On Iran, Obama Unwound Carter’s Action

Posted on April 20, 2016April 20, 2016 by Denise Simon

It all started with the Iranian hostages, then the Beirut bombings. President Jimmy Carter gave the order to freeze all accessible Iranian assets including military equipment. And so it was done, but Madeline Albright began to pull the threat on behalf of Iran, and Barack Obama continued to do the same in 2009.

There are countless moving parts here, so it is for sure convoluted so perhaps the bullet points here will help. A calculator may be good too.

The Supreme Court decided today in a 6-2 ruling on behalf of the victims to free up close to $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets—held in a New York bank for Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi—to compensate more than 1,000 victims and family members harmed in terrorism incidents traceable to Iran, including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon.
In 2000, in her speech on Friday, March 17, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, made reference to the Iranian assets that the United States froze in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in 1979. It always had been that any normalization of relations between these two countries had to consider the unfreezing of the Iranian assets. What was never clear was the size and nature of the assets. In her speech, Mrs. Albright indicated that much of the frozen assets were turned over to Iran after 1981. Yet, she also intimated that there is more that was not turned over. The size of the remaining frozen assets has been one mystery. Their nature and location, too, are not clear. At the time of the freeze, reports indicated that the assets consisted of goods purchased by Iran and not delivered by the suppliers, including military supplies, cash and securities on deposit or in trust with various U.S. banks and financial institutions here and their branches and subsidiaries abroad, stock and bonds of United States issuers, real estate, right to interest, dividend, and distribution, contract rights, and other proprietary interests. Read the rest of the shocking summary here.
To dovetail the second bullet point above, today, Daily Beast published an item that explains why the legislation introduced to punish Saudi Arabia for any involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States should be avoided as noted by some key officials at the Pentagon. Why you ask, the historical house of the United States is not clean either, which too is further explained in the link of the second bullet item. This is for sure still up for debate, however, there are major indications that during Barack Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he is likely reassuring the KSA he will veto any punishing legislation.
We can fully know at all exactly where or how much Iranian money resides in banks around the world and how is brokering business on behalf of Iran, investing for the rogue country, much less skirting sanctions for them as well. You see even China had/has ownership of $22 billion of Iranian funds mostly due to sanctions and to pay for oil.
In 2009, enter Barack Obama and $2 billion for Iran just to come to the table. WSJ: ” More than $2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup Inc. C 2.43 % accounts were secretly ordered frozen last year by a federal court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The legal order, executed 18 months ago by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is under seal and hasn’t been made public. The court acted in part because of information provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.President Barack Obama has pledged to enact new economic sanctions on Iran at year-end if Tehran doesn’t respond to international calls for negotiations over its nuclear-fuel program. The frozen $2 billion stands at the center of an intensifying legal struggle between Luxembourg’s Clearstream Banking S.A., the holder of the Citibank account, and the families of hundreds of U.S. Marines killed or injured in a 1983 terrorist attack on a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Clearstream is primarily a clearing house for financial trades and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Börse AG. Luxembourg’s bank secrecy laws have helped it grow into a major European financial center.” More here from the WSJ.
So what about this Clearstream Banking operation you say? Well they were a nefarious operation as well. In 2014, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $152 million agreement with Clearstream Banking, S.A. (Clearstream), of Luxembourg, to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations surrounding Clearstream’s use of its omnibus account with a U.S. financial institution as a conduit to hold securities on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). More here from Treasury.
In January 2016, The U.S. State Department announced the government had agreed to pay Iran $1.7 billion to settle a case related to the sale of military equipment prior to the Iranian revolution, according to a statement issued on Sunday.
Iran had set up a $400 million trust fund for such purchases, which was frozen along with diplomatic relations in 1979. In settling the claim, which had been tied up at the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S. is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest,” the statement said.
Wait, there is the other $100 billion: That’s roughly how much the U.S. Treasury Department says Iran stands to recover once sanctions are lifted under the new nuclear deal.

We cant know if there is more, yet no wonder Iran is dancing in the streets and maintains threatening behavior where Obama continues to tell the region, get along with Iran….they are legitimate. Oh….Obama is working on a personal meeting with Rouhani too.

