Iran and Russia Getting Cozier with Visa Waiver

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer: Due to the lifted sanctions on Iran and the billions flowing into Tehran’s economy, those Russian missiles are now paid for that are bound for Iran and then there is the matter of a stealth bomber manufactured by Russia.

When it comes to global isolation, it is Kerry isolating the West and the United States, there is a new power ranking worldwide underway.

Iran’s Embassy Confirms Visa-Free Regime with Russia

TEHRAN (Tasnim)– The Iranian embassy in Moscow confirmed on Tuesday that an agreement between Iran and Russia, endorsed by presidents of the two countries, is going to simplify visa requirements for certain nationals from the two nations.

According to a statement released by the embassy’s media diplomacy department, the agreement will ease visa restrictions for the Iranian and Russian merchants, students, and participants in the scientific and cultural programs.

In a statement on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the agreement, which was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran in November 2015, will take effect on February 6.

“The document is aimed at simplifying on reciprocal basis conditions for the trips of the two countries’ nationals,” the statement said.

It would relax visa rules for Russian and Iranian business people, people participating in scientific, cultural and creative activity, for students and teachers, tourists and other categories, it added.

The announcement came a week after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a lasting nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), came into force.

Based on the nuclear deal, reached in July 2015, all nuclear-related anti-Iran sanctions have been removed.

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Back in 2014, the outset of the P5+1 Iranian nuclear talks, Russia took real notice for the sake of oil.

OilPrice: The recent breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West has seen Russia trying to rebuild its economic relationship with Iran after a dry spell brought about by Moscow’s cooperation on international sanctions. The Wall Street Journal reports that Russian and Iranian officials met on April 27 to discuss deals on electricity worth over $10 billion.

In recent years, the U.S. has gone to great lengths to keep Russia in the international fold as it confronted Iran over its suspect nuclear program. Despite having a long history of economic partnership with Tehran, the Kremlin cooperated with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (the P5+1) to enact painful sanctions on Iran.

Now, with U.S.-Russian relations hitting a multi-decade low, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears less inclined to keep up the pressure on the Islamic republic. Russia and Iran are in talks over swapping Iranian oil for goods and food supplies, which could be worth up to an estimated $20 billion. The deal would see Iran exporting 500,000 barrels of oil per day to Russia, a move that U.S. officials have said would violate sanctions. The two countries are also discussing power deals, including the construction of hydroelectric dams and the export of Russian electricity to Iran.

The pending deals are being seen as potentially undermining to the carefully structured sanctions that have been widely credited with forcing Iran to the negotiating table. If the Iranian economy gets a lifeline from Russia, the U.S. could lose leverage in talks with Iran over a final resolution to its nuclear program.

The P5+1 nations agreed to a six-month temporary deal that relieved some pressure on Iran in exchange for a freeze of the Iranian nuclear program. The two sides have set a July deadline for a longer-term deal.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials are quietly cautioning Russia against dismissing how damaging sanctions can be, as Russia itself becomes the recipient of economic sanctions from the West over its role in Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reports that many top Iranian officials and businessmen have been surprised to realize just how devastating sanctions have been on their own country.

Today, John Kerry is in talks with several other countries for a peace agreement on Syria. It has come out in the first days that Iran and Russia are leading the talks and Kerry is nothing more than the monkey in the middle. All the while, not only is there no accepted robust strategy for Islamic State, but all the while, it appears that John Kerry is prepared to accept fully al Nusra (al Qaeda) as the emir and or power in Syria. This will not play out well as they is also no sign that Kerry is demanding Bashir al Assad step down, in fact quite the opposite, he can be on the next elections ballot.

Under Barack Obama and John Kerry, the stance on addressing Syria, al Nusra and Islamic State will continue to grow and fester. At least Russia is appearing to be aggressive in ensuring the Kurds, our allies are represented in the talks, while John Kerry is quite dismissive of them

ISIS has a New Industry, Stolen Passports

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says

ABC: The terror group ISIS has created a whole “industry” out of the production of fake passports, a high-level French official said today.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that through ISIS’s operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the group has acquired blank passports and has now set up a “real fake document industry.” Cazeneuve made the statement following a meeting with top European officials where he proposed setting up a new task force to help nab people attempting to come into the European Union with fake papers.

Last month ABC News reported that U.S. intelligence suspected ISIS had acquired thousands of blank Syrian passports and at least one passport printing machine after taking over government offices in Syria. Officials from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in a 17-page report that the terror group has likely been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since at least last summer – and raised the possibility that people using the forged documents have snuck into America.

