue its political and military objectives.

In Yemen, the reaction to Iran’s new perceived hegemony was prompt. Forces loyal to former president Mansour Hadi, supported by the Saudis, launched a massive bombing raid targeting Houthis in Aden, adding that they will do “everything” to control the city overlooking the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, which gives access to the Suez. In Bahrain, the agreement has been interpreted as a carte blanche for Iran to develop the atomic bomb – according to the foreign affairs minister Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifa – which will undoubtedly lead to a nuclear race. It’s not just a question of Saudi Arabia; other nations in the region will also want to have this capacity. Bahrain has a Sunni population that feels more exposed to the risks of a stronger Iran because of domestic opposition, branded as Shiite, which has challenged the monarchy in its own manifestation of the ‘Arab Spring’ since 2011.

Sunni fears and concerns, unfounded or not, have fueled the possibility of a strange convergence of interests between Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and Israel, as rumors abound of meetings between Netanyahu’s director general of the Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, with counterparts from Gulf countries. Meanwhile in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was more diplomatic, praising the Vienna Agreement as contributing to stability while also urging Iran to rethink its policies in Syria and Yemen. Erdogan has avoided taking clear sides between Tehran and Riyadh, but if Iran raises its ‘profile,’ Erdogan, should his party remain in power, might feel compelled to embrace the Saudis’ position in the regional balance.

The deal’s repercussions go beyond the Middle East. Russia and the United States have witnessed a significant thaw as a result of the Vienna agreement. President Obama said “The 5 + 1 has held up,” praising Russia’s effort and ability to maintain open negotiations and a willingness to reach a positive outcome notwithstanding the evident mutual respect and friendly demeanor of US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Putin and Obama have spoken several times on the phone and as the chats focused on Iran, the bitterness and misunderstanding over Ukraine was relegated to the background. “Russia has been helpful,” Obama said, speaking to the New York Times of the role of Moscow at the negotiating table. “I have to be honest, I was not sure given the differences on Ukraine,” said Obama adding that he was surprised by Putin: “We would not have reached this agreement were it not for the desire of Russia to stay with us and with other partners in the 5 + 1 insisting for a solid agreement.” Through the softening of relations with Russia, with Iran, Obama has shown that he has pursued the path of diplomacy and that this is the only possible path.

As for regional diplomacy, the Vienna Agreement has redrawn the map, dividing it into four camps: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel. Egypt is among the great states, but it is still crippled by an incipient civil war, fueled by the fierce repression of the Muslim Brotherhood and the increasingly aggressive onset of groups inspired by Islamic State, which are expanding in the Sinai and which General al-Sisi’s government is struggling to contain. Saudi Arabia is the head of the Sunni camp with the politically and financially stronger Iran at the opposite end. Turkey remains between them. A new regional balance will be the end goal and in the meantime a modus vivendi will have to be reached to ensure the most peaceful possible ‘crisis management.’ In Iraq, Iran might help to quell Saudi and Turkish fears by opening up to Kurdish and Sunni tribes, overcoming the unfortunate sectarian exclusivism of the former prime minister al-Maliki, whose sectarianism helped ISIS spread. His more moderate but still Shiite successor, Haider al-Abadi, has yet to overcome the divisions left by al-Maliki.

Syria will be the main stage, where it is clear that Islamic State’s terror, which has served as the Sunni bloc’s diamond tip in countering Shiite expansionism, cannot be contained and stopped without a broad agreement, especially with forces linked to the Assad regime. In turn, the more moderate rebel forces linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, as well as other Arab and the Western powers and the United States itself will have to come to an agreement. The current military campaign has proven entirely ineffective and only comprehensive diplomacy can achieve progress. Turkey, which is concerned about the potential for Kurdish independence and which has economic and financial ties to Iran, despite their different positions vis-à-vis Syria and Erdogan’s goal to bring about Assad’s fall, could be one of the main winners of the Iranian agreement. Indeed, it is free to invest and benefit from the construction of pipelines in various other infrastructure, of which Iran has considerable need.

Israel is the one that comes out worst. Netanyahu has resisted Obama’s negotiations, affronting him with his speech to the US Congress in March, cutting him off from any possibility to influence the content and progress of the negotiations. Now he has ‘rejoined’ the process by urging the US Congress to reject the agreement. This too could backfire. Such heavy intervention, even exploiting a Republican majority, risks building a coalition around Obama by Democrats who are sitting on the fence over the Vienna Agreement. Obama has already warned he would veto any Congressional decision opposing the agreement.

It follows that Iran has now become a primary partner for the United States. This does not mean there will be close cooperation; but on some fronts there may be collaboration, as in the battle against ISIS. But it is likely that the territory for cooperation will become wider.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/37517eb0-943f-41ed-b628-3b2a66972d31.aspx


Iran nuclear deal does not prevent military option: US

July 20, 2015

WASHINGTON: The Iran nuclear deal does not mean military action is off the table when it comes to stopping Tehran from obtaining an atomic bomb, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Sunday.

