Mattis: Delay in Syria chemical investigation ’unfortunate’

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

Orient Net, April 19, 2018-- US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday (April 18) that a delay in a chemical weapons investigation by a UN delegation in Syria was "unfortunate," but that it resembled similar previous behavior by the Assad regime to "conceal" evidence.

A UN security team came under fire in Syria while doing reconnaissance for inspectors to visit sites of a suspected chemical weapons attack, and officials said it was no longer clear when the inspectors would be able to go in. Mattis made the remarks during a meeting with Qatar’s defense minister, Dr. Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah, at the Pentagon.

The inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are in Syria to investigate an April 7 incident in which Western countries and rescue workers say scores of civilians were gassed to death by the regime militia.

Iran: protest rally of members of Tehran Telecommunication Corp. TTC

Protest rally of the TTC employees

A group of employees of the telecommunication corporation in Tehran who paid a down payment some 16 years ago to receive an apartment, staged a protest rally on Friday Sept. 29th in front of the company in Tehran to show their anger and say that this long wait has to come to an end

The world must stop ignoring Iran's pattern of obstructing nuclear inspections

Giving Tehran a free pass is simply too dangerous. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated a long pattern of obstruction regarding inquiries and investigations into its nuclear activities, and that pattern persists more than two years after the conclusion of a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers.

The conclusion of that agreement in 2015 was to some extent dependent upon the neglect of certain controversial issues, including access to Iranian military sites, where the regime apparently carried out research and development related to weaponization aspects of the country's nuclear program. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action effectively skirted this issue by making it theoretically possible for the International Atomic Energy Agency to ask for and receive access to military sites, but only following a month-long process during which the Islamic Republic could work to erase evidence of past activities.

Examining Politics: A change in course for the Environmental Protection Agency

This is exactly what happened at the highly suspect Parchin military base, from which the IAEA obtained soil samples that still showed the presence of some nuclear material after satellite imagery showed the site being partially demolished and sanitized. Despite this fact, the IAEA closed the file on the past military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program so that the JCPOA could go forward toward implementation.

This and other instances of Iranian deception and international neglect were the focus of a recent report published by the International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ), the non-profit NGO that I head up in Brussels. The report drew upon public information and intelligence gathered by the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main Iranian opposition group with a solid record of exposing information about the regime´s nuclear project. The new information identifies a much broader pattern of behaviors going far beyond well-publicized issues like Parchin.

But even without this additional intelligence, the Parchin situation and the Iranian regime's repeated insistence that military sites are simply off limits to international inspectors should be enough to demonstrate to the world that the JCPOA has likely not halted Iran's nuclear activities, much less convinced the regime to cooperate with the international community.

Sadly, various world powers seem to be well aware of the shortcomings of the JCPOA, yet remain committed to preserving that agreement and arguing that it is serving its purpose effectively.

Regardless of one's position on the JCPOA, it is indefensible to suggest that the agreement has succeeded in its objective of halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon, or even that the resulting inspections have closed the issue of the past military dimensions of the program.

Anyone familiar with Tehran's pattern of deception for the past two decades should recognize the need for coordinated international insistence upon immediate and unrestricted access to Parchin and other military sites, as well as access to the sites and personnel associated with the Organization of Defense Innovation and Research, which has been identified as the institution at the heart of weaponization aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. It is simply naïve and utterly dangerous to overlook Tehran's deceptive behaviors just for the sake of preserving the nuclear deal and pretending the issue of possible military dimensions is resolved.

So far, President Trump has remained silent on whether he plans to certify before Congress that Iran is complying with its obligations under the agreement, as he will be required to do on October 15.

To the extent that the recent report relies upon information from the IAEA's publicly available documents, it establishes that the nuclear monitoring agency has effectively cast its own findings aside. For instance, the report quotes one IAEA document, published just on the verge of the JCPOA's implementation, as saying, "The Agency assesses that the extensive activities undertaken by Iran since February 2012 at the particular location of interest to the Agency seriously undermined the Agency's ability to conduct effective verification."

