Iran Parameter Framework by the Numbers

Posted on April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

To see the Iran parameters framework by the numbers and with charts, click here.

In what represents the worst aspect of this flawed deal, Obama has placed responsibility for verification of the agreement back on the United Nations. This is a hazardous repeat of the flawed UN response to Iraq’s proliferation after the Gulf War. Simply put, the UN Security Council will have veto powers over anything Iranian and nuclear when it comes to verification. This gives Beijing, and even more Moscow, a critical lever over the process.

We’ve seen this movie before, with Iraq in the 1990s. Charles Duelfer, who led the UN’s nuclear inspection regime in Iraq from 1993 to 2000, has termed this the “fatal flaw” of Obama’s deal, and that may be charitable. Yeltsin’s Russia was not very cooperative about Baghdad’s nuclear game-playing, and we should expect Putin’s Kremlin, which is engaged in Cold War 2.0 against the West, to be anything but helpful.

While Tehran and Moscow have no love for each other, between mutual fear and loathing, they both hate the West more, and any deal that puts Putin’s Kremlin in a verification role over Iran’s nuclear program is a farce, not to mention a strategic delusion. At worst, this may give a strategic partnership between Russia and Iran, which has been growing slowly, a new life, with an explicitly anti-Western focus. None of this can be mistaken for good news for the West.

After years of painstaking effort, the Obama administration has managed to craft a framework agreement with Iran. In the next three months, this structure is meant to be filled out with details regarding the scale of Iran’s enrichment capacity and the stages of sanctions relief. If the devil is in the detail, much mischief may await us.

However, even before all this happens, the Iranian nuclear drama is proving to be one of the most curious arms control episodes in history. As the scale of American concessions becomes evident, the White House and its defenders seldom justify the emerging accord strictly on terms of the proliferation threat that remains. Their response is often limited to claiming that an admittedly imperfect agreement is still preferable to the alternatives. And the alternatives are usually painted in hysterical terms with Iran surging toward the bomb, the sanctions regime collapsing and an isolated United States helplessly watching all this unfold. Not for the first time, the Obama administration is demonstrating a poor understanding of Iran’s strategies, the resilience of the sanctions regime and the nature of the international system.

By this time the essential contours of the agreement are all obvious. The accord will leave Iran with a sizeable enrichment capacity and none of its facilities will be shuttered as was once contemplated. The agreement’s most important sunset clause will be 10 years upon whose expiration, all essential restriction on Iran’s enrichment infrastructure will collapse. In essence, Iran can then move toward an industrial-size nuclear program similar to that of Japan. This means that the Islamic Republic will be in a position to manufacture numerous bombs on short order. The ballistic missiles, which are an essential part of any nuclear weapons program, will be excluded from the deal. And previous Iranian experiments with the military dimension of nuclear energy are postponed from scrutiny. Thus, any verification regime will not be informed by the history of Iran’s clandestine program.

The proponents of this deal have to account for why they are not bothered by such a large residual enrichment capacity. Why do they think a sunset clause is a wise idea? Why do they believe ballistic missiles should be ignored and how can once craft an intrusive verification system that has no historical memory? An arms control agreement has to be justified first and foremost on technical grounds and whether it meets the essential non-proliferation standards.

The path that the proponents of this accord have chosen is to avoid such questions and take refuge in the world of ominous alternatives. One of their favorite talking points is to suggest that coercion has not forestalled Iran’s nuclear path and that since 2003 as sanctions were imposed Iran has gone from 200 to 19,000 centrifuges. They neglect to mention that only approximately 9,500 of those machines are operational. Thus, during this period Iran increased its capacity by an average of 800 centrifuges a year. Although this is hardly ideal it is not an unmanageable situation. The notion that without this agreement Iran would immediately surge to a bomb is belied by the evidence that the proponents of this accord present.

Beyond that what is often missed is that Iran’s ingenious strategy is to advance its program incrementally and not provocatively. Iran has always been cautious to step and not leap forward. This way as Iran’s program inches forward, the international community routinely accedes to its new gains. In absence of an agreement, Iran will certainly take measures to advance its program, but those moves are likely to be cautious and incremental so to avoid a military reaction.

