Iran Implementation Day and Iran’s Connection to Islamic State

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The money to Iran is already moving.

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This is going to be a long read, but an important one such that history is included, details of diplomacy is included and described implications are described. Imagine what the next president of the United States will have to deal with, but more, imagine what Iran may do in the immediate coming months with $100 billion dollars, which by the way is bigger than Iran’s current economic value.

Iran Is More Deeply Tied to ISIS Than You Think

As the West continues to partner with Iran to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, it is worth remembering that one of Iran’s highest-ranking terrorists was instrumental in founding Al-Qaeda, and that the split between Shia and Sunni jihadis is murky at best.

Iranian operative Imad Mughniyeh was instrumental in the training, development, and support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda – and thus its offshoot, the Islamic State.

The power vacuum Mughniyeh created helped to further Iran’s geopolitical agenda. (This is a very long, detailed and important read, don’t miss the whole summary)

In part from the WSJ: The head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is in Europe to discuss joint counterterrorism finance efforts and where things stand with the global agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Talks on the former will be straightforward enough, but the latter could get bumpy.

Over the past few months, investors from Europe and Asia have gone to Tehran in droves, searching for post-sanction deals and bolstering Iranian hopes that the lifting of international sanctions will draw significant investment. Some in Europe have described Iran “as ‘an El Dorado’ and potential ‘bonanza.’ ” The chief of Iran’s central bank has cited the country’s “unique geographical advantage,” its “sense of timeliness and discipline,” and “very good history of being a trade partner.” In October, he predicted that “Iran will be a very favored destination for many international investors.”

But Treasury officials bear mixed news: The U.S. is preparing to meet its commitments on sanctions relief tied to implementation of the nuclear deal. Still, many U.S. sanctions tied to Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and other negative behaviors remain in place.

And within days of the Iranian central banker’s comments in October, the Financial Action Task Force, which sets global standards on countering money laundering and terrorist financing, issued another searing rebuke of Iran’s “strategic deficiencies.” Only Iran and North Korea, the task force said, present such “on-going and substantial money laundering and terrorist financing” risks that the international community should apply active “counter-measures” to protect the global financial system.

The task force said that as sanctions are being lifted under the nuclear agreement, it “remains particularly and exceptionally concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.” It repeated its long-standing call for financial institutions to “give special attention to business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian companies and financial institutions.” The full story is here.

From the White House:

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From the Treasury Department in part:

1/16/2016

​Implementation Day Statement:

On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union, and Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.  October 18, 2015 marked Adoption Day of the JCPOA, the date on which the JCPOA came into effect and participants began taking steps necessary to implement their JCPOA commitments.  Today, January 16, 2016, marks Implementation Day of the JCPOA.  On this historic day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, and the Secretary State has confirmed the IAEA’s verification.  As a result of Iran verifiably meeting its nuclear commitments, the United States is today lifting nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, as described in the JCPOA.
In connection with reaching Implementation Day, today the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued several documents.  Specifically, OFAC posted to its website: Guidance Relating to the Lifting of Certain Sanctions Pursuant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Implementation Day; Frequently Asked Questions Relating to the Lifting of Certain U.S. Sanctions Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Implementation Day; General License H: Authorizing Certain Transactions relating to Foreign Entities Owned or Controlled by a United States Person; and a Statement of Licensing Policy for Activities Related to the Export or Re-Export to Iran of Commercial Passenger Aircraft and Related Parts and Services. The aforementioned documents are effective today, January 16, 2015.
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Political Challenges to the Iran Deal in Tehran and Washington

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi and Timothy Stafford
The Iran deal remains at the mercy of a volatile and unpredictable political climate, both in Tehran and Washington. This could well overwhelm it in the coming year.

Ticking the Boxes: Tehran’s Road to ‘Implementation Day’

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi
To make the deal successful, intensive co-ordination between domestic actors in Iran will be required to implement these highly technical processes.

The Devil is in the Detail: The Financial Risks to the Economic Success of the Iran Deal

By Emil Dall, Andrea Berger and Tom Keatinge
Over the last decade, the US and EU have constructed a complex network of sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear programme, ensuring the near-total isolation of Iran from global markets. On ‘implementation day’, this network starts to be disassembled and reintegration begin.

Iran Implementation Day Recommendations

The signatories to the Iran nuclear deal should move to entrench processes that will enable the agreement to outlast the individuals that put it in place. By this time next year, a new US president will have been sworn in, and presidential elections in Iran will only be just months away. Time must be used wisely.

Senator Session’s Book on Immigration and Green Cards

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Under Barack Obama, the United Nations is also the headquarters of who can claim a new identity, that of an American. The same does for Europe, the world is one big global citizen, loyal to nothing and fully borderless.