“One of the reasons why this deal is a good one is that it does nothing to prevent the military option,” Carter told reporters on board his flight to the Israel.

“We are preserving and continually improving” such a military option should Iran violate the terms of the agreement, Carter said as he kicked off a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to renew US security commitments in the region.

Israel has been strongly critical of the agreement struck this week between its arch-foe Iran and six world powers that would see Tehran curb its nuclear programme in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

The Pentagon chief will meet his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon on Monday before holding talks on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Carter's trip will also take him to Saudi Arabia, another country where the nuclear accord has been met with wariness, to reassure Gulf allies that the US intends to maintain a strong presence in the region.

Because of Iran's “potential for aggression and malign activities” as well as the fight against extremist groups such as Daesh, “we are always looking for ways to strengthen our posture there,” Carter said.

As for Saudi Arabia and the five other Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Carter said the US wanted to bolster cooperation in the areas of “counterterrorism, special operation forces, maritime security” as well as air and missile defences and cyber security.

Carter is expected to meet with King Salman while in Saudi Arabia and with the king's son and defence minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

In Jordan, Carter will visit a military base to meet colleagues of a Jordanian pilot who was burned alive by the Daesh.

Agence France-Presse

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/19/us-mideast-crisis-latakia-idUSKCN0PT0IH20150719

World | Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:11pm EDT
Related: World, Syria

Syria's army says battles rebels near president's homeland

BEIRUT

Syria's army said on Sunday it had stepped up air strikes and retaken villages in a new offensive on Islamist insurgents in areas close to President Bashar al Assad's ancestral homeland in the coastal province of Latakia.

Aerial bombardment had intensified over the past 48 hours in a bid to cut rebel supply lines in rugged territory close to Turkey's border, an army source was quoted as saying on state media.

Latakia province - home to Syria's biggest port and a stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect - has been a key battleground of the conflict, which is now in its fifth year.

Sunni Muslim jihadists, including al Qaeda's Syrian offshoot the Nusra Front, control many villages in the borderlands north of the government-held Mediterranean port city of Latakia and other areas dominated by Alawites, who follow an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

The army said five villages and hilltops, including Beit Khadour, Beit Zaifa, Tel alKhadar and Jabal al Rahmaliya, had been wrested back from the insurgents, bringing it closer to the border areas.

The army had stepped up its campaign in the province since insurgents took the strategically located town of Jisr al Shughour in April, strengthening their position in a mountain range that overlooks Alawite villages and close to Qardaha, hometown of the Assad family.

The rough terrain and heavy forests has allowed the Sunni jihadist rebels to resist heavy Syrian army shelling and withstand heavy aerial bombing, defense analysts say.

A Syrian army officer said the aim of the latest operation was to cut rebel supply lines from the Turkish border to the rebel held villages, including the town of Salma, that has been held by Nusra Front since 2012.

"These armed men are weaker than to try to dare get close to Latakia," a senior army officer was quoted as saying in a report from the area by Lebanese Hezbollah's television al-Manar's correspondent.

Last year, the Syrian army wrested back control of the Christian town border town of Kasab, a gateway to Turkey, nearer the coast in Latakia, after less than three months of control by Islamist fighters, including Nusra Front.

The Syrian war has taken on a starkly sectarian character, with the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels backed by Sunni Gulf Arab powers fighting to overthrow Assad who is backed by Shi'ite Iran.

(Story corrects location of state)


(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/mandate-of-heaven-an-adiz-in-the-south-china-sea/

Mandate of Heaven: An ADIZ in the South China Sea

Might China seek to amend customary international law in relation to air defense identification zones?

By Roncevert Almond
July 20, 2015

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Cabo Verde, an island nation off the coast of West Africa, holds a unique distinction. According to a report issued by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Cabo Verde is one of just 27 nations (including China) of the 167 states party to the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) that claim the ability to regulate or prohibit foreign military activity beyond the territorial sea and within an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The United States has long maintained otherwise: UNCLOS, which established EEZs and reflects existing customary international law, only codified sovereign rights that are related to regulating economic activities within EEZs and are subject to the high seas freedoms, particularly navigation and overflight. As I ambled across the cobble stone streets of Praia, it seemed peculiar that the legal claim of a tiny island nation in the Atlantic Ocean could make waves in the South China Sea (SCS), but such is the dynamic and complexity of this geopolitical flashpoint.

