EPTEMBER 29, 2015
How AIPAC-OFAC Are Working to Maintain Iran Sanctions
by FRANKLIN LAMB
Only a small percentage of Iran and America’s population has ever met face to face. Almost none of both countries citizens under the age of 35 have ever engaged in long, often fascinating and passionate conversations. Perhaps an exception being Expats who left Iran decades ago for various reasons and have taken US citizenship.
This partially accounts for the eagerness witnessed in Iran these days by Americans who meet with Iranian students with their seemingly limitless energy and who like to spend hours discussing dozens of subjects after quickly shedding a fair bit of their society’s social decorum.
Other visitors to Iran have commented on the ‘instinctive connections’ foreigners, not just Americans experience as they discover that Iranians have little in common with some Western orientalist notions of what they are supposed to be like.
Students in Iran are very open to sharing their views on everything from countless political and religious subjects to how to apply to American universities for grad school. During visits to Iran it is rare for this observer to meet with students (my favorite Iranians!) not to be asked about student exchange programs and how to obtain an American student visa so they can internationalize their higher education. The same questions are common across Syria and in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps.
Iranian grad students at Iran’s Shahid Beheshti University discussing their hopes and concerns with an American visitor about relief from US-led sanctions still targeting students and their countrymen. Sept. 2, 2015. Photo credit: Sam Shakiba.
Before the 1979 Iranian revolution and the 444 days American Hostage crisis there were some 52,000 Americans studying in Iran. The number dropped to approximately 1,600 during the 1980-1990’s and as recently as 24 months ago there were precisely two. As of yesterday there are five Americans studying in Iran perhaps an early sign of a thaw from the recent nuclear agreement.
We have all heard about the excitement from international business and banking interest’s eager to engage across the broad once sanctions are lifted per the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) agreement and the unfreezing of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian assets held in overseas banks under EU and US sanctions. This observer is consistently amazed chatting with Iranians who are much better informed than he is about many details of this subject.
Three young lady students from different parts of Iran, studying at Shahid Beheshti University, which offers more than 70 programs at Master’s and over 30 at Ph.D. levels, delivered an animated 30 minute short course to their rapt new American friend on how they see the near-term sanctions reality.
They explained that they, along with most Iranians they know are currently holding back on their spending waiting for price drops and the arrival of better quality imported goods. This despite the fact that President Hassan Rouhani’s administration over the past two years has managed to cut inflation from approximately 40 per cent to 12.6 per cent ending three successive years of economic contraction, with a 3 per cent growth rate. They authoritatively explained that any real dividends from the nuclear deal for average Iranians will take many months to materialize, and Iran’s economy is still experiencing stagnation and that oil prices have added to the strain by a halving of oil revenues, the country’s economic lifeblood.
Iranians believe that some trade between Iran and the west will no doubt occur in the coming months. Economists tend to agree. But it won’t amount to much anytime soon if AIPAC and its partner, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC) succeed in their continuing their anti-Iran campaign which has been revered up since this summer’s Congressional vote in favor JCPA.
AIPAC, sent a letter to Congress right after the vote laying out its new anti-Iran campaign which included Israeli agents, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and its “Counselor” Dennis Ross, criticizing President Obama and urging him to transfer to Israel the “mountain-busting” 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) for use against Iran when needed. The MOP is the world’s largest nonnuclear weapon and designed to destroy hardened targets, bunkers, and locations deep underground. The MOP hits the ground at supersonic speed after being released from a B-2 bomber.
Since Israel does not have the B-2. AIPAC is seeking pledges from agents in Congress and from Presidential candidates that the new administration will provide both to Israel. Five Republican candidates including aides to Mike Huckabee and Senator Lindsay Graham have assured AIPAC that they see “no problem” with Israel’s request.
Also engaged in keeping the pressure on Iranians is Adam Szubin, AIPAC supporter and former director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which enforces sanctions. Mr. Szubin has recently been appointed the U.S. Treasury’s acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. He has made plain this past month that pressure on Iran will intensify and those who fantasize about doing business with the Islamic Republic, with or without sanctions, will face more hurdles. The latter includes for example, that any foreign banks who knowingly or unknowingly engage in and transaction with any firm doing any business with Khatam al-Anbia (the Iranian construction company owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC), they will be barred from U.S. markets.
OFAC and AIPAC have publicly pledged to combat “all of Iran’s other malign activities outside the agreement.” “They will find themselves back onto the list, and the Iranians I believe understand that,” Szubin stated this past week.
He added, “We do not take the release of one dollar of sanctions lightly. We are committed to countering Iran’s ongoing illicit conduct and will aggressively enforce sanctions that target Iran’s support for terrorist groups, its abuses of human rights or its destabilizing activities in the region. That is why we are intensifying our work alongside Israel to continue to disrupt the front companies, intermediaries and money launderers that enable terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC Qods Force.”