“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS-controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the HSI report says.

The report notes that the primary source for the information was rated at “moderate confidence,” the second-highest rating given for source assessments. Testifying before lawmakers days after the HSI report was circulated to American authorities, FBI Director James Comey first publicly revealed the nation’s top security officials’ very real anxiety over the problem.

“The intelligence community is concerned that they [ISIS] have the ability, the capability to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting,” Comey said.

Homeland Security Investigations Intelligence Report
A passport that law enforcement says was issued from ISIS-controlled territory in 2015, obtained in Istanbul.

Former Department of Homeland Security intelligence official and ABC News consultant John Cohen said in December, “If ISIS has been able to acquire legitimate passports or machines that create legitimate passports, this would represent a major security risk in the United States.”

Fake Syrian passports have already been discovered in Europe, most notably two used by suicide bombers in the horrific terrorist attack on Paris in November. The two men are believed to have slipped into Europe with a flood of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their homeland.

According to the source that provided the passport information to HSI, Syria is awash in fake documents.

“The source further stated that fake Syrian passports are so prevalent in Syria that Syrians do not even view possessing them as illegal,” the report says. “The source stated fake Syrian passports can be obtained in Syria for $200 to $400 and that backdated passport stamps to be placed in the passport cost the same.”

***

Meanwhile it is quite effective in Europe

ISIS ALREADY ESTABLISHED IN EU STATES, EUROPOL WARNS

Newsweek: Europe faces a greater militant threat from within its borders than from foreign fighters posing as refugees, the EU’s law enforcement agency has said.

“There is no concrete evidence that terrorist travelers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed,” according to research published on Monday by Europol, which also warned that domestic cells belonging to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS or IS) were operating within EU states and that the group has training camps within Europe in addition to its facilities in Syria.

The research says that “IS is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more ‘Mumbai-style’ attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU,” and adds that the group has developed an “external actions command” trained for “special forces-style” attacks worldwide. Speaking to reporters at the launch of the agency’s new European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC), Europol director Rob Wainwright said “the so-called Islamic State had developed a new combat-style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage, with a particular focus in Europe,” AFP reports.

Europol also says that “IS-incited attacks do not necessarily have to be coordinated from Syria. Central command in Syria is believed to map out a general strategy, but leaves tactical freedom to local leaders to adapt their actions to circumstances on the spot.”

But it warns that the refugee crisis does bring new threats: “A real and imminent danger…is the possibility of elements of the (Sunni Muslim) Syrian refugee diaspora becoming vulnerable to radicalization once in Europe.”

The ECTC is designed to act as an information hub, helping EU states to share information on counter-terrorism and coordinate joint operations.

“The wide range of possible targets in combination with an opportunistic approach of locally based groups creates a huge variety of possible scenarios for future terrorist events,” Europol says. “A regular exchange of strategic intelligence is essential to any up-to-date assessment of the situation to be shared amongst Member States.”

Kerry Allowing Iran and Russia to Dictate Syria Peace Talks

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

The Obama administration just ‘made a scary retreat’ in its Syria policy, and negotiations are quickly unraveling

BusinessInsider: In a meeting with members of Syria’s opposition in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry demanded that rebels accept a set of preconditions dictated by Russia and Iran in order to participate in peace talks, according to an explosive report by the daily pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat.

The terms Kerry reportedly asked the opposition Saudi-backed High Negotiation Committee (HNC) to accept — including a “national unity government” instead of a transitional governing body that would phase Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power — represent “a scary retreat in the US position,” opposition sources told the head of Al Hayat’s Damascus bureau, Ibrahim Hamidi.

According to translations provided by multiple Middle East analysts on Twitter, Kerry told the opposition delegation that, based on an “understanding” he had reached with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assad has the right to run for reelection and there will be no set timetable for his departure.

That stands in contrast to the White House’s previous position that while Assad does not have to go immediately, the timing of his departure should be addressed during negotiations.

Kerry also signaled the Obama administration’s endorsement of a four-point peace plan for Syria created by Iran, a staunch ally of Assad. The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, the establishment of a national unity government, the anchoring of minority rights in the constitution, and internationally supervised presidential elections in Syria.

United Nations (U.N.) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attends a meeting on Syria with representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5) at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, January 13, 2016. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse Thomson ReutersUN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura pushed for the national ceasefire on Monday, saying in a press conference from Geneva that “the condition is it should be a real ceasefire and not just local.”