Hat tip to Chuck and Daily Caller:

Jeff Sessions Releases Book Of Charts Putting Immigration And Green Card Issuances Into Shocking Perspective

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions released a book of graphs and charts on Wednesday that helps put the U.S.’s relaxed immigration policies in shocking perspective.

“Record-breaking visa issuances propelling U.S. to immigration highs never before seen,” is the sub-title to the Republican immigration hawk’s “chart book.”

Sessions, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, asserts that the federal government will legally add 10 million or more “new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years.”

He also cites polls showing that a “stark” majority of Americans want lawmakers to reduce immigration rates, not increase them. Polls from Gallup and Fox show that Americans support an immigration reduction to an increase by a 2-to-1 margin.

Sessions’s chart book is aimed at providing readers an easy-to-understand frame of reference for immigration flows and green card issuances, past and present.

In one chart, Sessions compares the number of green cards that will be issued in the next decade to the population of the first three presidential primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions "Chart Book"

Another chart entitled “Immigration Adds 1 New Los Angeles Every 3 Years,” which is based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics and population projections, shows that the 11.4 million immigrants will enter the U.S. over the next nine years. “Unless immigration reductions are enacted,” the immigration population will increase in size equal to the population of Los Angeles — 3.9 million — every three years, Sessions notes.

sessions2 The number of green card issuances that can be expected over the next decade is also the equivalent of the combined population of seven of the largest cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, and Atlanta, Sessions notes.

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Other charts include one which shows that the U.S.’s immigration population will grow to more than 700 percent of 1970 levels by 2060.

By then, the U.S. will have 78.2 million foreign-born residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1970, that number was 9.6 million.

And another chart takes aim at immigration from majority-Muslim nations. The U.S. has issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from those nations in the last five years, reports Sessions, citing statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.

Sessions’s “chart book” also includes stats on welfare usage rates for Middle Eastern refugees. According to a 2013 report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 91.4 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps. Nearly 70 percent — 68.3 percent to be exact — receive cash welfare assistance.

Other charts compare the U.S.’s immigrant population to other nations’.

“America Has 10 Million More Foreign-Born Residents Than The Entire European Union” and “U.S. Has 6 Times More Migrants Than All Latin American Nations Combined” provide the numbers.

While the U.S. has 45.8 million residents who were born outside of the U.S., the entire European Union has 35 million, according to a United Nations database. That despite the fact that the combined population of EU countries is 60 percent larger than the population of the U.S.

 

 

 

 

The Stench: Clintons and Marc Rich, Still Stinks

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When it comes down to THAT server, Hillary and team used this private communications method to avoid FOIA and public disclosure. While there is a fire brewing about Hillary’s misuse of classified material, the larger scandal with major IRS implications is the clandestine operations of the Clinton Foundation and the international network of money and criminal players.

This is a saga and symptom of the Clintons, where it is almost impossible to determine the beginning, but certainly a saga that has no end, or does it?

Clintons keep making millions off pardon of criminal Marc Rich

By Peter Schweizer

  Clintons keep making millions off pardon of criminal Marc Rich

NYPost: Fifteen years ago this month, on Jan. 20, 2001, his last day in office, Bill Clinton issued a pardon for international fugitive Marc Rich. It would become perhaps the most condemned official act of Clinton’s political career. A New York Times editorial called it “a shocking abuse of presidential power.” The usually Clinton-friendly New Republic noted it “is often mentioned as Exhibit A of Clintonian sliminess.”

Congressman Barney Frank added, “It was a real betrayal by Bill Clinton of all who had been strongly supportive of him to do something this unjustified. It was contemptuous.”

Marc Rich was wanted for a list of charges going back decades. He had traded illegally with America’s enemies including Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, where he bought about $200 million worth of oil while revolutionaries allied with the Khomeini held 53 American hostages in 1979.

Rich made a large part of his wealth, approximately $2 billion between 1979 and 1994, selling oil to the apartheid regime in South Africa when it faced a UN embargo. He did deals with Khadafy’s Libya, Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, Communist dictatorships in Cuba and the Soviet Union itself. Little surprise that he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

Facing prosecution by Rudy Giuliani in 1983, Rich fled to Switzerland and lived in exile.

What bothered so many was that Clinton’s clemency to Rich reeked of payoff. In the run-up to the presidential pardon, the financier’s ex-wife Denise had donated $450,000 to the fledgling Clinton Library and “over $1 million to Democratic campaigns in the Clinton era.”

As Judge Abner Mikva, a counsel in the Clinton White House and mentor to President Obama, noted that even Obama “was very, very dismayed by the Marc Rich pardon and the basis on which it appears to have been granted.”

But does the story end there? Is it possible the payoffs continued after he left office?