Intense U.S.-Iran negotiations appear to be underway at this time, on various levels. They have included meetings this week in New York between Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and an April 14 Washington meeting between Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.[1] According to an April 19 report on the Iranian website Sahamnews.org, which is affiliated with Iran’s Green Movement, President Obama asked to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rohani in two secret letters sent in late March to both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rohani. According to the report, Obama wrote in the letters that Iran has a limited-time opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in order to resolve the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and promised that if Iran agreed to a meeting between him and Rohani, he would be willing to participate in any conference to this end. The Sahamnews report further stressed that Supreme Leader Khamenei discussed the request with President Rohani, that Rohani said that Iran should accept the request and meet with Obama, and that such a meeting could lead to an end to the crises in the region while increasing Iran’s influence in their resolution. Rohani promised Khamenei that any move would be coordinated with him and reported to him. According to the report, Khamenei agreed with Rohani. The Sahamnews report also emphasized that Khamenei’s recent aggressively anti-U.S. speeches were aimed at maintaining an anti-U.S. atmosphere among the Iranian public, whereas in private meetings he expresses a different position. Courtesy and more from MEMRI here.

Iran Still Complains, White House Complies

Posted on April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 by Denise Simon

Where Iran’s Complaint About Banking Integration Misses the Mark

Levitt/WSJ: The governor of Iran’s central bank warned last week that failure to do more to integrate Iranian banks into the global economy could jeopardize the international agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program. The onus is on Washington and its allies to reassure banks that doing business in Iran is fine, Valiollah Seif said in a speech Friday at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said tellingly little about Iran’s efforts to change an environment businesses are wary of investing in, underscoring the discrepancy between Iran’s view of the nuclear deal and other international perceptions.

Mr. Seif complained that “almost nothing” has been done to reintegrate Iran into the global economy since implementation of the deal was announced in January. “Unless serious efforts are made by our partners,” he said, “in my view, they have not honored their obligations.”

Treasury official Adam Szubin said on Wednesday that Washington is not standing in the way of permissible business activities involving Iran. Some of the reasons entities might be wary of doing business there include rampant corruption, as Transparency International has documented, and the extent to which Iran’s banking sector is out of step with international banking norms, as my Washington Institute colleague Patrick Clawson has written.

“Effective implementation of the agreement,” Mr. Seif said, must be done “in such a way that Iran’s economic and business activities will be facilitated.” Otherwise, the deal “breaks up on its own terms,” he said.

Iran seems to expect the Obama administration to provide benefits beyond those in the nuclear deal, including access to the U.S. financial system and the ability to change into dollars foreign currency transactions through U.S.-based banks. U.S. officials say that neither demand will be met.

We live in a “post-sanctions environment,” Mr. Seif said. This ignores the fact that sanctions remain in place over Iran’s efforts to sponsor terrorism; its ballistic missile program; and its human rights abuses, which include executing minors and persecuting religious minorities.

Mr. Seif appeared to dismiss concerns about those activities as old hat. “If, according to our partners, it is our conduct which prevents international banks from engaging in business with us, they were fully aware of our conduct before signing. … We have not changed.”

That Iran has not changed is at the core of its problem, but that’s not how Mr. Seif seemed to see it. Asked about the risks of unwittingly doing business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is still targeted by Treasury sanctions, Mr. Seif said potential investors could engage Iranian companies that run checks to determine who they would be doing business with. The use of Iranian companies to hide the IRGC’s involvement in business activities has been documented by the Treasury Department. And using in-country third parties to perform customer due diligence is seen as high-risk by international bodies that govern banking transactions.

The bottom line is that Iran has yet to curb or stop the illicit conduct that makes it a pariah state and a financial risk. It enacted a law against terrorist financing last July, but that’s done little to calm banks’ fears because its government continues to support terrorism. Until those behaviors change, banks are likely to continue to see prohibitive reputational, regulatory, and other risks to doing business there. And the only country that can do anything about that is Iran.