It is often suggested that should there be breakdown in the talks, the sanctions regime will collapse. The European states and Asian powers will rush back into Iran in defiance of American prohibitions. This notion ignores the fact that U.S. sanctions are secondary in nature, meaning that if there is European bank or an Asian firm that wishes to invest in Iran then it will lose its access to the U.S. market. There is no way that such firms will risk losing access to a U.S. economy estimated at $16.8 trillion dollars for sake of an Iranian economy of $368 billion. To be frank, the U.S. sanctions can success even if there is a perception that they are unfair. That is one of the advantages of being a superpower with the largest economy in the world.

None of this means the Iran deal is beyond repair. In the next three months, Secretary of State John Kerry has an opportunity to craft an agreement that addresses some of the deficiencies of the framework accord. He may wish to reconsider the wisdom of such a shortened sunset clause. The need for Iran to come clean on all its previous attempts at nuclear weaponization is critical if the agreement is to have a reliable inspection regime. And the ballistic missiles that are already part of UN resolutions should be addressed as part of this agreement and not separately. Finally, there has to be a mechanism in place for how to deal with Iranian violations. The history of arms control suggests that violations are rarely prosecuted and reversed in a timely manner.

Should he do so, he would have forged a deal that reliably restrains Iran’s nuclear appetite, enjoys bipartisan support at home and is embraced by our allies in the region. And that agreement would be worthy of the appellation historic.

Who is that Woman Standing Next to You?

Posted on April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

How One Philadelphia Woman Tweeted Her Way to Federal Terrorism-Related Charges

April 3, 2015 In the case of one Philadelphia woman with aspirations to join the Islamic State, retweets do equal endorsements.

The Justice Department charged Keonna Thomas, 30, on Friday with “knowingly attempting to provide material support and resources, including herself as personnel, to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” the Islamic State. Starting about two years ago, Thomas—who also went by two aliases, Fatayat Al Khilafah and YoungLioness—allegedly began communicating with known jihadi fighters online and using social media to advocate on the terrorist organization’s behalf.

If convicted, Thomas faces 15 years in prison.

Thomas is the third American woman in two days to be charged with a crime related to terrorism. But whereas the two New York City women charged Thursday were operating in real life, it seems Thomas’s activity online tipped off investigators.

Much of the criminal complaint against Thomas focuses on her Twitter habits, detailing several incriminating tweets and retweets. (All claims are alleged until proven in court.) Here’s a sampling from the indictment:

• On December 17, 2013, Thomas retweeted a message by another user that read ” ‘Happiness is the day of my martyrdom’ – Sheikh Khalid al Husainan.’ ” On January 4, 2014, she tweeted, “Only thing I’m jealous of is when I see the smiles of shuhadda,” which refers to martyrs.

• On January 30, 2014, Thomas retweeted a photograph of an individual carrying an AK-47, with an accompanying message that read: “Sponsor a Mujahid,” a jihadi fighter.

• On April 4, 2014, she posted images of a gun, skull, and flames on Twitter, along with a message: “I need a permanent vacation that can only mean one thing.”

• On June 23, 2014, she tweeted: “When you’re a mujahid, your death becomes a wedding.”

• By December 2014, Thomas’s Twitter rhetoric had escalated, and she had begun to email with a known Islamic State fighter overseas. On December 2, Thomas wrote a message that read: “If we truly knew the realities … we all would be rushing to join our brothers in the front lines pray ALLAH accept us as shuhada,” or martyrs. Four days after, she reposted a photo of a young boy armed with an AK-47. The image was accompanied by a message that read: “And if I were in Shaam,” referring to Syria, “I wouldn’t be pleased till I became soldier of the Islamic State.”

• In February of this year, Thomas applied for a U.S. passport. The same month, she emailed the Islamic State fighter to say that she had deactivated her Twitter account in preparation for her travel to Syria. “[D]on’t want to draw attention of the kuffar [non-believers] and it mess my plans and they take my pass port and i get stuck here.”

In March, Thomas purchased an electronic visa to Turkey, a common transit point for people trying to reach Syria from Europe, but she never made it to either country. She had broken the most important rule of the 21st century. No, not the rule against trying to join an overseas terrorist group that has repeatedly threatened your country and its allies (although that’s really bad). Thomas broke the first tenet of the Internet: Don’t tweet something you wouldn’t want on the front page of The New York Times.