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Denise Rich (left,) Marc’s ex-wife, donated $450,000 to the Clinton library in the run up to the presidential pardon.Photo: AP

The stench of the scandal in early 2001 sent people scurrying. Days after it was revealed that a senior UBS executive named Pierre de Weck had written a letter to Clinton “to support his request for a pardon,” the Swiss banking giant cancelled its discussions with Clinton about a lucrative post-White House speech, apparently “worried that a large speaking fee would create an appearance of impropriety.”

Even Bill Clinton eventually admitted that the pardon had been “terrible politics.” “It wasn’t worth the damage to my reputation,” he said.

But while the pardon was a political mistake, it certainly was not a financial one. In the years following the scandal, the flow of funds from those connected to Marc Rich or the pardon scandal have continued to the Clintons.

Rich’s business partners, lawyers, advisors and friends have showered millions of dollars on the Clintons in the decade and a half following the scandal

Rich died in 2013. But his business partners, lawyers, advisors and friends have showered millions of dollars on the Clintons in the decade and a half following the scandal.

Nigerian businessman Gilbert Chagoury is well known as a close ally and business associate of Rich. The Nigerian media declared in 1999 that the “Gilbert Chagoury-Marc Rich alliance remains a formidable foe.” They sold oil on international markets together. In 2000, Chagoury was convicted in Geneva of money laundering and aiding a criminal organization in connection with the billions of dollars stolen from Nigeria during the reign of dictator Gen. Sani Abacha.

As part of a plea deal the conviction was later expunged.

Chagoury has been very generous to the Clintons in the years following the Rich pardon. He has organized an event at which Bill was paid $100,000 to speak (in 2003), donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and in 2009 pledged a cool $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative. The Chagourys were also active in Hillary’s 2008 presidential bid. Michel Chaghouri, a relative in Los Angeles, was a bundler and served on her campaign staff. Numerous other relatives gave the maximum $4,600 each to her campaign.

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Gilbert Chagoury, Nigerian businessman and close ally of RichPhoto: Getty Images

In return, Bill has lavished praised on Chagoury over the years. In 2005, Bill was the Keynote speaker when Chagoury received the “Pride of Heritage Award” from the Lebanese community.

In 2009, CGI gave Chagoury’s company an award for sustainable development. In 2013, Bill showed up in Nigeria for a public ceremony involving one of Chagoury’s projects. When Bill Clinton had his 60th birthday party, Chagoury was an invited guest. Chagoury also attended the wedding of Bill’s longtime aide, Doug Band.

Then there’s Russian investor Sergei Kurzin. He worked for Marc Rich in the 1990s, traveling around Russia looking for suitable investment opportunities in the crumbled former Soviet Union.

An engineer by training, Kurzin has been involved in lucrative deals in Kazakhstan and other countries, including the lucrative Uranium One deal that involved Bill Clinton and Frank Giustra.

Russia bought 20% of all uranium production capacity in the US, a deal that needed to be signed off by the State Department when it was headed by Hillary Clinton. While the deal was going through, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow, paid for by a Russian investment bank promoting the uranium deal.

Kurzin, meanwhile, donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The London-based Reuben Brothers have made a fortune thanks in part to their commodities firm Trans World Metals. According to the World Bank, they founded that firm with money from Marc Rich.

Photo: Post photo composite

And they have confirmed that they had business dealings with Rich. The Reuben Brothers, through their own Reuben Foundation, have been enthusiastic supporters of the Clintons. They co-hosted a star-studded gala with the Clinton Foundation in London dubbed the Millennium Network. They have also directly donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

Beth Dozoretz, a longtime Democratic party donor, was a friend to Denise Rich, and according to congressional investigations played a “key role” in helping secure the Marc Rich pardon. On Jan. 10, 2001, Dozoretz received a phone call from then-President Bill Clinton informing her that he was planning to pardon international fugitive Marc Rich. Dozoretz informed her ski partner on that trip, Denise Rich, of the great news.

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Beth Dozoretz, a close friend of Denise Rich, refused to testify against herself about Clinton’s controversial pardon of Rich.Photo: Reuters

In the years since the pardon was granted, Dozoretz has served the Clintons closely: as the finance co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign and as a senior State Department official during Hillary’s tenure. She has supported the super PAC Ready for Hillary and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Her husband, Ronald, has sent $25,000 to $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

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Rich died in 2013, and Clinton eventually admitted the pardon was terrible politics and “wasn’t worth the damage to my reputation.”Photo: Getty Images

Even the smaller phantoms of the Marc Rich scandal have popped up, opening their wallets for the Clintons. Gershon Kekst, who was Marc Rich’s longtime PR man in the United States, has contributed more than $10,000 to Hillary’s campaigns since the pardon. Clyde Meltzer was named in the original 1983 DOJ indictment against Marc Rich and Pincus Green. Meltzer pleaded guilty rather than flee the country like Rich and Green. In the 1990s he rejoined Rich, working for the fugitive’s new firm, Glencore.