ALSO IN THINK TANK:

What the U.S. Has and Hasn’t Learned From Imposing Sanctions

On Iran Sanctions, Mixed News–and Warnings for Potential Investors

*****

Bloomberg: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said international banks remain wary of U.S. regulations and need “reassurances” that they can resume business with his nation even after its nuclear deal with world powers.

Zarif, speaking in New York ahead of a Tuesday meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said talks with his counterpart were necessary to follow up on the implementation of the agreement on the U.S. side.

The deal’s aim “was to not have the U.S. intervene in Iran’s relations with most other countries,” the Iranian Students’ News Agency cited Zarif as saying. “We should prevent past U.S. regulations from being obstacles to most financial institutions in Europe and Asia having banking relations with Iran.”

Iranian central bank Governor Valiollah Seif voiced similar sentiments last week, telling Bloomberg Television that the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control should issue guidelines encouraging European banks to be more receptive to Iran. Seif met Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Thursday during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington. More from Bloomberg.

North Korea Threat Real or Sorta Real?

Posted on April 7, 2016April 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

Analysts remain sceptical of North Korea’s nuclear strike claims

Janes: Photos released by North Korean official news outlet Rodong Sinmun on 9 March showed the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, meeting the country’s nuclear technicians at what could be a KN-08 (Hwasong-13) intercontinental ballistic missile production facility near Jonchon in the country’s northern Chaggang province.

The accompanying article said Kim was congratulating his nuclear weapon scientists for having developed a miniaturised nuclear warhead: a claim being met with scepticism by various Western analysts.

The photos and article came two days after Pyongyang threatened its South Korean neighbours with a pre-emptive nuclear strike for the 7 March initiation of joint exercises ‘Foal Eagle’ and ‘Key Resolve’: the largest set of manoeuvres ever conducted with US forces in the region, in which around 17,000 US troops are exercising alongside some 300,000 South Korean military personnel.

In the week prior to the beginning of the exercises, Pyongyang’s KCNA state news agency quoted Kim as saying that North Korea’s “nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time”.

Various security policy think-tanks have accused Washington and its South Korean allies of raising tensions on the Korean peninsula, calling the exercises ill-advised. Stephan Haggard from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego, who authors a blog on North Korea, told news sites like CNN, “I didn’t see the logic of expanding the exercises. I personally think that upping the sizes of the exercises didn’t serve any material function. It’s not clear that the size will bring North Korea back to the diplomatic table, so there’s no real purpose to do that. All you’ve done is stir the viper’s nest.”

Specialists on North Korea’s defence capabilities and internal politics dismiss these criticisms of the US-South Korean manoeuvres, arguing that such condemnation ignores the realities of the immediate objectives of North Korea’s nuclear programme and the nature of the regime’s internal political intrigue.

(CNN)The North Korea monitoring project 38 North says that satellite imagery shows “suspicious activity” at a nuclear enrichment site in North Korea.

Plumes of exhaust steam, a byproduct of heating the main plant at the Yongbyon Radiochemical Laboratory complex, have been seen in commercial satellite images taken March 12 and over the preceding five weeks, the group says.

This activity is unusual, the report by the Washington-based project says.

“Exhaust plumes have rarely been seen there and none have been observed on any examined imagery this past winter,” the report says.

Weeks away?

The plumes of steam do not necessarily indicate that the process for refining plutonium for nuclear weapons is underway or will be soon, the report says.

It does, however, note that U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently testified that Pyongyang had “announced its intention to ‘refurbish and restart’ its nuclear facilities,” including the uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, and that it could be able to recover plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel “within a matter of weeks to months.”

Separate images appear to show further work on the site’s Experimental Light Water Reactor, a key facility for the enrichment of nuclear fuel, is ongoing, with a new transformer yard and road built, and the installation of electrical cables completed. More here.

Iran Violations Mount vs. Nuclear Deal

Posted on April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

The Houthis, the Saudi, Yemen and the history.

U.S. Navy Seizes Suspected Iranian Arms Shipment Bound for Yemen

A cache of weapons is assembled on the deck of the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107). The weapons were seized from a stateless dhow which was intercepted by the Coastal Patrol ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) on March 28. US Navy Photo

USNI: Two U.S. Navy vessels seized a ship laden with illegal weapons in the Persian Gulf that were bound for Houthi fighters in Yemen, the service announced on Monday.