One test of a rising power is its ability to effectively bend international law to legitimize tactical maneuvers and strategic objectives. Customary international law accommodates such an approach given its evolutionary nature and “bandwagoning” propensity (as revealed through state practice and opinion juris). In response, status quo powers are more likely to rely on treaty regimes, which are characterized by rigidity, institutionalization, and contractual consent. In the case of the SCS disputes, China is wielding custom like a sword and shield, while the United States and its Pacific allies seek refuge in the fixed terms and procedures of treaties like UNCLOS.

This heated legal drama has entered the staid halls of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. On January 22, 2013, the Philippine’s initiated compulsory arbitration proceedings under UNCLOS “with respect to the dispute with China over the maritime jurisdiction of the Philippines” in the SCS. Since the arbitration’s commencement, China has refused to accept or participate in the arbitration on the basis that the Arbitral Tribunal lacks jurisdiction. On December 7, 2014 (notably prior to the filing deadline the Arbitral Tribunal set for a Counter-Memorial), Beijing published a “Position Paper” reiterating its refusal to participate and arguing that the subject-matter of the arbitration concerns competing sovereignty claims that lay beyond the interpretation or application of UNCLOS.

China’s posture has not stopped the Arbitral Tribunal from continuing the proceedings. The Arbitral Tribunal has interpreted Article 9 of Annex VII to UNCLOS and Article 20 of the Rules of Procedures (as adopted by the Arbitral Tribunal following a period of notice and comment) as enabling the tribunal to rule on objections to its jurisdiction and the admissibility of the Philippine’s claims, as set forth China’s Position Paper. To assist in evaluating the issues of jurisdiction and admissibility, the Arbitral Tribunal commenced a multi-day hearing on July 7, 2015 due to conclude this week.

In the meantime (and seemingly as a rejoinder to the arbitral calendar), China has been changing facts on the ground in the SCS. In particular, China has engaged in a series of controversial land-reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands (Nansha islands) and Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan island). Chinese reclamation has created over 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of artificial landmasses on Chinese-occupied reefs that are subject to multi-national disputes and located in major global thoroughfares, maritime and airspace. This activity continues despite the express terms of Article 60 of UNCLOS, which state that artificial islands, installations, and structures are not islands and do not generate any territorial sea or other maritime zones. China’s Position Paper offers a succinct (if conclusory) rebuttal based on custom: “Chinese activities in the South China Sea date back over 2,000 years ago.”

Air Defense Identification Zone

Beijing also recently threatened to create new realities in the air through the establishment of an aircraft defense identification zone (ADIZ). Depending on its contours, the zone could overlap with existing controlled areas of international airspace (for example, parts of the Manila FIR and Ho Chi Minh FIR), extend over disputed territories and maritime zones, and cover Chinese occupied formations in the SCS. U.S. officials believe that one objective of China’s reclamation activities, including construction of an aircraft landing strip, is an increased ability for more sustained air operations in the SCS (necessary for enforcing an ADIZ far from the Chinese coastline).

Considering that the first powered flight occurred on December 17, 1903, and international air navigation rights were first memorialized following World War I, establishing an ADIZ would have to be considered a more recent activity for China in the SCS (and not a relic of the Zhou dynasty). Indeed, the state practice of ADIZs only dates back to 1950 when the United States first established the buffer zones to defend against the threat of long-range Soviet bombers.

Contrary to some claims, ADIZs are not an extension of sovereign airspace under current customary international law. For instance, recognizing the limits of ADIZs, in 1988 the United States altered its ADIZs in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of southern California to account for the sovereign airspace of Mexico. ADIZs are certainly not a means to claim new or disputed territory. Moreover, the legal basis for ADIZs does not arise from UNCLOS maritime zones.

Instead, an ADIZ is an area of airspace, adjacent to, but beyond the national airspace and territory of the state, where aircraft are identified, monitored, and controlled in the interest of national security. ADIZs are legally grounded in the inherent right to self-defense under customary international law and Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Therefore, the geographic scope and enforcement of ADIZ must adhere to the principles of necessity and proportionality, as evolved since Daniel Webster’s articulation during the Caroline affair in 1851. An indeterminate security zone in international airspace or linked to an EEZ would not be necessary or proportionate, or consistent with other principles of international law such as the freedom of overflight. That is why U.S. law and policy limit administration of ADIZs to aircraft that intend to enter or depart from U.S. national airspace and territory.

Regardless of prior precedent, China may propose to amend customary international law in relation to ADIZ by creating a new “Mandate of Heaven” in the SCS. The declaration of an ADIZ could lead to the material enforcement of China’s assertion of “undisputed sovereignty” and “related rights and jurisdiction” in nearly all of the SCS. For example, the most extreme scenario would be if the ADIZ encompassed the entirety of Beijing’s “dashed-line” claim encircling the island waters of the SCS, an area equal to about 22 percent of China’s existing land territory and the vast majority of airspace in the SCS. Beijing may feel compelled to align the ADIZ with the dashed-line map in order to preserve, or at least not undermine, its claim.