Despite this fact, the Agency now acts as if Tehran's ongoing patterns of obstruction are not grounds for suspicion about its compliance. The IAEA has repeatedly insisted to the world that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal, but in so doing it has not only ignored the issue of what remains unknown about possible military dimensions, but it has also ignored confirmed, if minor, violations of the JCPOA's limits on Iran's stockpiles of nuclear materials and nuclear byproducts.

To the extent that Iran refuses to cooperate with the international community, the nations of the world should show that they can do better by cooperating among themselves in order to exert the pressure that is necessary to make absolutely certain that this theocratic regime is no longer pursuing the capability to build weapons of mass destruction. Giving Tehran a free pass is simply too dangerous.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish professor of atomic and nuclear physics, was vice-president of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014. He is currently president of the Brussels-based International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ).

House votes to block aircraft sales to Iran

The House adopted measures on Wednesday to prevent sales of commercial aircraft to Iran, despite warnings from some Democrats that it would undermine the international accord to curtail the country’s nuclear weapons program.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) offered two amendments to a 2018 government spending package that would specifically prohibit the use of funds to authorize financial transactions for the sales and prevent the Office of Foreign Assets Control from clearing licenses to allow aircraft sales.

Roskam said that the U.S. should refrain from selling the aircraft to Iran given the country’s history of using commercial aircraft to transport resources, like weapons and troops, to support President Bashar Assad in Syria.

“Until Iran ceases using commercial aircraft to support terrorists and war criminals, western companies ought not be allowed to sell Iranian airliners more aircraft that they can use to fuel Assad’s brutal war,” Roskam said during House floor debate.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) warned that blocking the sales would result in “penalizing American companies for no good purpose” and threaten the nuclear deal with Iran.

“I think being able to maintain our commitments under the agreement with the [Iran nuclear deal] is important. That Iranian nuclear agreement has held and is one of the few bright spots in that region,” Blumenauer said.

Both of Roskam’s amendments were adopted by voice votes. Similar amendments offered by Roskam were also adopted as part of a spending bill last year but did not become law.

The House additionally passed separate legislation last November to block the licenses to finance aircraft sales with Iran, but it never got a vote in the Senate.

Iran Air has ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which remains sanctioned by the U.S. But Iran Air was granted sanctions relief as part of the 2015 nuclear accord, which relaxed sanctions in exchange for limits to Iran’s nuclear program.

Airbus, a European aircraft manufacturer, and Boeing, an American company, have struck multibillion-dollar deals with Iran in the last year to sell planes.

President Trump has railed against the Iran deal, but his administration has not taken steps to block the aircraft sales. Forcing a stop to the transactions could be at odds with Trump’s promotion of manufacturing jobs in the U.S., despite his vow to be tougher on Iran.

 ,  and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) urged President Trump in April to suspend aircraft sales to Iran.

“The possibility that U.S.-manufactured aircraft could be used as tools of terror is absolutely unacceptable and should not be condoned by the U.S. government,” they wrote in a letter to Trump.

Sanctioning the Terrible Twosome

Deep military and nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran makes sanctions on both 

regimes all the more essential

The world currently faces two atomic crises in Iran and North Korea, despite long strides in the effort of nuclear non-proliferation. Deep military and nuclear cooperation between the two states makes dealing with these challenges even more difficult. One may have thought lessons would have been learnt from the devastating lessons of appeasement from World War II – yet the approaches adopted vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran in signing nuclear agreements have raised accusations that Neville Chamberlain’s famous policy is still alive and well.

It’s obvious that Iran has learned from North Korea, and vice-versa, in both military and diplomatic spheres: in a recent Raddington Report article we argue that there are few nations that view North Korean missile tests with more interest than Iran. The Islamic Republic yearns to be in the position North Korea finds itself in – to have developed a nuclear arsenal, along with the means of deliver the payload. And North Korea covets to have had the opportunity Iran found: usurping Obama’s desperate need for a legacy-defining foreign policy achievement to garner a slate of concessions.