The stateless dhow was initially intercepted by the Cyclone-class patrol craft USS Sirocco (PC-6) on March 28 and the boarding team discovered 1,500 AK-47s automatic rifles, 200 RPG launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns in the hold that had been presumably shipped from Iran, according to the service.

200 RPG launchers as part of the seizure. US Navy Photo

Sirocco called in guided missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG-107) for assistance in seizure and collected the weapons from the dhow, according to a statement from U.S. 5^th Fleet.

“This seizure is the latest in a string of illicit weapons shipments assessed by the U.S. to have originated in Iran that were seized in the region by naval forces,” read a Monday statement from the service.
“The weapons are now in U.S. custody awaiting final disposition. The dhow and its crew were allowed to depart once the illicit weapons were seized.”

USS Sirocco (PC 6) assigned to Commander, Task Force (CTF) 55 during a bilateral exercise with the Iraqi Navy. US Navy Photo

The interdiction of the weapons is the third similar interception since late February by allied forces in the Persian Gulf.

“The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Darwin intercepted a dhow Feb. 27, confiscating nearly 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 49 PKM general purpose machine guns, 39 PKM spare barrels and 20 60mm mortar tubes,” said the service.
“A March 20 seizure by the French Navy destroyer FS Provence yielded almost 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 64 Dragunov sniper rifles, nine anti-tank missiles and other associated equipment.”

Sirocco is part of the forward-deployed Cyclone force based out of Bahrain and Gravely is attached to the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG).

The following is the April 4, 2016 release on the seizure from U.S. 5th Fleet.

MANAMA, Bahrain (NNS) — For the third time in recent weeks, international naval forces operating in the waters of the Arabian Sea seized a shipment of illicit arms March 28, which the United States assessed originated in Iran and was likely bound for Houthi insurgents in Yemen.

The U.S. Navy Coastal Patrol ship USS Sirocco, operating as part of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, intercepted and seized the shipment of weapons hidden aboard a small, stateless dhow. The illicit cargo included 1,500 AK-47s, 200 RPG launchers and 21 .50 caliber machine guns.

The seizure was supported by USS Gravely (DDG 107), which was directed to the scene by United States Naval Forces Central Command following the discovery of the weapons by Sirocco’s boarding team.

The weapons are now in U.S. custody awaiting final disposition. The dhow and its crew were allowed to depart once the illicit weapons were seized.

This seizure is the latest in a string of illicit weapons shipments assessed by the U.S. to have originated in Iran that were seized in the region by naval forces.

The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Darwin intercepted a dhow Feb. 27, confiscating nearly 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 49 PKM general purpose machine guns, 39 PKM spare barrels and 20 60mm mortar tubes.

A March 20 seizure by the French Navy destroyer FS Provence yielded almost 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 64 Dragunov sniper rifles, nine anti-tank missiles and other associated equipment.

NAVCENT is responsible for approximately 2.5 million square miles of area including the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, parts of the Indian Ocean and 20 countries.

*****

Meanwhile, Congress does maintain a list of Iranian violations and is working to compile evidence that the Obama administration has in fact just lied to Congress.

*****

Congress Investigating Obama Admin Deception on Iran Nuke Deal

Sources: Admin misled lawmakers about terms of deal

FreeBeacon: Congress is investigating whether the Obama administration misled lawmakers last summer about the extent of concessions granted to Iran under the nuclear deal, as well as if administration officials have been quietly rewriting the deal’s terms in the aftermath of the agreement, according to sources and a formal notice sent to the State Department.

The concerns come after statements from top officials last week suggesting that Iran is set to receive greater weapons and sanctions relief, moves that the administration had promised Congress would never take place as White House officials promoted the deal last summer.

“When multiple officials—including Secretary Kerry, Secretary Lew, and Ambassador Mull—testify in front of Members of Congress, we are inclined to believe them,” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) told the Washington Free Beacon.