Note that the breadth and logic of this potential action would extend beyond past Chinese attempts to invoke security rights in the airspace above the EEZ in the SCS (e.g., the EP-3 incident of April 1, 2001) or the establishment of an ADIZ above the East China Sea (where China at least mimicked identification and control rules associated with extraterritorial ADIZs). A state’s legal ability to administer and use force to secure its sovereign territory and accompanying airspace is much broader than the right to self-defense in international airspace or within an ADIZ.

If China proclaimed an ADIZ encompassing the dashed-line map and remained consistent with its claims of “undisputed sovereignty” in the SCS, then the airspace in the zone would have to be administered and defended like national airspace. Accordingly, any remaining strategic ambiguity provided by the dash-nine claim would dissipate, and so would the freedom of action among opposing parties. In other words, a Chinese ADIZ would significantly “complicate and escalate disputes” in the SCS and threaten “peace and stability,” to borrow from the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea.

The United States and affected ASEAN members would more than likely challenge Beijing’s proposal by practicing the freedoms of navigation and overflight. Would Beijing intercept and shoot down non-compliant Filipino civil flights or U.S. Navy aircraft crossing a Chinese ADIZ in the SCS? Would traversing foreign air carriers be forced to pay overflight fees for passing above Chinese “territory”? If China did not take enforcement action against foreign civil and military aircraft, would this be an acknowledgment that the ADIZ was not Chinese sovereign airspace?

To be sure, any use of an ADIZ to assert a sovereignty claim in the SCS would be a significant departure from existing customary international law. It would also be a dangerous gamble for a rising power. The bandwagoning effect may be that of a rush to Washington’s embrace. Customary international law like the traditional Mandate of Heaven is not a naked assertion of power, but rather an ongoing proffer based on the responsible exercise of authority – and subject to rejection.

Roncevert Almond is an international lawyer and partner at The Wicks Group. He has advised the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on legal issues concerning ADIZ and is author of a forthcoming article on ADIZ in the Harvard National Security Journal. The views expressed here are strictly his own.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://freebeacon.com/national-secu...-a-lot-like-clintons-failed-north-korea-deal/

Obama’s Iran Deal Sounds a Lot Like Clinton’s Failed North Korea Deal

BY: Blake Seitz
July 20, 2015 5:00 am

President Obama’s defense of his nuclear deal with Iran echoes President Bill Clinton’s defense of his disastrous nuclear deal with North Korea, the Free Beacon found.

In 1994, the Clinton administration tried to entice North Korea to forgo its nuclear program by giving it oil, nuclear energy technology, and sanctions relief. The deal collapsed after a decade when North Korea pocketed U.S. concessions and raced for the bomb. The hermit kingdom tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006 and has subsequently developed enough nuclear material for six bombs.

Today, the Obama administration is trying to entice Iran to forgo its nuclear program by giving it nuclear technology, $100 to $150 billion in previously-frozen assets, and sanctions relief on its weapons trade, ballistic missile program, and top military commanders. The restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program begin to subside after eight years, leaving the Islamic republic with near-zero breakout time to construct a bomb when the deal ends.

Both Clinton and Obama claimed that their deals reduced the risk of nuclear proliferation, although Clinton’s deal ultimately led to further proliferation concerns. Since acquiring its nuclear arsenal, North Korea has exported nuclear secrets to other rogue regimes, including Iran and Syria.

In a very direct way, then, Clinton’s rapprochement with North Korea has contributed to the crisis unfolding in Iran.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/us-iran-nuclear-un-idUSKCN0PU1BH20150720

World | Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:17am EDT
Related: World, United Nations

U.N. Security Council endorses Iran nuclear deal

UNITED NATIONS | By Michelle Nichols

The United Nations Security Council on Monday endorsed a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, but it will be able to re-impose U.N. penalties during the next decade if Tehran breaches the historic agreement.

The 15-member body unanimously adopted a resolution that was negotiated as part of the agreement reached in Vienna last week between Iran and the world's major powers.

In return for lifting U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions, Iran will be subjected to long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West suspected was aimed at creating an atomic bomb, but which Tehran says is peaceful.

Passage of the resolution triggers a complex set of coordinated steps agreed by Iran during nearly two years of talks with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union.

It says that no sanctions relief will be implemented until the International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report to the Security Council verifying that Iran has taken certain nuclear-related measures outlined in the agreement.

Under the deal, the major powers don't need to take any further action for 90 days. Then they are required to begin preparations so they are able to lift sanctions as soon as the IAEA verification report is submitted.

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The European Union approved the Iran nuclear deal with world powers on Monday. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has sent the nuclear agreement to Congress, which has the next 60 days to review it.