There is seemingly little appetite for a military confrontation with North Korea or Iran – yet the appeasement of these two rogue regimes have left the international community in more of a quagmire. North Korea is holding South Korea and Japan hostage (along with tens of thousands of stationed US troops) while Iran continues its regional meddling, support for terrorism, ballistic missile advances and human rights violations, all whilst reaching an agreement with the P5+1.

Pyongyang and Tehran have both sought nuclear weapons as insurance for their notorious regimes. Enjoying enticement by US administrations since the 1990s, North Korea has reached its objective, at the expense of it’s starving people – and economy more broadly. Iran, whilst seeking nuclear capability, began feeling the heat of international sanctions and escalating public anger, which forced it to trade a curbing of its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. What goes unnoticed, however, is how agreements signed by the international community with these two regimes provide a green light to the ruling autocrats to pursue the oppression of their own populations.

Iran has continued its practice of abducting American citizens and sentencing them to long prison terms. A situation in which Kim Jung Un was provided more inducements to come to the negotiating table – as in Iran’s case – could possibly result in further abductions, assassinations and more tens of thousands of political prisoners held in facilities so large they are visible in satellite images. Concessions have already provided Iran a green light to expand its domestic crackdown and meddling abroad. The definition of insanity, famously, is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Offering a possible insight into the Trump administration’s future approach to Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Nikki Haley delivered a speech recently in the American Enterprise Institute, stating that; “…if the President does not certify Iranian compliance, the Corker-Cardin law also tells us what happens next. What happens next is significantly in Congress’s hands,” she explained, in reference to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“Congress could debate whether the nuclear deal is in fact too big to fail. We should welcome a debate over whether the JCPOA is in U.S. national security interests. The previous administration set up the deal in a way that denied us that honest and serious debate,” the US Ambassador to the United Nations continued.

Following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, which led to claims that the DPRK has acquired the ability to test a hydrogen bomb, there is belief amongst high circles in Washington that North Korea is supporting Iran in return to the path of obtaining nuclear weapons. While Washington is weighing its options in responding to North Korea’s latest nuclear bomb test, most concerning are obvious shows of allegiance, such as a recent 10-day visit to Tehran by Pyongyang’s parliament speaker Kim Yong Nam.

Thanks to a ‘windfall’ of billions of dollars provided by the Obama-blueprinted nuclear deal, Iran has the hard currency and financial assets North Korea needs. In return, Pyongyang can deliver the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology Tehran wants to acquire. It has become increasingly obvious these regimes are far from rational actors who can be persuaded into taking action for the better benefit of the international community. North Korea must be made to bow before demands to give up nuclear weapons, whilst Iran must be made to understand that following the path of its East Asian partner is not an option.

The response Tehran receives from the international community, with the US at the helm, is of vital importance. The failure of previous US administrations to take any meaningful action to prevent the growth of such a dangerous nexus leaves us with the circumstances we face today. It is a known fact that many of Tehran’s ballistic missile designs, such as the Hwasong series, are based on Pyongyang prototypes. This is the result of political and military ties leading back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Concerns escalate to a highly lethal level when we realize Iran’s missiles, mirroring those of its North Korean sisters, could enjoy the capability of delivering nuclear payloads. These decades-long close exchanges have now also provided Iran the ability to construct missile production factories in Syria and Libya, some underground.

It is increasingly difficult to deny Tehran’s diplomatic, economic and military ties with Pyongyang. It is even possible the two country’s scientists have been present at each other’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, one after another. Tehran and Pyongyang must be made to comprehend that a continuation of their provocations cannot not be tolerated – senior Iranian and North Korean leaders, along with the institutions maintaining their rule, should be the target of crippling international sanctions. Kim, Khamenei and their henchmen, must find it far more difficult to plunder their people’s wealth for their own interests, while the two populations suffer in poverty. The international community should also boost campaigns aimed at drying up the two regimes’ supply chains providing the needs for their missile and nuclear drives.