The ceasefire would apply to all warring parties but the ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. As Al Hayat has noted, that implicitly would grant legitimacy and “an official status” to the Shiite militias Iran has built in Syria to support Assad.

Including minority rights in the constitution, meanwhile, would serve as an attempt to “anchor sectarian tensions” between Sunni and Shiite Muslims within a legal framework.

These demands are “a desperate move” by the US to make the negotiations “look like progress,” tweeted Hassan Hassan, coauthor of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror” and resident fellow at the DC-based think tank Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

“De Mistura also echoed Russia’s demands. Short-sighted of the US to think this will go well,” he added.

So far, it is not going anywhere. Members of the HNC reportedly rejected Kerry’s demands and have threatened to boycott the negotiations altogether. They reiterated that they will not attend the talks until the government halts air strikes and ends its sieges of rebel-held territory, in accordance with UN resolution 2254, adopted last month by the UN Security Council.

syria opposition aleppo Abdalrhman Ismail/ReutersProtesters carry banners and opposition flags as they march in Aleppo, Syria, asking for the release of prisoners held in government jails and the lifting of the siege on besieged areas.

The terms of that resolution have failed to materialize, but Kerry apparently pressured the opposition into attending the talks anyway. Rebel sources told Al Hayat that Kerry went one step further and threatened to cut off US aid to rebel groups if they failed to show up at the negotiating table.

On Monday, Kerry reiterated that preconditions are a nonstarter for negotiations. But he categorically denied that he had threatened to cut off aid to the rebel groups.

“The position of the United States is and hasn’t changed. We are still supporting the opposition, politically, financially and militarily,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “We completely empowered them. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

He noted, however, that “it’s up to the Syrians to decide what happens to Assad,” effectively echoing Russian officials.

Nawaf Obaid, an Al Hayat columnist and visiting fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, further noted the meeting’s most significant and “shocking” points in a series of tweets on Sunday: The series of tweets are here.

In the following six tweets, readout of yesterday’s meeting between @JohnKerry & Dr Riyad Hijab is outlined. It’s shocking to say the least!

While the HNC’s senior negotiator, Mohammad Aloush, promised a “strong reaction” to these demands in a press conference on Sunday, HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat told Reuters that the meeting with Kerry had been “positive” overall.

Former Syrian opposition leader Hadi Albahra noted, too, that the reports circulating about Kerry’s requests for the HNC were “not fully accurate.”

On Monday, however, de Mistura announced that talks will be postponed at least four days, to January 29, while negotiators work to resolve lingering disagreements over which members of the opposition will be invited to participate.

Kerry apparently stipulated that the HNC has to include certain Moscow-friendly opposition leaders into its delegation, including Kurdish PYD leader Saleh Muslim, former Syrian deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil, and Haitham Manna, exiled leader of the non-Islamist Syrian Democratic Council.

Thomson ReutersUS Secretary of State John Kerry takes his seat across the table from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The Saudi-backed HNC has so far refused to expand its delegation, insisting that it represents all legitimate opposition players. In response, Bloomberg reported, the US and Russia are considering inviting a separate opposition delegation to the talks made up of rebel leaders Moscow has proposed and endorsed.

Middle East analyst Kyle Orton, an associate fellow at UK-based think tank The Henry Jackson Society, tweeted a grim analysis: “With the way things have stacked up, it’s hard not to see it as Obama and Kerry consciously working for the defeat of Syria’s opposition.”

Hassan Hassan put it bluntly: “US officials are telling Syrians what extremists have been telling them for years — the US isn’t your friend.”

New Technology for Diplomacy, the Blackberry for Wendy/Hillary

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer: Anyone subpoena the Blackberry call records and meta-data?

Wendy Sherman worked for both the Clinton administration and the Obama administration. Wendy’s early background included: She has formerly worked as a social worker, the director of EMILY’s list, the director of Maryland’s office of child welfare, and the founding president of the Fannie Mae Foundation. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Counselor of the United States Department of State and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State and North Korea Policy Coordinator. In the latter role, she was instrumental in negotiations related to North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs that failed to stop North Koreas nuclear program. She was also the lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal. She currently serves as a resident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics (IOP). Sherman directed Campaign ’88 for the Democratic National Committee, where she oversaw field and political operations, communications, Congressional relations, constituency operations, issue development and coordination with all federal, state and local campaigns during the 1988 general election. Wendy Sherman was the Clinton administration’s policy coordinator for North Korea. The Clinton Administration had first arrived at the 1994 Agreed Framework under which, North Korea agreed to freeze and dismantle its nuclear weapons program, including its main reactor at Yongbyon (Sherman continues to defend the 1994 deal and her involvement in it, stating that “during the Clinton administration not one ounce of plutonium was added to the North Korean stockpile”). Sherman later headed North Korean negotiation policy until 2001.