While the full-speed-ahead campaign to tighten sanctions in Washington accelerates, little to date have been done toward lessening medical and quality of life sanctions for either the people of Iran or Syria. As in widely commented upon by medical personnel in both countries, while the US-led sanctions are claimed by OFAC/AIPAC and some in Congress to be ‘truly humanitarian’ because medicines are exempt, the reality is that vital medical supplies are not entering either country because businesses in the west do not want risk huge OFAC fines or being barred from US markets as their lawyers try to understand the murky OFAC regs.
This has contributed to some absurd discussions and lack of common sense actions by OFAC .For example, OFAC has issued a list of medical devices and items that are eligible to be exported to Iran and Syria otherwise sanctioned under a general license. Both countries, but especially Syria, need medicine and medical equipment badly. There has been plenty of criticism from health workers and medical NGO’s working on the ground in both countries because of what appears to be arbitrary omissions of necessary and common medical items that should be eligible for import.
One recent example was last week’s discussion of this subject at the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration when Kathleen Palma, GE’s senior counsel for international trade explained to OFAC:
“I would note that any kind of condom is on the (exempted) list, even though they tend not to be part of either country’s culture, but baby warmers and units for neonatal intensive care are not on the list and hence banned.”
OFAC’s representative assured the lady and the public that after a decade of sanctions, the agency was in the process of reviewing proposals to add more medical items to the exempted list. No time frame was indicated.
Meanwhile, AIPAC is arranging for a new version of a 2012 Federal Law (H.R. 1905) to be submitted to Congress. The new version will exclude Iranian students from being able to receive a U.S. student visa to study in America if the student is seeking to participate in higher education in preparation for a career in Iran’s petroleum, natural gas, nuclear energy, nuclear science, or any related nuclear engineering fields.”
The Zionist lobby, having suffered a rare defeat in Congress recently blames Iran lovers and Israel haters and will seek to keep Americans from getting to know Iranians and that includes students. The lobby fears that when the Iranian and American public associated, they will quite likely become valued friends and this is anathema for the regime still occupying Palestine.
America loses if AIPAC/OFAC succeeds and forces retention of the US sanctions which are similar to some kinds of terrorism according to some international lawyers because they target civilian populations for political purposes including regime change.
Every American visitor to Iran, one imagines, quickly comes to realize not just how much Americans have in common with Iranians which is a whole lot. But how beneath the thin skin of political rhetoric occasionally from both people’s leaders we can achieve a special relationship based on shared values and mutual respect.
This will be to the profound benefit of both peoples.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2015
Israel’s War on Al-Aqsa
by STEPHEN LENDMAN
Muslim’s call Islam’s third holiest site the Noble Sanctuary/Al-Haram al-Sharif. Over 35 acres enclose fountains, gardens, buildings and domes.
At one end is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In the center is the Dome of the Rock. The entire area is considered a mosque – sacred ground for Muslims, freely desecrated by Zionist zealots, storming the compound unaccountably, protected by heavily armed, rampaging Israeli security forces.
Attacking Muslim worshipers, firing noxious tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades, again on Sunday, following previous days of violence and chaos, willfully causing damage, injuring numerous Palestinians threatening no one.
Praying at Al-Aqsa is hazardous. Israel made it a near-free-fire zone. Not a word from Washington or other Western capitals denouncing its war on holy ground – the ruthless policy of a racist state.
On Sunday, Maan News reported Israeli forces “stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound” again, this time on “the last day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday” – attacking peaceful Palestinian worshipers viciously, terrorizing them like many times before, forcing them to defend themselves with their bare hands against heavily armed soldiers and police.
A police statement lied, claiming security forces were attacked with “stones and fireworks.” They responded using “riot dispersal means.” Victimized Palestinians respond after being assaulted, not before.
Heavily guarded extremist settlers entered the compound provocatively, performing prayers – where they don’t belong on the pretext of celebrating the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), a seven-day period beginning Sunday, not a significant holy period.
Many Jews ignore it entirely. Some know little or nothing about it. Racist Israeli policy used it provocatively – at the same time terrorizing Muslim worshipers over the important Eid al-Adha period, preventing them from praying in peace.
Murabitoun Al-Aqsa worshiper movement head Yousef Mukhaimar said “Netanyahu’s strategy is fulfilling his promises to his right-wing and extremist supporters to eventually demolish Al-Aqsa and build their alleged temple in its place.”
Arab Knesset leader Ayman Odeh said to “counter Israeli plots to divide Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews,” Israeli Arab citizens intend coming to the compound en masse.
“Now there are crowds in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and these crowds will grow larger tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in particular.”
“(The goal is) to uproot the idea of dividing Al-Aqsa and its courtyards” – a longtime objective of Zionist zealots, wanting a new Jewish temple replacing Al-Aqsa, a prescription for holy war.
The bigoted Temple Institute has detailed plans drawn up for a new Jewish temple. It wants control over sacred Muslim ground.