Once sanctions relief can be implemented, seven previous U.N. resolutions will be terminated and the measures contained in the resolution adopted on Monday will come into effect.

The resolution allows for supply of ballistic missile technology and heavy weapons, such as tanks and attack helicopters, to Iran with Security Council approval, but the United States has pledged to veto any such requests.

The restrictions on ballistic missile technology are in place for eight years and on heavy weapons for five years. The resolution leaves in place an arms embargo on conventional weapons for five years.

The resolution places restrictions on the transfer to Iran of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes for a decade.

It allows all U.N. sanctions to be re-imposed if Iran breaches the deal in the next 10 years. If the Security Council receives a complaint of a breach it would then need to vote within 30 days on a resolution to extend sanctions relief.

If the council fails to vote on a resolution, the sanctions would be automatically re-imposed. This procedure prevents any of the veto powers who negotiated the accord, such as Russia and China, from blocking any snap-back of Iran sanctions.All the provisions and measures of the U.N. resolution would terminate in a decade if the nuclear deal is adhered to.

However, the six world powers and the EU wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to inform him that after 10 years they plan to seek a five-year extension of the mechanism allowing sanctions to be re-imposed.


(Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by W Simon)

 

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World | Mon Jul 20, 2015 4:19pm EDT
Related: World, Iraq

Kidnaps and arrests following deadly bombing in Iraq

BAGHDAD

At least 10 civilians were killed by mortar and rocket fire on Monday in the central Iraqi village of Hudaid, north of Khan Bani Saad, where dozens of people were killed in a huge bombing last week, medics and a police sergeant said.

The origin of the attack, in which at least 16 others were wounded, was not immediately clear. Most of Diyala province, where the villages are located, is controlled by the government-backed militias and Shi'ite dominated army, but there are pockets of insurgents.

The police sergeant said residents of mainly Sunni Hudaid had started fleeing to the provincial capital, raising the prospect of worsening sectarian division in an area where Iraqi officials declared victory over Islamic State militants only six months ago.

Friday's blast in Khan Bani Saad, 30 km (20 miles) northeast of Baghdad, killed more than 100 people, making it one of the deadliest attacks carried out by Islamic State militants since they overran large parts of northern and western Iraq last year.

Iraqi officials declared victory over the radical Sunni group in Diyala province in January after security forces and Shi'ite paramilitaries drove them out of towns and villages. The insurgents however remain active in the area.

Prime Minsiter Haider al-Abadi, a moderate Shi’ite Islamist who has sought to curb violence carried out under his predecessor, visited the site of the attack in Khan Bani Saad on Monday.

Thirteen men were kidnapped earlier in the same area, including a Sunni tribal leader, security and tribal sources said. Sheikh Talab al-Jumaili and three of his sons were among those kidnapped, along with seven men from the Albu Hamdan tribe, the sources said.

The town's municipal council building was also torched overnight. The police presence in the Shi'ite-majority area was stepped up to prevent further vandalism or riots.

Five men suspected in the Khan Bani Saad bombing were arrested on Monday, Dijla Operations Commander Lieutenant General Abdul Amir al-Zaidi said.


(Reporting by Baghdad bureau; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

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Russian Town Near Ukraine, Once Quiet, Now Buzzes With Military Activity

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
JULY 19, 2015

GOLOVINKA, Russia — The southern Russian steppe in summertime typically offers a soul-lifting panorama of wheat fields and sunflowers, swaying in the breezes, and vast empty spaces. It is Russia’s big sky country, rural and calm.

Normally, that is. One morning this spring, the serenity in this village deep in the Russian countryside near the Ukrainian border was broken by a loud, rumbling explosion intense enough to send out window-shattering shock waves. Soon, residents said, Russian soldiers appeared running through the wheat fields, some in their underwear, waving their arms wildly and yelling, “Save yourselves however you can!”

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The panicked soldiers were not under attack, as it turns out, but were fleeing a fire in a well-stocked ammunition depot at a nearby Russian military base, recalled a local dairy farmer who, worried about harassment, offered only his first name, Anatoli. By that point, he said, artillery shells had begun whistling away from the base and into the fields.

Photo
Russian soldiers seen in a video posted to YouTube fleeing the Kuzminka military base after a fire at an ammunition depot.

The military said that a short-circuit in an armored vehicle started the fire. As a precaution, officials closed a major highway many miles away. Three villages, including this one, were evacuated. No one was killed, though six soldiers were injured and 30 military vehicles were destroyed.

A year after the war started in southeastern Ukraine, the Russian military has largely abandoned efforts to disguise its activities along the border with Ukraine. The tiny village of Golovinka, an hour or so’s drive off the main highway on rutted dirt roads, has been transformed lately into a hive of military activity. The once-quiet military base nearby, Kuzminka, is teeming with soldiers and heavy weapons.