Fox: 2013 Video Shows Wendy Sherman Boasting About Clinton Using Blackberry to Send Classified Material

FreeBeacon: Fox News correspondent Ed Henry reported Monday on a 2013 video showing State Department official Wendy Sherman boasting at a private event about Hillary Clinton and her aides sending, as Henry put it, “sensitive information on unclassified systems.”

“Now we have Blackberries, and it has changed the way diplomacy is done,” Sherman says in the 2013 tape. “Things appear on your Blackberries that would never be on an unclassified system, but you’re out traveling. You’re trying to negotiate something.“

Henry said Fox News had exclusively obtained the clip, where Sherman is shown speaking with the American Foreign Service Association.

“Sherman cited the example of Clinton’s September 2011 visit to the United Nations General Assembly, where the then-Secretary of State met with Lady [Catherine] Ashton of the European Union, and they conducted delicate Middle East peace negotiations,” Henry said.

The clip then returned to Sherman in 2013.

“And so they sat there as they were having the meeting with their Blackberries transferring language back and forth, between them and between their aides, to multitask in quite a new fashion,” Sherman said.

Fox reports:

Previous email releases by the State Department of Clinton’s official correspondence show that in September 2011, Clinton aide Jake Sullivan forwarded her an email chain on the Quartet statement.

The State Department considered the correspondence sensitive enough that the department deemed some of those emails to now be classified, and officials redacted details before the emails were released to the public.

The conservative super PAC America Rising declared that under National Archives guidelines, the information deemed classified involves “foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources,” so it was born classified when the emails were created.

“Despite her numerous protests, evidence continues to grow showing Secretary Clinton knowingly sent and received classified material using her private email,” Jeff Bechdel, communications director for America Rising, said in a written statement. “This new video again puts Clinton on defense, forcing the former Secretary of State to explain why she put U.S. intelligence at risk by exclusively [using] a private email account for government business.”

A Clinton aide would not comment on the video, which was revealed as new Fox News polls showed a tightening race between Clinton and Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton’s once double-digit lead in Iowa has dwindled to just 6 points, while Sanders has opened a 22-point lead in New Hampshire.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire polls showed that a candidate’s trustworthiness topped the qualities Democratic voters look for most in their preferred candidates.

Clinton House of Cards Falling?

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

The Hill:

It is the beginning of the end of the House of Clinton:

1. There is the stench of political death around Hillary, Bill, Chelsea and the entire House of Clinton.

2. You could feel it when Republican front-runner Donald Trump hit back — hard — over the “penchant for sexism” charge by basically calling Hillary Clinton an enabler in the former president’s sexual shenanigans.

3. When have we ever seen the Clintons back off? But they did.

4. Then came further reports about an expanded FBI probe of her handling of secure information; the nexus of State Department favors for donors to the Clinton Foundation; and the story that Hillary Clinton or her staff might have lied to FBI agents in this probe.

5. All of this has raised the speculation, yet again: Will President Obama stop the Department of Justice (DOJ) from indicting her if the eight-person DOJ team working with over 100 FBI agents recommends criminal charges?

6. The president will be in an odd situation: He ran against the Clintons. He is known to loathe Bill Clinton. He apparently does not want the Clintons back in charge of the Democratic Party (thus removing the thousands of Obama acolytes with cushy patronage jobs).

7. So: If the DOJ recommends an indictment and he K.O.’s it, he will have his own legacy smeared with a permanent taint of having covered up for the Clintons.

8. If he allows an indictment to move ahead, that will be the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Period. She may think she can march on despite charges, but that would be self-delusional. Her campaign will be finished the day charges are filed by Obama’s Justice Department.

9. She can’t claim “politics as usual” or that old “right-wing conspiracy” nonsense as this will be Obama’s Justice Department — not a Republican-controlled entity — bringing these charges.

10. Now, even without an indictment, Hillary Clinton’s fortunes are rapidly sinking.

11. As of today, she is on track to lose both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary — to an unelectable 72-year-old Vermont socialist!

12. That tells us how politically weak and out of it the Clinton machine has become.

13. It is no coincidence that Vice President Joe Biden has suddenly resurfaced — first in a Hartford, Conn. TV interview stating that he regrets not running “every day,” and then by softly criticizing Hillary Clinton for not leading on the anti-1 percent front.