According to Federal Election Commission records, Meltzer has a slim history of giving money to candidates, giving only $1,000 to a congressional candidate. But in 2007 he gave the maximum allowed to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Three of Marc Rich’s attorneys, Peter Kadzik, Robert Fink, and Jack Quinn, also a former counsel at the Clinton White House, have donated to Hillary’s campaigns. Quinn has given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

These Rich connections are, of course, based on disclosed donations. But we now know that the Clinton Foundation has failed to disclose more than 1,000 donors, despite its written agreement with the Obama transition team that it would maintain complete transparency.

Many of those donations came through a Clinton Foundation project in Canada, which is heavily laden with donations from the natural resources and commodities industries. Kurzin, for example, has given via this route. Are there more Marc Rich-connected dollars that have flowed to the Clintons? Will they ever provide the full disclosure they have so often promised?

It cannot be mere coincidence that in the years of fundraising for the Clinton Foundation, one of the industries that has emerged as a big backer of the Clintons is the mining and commodities industry, where Marc Rich made his fortune.

When it comes to Washington scandals, news usually sends political figures scurrying for cover — leading them to avoid those connected to the scandal. Apparently not so with the Clintons. Are you connected to the disgraced Marc Rich and the terrible pardon? It’s OK, as long as the check clears.

Peter Schweizer is the author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”

The Timeline and Iran Back-Channel People

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The Iranian Timeline of Terrorist Activities

Written by : Asharq Al-Awsat

Saturday, 16 Jan, 2016

Washington- 1979: On the year of the Iranian revolution, and after Ayatollah Khamenei returned to Iran, Iranians broke into the US embassy in Tehran, capturing 90 people. Later on they released women, African Americans, and indigenous Americans, while keeping 50 other diplomats captive for 444 days.

1980: With the start of the Iranian-Iraqi war, The Quds Force division unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was established, answering only to the Supreme leader’s authority.

1982: During the Iranian-Iraqi war, Iran recruited troops from the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Democratic National Union of Kurdistan to fight along their side.

1982: Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Iranian 1982-1985 ambassador, and minister of interior affairs, founded Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah until today remains a political, military, and security, proxy for the Iranian plans for both Lebanon and Syria.

1983: 58 Americans were killed when a truck exploded in front of the US embassy in Beirut, which, later on, the United States held both Hezbollah and Iran responsible for.

1983: Two suicide attacks on American and French marine troops’ bases in Beirut lead to the death of 241 Americans, 58 French troops, and 6 civilians aside from the two attackers, tens were injured too. On 2002, the US court condemned Hezbollah and Iran for the attacks.

1983: Coinciding explosions target 6 institutes both Kuwaiti and foreign, including the US embassy in Kuwait. Iran and its proxies were accused for the attacks.

1985: A civil plane boarding 153 people was hijacked during its flight between Athena and Rome, and driven to Beirut. The plane was later moved from Beirut to Algeria, with two passengers killed, and the rest released. The Hijack was later traced back to an organization associated with Hezbollah and the kidnappers were: Imad Mughniyah, Hassan Ezzeddine, Ali Atweand Mohammed Ali Hamadeh; all Hezbollah members.

1989: An attempted murder of the novelist Salman Rushdie for writing Ayate Sheitani, “Satanic verses” failed. Lebanon-based Hezbollah declared coordinating with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for the attempt.

1992: An explosion targeting the Israeli embassy in Argentine. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard was accused for perpetrating the attack.

1994: The Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aries, Argentine, was subjected to an explosion, and the Revolutionary Guard Stands was held responsible.

1995: The Iranian Revolutionary Guard organized an international gathering in Tehran, inviting several terrorist organizations, some of which were: the Japanese Red Army, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, the Iraqi Islamic Dawa Party, and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

1996: The terrorist Khobar Towers’ bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 Americans; Iran and proxies were held responsible.

1998: Two bombings targeted American embassies in Nairobi- Kenya and Dar es Salaam- Tanzania.

2001: After the US September attacks, American reports published report on Iran supporting al-Qaeda, and that it had allowed the 9/11 perpetrators to pass through its grounds. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah were enlisted as terrorist organizations.

2002: An American report issued that Hezbolla is granted an annual support from Iran ranging between 60 to100 million dollars. (Other reports estimated support to have reached 200 million dollars).

2002: Pentagon issued a report accusing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, Egyptian Islamist group, and al-Qaeda for participating in terrorist operations carried out on the border region between “Argentine, Brazil, and Paraguay”.