Last year, the Russian Defense Ministry described the military buildup along the border as a military exercise, and it periodically announced pullbacks after exercises were completed. However, the large army presence, which cannot easily be disguised, seems now to have become permanent.

Ukrainian and Western governments say Kuzminka is a staging ground for Russian soldiers and weapons headed into the war zone in southeastern Ukraine, where Kiev says 9,000 Russian soldiers are now stationed for a possible attack this summer on the city of Mariupol.

The United States has released satellite images of self-propelled howitzers on one side of the border, and then on the other, and European monitors say they see nightly evidence of heavy weapons streaming into southeastern Ukraine from Russia.

Why the Russian Army was stockpiling ammunition near the Ukrainian border was not a question the Kremlin or local commanders wished to address. Russia denies sending either men or weapons into Ukraine, claiming that any Russians there are private citizens volunteering to fight in the war.

On this occasion, the army’s presence became so pronounced it could be seen from outer space.

An enormous smoke plume rose over the steppe, according to a video posted online. Villagers piled children into cars and sped away. At the base, commanders ordered the thousands of soldiers garrisoned there to just run, saying, “We will find you later,” according to Viktoria Makarenko, a reporter with Novaya Gazeta who covered the blast.

“They thought the whole thing would blow,” Ms. Makarenko said of the army’s decision not to try to keep the blast on April 28 a secret. “It would be visible from space, so there was nothing to hide. They wanted to get the people out.”

In the steppe villages around here, known by their Cossack name stanitsy, residents are learning to live with the military presence, not to speak of the constant rumble of military convoys down side roads near the border.

Arrests are up for drunkenness and fighting in the border villages. There have even been reports of rocket-propelled grenades fired in bars. Reported crime in the Rostov region adjacent to Ukraine’s separatist zones is up 24 percent this year, local news media has reported, in a sign of blowback inside Russia from the chaos next door.

On a recent, sweltering afternoon here in Golovinka, a dozen or so soldiers tried their luck fishing in a pond, again wearing nothing but camouflage-print skivvies. Fishing for carp is one of the few opportunities for rest and relaxation out here. A few dragonflies buzzed about.

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OPEN Graphic

Local residents say tens of thousands of soldiers are now garrisoned at Kuzminka, sleeping in tents. For the village, their presence has its upsides, too.

A cluster of young soldiers, lithe and fit and shirtless in the summer afternoon, loitered beside a recently opened grilled chicken shack called Brotherly.

The owner, Vladimir, who would not give his last name owing to the sensitivity of discussing the soldiers in the village, said he opened a month ago and attributed his success selling rotisserie broiled birds marinated in mayonnaise and paprika to the first rule of real estate: location, location, location.

Brotherly opened beside the path through the fields that soldiers traverse to reach the village. In just a few minutes on a recent visit, a dozen or so soldiers with Mongolian features typical of some Siberian ethnic groups walked past. Soldiers with Mongolian features have also been seen fighting on the rebel side in eastern Ukraine. In typical times, few, if any, Mongolians are seen on either side of this border.

The border, until last summer patrolled by Ukrainian border guards, is porous, not only allowing Russian military convoys to cross without interference, but opening the way to large-scale smuggling of coal, weapons and stolen cars. As many as a dozen coal trucks cross the border here a day, said Paul Picard, a French diplomat who heads the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s monitoring mission in the area.

The Russian border police once caught someone trying to run more than 100 head of cattle across the border, local news media reported, after apparently smaller herds had gone unnoticed. A truck was stopped for trying to cross the border carrying 65 tons of salted pork fat, a staple throughout Ukraine and southern Russia.

In one case this spring, a man accused of brawling argued in a court in Taganrog that he was innocent because he had “accidentally crossed the Russian border, hadn’t used bad language and was a militia member in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” a separatist enclave in southeastern Ukraine.

In last year’s invasion of Crimea, Moscow deployed Russian soldiers whose only disguises were uniforms without identifying insignia. Similarly, Russian military activities along the border are ostensibly secret and yet obvious.

The Russian policy of declaring the operations clandestine, whatever the actual level of secrecy or lack thereof, has proved effective, blunting the Western response and tangling up the prose of European diplomatic statements.

On the ground, though, the gap between the propaganda and the reality is almost comical. Since counting began on Sept. 1 last year until June 1 this year, the European monitoring mission on the Russian side of the border has recorded 20,021 men in military uniforms crossing to and from rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine.

That is an average of about 500 people who appear to be soldiers crossing the border per week. The men wear a variety of identifying patches, but not those of the Russian Army, or they have none at all.

Mr. Picard said he had asked some of these men what they are doing.

“They told us they cannot cross with weapons, but they receive weapons on the other side,” he said.

Some, though, have other answers. Mr. Picard said he asked one man wearing a uniform, carrying a rucksack and crossing the border from Russia into separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, who replied, “I am going fishing.”

