Malley: US Focus Not Nuclear But ‘What Is Happening In Iran’

This ship was transiting from Iran along a route in the Gulf of Oman that has been used to traffic weapons to Yemen's Houthi group, reported Reuters.

Releasing a statement on Tuesday, US Navy's Fifth Fleet said its forces found over 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate on the vessel that is generally used to make rocket and missile fuel, as well as explosives.

“This was a massive amount of explosive material, enough to fuel more than a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles depending on the size,” said Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, US 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces.

A Saudi-led military coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen since 2015 has repeatedly accused Tehran of supplying weapons to the group, but the Islamic Republic denies the accusation.

The Islamic Republic has not commented on the accusation yet.

The Fifth Fleet further noted that four Yemeni crew were onboard the vessel which was also carrying 100 tons of urea fertilizer that is used in agriculture but also for making explosives.

US forces sank the ship on Sunday in the Gulf of Oman as it was a "hazard to navigation for commercial shipping" and its crew were handed over to the Yemen coast guard, it added.

Last December, the Fifth Fleet seized a shipment of rifles and ammunitions from a fishing boat. It announced that the cargo is believed to be sent by the Islamic Republic for the Houthis.

In a Monday phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein decried the attacks as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty, saying that the continuation of such unilateral measures is "dangerous".

Moreover, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani also condemned the “violations” of Iraq and its Kurdish region’s sovereignty, following IRGC’s attacks on the headquarters of Iranian-Kurdish groups, some of which are armed.

According to Iran International’s correspondent, the RGC targeted the main base of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in capital Erbil and Komala in Sulaymaniyah with drones and missiles.

The PDKI said a senior party member and a Peshmerga militiaman were killed and several other Peshmerga forces injured in the Monday attacks.

The Canadian Embassy in Iraq, the US Consulate General in Erbil, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the German Consulate General in Erbil have so far condemned the renewed attacks on the Kurdistan Region.

The German Consulate-General in Erbil said that Berlin urges Iran to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq. “The attacks have to stop immediately,” it said.

Since the current wave of protests began in Iran following the death in custody of young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa (Jina) Amini, the Islamic Republic has intensified its attacks on Kurdish dissident groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan, apparently aimed at intimidating the Kurds. In addition to PDKI and Komala, IRGC launched artillery and suicide drone attacks against positions of other Kurdish groups opposed to the Islamic Republic such as Parti Azadi Kurdistan, aka PAK (Kurdistan Freedom Party).

The US also strongly condemned Iran’s “violations of Iraqi sovereignty”, calling on the Islamic Republic to stop attacking its neighbor and the people of Iraq. “We stand with the Iraqi government’s leaders in Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” the Consulate General in Erbil said on its twitter account.

“Iraq should not be used as an arena to settle scores and its territorial integrity must be respected,” UN Assistance Mission for Iraq said, adding that “Dialogue between Iraq and Iran over mutual security concerns is the only way forward.”

Amini was from the Kurdish town of Saqqez and was arrested and beaten during a visit to Tehran. After her death in hospital, her hometown and other Kurdish cities were the first to launch antigovernment protests.

Late in October, the Iranian Army's Ground Force also launched a three-day war game around the northwestern town of Piranshahr in West Azarbaijan province bordering Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iran’s last barrage of missile and drone strikes against the groups in September led to the death of 14 people, including women and children, and wounding of 58 other people near Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.

The Islamic Republic calls the Kurdish armed groups in the western provinces of Iran, "terrorist groups" or "anti-revolutionary" but these groups say that the goal of their armed campaign is "defending the rights of the Kurds".

Generally, the Kurdish parties − including Komala and the KDPI − favor Kurdish autonomy within a federal Iran.

France has long supported the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as a step towards regional agreements over other issues, including defense, security, and trade. But speaking to France Inter radio Monday, Macron said he hoped to establish a “new framework” involving regional powers, including Iran, that was probably now needed, and that he was “very cautious” over prospects for restoring the JCPOA.

Macron suggested current unrest in Iran, which he characterized Saturday as a “revolution,” had “fragilized” the 2015 agreement, which the United States left in 2018, leading Iran after 2019 to expand its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits.

The French president was criticized Sunday by Iran’s foreign affairs spokesman for meeting with overseas Iranian opposition activists, including US-based Masih Alinejad, who is prominent in social media and more recently on US and other media networks.

Nasser Kanaani called Macron’s comments after the meeting – which encouraged Alinejad to praise France as “the first country to officially recognize this revolution” – “a flagrant violation of France’s international responsibilities in the fight against terrorism and violence.”

Iran has been presenting the protests as "riots" and some protesters as "terrorists". It has already sentenced one protester to death for allegedly attacking a government building.

Although around 40 security forces have been killed during protests since September, more than 330 demonstrators have died mostly by bullets of regime’s official and unofficial gunmen.

While the logic of the JCPOA separated Iran’s nuclear program from other issues, the distinction has become harder to maintain given international publicity of protests following the September 16 death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of Tehran ‘morality police.’

So far, the US and three European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – have said they are committed to reviving the agreement, and that the failure of 18-month talks is due solely to Iran making demands beyond the original agreement. Meetings are due in Tehran later this month as International Atomic Energy Agency seeks what it deems satisfactory answers over uranium traces found in sites linked to Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear work. Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, have said the IAEA probe into the matter should be dropped in order to revive the JCPOA.

Dim prospects?