Longstanding policy permits Jewish prayer only at the adjacent Western Wall. Israeli forces regularly storm Al-Aqsa, attacking Muslim worshipers, restricting or prohibiting entry for others, letting extremist Jews pray where they don’t belong – desecrating Islam’s third holiest site in the process.
Israel’s Real Fear: w/out a Demonized Iran, West will see Tel Aviv as Irrelevant
By contributors | Sep. 28, 2015 |
By Farhang Jahanpour | (Inter Press Service) | – –
OXFORD (IPS) – Relations between Iran and Israel go back almost to the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, following Turkey, and the two countries had very close diplomatic and even military cooperation for many decades.
After the 1953 coup, which restored the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to power, relations improved further, and Israel and the CIA played a significant role in establishing the dreaded SAVAK, Iran’s intelligence organization, and training its personnel. Also, after the Six-Day War in 1967, Iran supplied Israel with a significant portion of its oil needs.
However, after the 1979 revolution, Iran severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel. The Islamic government does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state, but despite hostile revolutionary rhetoric against Israel, relations between the two countries have not always been too acrimonious. Indeed, during the Iran-Iraq war, in order to prevent Saddam Hussein’s victory, Israel joined the mission to Iran under U.S. President Ronald Reagan and even provided Iran with some weapons in what later on came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
Iranian funding of groups like Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which Israel regards as terrorist organizations, and Israeli support for terrorist groups such as the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, the Jundullah, a militant terrorist organization based in Baluchestan that has carried out a number of deadly attacks against Iran, as well as Israeli covert operations in Iran, including assassinations and explosions, have intensified animosity between the two countries and have led to a number of tit-for-tat attacks on each other’s citizens.
The turning point from cold peace toward hostility occurred in the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Iraq in Desert Storm. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israel was regarded as a U.S. bulwark against pro-Soviet Arab governments.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israel could no longer continue to play that role. The removal of Saddam Hussein also removed a formidable enemy. Therefore, Israel directed all its attacks against a new enemy, namely Iran.
So, it is not a mere coincidence that Israel’s intense opposition to Iran’s nuclear program coincided with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the removal of the threat from Iraq. Although Iran’s nuclear program had developed under the late Shah with active Israeli, South African and U.S. participation, after the revolution, when Iran tried to revive her program, Israel became its most vociferous opponent. Under the Iranian reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami there were some moves for a rapprochement with the West, including the recognition of Israel, but the George W. Bush Administration rebuffed those offers.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been continuously warning that Iran is on the verge of manufacturing a nuclear weapon and posing an “existential threat” to Israel. As early as 1992, he predicted that Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon within three to five years. In 1993, he claimed that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999.This has been his constant refrain ever since the early 1990s and right up to the present time.
The interesting point is that the current and some former heads of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad have contradicted Netanyahu’s claims. They maintain that there has been no indication that Iran is moving towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons or poses an existential threat to Israel.
It is important to remember that Netanyahu has not only tried to incite war against Iran, he even made the same false claims prior to the Iraq war in 2003.
Therefore, the propaganda against the Iraqi and Iranian alleged nuclear weapons have had less to do with the existence of such weapons and more to do with the perception that those two countries were hostile to Israel and had to be attacked in order to bring about a regime change.
It should be stressed that Netanyahu’s views in no way represent the views of the majority of American Jews who are on the whole liberal and peace loving. Indeed, poll after poll has shown that the support for the nuclear deal with Iran is stronger among American Jews than among the population at large.
Netanyahu’s attempts to kill the deal with Iran have been futile and counterproductive. His intrusion into American domestic politics, and his cynical use of the U.S. Congress to undercut a major foreign policy achievement, have been acts of gross discourtesy to the president and to the American people, and a violation of diplomatic protocol.
The real reason for Israeli opposition to Iran’s nuclear program has been the fear of becoming irrelevant in the eyes of the U.S. administration as far as the Middle East is concerned. Iran’s alleged nuclear bomb also been used as an excuse to divert attention from Israel’s own nuclear arsenal and illegal expansion into occupied Palestinian territories.
Instead of continuing with this campaign of vilification and inciting a military attack on Iran, it would be wiser for Israel to try to reach a settlement with the Palestinians and pave the way for peaceful coexistence with regional countries, including Iran. The emergence of terrorist organizations that pose a serious threat to the entire world should bring Iran and Israel closer to fight that dangerous menace. The two countries should tone down their ugly rhetoric and violent activities against each other, and realize that dialogue and compromise always produce better results than war and bloodshed.
Meanwhile, it is time to focus on Israel’s nuclear weapons and establish a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Isfahan and a former Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University. He is a tutor in the Department of Continuing Education and a member of Kellogg College, University of Oxford. This is the eighth of a series of 10 articles in which Jahanpour looks at various aspects and implications of the framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme that was reached in July 2015 between Iran and the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, China and Germany, plus the European Union
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.