“However, the gap between their promises on the Iran nuclear deal and today’s scary reality continues to widen. We are now trying to determine whether this was intentional deception on the part of the administration or new levels of disturbing acquiescence to the Iranians,” Pompeo said.

Congress is believed to be investigating what insiders described to the Free Beacon as a range of areas in which administration officials may have understated the breadth of concessions made to the Islamic Republic when trying to persuade lawmakers to sign off on the final deal.

Multiple disputes have surfaced in the last week.

In one dispute, congressional leaders are concerned that the administration no longer considers recent Iranian ballistic missile tests a “violation” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which codifies the nuclear deal.

Top administration officials including Secretary of State John Kerry vowed to Congress that Iran would be legally prohibited from carrying out ballistic missile tests under the resolution.

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., shifted course last week, refusing to call recent Iranian launches a “violation” in a letter she signed criticizing those launches.

A second dispute centers around recent statements from Treasury Department officials suggesting that the administration is now set to grant Iran non-nuclear sanctions relief, including indirect access to the U.S. financial system, weeks after top Iranian officials began demanding this type of sanctions relief.

Top administration figures, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, had promised Congress that years-old restrictions barring Iran from accessing the U.S. financial system in any way would remain in place even after the nuclear deal.

But new concerns have raised alarm bells among lawmakers, who fear that the administration will ease longstanding restrictions on Iran.

Kerry “and other administration officials assured the American people and Congress that UNSCR 2231 still allowed the U.S. to respond to dangerous actions, like these, from the Iranians,” Reps. Pompeo, Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), and Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) wrote in a letter last week to the State Department.

“While many lawmakers, ourselves included, are certain that Iran’s latest tests violate UNSCR 2231, your decision to cease labeling the launches a violation is alarming,” they wrote. “We are troubled by reports that the administration is stifling voices within its ranks for stronger action against Iran—putting the JCPOA and political legacy above the safety and security of the American people.”

The United States backed down in recent days from its claim that the ballistic missile tests violate the deal. The United States now says that they are “inconsistent with” promises made by Iran while the deal was being negotiated.

“This seeming American refusal to name these Iranian tests as violation is in direct conflict the administration’s earlier commitments,” the lawmakers wrote.

As the nuclear deal was being negotiated, Kerry informed Congress that, under the deal, Iran would be “restrained from any … work on missiles.” Other administration officials at the time made also clear that such tests “would violate” the agreement.

The administration has recalibrated its stance in recent days in the wake of several recent ballistic missile tests by Iran. Officials are no longer claiming that these tests violate the deal.

“In opposition to this testimony, administration officials have recently told the press that UNSCR 22231 was ‘drafted/structured in a way to appeal to Iran’s sensitivities,’” the lawmakers write.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director for the Foundation For Defense of Democracies (FDD), told the Free Beacon that the administration is redefining the terms of the nuclear deal.

“The Obama administration is involved in yet another sleight of hand on sanctions relief as well as the status of U.N. missile sanctions,” Dubowitz sai. “This is very familiar to those who tracked the Iran nuclear talks and recall the many ways in which broken commitments were justified and redlines were abandoned.”

Iranian allies on the U.N. Security Council, mainly Russia, have defended the missile tests, arguing that resolution 2231 has only “called upon” Iran to refrain from these tests.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin recently stated that the newest U.N. resolution governing the nuclear agreement only suggests that Iran stop test firing missiles.

“A call is different from a ban so legally you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate a call,” Churkin was quoted as saying. “The legal distinction is there.”

Congressional critics have dismissed the argument and are pressing on the Obama administration to stand up to Iran’s defenders.

“The Kremlin’s absurd legal argument after Iran’s March tests that ‘legally you cannot violate a call’ would essentially allow the Iranian regime to do anything it wants to further develop its ballistic missile program,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.

“Russia’s refusal to punish Iran, combined with its veto and China’s veto on the Security Council, will continue to prevent any real international effort to respond to Iranian infractions.”

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have said in recent days that they are preparing to expand the country’s ballistic missile program.