 

2005: Rafic Hariri, Lebanese Prime Minister, alongside two of his companions were assassinated in an explosion that targeted Harir’s convoy to Beirut. The prosecution of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon requested a number of accused figures (all members of Hezbollah), for investigation purposes, however, Hezbollah refused to hand them in. Later on, multiple political assassinations following Rafic al-Hariri’s assassination were added to the case files of the tribunal.

 

2005: An American report accused Iran of harboring al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan, some of which were relatives of Osama bin Laden.

2007: American General of forces in Iraq, David Petraeus in a congressional interrogation: Iran supports “Jaysh al-Mahdi” militia in Iraq in addition to other Shiite militants. Those supported by Iran are responsible for the death of over a thousand US soldiers in Iraq (by then).

2008: The Israeli embassy in the Baku capital of Azerbaijan is targeted with attempted bombing. Iran and its proxies were accused to also stand behind the operation.

2011: The Iranian plot to blow up a restaurant in Washington, DC, which was frequented by the Saudi ambassador (at the time) Adel al-Jubeir, who is today the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Although the target was the Saudi ambassador, the Iranian operation was going to kill many American citizens found at the restaurant.

2012: Blowing up a bus carrying Israeli tourists at an airport in Bulgarian city of Burgas. Five tourists were killed in addition to the bus driver and the bomber. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah were accused.

2012: In a court in Kenya, two detained Iranians were accused of being members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and of having plans to blow up embassies of the United States, Britain and Israel in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

2012: Indian police announced that they had confirmed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was behind the terrorist attack in New Delhi, which targeted Israeli diplomats in that year.

2013: Iranian plot in Nigeria against an Israeli shipping company and Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources. 2013: Discovering secret filming operations Iran was behind, targeting the Israeli embassy in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan.

2014: Accusing Hezbollah of planning an attack on Israeli tourists in Bangkok, capital of Thailand. 2014: The arrest of spies working for Iran in Lima, capital of Peru, with the aim of attacking the Jewish synagogue, among them a Hezbollah member.

2015: Bahrain police discovered weapons and explosives factory, arresting agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

2016: The Ministry of the Interior in Bahrain discovered a terrorist cell affiliated with the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

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Hostage Swap: Obama’s Secret Second Channel to Iran

Brett McGurk, a senior State Department official, led a small American team in secret prisoner-swap negotiations with Iran, which culminated in today’s agreement. Photograph: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty

Fourteen months ago, President Obama authorized a top-secret, second diplomatic channel with Tehran to negotiate freedom for Americans who had disappeared or been imprisoned in Iran. It was a high-risk diplomatic gamble. The initiative grew out of nuclear negotiations, launched in the fall of 2013, between Iran and the world’s six major powers. On the margins of every session, Wendy Sherman, the top American negotiator, pressed her Iranian counterparts about the American cases. The Iranians countered with demands for the release of their citizens imprisoned in the United States for sanctions-busting crimes. More than a year of informal discussions between Sherman and her counterpart, Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry official in charge of American and European affairs, led to an agreement, in late 2014, that the issue should be handled separately—but officially—through a second channel. After debate within the Administration, Obama approved the initiative. But it was so tightly held that most of the American team engaged in tortuous negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program were not told about it.

What heightened the risk was the fact that the new Iranian team was headed by a senior intelligence official, a sharp departure from the traditional but still tentative diplomatic channels with the Iranian Foreign Ministry developed in the nuclear talks. The involvement of Iranian intelligence made prospects far more unpredictable—and potentially controversial. Brett McGurk, a senior State Department official, headed the small American team, which also included officials from the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., and the intelligence community. The meetings—facilitated by the Swiss government and often held in Geneva—repeatedly hit snags, complications, legal hurdles, and last-minute demands. The swap—officially referred to as a “humanitarian gesture”—came close to fruition three times over more than a year of secret meetings, only to collapse again and again, an Iranian official said.

The deal finally came together this morning, just as Iran and the six major powers also moved toward Implementation Day of the Iran nuclear deal. It will mark the point when the U.N. confirms that Iran has complied with terms to dismantle its program, allowing international sanctions to be lifted. Secretary of State John Kerry held one final meeting with his Iranian counterpart, in Vienna, hosted by the European Union foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini. The separate diplomatic channels happened to mature at the same pace, according to U.S. officials. The second channel accelerated after the nuclear deal was announced last July.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met one final time in Vienna before Implementation Day and the separate but simultaneous announcement that the two countries had agreed on a prisoner swap.