 

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Race is on for Iran’s (future) riches

Europe Inc. is rushing to get in on the action.

By Pierre Briançon | 20/7/15, 5:30 AM CET | Updated 20/7/15, 11:23 AM CET

Graphic

The Germans want to sell their machine tools, the French their cars, the Italians their tubes. And the British hope to finance the whole trade.

After a few months of warming up, the race is on among Europeans to grab a piece of a market of 80 million people about to open up to Western business: Iran.

It will take another few months before it all comes together — “not before the beginning of next year, when things have become clearer, and sanctions have actually been lifted,” said Sasan Krenkler, the head of a German consulting firm specialized in trade with Iran.

But the mere prospect of an open Iranian market already has big and small companies as well as governments salivating at the prospect of reviving Europe’s once-vibrant and now-moribund trade with Tehran.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who is also the economy and energy minister, will lead a business delegation in Iran next week. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius — with foreign trade relations in his portfolio — has also announced he will soon make a Tehran trip, with the resumption of commerce his overt goal.

Crippled by six years of tough western sanctions and eights years of economic mismanagement by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian economy is expected to grow again after a long slump, at emerging-markets rates of 5 to 6 percent a year.

The country will recover the revenue lost in the years when it couldn’t sell its oil on world markets, and Europe Inc. is rushing to get back in on the bonanza.

Western companies would find reasons to rejoice even if trade simply rose back to its pre-sanction level: French exports to Iran, for example, have sunk to about €500 million last year, against more than €4 billion before sanctions hit.


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivers a speech following the nuclear agreement, 14 July 2015


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Total EU exports to Iran last year amounted to little more than €6 billion, or 0.4 percent of total EU trade and about half what it was in 2008. Germany, once the largest exporter to Iran, has now been supplanted by China, India, South Korea and Turkey.

But the Iranian economy is looking for Western finance and goods. The national airline needs airplanes, and the planes it still has need parts. Gigantic oil and gas fields need western technology and finance to be efficiently explored.

“Infrastructure — from railways to roads to water installations — needs major investments,” said Thierry Coville, a research fellow and Iran specialist at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.

As sanctions against Iran gradually grew stricter over the past decade, governments have sometimes had to pressure businesses to comply with them. In one such example, the French foreign ministry had to lean on oil company Total to force it to sever ties with Tehran six years ago.

Now, ironically, governments are urging their home companies not to lose time, and seize the new Iranian opportunity.

There are fears that some firms might have to pay a political price for their government’s attitude during the long, protracted negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

French businesses discreetly expressed their worries about the hard line taken by Fabius throughout the talks. But “Iranians are pragmatic,” says Krenkler. “The deals will be done on a strictly-business basis. Too much is at stake.”

Nicholas Vinocur contributed reporting to this article.

 

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The Middle East Nuclear Power Play No One Is Talking About [1]
Russia is making moves in the Middle East nuclear-energy game. It could be time for the United States to get involved, too.

Melissa S. Hersh [2] [3]
Comments 11

With all eyes currently transfixed on the P5+1 negotiations on Iran’s nuclear future, there is seemingly little attention being paid to another landmark Middle Eastern nuclear trend, spearheaded by Russia. Moscow’s strategic investment in Middle Eastern nuclear-energy development [4] is cementing long-term influence in capitals ranging from Tehran to Riyadh, Ankara to Cairo, to Amman. With Washington’s own relationships with those governments floundering since the rapprochement with Tehran, and relations with Moscow being back at Cold War levels, is the lack of U.S. engagement on this issue hampering overall U.S. foreign-policy objectives?

Sure enough, the rationale behind regional efforts to develop nuclear power can vary. It can signal a “coming out” into high society, where nuclear bling connotes economic and national prestige. It can also signal a forward thinking commitment to clean and consistent energy diversification. Or, it can even hint at the possibility that a country could move to weaponization. But, whatever the reasons are for the Middle Eastern countries to pursue nuclear energy, what is clear is that in making this decision, each country requires significant foreign assistance—assistance that in turn comes with significant political leverage.

Enter Russia.

Russia’s state-owned nuclear vendor, Rosatom, provides a menu of offerings to countries seeking nuclear power. Bespoke orders can include a range of flexible financing, construction, ownership and operational solutions all underwritten by Moscow. In some cases, the entire menu is ordered. The result is that Russia gains a long-term, strategic and commercial relationship with host nations.

Russian pledges and promises to Middle Eastern nations to become a partner in their pursuit of nuclear energy mirror similar pledges in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. The political capital banked by the sovereign sponsor—Russia—of such nuclear deals should not be underestimated. Nuclear financing is a long-term, complex and expensive endeavor with little-to-no short-term dividends, and long-term benefits are difficult to quantify. However, Russian nuclear deals are the cherry on top of other infrastructure projects, making it a “win-win” proposition for both sides.