14. Biden may very well be warming up in the bullpen for a possible emergency entry into the Democratic field once Clinton is charged and has to withdraw.

15. In the meantime, we see a frantic, panic-stricken Clinton family out on the stump hitting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on healthcare and guns. But they’re hitting him from the center on healthcare — not the left, where the votes are.

16. They are running national TV ads on guns on MSNBC; there are ads every few minutes. If Team Clinton members think they can turn around her negative trajectory over guns, they are sorely mistaken.

17. Economics is the main issue.

18. And Hillary Clinton is seen as being in the tank for corporate interests, while Sanders has stood up to them. Period. That is the race.

19. The 2016 campaign is a political revolution.

20. The House of Bush is also falling.

21. So is the Establishment of both political parties.

22. Who is more establishment than the Clintons and the Bushes?

23. Who has milked the political system for more money, gigs, access and cushy jobs for cronies than the Clintons and the Bushes?

24. But this is the year that the public is standing up to the status quo.

25. We are witnessing history: the fall of the Houses of Clinton and Bush.

26. Who is rising?

27. The outsiders.

Further reading from a former Hillary senior aide: Admits Bill’s exploitation of women…

Politico: For the better part of the last month, Donald Trump has hit Hillary Clinton for playing the “woman’s card” in her attacks against him, frequently mentioning her husband’s past affairs in an attempt to discredit her argument that she would be champion for women in the White House.

For one of Clinton’s closest senior advisers as first lady, however, those arguments ring hollow.

“Here’s what I think about that: I think what Bill Clinton did in terms of infidelity was absolutely horrible. A shitty thing to do,” Patti Solis Doyle told David Axelrod in the latest episode of his “The Axe Files” podcast for the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, where she is a resident fellow this winter.

Remarking again what a “shitty thing” it was “to do to her,” Solis Doyle emphasized that it was the president, not his wife, who did anything wrong.

“It was awful. You know, many of us thought about quitting after what he did,” she revealed. “But when we thought about it – when I thought about it – I thought, she didn’t do anything. He is the jerk here.”

Solis Doyle surmised at another point that Axelrod was alluding to a comment in private correspondence in which Clinton wrote to a friend that Lewinsky was a “narcisstic loony toon.”

“It’s not like she went on television or said it publicly. She didn’t say anything publicly about any of the… And, you know, as a woman, if my husband were having some sort of extramarital affair with another woman, I’m sure I wouldn’t have very nice things to say about that woman either. I mean, that’s just normal,” she added. “But she never said anything publicly. And I think it’s its own form of sexism to somehow blame the spouse for what the husband did. I think that’s its own form of sexism.”

Solis Doyle advised Clinton during both of her Senate campaigns as well as serving as her campaign manager during her 2008 presidential campaign until a third-place finish in Iowa necessitated a change. She then worked as a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign, serving as Joe Biden’s campaign chief of staff.

This time, while acknowledging that Bill appears to be the Clinton more at ease at rallies and on the rope line, Solis Doyle remarked that she had “no doubt” that her former boss would be the Democratic nominee.

“You know, Bill Clinton, he gets so much energy from the people at his rallies. When he’s working a rope line, you can just see him light up. You know, she’s tired. She gets tired. She does it. She does it dutifully. Is it her most fun thing to do? No. Would she rather be looking at policy and going through legislation and working with a bunch of experts on how to, you know, improve the Affordable Care Act? Absolutely,” Solis Doyle explained. “This is not her favorite thing to do. It’s a mean, you know, to an end, I guess.”

At the same time, she said, Clinton “seems much more comfortable in her skin this time around than she did in 2008 and I think she’s much more comfortable as a candidate.”

“I think she’s much more prepared for the rigors of a campaign. I always think that you learn so much more from losing than from winning,” she continued. “You learn many more lessons from losing a campaign than from winning one. I think that nobody likes an inevitable frontrunner.”

“I was in a discussion today and I quoted the famous Mario Cuomo about campaigning – ‘you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.’ She doesn’t seem all that comfortable with the poetry,” Axelrod mused. “I used to say that President Obama – and I suspect President Clinton as well – was the guy who cracked the book open the night before the exam, you know, and got the A. And she was the one who stayed up all night and did the extra credit.”

Solis Doyle agreed, responding that Clinton “does her homework” and might not be “the most inspirational kid in the class, right?”

“But man, do you want her running the country? Absolutely,” she said. “She has a level of competency that no one else has in this field both on the Republican side and on the Democratic side and in these times – we’re in some very tenuous times – I think you want her there at the helm.”