The United States had hoped to make the announcement of the Americans’ release this morning, but Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency preëmpted Washington with its own announcement that four Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran had been freed as part of a prisoner exchange, following a decision by the Supreme National Security Council. The State Department scrambled to get out its statement. “We offered clemency to seven Iranians, six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, who had been convicted or are pending trial in the United States,” it said. “The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.” The number was pared down significantly from the original Iranian list, U.S. officials said. And not all the American cases against Iranians were resolved by the swap.

The release marked the end of a troubled saga that had been further politicized during the U.S. electoral season. Many Republicans had criticized President Obama for agreeing to a nuclear deal—which will give Iran access to tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues that had been locked in foreign banks because of sanctions—while Americans were still held in Iran.

Indeed, the reaction was swift and biting among Republican Presidential candidates. “The fact of the matter is that this tells us everything we need to know about the Iranian regime—that they take people hostage in order to gain concessions,” Senator Marco Rubio said. “And the fact that they can get away with it with this Administration, I think, has created an incentive for more governments to do this around the world.”

U.S. officials remained upbeat. “We think this is a very good day,” a senior Administration official said, during a teleconference briefing this morning. “We think this proves that we are able to resolve issues when we have diplomatic channels.” But he hastened to add, “This was not a traditional spy swap. We are pursuing this in context of an extraordinary moment in U.S.-Iranian relations as implementation of the nuclear deal is upon us.”

“In many ways, this was harder than the nuclear deal,” Wendy Sherman told me on Friday. “Because these were about American citizens, human lives, the pain of their families, the pain of their daily existence. I’m very glad to see them coming home.”

Brett McGurk, the point man on the American team, began his career in Washington as a law clerk to William H. Rehnquist, the late Chief Justice. He has been given some of the toughest assignments at the State Department. His official biography describes him as one of the architects of President George W. Bush’s “surge” of U.S. troops to combat Al Qaeda. He was a key adviser during the Obama Administration’s review of our Iraq policy, and later helped manage the transition as the United States withdrew its troops. McGurk is now Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. He was in Geneva negotiating right through Saturday morning, State Department officials said.

The most widely known American released today is the Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who had been detained since July, 2014.  Born in California, of Iranian parents, he went to Iran as a young reporter, married an Iranian journalist, and settled in. He was charged with espionage, “collaborating with hostile governments,” and “propaganda against the establishment.” Among Rezaian’s alleged crimes, according to Iranian press reports, was writing to President Obama and offering advice based on his wide range of Iranian contacts. Rezaian was convicted last year, but his sentence, curiously, was never announced. Even his lawyer said that she didn’t know what it was.

Rezaian’s wife, the journalist Yaganeh Salehi, was detained at the same time. She was later released on bail, but the charges were never dismissed. She is being allowed to fly out of Iran with her husband, U.S. officials said.

Of the four prisoners released by Iran, Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, had been imprisoned the longest. He was born in Arizona, grew up in Michigan, and served in Iraq. He was visiting his grandmother in Tehran when he was arrested, in August, 2011, and charged with espionage, waging war against God, and “corrupting the earth.” He received the death sentence. A retrial overturned that conviction, and he was sentenced to ten years for “coöperating with hostile governments.”

The Reverend Saeed Abedini, who was born in Iran, converted to Christianity from Islam. Christianity is legal in Iran, and Christians have special, and proportionate, seats in Parliament. But Abedini was a convert, and reportedly helped to establish underground churches in Iran for other converts. He eventually married an American, moved to the United States, in 2005, and was ordained by the American Evangelistic Association. But he returned to Tehran in 2009. He was picked up in 2012 and charged with undermining national security. He was sentenced to eight years.

The fourth released prisoner is Nosratollah Khosrawi-Roodsari, about whom little is known. The United States was not even aware that he had been detained until it received a diplomatic note about him from the Iranians during the negotiations. He was detained sometime in the past year, U.S. officials said.

In a separate case, a fifth American, Matthew Trevithick, was also allowed to leave Iran today, before the others. Imprisoned early last month, on unknown charges, he was a young businessman who ran a research organization in Turkey and had been in an intensive language-training class in Tehran. He was just completing his course when he was arrested. Shortly after he graduated from Boston University, Trevithick worked as my research assistant at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, in Washington. He later worked for two years at the American University in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, and for four years at the American University in Kabul. He was allowed to call his parents this morning en route to the airport.

At least two Americans are not coming home. Siamak Namazi was detained in October, although the judiciary has never confirmed his arrest or charges against him. A young analyst from a prominent Iranian family, he came to the United States as a boy, received dual citizenship, and attended college at Tufts, then returned to Iran to do compulsory military service. He did stints as an analyst at think tanks in Washington, including the National Endowment for Democracy. He later set up shop in Dubai as a consultant on energy issues. He had avoided going back to Iran after the arrests of other Iranian-Americans, but he received signals that it was safe to visit his family. He was soon picked up. “We’re doing everything we can to resolve his case,” a senior official said.