The first and only nuclear project to date in the Middle East that has received Russian money—roughly $1.5B—is in Turkey, set to break ground in 2016. This is the first time the Build, Own, Operate (BOO) project finance model is used in the nuclear industry. Similar arrangements have been proposed for Jordan where Russia’s pledged stake is just shy of half of the proposed $10 billion project expected to commence in 2017. In Egypt, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Russia has been signed, but timing and financing is yet to be determined. In addition to an existing Russian plant in Tehran, Rosatom has pledged two more plants. And, most recently, Saudi Arabia and Russia have signed an MOU in June in addition to plans to invest $10 billion of Saudi FDI into Russia [5], amidst deteriorating relations with the United States.

While the decision to go nuclear requires significant capital outlay, if promises of a sovereign commitment are made, it can help to sweeten the deal. What happens, however, when the sovereign guarantor is itself experiencing geopolitical and financial volatility, and promises and pledges are not fulfilled? As of mid-2015, the Russian economy is in a free fall, hit by plummeting energy prices, the fall of the ruble, Western sanctions, capital flight and a concerted effort by Europe to reduce reliance on Gazprom. The likelihood that Russia can live up to its nuclear promises is looking questionable, given the number of commitments it has made to Bangladesh, Nigeria, Vietnam, Hungary, Finland, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and so on. Even for Russia, this starts to add up.

Enter the United States?

Russia’s current and foreseeable economic constraints indicate the possibility of not being able to deliver on pledges and MOUs, thus providing an opportunity for the United States to step in. Should the United States want to wield its smart power toolbox, providing support for the American nuclear industry will be crucial. And failure to reauthorize U.S. Export-Import bank is like shooting oneself in the foot. And, nowhere is this more important at the moment than in the Middle East.

The Middle East is still exceedingly relevant to U.S. interests, even despite the Asia pivot and America’s newfound wealth of riches coming from shale oil and shale gas, which reduces its import dependency on the Middle East. It is still a major area of instability and of strategic importance. The United States will still import its oil for decades to come, and maintaining safe and open shipping lanes are critical to global commerce. As such, the United States cannot become victim to “flavor of the month” thinking in its foreign policy.

By supporting nuclear power plants in the region, the United States could kill three birds with one stone: curtail Russian influence in the Middle East; exert strategic influence and presence in light of the Iran deal to safeguard its relationship with regional allies; and support domestic nuclear-industry exports. Deal or no deal in Iran, this calculus remains unchanged.

Furthermore, as the United states is undergoing a domestic renaissance in nuclear innovation [6], it would seem it is a good time to support overseas nuclear power plants (NPPs), as well as stave off foreign competition in the nuclear industry and exert regional influence and contribute to economic development in the Middle East. And while the U.S. nuclear-industry strategy has long been in decline, there is an opportunity to provide sovereign sponsorship for NPPs to offset Russian regional influence in the Middle East. It is time to revisit the role that the Ex-Im bank plays in globally exerting American commercial soft power. U.S. overseas force projection should not be limited to military and humanitarian engagements.

Finally, as Washington already struggles to reassure regional allies concerned about its hedge with Tehran, not engaging enough on civil nuclear cooperation with other Middle Eastern capitals is a missed opportunity to reaffirm strategic ties. And the U.S. domestic nuclear industry risks losing out on vital new export opportunities. Taken together, a strong case for the United States to get involved in promoting nuclear energy in the Middle East can be made. It is unfortunate that while Saudi Arabia and Russia are able to engage in pragmatic compartmentalization of their policies [7], the United States is less flexible.

But of course, such a strategy is not risk free, especially in such a turbulent region. The Middle East is beset by domestic and transnational insurgencies, refugees, geopolitical competition and political instability. Hence, the risk for nuclear proliferation and accidents is very real. Any U.S. strategy in support of civil nuclear power must inevitably include strong export controls and verification processes to ensuring compliance. However, for countries looking to become first-time nuclear-power producers, discussing proliferation—and concerns over premature escalation—is quite possibly putting the cart before the horse. Large-scale project finance and infrastructure development are significant power-projection tools.

Taking a step or two back: Russia has a strategic plan, whereas the United States seemingly does not.

Melissa S. Hersh is a risk analyst and consultant and a fellow of the Truman National Security Project. Views expressed are her own.

Image: kremlin.ru

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[4] http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...e-east-s-preferred-but-flawed-nuclear-partner
[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/21/saudi-russia-funds-idUSL8N0Z704820150621
[6] http://www.thirdway.org/report/the-advanced-nuclear-industry
[7] http://www.thenational.ae/world/eur...saudi-arabia-and-russia-look-to-build-bridges
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