One Generation Until Muslim Population Rules

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

It is not only about the lack of birthrate versus that of Islamists, it is also about the current genocide going on killing Christians.

Study Projects Growth, Shifts in World’s Muslim, Christian Populations

Pew forecast shows number of Muslims will nearly equal that of Christians world-wide by 2050

The world’s Islamic population is growing so rapidly that by 2050, the number of Muslims will be nearly equal to the number of Christians across the planet—possibly for the first time in history.

The new forecast is part of a sweeping religious-population study released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that projects significant demographic shifts across the global religious landscape.

Most major religions—including Christianity—will see their numbers increase. But the exceptional growth of Islam, as well as the rise of those unaffiliated with any religion, is poised to alter historic religious balances across Europe, the U.S. and Africa over the next four decades, the study suggests.

By 2050, the study says, there will be more Muslims than Jews in the U.S.—though both groups will remain small minorities. Researchers note that their count only includes those who identify as Jewish by religion, not those who may consider themselves culturally Jewish but decline to claim it as a religion.

The U.S. will remain a majority Christian nation, though the number of people identifying themselves as Christian is expected to decline from more than three-quarters of the population to two-thirds, the study says. The number of Christians in Europe is expected to decrease by about 100 million people to 454 million.

Christians will remain a large or even the largest group in countries including France, the U.K. and Australia, but they will no longer make up the majority. Many European countries will experience a rise in the number of people unaffiliated with any religion, as well as nearly a doubling of the Muslim share of Europe’s population—to 10% from 5.9%.

The study, based primarily on census and survey data, takes into account the effects of migration, conversion and the ages of religious populations, but “fertility is the single most important factor driving outcomes,” said Conrad Hackett, the study’s demographer.

Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups, he said. Christians are second, with 2.7 children per woman. Hindus have 2.4 children per woman, and Jews have an average of 2.3 children per woman.

The projections come as Europe struggles to assimilate its burgeoning Muslim minorities, amid tensions spurred by economic forces and the rise of the terrorist group known as Islamic State.

It also comes as Americans battle over the claims of religious believers who say their rights need protection as society becomes more accepting of gay rights, and as more people in the U.S. turn away from religion.

By 2050, Muslims will make up 30% of the global population, with 2.8 billion adherents, while Christians will comprise 31%, with 2.9 billion followers.

The only other time in history the population figures may have been as close to parity is between the years 1000 and 1600, as Islam expanded and deadly plague ravaged Christian populations in Europe, according to scholars cited in the study.

If population trends continue, Muslims could outnumber Christians by 2100, the study says.

Researchers said that although the Muslim population is expected to increase by more than 70% by 2050, Muslims will still be in the minority in Western Europe and the U.S. Although India will remain a Hindu majority nation, they said, it will also be the country with the largest number of Muslims.

By comparison, Christianity is expected to see an increase of 35% over the same period, enough to hold its current share of the global population as it grows to a projected 9.3 billion from 6.8 billion.

As Islam grows in the U.S. and Europe, Christianity is expected to become more prominent in Africa. By 2050, the Pew study projects, four out of 10 Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Such global shifts may already be visible on a smaller scale.

In the Quad Cities, a cluster of communities straddling Iowa and Illinois, the small, aging Jewish community of about 500 seems to be getting smaller as people die or leave the area, says Allan Ross, the executive director of the Jewish Federation there.

Funerals are too common, he says, and as children—including his son—grow up and move away to larger cities “they don’t come back to work in daddy’s store.”

Meanwhile, Muslim congregations recently built two mosques in the area.

What you Need to Know about BDS

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

The pro-Palestinian group has satellite factions all over Europe and the United States. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions formally began in 2001 at the United Nations General Assembly with the Durban NGO Action Plan.