Robert Levinson, a retired F.B.I. agent, who has been missing for more than eight years, is a more complicated case. He was last seen on Iran’s Kish Island in 2007. Levinson told colleagues that he was working on a cigarette-smuggling investigation, but the Washington Post reported, in 2013, that he had actually been on a C.I.A. contract, and was dispatched by intelligence analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas. The revelation of the rogue operation led to a shakeup at the agency.

In 2013, Levinson’s family released a series of “proof of life” photos sent to them of a bearded, bedraggled, and chained Levinson in an orange prison jumpsuit, the type worn by detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In each photo, he carried a sign. In one, he pleaded, “Help me.” Another read “I Am Here in Guantanamo Do You Know Where It Is?” U.S. officials say that Iran’s claims not to know Levinson’s current status are credible. There have been suggestions over the years, never confirmed, that he might have been taken to Baluchistan, an unruly area that overlaps the borders of Iran and Pakistan. In its announcement of the prisoner swap, the State Department said, “Iran has also committed to continue cooperating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson.”

The Fars New Agency identified the seven Iranian inmates freed by the United States as Nader Modanlou, Bahram Mechanic, Khosrow Afqahi, Arash Ghahreman, Touraj Faridi, Nima Golestaneh, and Ali Sabounchi. All had been charged with violations of sanctions or trade restrictions. None had ties to terrorist activity, U.S. officials said Saturday.

Despite the timing, U.S. officials insisted that the two big breakthroughs on Saturday—on the nuclear deal and on the detainees—were not initially designed to conclude simultaneously. “As unbelievable as it will be for a lot of people, the two channels were really separate,” a U.S. official familiar with the talks told me. “They steamrolled in such a way that they ended up coming together at a time Iran wanted to clean the decks.”

The release set the stage for at least one additional step that could resolve some remaining differences between Tehran and Washington, but those negotiations are still under way. The Obama Administration also hopes today’s events will foster further coöperation when the United States and Iran participate in new Syrian peace talks, set to begin on January 25th—a process far more complex than the negotiations over nukes or hostages.

December, Obama: Apply Sanctions on Iran, No Wait

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No wait something with regard to humanitarian causes is brewing. Another cup of eggnog? Michelle, hold on….got a meeting, oh another conference call. John, I am not going to notify Congress, you do it and pick only those need to know Democrats to advise them. Is Jack Lew on line 5? Suspend, hold, where do I sign?

Freed Americans are on a Swiss jet w/ Giulio Haas, Swiss amb. to Iran. From Geneva they will go to a U.S. military base in Germany. Previously, Iran released them to the Swiss embassy.

Here comes the backstory on how all the Iran sanctions, prisoner swaps began and regardless of what Josh Earnest said, or the scolding of the media that Obama did and dismissing what John Kerry was promising, we and the Congress were lied to. Oh…imagine that….the Iran nuclear did DID include the prisoner swap that was being handled by the Swiss delegation and the Ayatollah.

Under Obama, millions or rather billions have been released to Iran for months.

The European Union Council lifted their sanctions, that statement is found here.

The full sanctions architecture listed by the U.S. Department of Treasury is found here.

As of 4:00 PM, EST POTUS formally revokes Executive Orders 13574, 13590, 13622 and 13645, in compliance with the JCPOA.

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Exclusive: In negotiating to free Americans in Iran, U.S. blinked on new sanctions

Reuters: The day before the Obama administration was due to slap new sanctions on Iran late last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry the move could derail a prisoner deal the two sides had been negotiating in secret for months.

Kerry and other top aides to President Barack Obama, who was vacationing in Hawaii, convened a series of conference calls and concluded they could not risk losing the chance to free Americans held by Tehran.

At the last minute, the Obama administration officials decided to delay a package of limited and targeted sanctions intended to penalize Iran for recent test-firings of a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

This account of previously unreported internal deliberations was provided by two people with knowledge of the matter.

A third official said Obama had approved the decision to delay the sanctions.

Those unilateral U.S. sanctions are expected to be imposed quickly now after Iran freed five Americans, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, on Saturday. Eight Iranians accused in the United States of sanctions violations were having charges dropped or sentences commuted on Saturday under the complex prisoner deal, according to court filings and sources familiar with the cases.

The moves came as broader U.S. and international sanctions were set to be lifted after verification that it had met commitments to curb its nuclear program.

But Kerry’s decision not to call Iran’s bluff in December shows how months of clandestine negotiations to free Rezaian and other Americans became deeply intertwined with the final push to implement the nuclear deal, despite the official U.S. line that those efforts were separate.

A U.S. official said on Saturday there was no connection between the nuclear deal and the release of the Americans.