This question is now raised over the meaning of seeking a new nuclear arrangement with North Korea, especially as the JCPOA is currently being usurped by Iran. Surely rapprochement will only encourage Pyongyang to continue its current aggressive nature – and what lessons would Tehran, a regime enjoying a dangerous reach across the Middle East, learn from this? There is no need to explain how Tehran and Pyongyang have most likely followed each other’s negotiations with the international community, the deals sealed to buy time, the successful and unsuccessful lies and deceptions and how to come to each other’s support when needed. Most importantly, however, they have learned how to create rifts amongst Western countries, such as the United States, France and Britain, and to utilise Russian and Chinese postures, to divide in the UN Security Council.

As Haley correctly said, “Enough is enough.” War is neither needed nor welcomed. An international consensus to impose crippling sanctions on the regimes of Iran and North Korea is necessary.

Although watered down to garner the support of Beijing and Moscow, the sanctions adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on Monday against North Korea, capping the regime’s oil imports from China and banning its profitable textile exports, is a step in the right direction. One hopes this is the beginning of a continuing trend to bring an end to Pyongyang’s dangerous bellicosities, and sends a powerful message to Tehran of the international community’s resolve and intolerance for such rogue behavior.

If history is to teach us any lesson, it is that of rapprochement rendering nothing but death and destruction. If we seek an end to the current nuclear standoffs, all parties must further set aside their short term interests and think for the better good of all

Crisis-riddled Iran Sees Opposition Elect New Secretary General

NCRI

Crowd in Tirana

As Iran finds itself engulfed in domestic and external turmoil, the opposition in-exile enjoys the prowess and cohesion to elect a new secretary general.

A new administration in Washington has been ramping up the heat, punishing Tehran for meddling in other states’ affairs and advancing its ballistic missile drive. All the while Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has seen his representative rejected by two senior Shiite leaders in Iraq, the proxy war in Yemen going south and Tehran’s support to maintain Syria’s Bashar Assad in power eating up crucial resources. Internally, the Iranian people are stepping up their protests to significant scales.

In now daily protests thousands of investors are demanding their savings from state-run institutions, and the city of Baneh in western Iran recently witnessed clashes as locals took to arms to protest the ruthless killing of porters by state security forces. In a parallel significant development, the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/MEK) held its congress on Wednesday marking its 52nd anniversary and sitting to elect a new secretary general

NCRI

Iran Opposition Election: Crowd in Tirana

This process was held in six different cities, including Tirana, the Albanian Capital, where most MEK members are stationed after their long ordeal in Iraq, along with five other countries. Ms. Zahra Merrikhi was elected as the new MEK Secretary General, replacing Ms. Zohreh Akhiyani, who served from 2011. The MEK Secretary General is elected for one two-year term, which can be extended considering the circumstances.

In view of its unique nature and differences from state or party elections, MEK rules and regulations define the election of a secretary general to be held in three different assemblies.

In the first such assembly, held by members of the MEK Central Council on August 20, 2017, an initial 12 candidates were introduced, of which four reached the next stage with Ms. Merrikhi receiving a majority of the votes.

At the second assembly, held two weeks later, senior MEK officials and cadres casted their ballots for the final four candidates, with Ms. Merrikhi leading the vote tally again. The third and final assembly, held on Wednesday, witnessed all MEK members raising their hands and unanimously electing Ms. Merrikhi as the new MEK Secretary General. Born in 1959, Ms. Merrikhi joined the MEK in the years leading to the 1979 revolution. She was summoned and interrogated several times by the Shah’s intelligence service for her activities. Her younger brother, Ali, was killed by the current Iranian government back in 1988. From 2003 onward she served as the coordinator of the office representing Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of opposition groups including the MEK.

The democratic approach adopted by the MEK in this election process is in stark contrast to that imposed on its compatriots by the ruling clerics of Iran for the past four decades. It also undercuts the oft-repeated, Iran government’s inspired characterization that it has an authoritarian structure. If we were to take the Iran’s presidential “election” into consideration, we would view a selection by an unelected few, far from anything resembling an election in today’s 21st century.

.