This movement is composed of a relatively small number of full-time, well-financed, anti-Israel activists, who are inspired and encouraged by senior figures in the Palestinian public, including Omar Barghouti, Mustafa Barghouti, Nabil Sha’att, and others. They organize events mostly throughout Europe and in North America, raise funds, and arrange seminars, conferences, and demonstrations in support of isolating and boycotting Israel in every way possible. They claim to enjoy the support of hundreds of Arab, Palestinian, and other non-governmental organizations signatory to their basic documentation. However, upon examination, many of these NGOs appear to be either fictional, non-existent, and even, in some cases, front-organizations for Hamas and other terror groups.
Their mode of operation includes stalking members of the general public on the streets and arranging seminars intended to “brainwash” activists with factually inaccurate, misleading, and false information and accusations regarding Israel. It also includes threats of action against companies, suppliers, stores, academic institutions, as well as performers, unless they disassociate themselves from any Israel-related connection. In many cases this constitutes blatant harassment of the general public, and arbitrary denial of basic rights to freedom of choice, freedom to use public areas in shopping malls and streets, freedom to enter stores, freedom to purchase, freedom to conduct commercial relations, and freedom to choose cultural and artistic events. The BDS campaign thereby abuses democratic rights and freedoms in the social, cultural, commercial, and educational spheres of those countries in which it is conducted.

*** It is working sadly.

Anti-Israel Groups Praise Virginia State Bar for Boycotting Israel

Anti-Israel groups are rallying around the Virginia State Bar after the legal group announced the cancellation of a planned trip to Israel. The support is coming in the form of a letter signed by 40 groups, which are part of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

“We write to commend the Virginia State Bar Association for its decision to cancel its Midyear Legal Seminar in Jerusalem. By cancelling the planned seminar, the Virginia State Bar Association has reaffirmed its commitment to the principles of equality enshrined in U.S. law,” reads the letter addressed to the president of the Virginia State Bar, Kevin E. Martingayle.

In thanking the Virginia State Bar Association, we agree with the sentiments expressed by Representative Keith Ellison in 2013 when he stated, “American citizens deserve to travel without fear of being turned away based on their race, religion, or countries they have visited.”

Israel’s routine discrimination against U.S. citizens entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory is both well documented and ongoing. In the process of denying entry to U.S. citizens, Israel often subjects them to humiliating searches, intensive interrogations, and invasions of personal privacy, including demanding access to private email accounts.

Those affected by Israel’s policies include teachers, college students, world-renowned university professors, architects, clergy, interfaith delegations, people visiting sick relatives, married couples giving birth, humanitarian workers, human rights monitors, and descendants of signers of the U.S. constitution. In recent years, Israel’s refusal to end its discrimination against U.S. citizens prevented it from entering the Visa Waiver Program and prompted strong condemnations from lawmakers, the administration, and human rights organizations.

In March of 2014, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “The Department of Homeland Security and State remain concerned with the unequal treatment that Palestinian Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origin experience at Israel’s border and checkpoints.”

In 2013, sixteen Members of Congress wrote to then-Israeli Ambassador Oren, saying, “we are concerned that Israeli border officials are disproportionally singling out, detaining, and denying entry to Arab and Muslim Americans.” In their letter, Members of Congress quoted a spokesperson for Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said, “we expect all American citizens to be accorded the rights that any other American citizen would be accorded…there are no second classes.”

As an association that prides itself on diversity and respect for equal rights, members of the Virginia State Bar Association should reasonably expect to have their civil rights upheld in the course of pursuing professional development opportunities. As you referenced in your cancellation notification, one additional issue with the planned seminar was the insufficient number of individuals who had signed-up to attend. In all likelihood, the low participation rate reflected a justifiable reluctance among practicing attorneys to subject themselves to mistreatment based on their race, religion, or political opinions. Had the gathering occurred as planned, some members of Virginia’s esteemed bar would have undoubtedly suffered discrimination and humiliation at the hands of Israeli border officials and possibly been denied entry outright.

Furthermore, given that membership in the Virginia State Bar Association is required for all practicing attorneys in the state, it is incumbent upon the association to avoid activities which may inherently discriminate against its members. Indeed, such action is required under the Virginia Human Rights Act and federal statutes governing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, and disability.

Again, we commend the Virginia State Bar Association for its commitment to upholding the civil rights of its diverse membership. We look forward to the day when everyone living in Israel/Palestine will enjoy equal treatment under the law regardless of race or religion; and all who desire to visit may do so without fear of discrimination or humiliation.