The prisoner swap could also come under scrutiny from critics who have questioned the Obama administration’s resolve in dealing with Iran and ability to follow through on its pledge to keep a hard line on sanctions outside those imposed on its nuclear program.

The episode was one of several diplomatic and military near misses between Iran and the United States in recent weeks, including a quickly defused crisis when 10 U.S. sailors were detained after entering Iranian waters.

 

TENSE CALLS AND BUREAUCRATIC ERRORS

Details of the prisoner talks were a closely held secret, so even within the Obama administration few people realized how perilously close the swap came to falling through.

On Dec. 29, Kerry told Zarif the United States intended to impose new sanctions on Iran over the missile test firings, which were deemed to have violated a United Nations ban, according to a U.S. official and congressional sources.

Zarif countered that if Washington went ahead, the prisoner swap was off, the sources said.

Kerry spoke by phone that night with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and a White House official and the decision was made to hold off on any sanctions announcement, they said.

Zarif’s ability to fend off new U.S. sanctions, even temporarily, may have bought him some breathing space with Iranian hardliners who oppose the terms of nuclear deal. They have insisted that any new sanctions would be a show of bad faith by Washington.

But a bureaucratic misstep almost undid Kerry and Lew’s decision. Word of their last-minute intervention to delay the sanctions never filtered down to working-level officials at the State Department during the holiday lull.

Unaware of the change of plan, the State officials went ahead and quietly informed key congressional offices the next morning about the new Iran sanctions targeting about a dozen companies and individuals. They included copies of a news release that the Treasury Department intended to issue.

Officials then abruptly pulled back, telling congressional staffers the announcement had been “delayed for a few hours,” according to an email seen by Reuters. The next day the State Department emailed that sanctions were delayed because of “evolving diplomatic work that is consistent with our national security interests.”

Administration officials then told some congressional staffers confidentially that something big involving Iran was in the works, in an apparent attempt to tamp down criticism from Capitol Hill, a congressional source said.

Leading lawmakers, including some of Obama’s fellow Democrats, chided the White House for delaying the sanctions package and suggested it could embolden Iran to further threaten its neighbors and destabilize the Middle East.

 

SMALL CIRCLE OF TRUST

The nuclear deal signed on July 14 between Iran and world powers had been widely hailed as a major boost for Obama’s legacy. But he also faced criticism for refusing to make the accord contingent on Iran’s release of Americans known to be held by Iran. The prisoners, accused of spying and other charges, included Rezaian and several other Iranian-Americans.

At a White House news conference the day after the nuclear accord was signed, Obama bristled at a reporter’s suggestion that while basking in the glow of the foreign policy achievement he was all but ignoring the plight of Americans still detained in Iran.

“You should know better,” he said, adding that U.S. diplomats were “working diligently to try to get them out.” But Obama insisted that linking their fate directly to the nuclear negotiations would have encouraged the Iranians to seek additional concessions.

Once the deal was done, Kerry told his staff to redouble efforts to secure the Americans’ release, a U.S. official said. By that time, Brett McGurk, a State Department official, had already been conducting secret negotiations for months with an unnamed Iranian representative, the official said.

In a sign that Iran was looking for a way forward, officials of the Iranian interests section in Washington – Tehran’s de facto embassy – began meetings in August with some of the 12 Iranians held in the United States for violating sanctions. The aim was to see whether they would be willing to return to Iran if a swap could be arranged, according to a person familiar with the cases.

In recent months, senior Iranian officials repeatedly floated the idea of a prisoner exchange, despite apparent opposition from Iranian hardliners.

Kerry informed only a handful of senior lawmakers on a confidential basis on Thursday night that a release of Americans held in Iran was imminent, a congressional source said.

Obama has had some success in keeping such proceedings under wraps in the past. His aides negotiated a deal in late 2014 that led to Cuba’s release of former U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross and a U.S. intelligence operative while Washington freed three Cuban spies.

But it was a prisoner swap earlier that year – the Taliban’s release of alleged U.S. army deserter Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – that caused a backlash from Republican lawmakers. They argued that Obama failed to give Congress the legally required notice for transfer of Guantanamo prisoners and questioned whether Bergdahl endangered fellow soldiers by slipping away from his post in Afghanistan, provoking a massive manhunt.

On Saturday, Kerry and Zarif joined with European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini in Vienna for planned “Implementation Day,” which would end a decade of nuclear sanctions on Iran and unlock billions of dollars of its frozen assets.

With the U.S. prisoners free, Obama may now feel freer to go ahead with the missile sanctions, which are far more limited than the nuclear sanctions program that crippled Iran’s economy. U.S. officials have said that the new financial penalties remain on the table and are likely to be revisited soon.