All candidates are evaluated for their utter devotion and obedience to the clerical rule and Supreme Leader. Before May’s vote even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served as the president for eight years and Khamenei launched a massive nationwide crackdown in 2009 to quell any opposition to his engineered reelection, was disqualified from this year’s presidential race. As the political establishment in Tehran sees its founding fathers dying one after another and Khamenei himself battling severe health issues and allegedly cancer, there are serious woes about the future of his rule and the ruling clerics in its entirety. And with conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi – said to be groomed by Khamenei to reach the presidency and eventually succeeding him at his throne – failing to unseat Hassan Rouhani from the presidency, no new face with the necessary majority support is seen to lead this political establishment into its unknown future.

It is a complete different story for the MEK leadership, however, as Ms. Merrikhi currently enjoys the support of 18 co-Secretaries General (including seven former Secretaries General) and three deputies from the organization’s younger generation.

Narges Azodanlou, 36, Rabi’eh Mofidi, 35, and Nasrin Massih, 39, all born during or after the 1979 revolution, represent the MEK’s dynamic characteristic and how this organization is able to adapt and deliver young new leaders for this fast-changing world. In short, Merrikhi’s election demonstrates process, structure, depth of leadership ranks, and a genuine and practical commitment to gender equality, especially in leadership positions. “Today, the PMOI, with the help of the Iranian people, is prepared as never before to overthrow the clerical regime,” Ms. Merrikhi said after expressing gratitude to her predecessors and vowing to remain loyal to the MEK’s ultimate objective of establishing freedom and democracy in Iran. Welcoming Ms. Merrikhi’s election, NCRI President-elect Rajavi described this new development as signaling the soon-to-come change of the theocratic ruling in Iran

Iran: Destruction of Mass Graves of 1988 Massacre

Amnesty International is calling on people to join the campaign by promoting the hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media

Amnesty International, 05 September 2017-- Amnesty International launched a campaign on Monday calling on the authorities of the Iranian regime to “urgently stop the destruction of a mass grave in the southern city of Ahvaz

Amnesty International is calling on people to join the campaign by promoting the hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media

At least “a dozen political prisoners killed during a wave of mass extrajudicial executions in August and September 1988 are buried” in the mass grave.

A footage obtained by Amnesty International “shows the site is gradually being buried beneath piles of construction waste” after a construction near the area began earlier this year.

“Bulldozing the mass grave at Ahvaz will destroy crucial forensic evidence that could be used to bring those responsible for the 1988 mass extrajudicial executions to justice. It would also deprive families of victims of their rights to truth, justice, and reparation, including the right to bury their loved ones in dignity. By joining Amnesty International’s campaign, people can help to press Iran’s authorities to stop the imminent destruction of the site,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

He added: “Instead of desecrating the mass grave with piles of rubbish and waste and further tormenting families, who face repression for their efforts to protect the memory of their loved ones, the authorities should be upholding their duty to preserve all Iran’s mass grave sites so that investigations can be carried out into the 1988 extrajudicial executions and other mass killings.”

Amnesty International is calling on people to join the campaign by promoting the hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media.

The Iranian regime executed more than 30,000 political prisoners, the overwhelming majority of whom were activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), upon a direct fatwa by Khomeini in July 1988.

The victims were buried in secret mass graves. The 1988 massacre was described as the worst crime in the history of the Islamic Republic by the late Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the heir apparent of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the regime, at the time.

Many perpetrators of this crime currently hold high positions within the regime.

Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Iranian regime and many of his cabinet’s principal figures held positions of influence in the summer of 1988 and were well aware of the massacre. Some were prominent participants in it, and indeed Rouhani’s first-term Justice Minister, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, was one of four members of the Tehran death commission.

Last month Pour-Mohammadi was replaced by Alireza Avaie. He filled a similar role on the death commission in Khuzestan Province, the same province in which a mass grave is being destroyed.

A few days after the replacement, upon an order by Ali Khamenei, Pour-Mohammadi was appointed as an advisor to head of the Iranian regime’s judiciary Sadegh Larijani