Sincerely,

American Muslims for Palestine
Christian Peacemaker Teams – Palestine
Friends of Sabeel North America
Institute for Policy Studies – New Internationalism Project
Jewish Voice for Peace
Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land
Methodist Federation for Social Action
National Lawyers Guild – International Committee
Palestine Solidarity Legal Support
Peace Action
United Methodist Kairos Response
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
US Palestinian Community Network

Local and Regional Organizations:
14 Friends of Palestine
Al-Nakba Awareness Project
Bay Area Women in Black
Birmingham Peace Project
Bryn Mawr Peace Coalition
Cape Codders for Peace and Justice
Carolina Peace Resource Center
Citizens for Justice in the Middle East – Kansas City
Coloradans for Justice in Palestine
Committee for Justice in Palestine at The Ohio State University
Committee for Palestinian Rights
Corvallis-Albany Friends of Middle East Peace
Friends of Palestine – Wisconsin
Hilton Head for Peace
Interfaith Council for Peace in the Middle East
Israel-Palestine Task Force, California Nevada Conference, United Methodist Church
Jewish Voice for Peace – Bay Area Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – DC Metro Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – St. Louis Chapter
Massachusetts Peace Action
MidEast: Just Peace
Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign
Peace for Palestine – West Boston
St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee
Upper New York United Methodist Task Force on Israel Palestine
Vancouver for Peace

Homeland at Risk by Putin’s Nukes?

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California’s coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the “West” which was “moving to the borders or Russia”.

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO – a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members – was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America’s vulnerabilities to ensure a “complete destruction of the enemy”.

Conspiracy theory: The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov.

“Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears,” he said.

“Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault – 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates … a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States.”

He said the Russian geography on the other hand would protect it from a tsunami or a volcano attack. Few people live on the coast in Russia and Siberia which rests on basalt would withstand similar attacks.

Russian target number 2: The San Andreas fault line, here pictured on the Carrizo Plain in California.

Mr Sivkov, who spoke at the 2013 Moscow Economic Forum, said by 2020 to 2025 Russia would have amassed “asymmetric weapons” in its arsenal for the attack.

“The situation for us today is comparably worse than half a century ago,” he said.

“The weakened economic potential in Russia, the loss of the ‘spiritual core of what was the communist idea’, and the lack of large-scale community allies in Europe such as the Warsaw Pact, Russia simply cannot compete against the NATO and its allies.”

In December last year, the vocal military strategist told Russian newspaper, Pravda.ru that there is a “developing standoff between Russia and the West” and the US’s ultimate goal was to “destroy Russia”.

Mr Sivkov accused American politicians of committing several crimes including causing the deaths of 1,200,000 people in Iraq. He believed the only way for the “American elite” to be held accountable was for its military forces to be destroyed.

“American politicians have committed a variety of crimes. Will anyone be held accountable for those crimes? What about the international law, the UN and other organisations? Are they doing anything?” he asked.

Mr Sivkov told Pravda that the idea of the US preparing for a serious war against Russia using cruise missiles was plausible given that it had already launched a thousand missiles in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

*** Putin has issued nuclear weapons threats in several regions.

Russia Threatens Danish Warships With Nuclear Weapons

Danish warships could become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defence system, Russia has warned, in comments that have sparked outrage in Copenhagen.

Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, made the comments in an opinion piece published by the Danish national newspaper Jyllands-Posten, on Saturday.

“I don’t think the Danes fully understand the consequences of what will happen if Denmark joins the American-controlled missile defence. If it happens, Danish warships will become targets for Russian atomic missiles,” Vanin wrote.

*** There is more:

Putin threatens nuclear war: Russian leader will take any necessary step to drive Nato out of Baltics and defend Crimea

Vladimir Putin is planning to exploit the threat of nuclear war to force Nato out of countries bordering Russia, it has been claimed.

A secret meeting between intelligence figures in Moscow and Washington reportedly revealed Putin will consider any attempt to return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine as declaration of war and will take any necessary step – including using nuclear weapons – to retain control of the region.

Notes from the meeting are also said to have revealed that Putin is planning imminent ‘destabilising actions’ in pro-Western Baltic states in a direct challenge to Nato’s promise to defend the countries from Soviet-style Russian expansionism.

These disturbances are thought to likely involve cyber attacks or ramping up local ethnic tensions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania intended to unsettle the region.