Prospects for a regional conference – Macron’s proposed ‘new framework’ – appear dim, and the French president did not specify who should be involved. Multilateral efforts to end the war in Yemen, or the violent fragmentation of Syria, have floundered.

Iran and Saudi Arabia, despite Iraq-brokered talks, have not restored diplomatic relations broken off 2016 after Riyadh executed leading Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, and most Arab states hold the Arab League position that Israel should not be recognized until it accepts a viable Palestinian state. Russia, ostracized by the US and European Union over Ukraine, coordinates oil policy with Saudi Arabia and has military cooperation with Iran.

Macron clearly did not accept Alinejad’s view that diplomatic relations with Iran be broken off and established instead withwhat she called “the Iranian opposition.” Alinejad has also organized a petition calling for the removalof Rob Malley, the US official who has led talks aimed at JCPOA restoration.

European Union foreign ministers meeting today in Brussels are expected to impose new sanctions on Iran– with Macron telling France Inter radio he was among those pushing for measures against leading officials and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). US spokesman Ned Price said last week that while Washington was “looking at all appropriate tools” for dealing with Iran’s “foot-dragging,” it was already “very heavily sanctioned, to say the least…”

Military sources said the air base, at Shayrat, was recently used by the Iranian air force.

Syrian state media posted a short video of the "aggression" and said there were material damages, without elaborating.

One military source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the strikes had targeted a runway in the sprawling air base that is located southeast of Homs city.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military refused to comment, although Israel has conducted hundreds of similar strikes since 2017.

The runway and underground facilities at Shayrat, including aircraft shelters, have undergone a major expansion by the Russian military in the last three years, the military source said.

Russia has forces stationed near to Shayrat air base and uses the base, security sources say.

Israel has in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon including Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors such events said a warehouse for Iranian militias and Hezbollah in Shayrat air base were destroyed in Sunday's strike.

Opposition sources say Iranian militias hold sway in large swathes of western Homs province near the Lebanese border and to the east where they have a string of bases.

Israel has been mounting attacks in Syria for years against what it has described as Iranian and Iran-backed forces that have deployed there during the war, which began more than a decade ago.

With reporting by Reuters

The November 24-26 board meeting of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will likely see a fresh resolution censoring Tehran over restricted access to agency inspectors. Reports emerged Friday that the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, were circulating to the board’s 35 member-states a draft resolution calling it “essential and urgent” for Iran to address agency unease.

IAEA concerns are twofold. Firstly, as highlighted by the resolution, Tehran has not satisfied the IAEA over uranium traces found in sites used for pre-2003 nuclear work. There is little expectation of a breakthrough in meetings with Iranian officials planned for later this month.

Ned Price, the US State Department Spokesman, Thursday accused Iran of “foot-dragging.” Tehran has demanded the IAEA drop questions over the uranium traces to help talks, currently frozen, to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018.

The agency’s second main area of concern is Iran’s reducing since February 2021 IAEA general access to the nuclear program, which is now broadly as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rather than as enhanced by the JCPOA.

This downgraded access, coupled with the issue of uranium traces, has led agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi to warn he may no longer be able to verify the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. A report circulated Thursday to IAEA member states noted that “the longer the current situation persists the greater such uncertainty becomes.”

The agency monitors Iran’s uranium stockpiles, which it currently reports at 3,674kg, way above the 267kg JCPOA cap, including 62kg enriched to 60 percent, close to 90 percent ‘weapons grade.’ But Iran’s removal of monitoring equipment in factories where it makes centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, has stymied the agency’s ability to judge the overall program. While access to such factories is not required under Iran’s NPT commitments, knowing the number and type of centrifuges Iran has ready and waiting is crucial to assessing how quickly the program can expand.

While Price said Thursday the US was consulting its “European partners,” options for effective action appear limited. The IAEA board passed a resolution June censoring Iran over the uranium traces, and it far from clear what a new resolution might achieve. The draft text, as reported by Reuters Friday, says Iran should “act to fulfil its legal obligations and... without delay…provide all information, documentation, and answers” required by the IAEA, as well as “access to locations and material…[and the] taking of samples…”

Unlike 2006, when the IAEA referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council over its atomic program, Russia and China would no longer back the move. Both hold UNSC vetoes and see the US as primarily responsible for the JCPOA’s demise.

Even though decisions over JCPOA restoration rest with President Joe Biden, JCPOA critics in the US may feel emboldened by the swing away from the Democrats in the November 8 Congressional elections, even if control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate remains unclear.

‘Acting with judgement’

The looming return to office in Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu after November 1 Knesset elections is another complication. Outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid developed a good relationship with the Biden administration although critical of efforts to revive the JCPOA, whereas Netanyahu previously identified with President Donald Trump. Outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz Wednesday talked up work done by the outgoing administration in preparing for military strikes on Iran, suggesting Netanyahu would now “act with judgement.”

While the Ukraine crisis, Iran’s wave of internal protests, and Tehran’s growing links with Moscow have all brought the US closer to the three European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany, and the UK – Biden’s alternatives appear limited.

Given “Iran’s dangerous proliferation of weapon systems to Russia,” Price said Thursday the US would “continue to vigorously enforce all US sanctions on both the Russian and Iranian arms trade.” He conceded that while Washington was “looking at all appropriate tools” for dealing with Iran, it was already “very heavily sanctioned, to say the least…for the full range of their nefarious activities.”