“We have always said we will continue with developing our defense capacity and the defense equipment has nothing to do with chemical weapons,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated on Twitter. “The missiles are only for defensive purposes and we have not invaded any country, neither we will do so in the future.”

Other Iranian officials have also said the ballistic missile tests have nothing to do with the nuclear agreement.

A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers in Congress has expressed opposition to an Obama administration plan to grant Iran sanctions relief outside the purview of the nuclear deal.

This new relief is reported to include access to the U.S. dollar and American financial markets. Lawmakers have expressed anger over the proposal, citing past comments from administration officials who claimed this would never take place under the deal.

WH/Jack Lew Helping Iran Launder Money

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

During the Obama summit, did Obama violate government secrets?

WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) — For the first time in more than a decade, the United States has made public its inventory of nuclear uranium components, President Barack Obama said Friday. Much more here.

The White House Cedes More, Even As Iran’s Economy Recovers

Mark Dubowitz, Annie Fixler
01 April 2016 – FDD Policy Brief

While U.S. and European diplomats celebrated the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action last summer, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his government saw that deal as not the end of the negotiations but the beginning. This has become increasingly clear in their criticism of sanctions relief and demand for more.

The Obama administration appears ready to comply. Reports confirm that the administration is preparing a general license authorizing the use of the U.S. dollar in Iran-related transactions. This is intended to encourage large European and other banks to return to business with Iran and help alleviate its concerns about the legal risks associated with engaging with a country still under U.S. sanctions for money laundering, terrorism and missile proliferation, and human rights abuses.

The license would contradict repeated administration promises to Congress, and goes beyond any commitments made to Iran under the JCPOA. It also contradicts the evidence: Tehran has already received substantial sanctions relief, a major “stimulus package.”

In 2012 and 2013, Iran’s economy was crashing. It had been hit with an asymmetric shock from sanctions, including those targeting its central bank, oil exports, and access to the SWIFT financial messaging system. The economy shrank by six percent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, and bottomed out the following year, dropping another two percent. Accessible foreign exchange reserves were estimated to be down to only $20 billion.

This changed during the nuclear negotiations. During the 18-month period starting in late 2013, interim sanctions relief and the lack of new shocks enabled Iran to move from a severe recession to a modest recovery. During that time, the Islamic Republic received $11.9 billion through the release of restricted assets, while sanctions on major sectors of its economy were suspended. This facilitated strong imports that supported domestic investment, especially from China. The Obama administration also de-escalated the sanctions pressure by blocking new congressional legislation. Jointly, these forces rescued the Iranian economy and its leaders, including the Revolutionary Guard, from an imminent and severe balance of payments crisis. In the 2014-15 fiscal year, the Iranian economy rebounded and grew at a rate of 3 to 4 percent.

Now, under the JCPOA, Iran has received access to an additional $100 billion in previously frozen foreign assets, significantly boosting its accessible foreign exchange reserves. Sanctions were also lifted on Iran’s crude oil exports and upstream energy investment, and on key sectors of the economy and hundreds of Iranian banks, companies, individuals, and government entities. The additional access of Iranian institutions to global financial payments systems has reduced transaction costs and the need for intermediaries.

In the current fiscal year – with declining oil prices and a tight monetary policy to rein in inflation – Iran’s economy grew only slightly, and may have even experienced a modest contraction. But in the coming fiscal year, its economy is projected to grow at a rate of 3 to 6 percent, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and private sector analysts. Assuming that Iran continues to make modest economic reforms to attract investment, the country’s economic growth is projected to stabilize around 4 to 4.5 percent annually over the next five years.

The future success of Iran’s economy depends on privatization, encouraging competition, addressing corruption, recapitalizing banks, and strengthening the rule of law. If Tehran wants to encourage foreign investment and alleviate international banks’ concerns, it also needs to end its support for terrorism, missile development, and destabilizing regional activities, and to reduce the economic power of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the supreme leader’s business empire. All of these increase the risks of investing in the Islamic Republic, regardless of what deal sweeteners the White House provides.

Meanwhile, there is Russia who did NOT attend the Obama Nuclear Security Summit, but Russia is quite busy.

FreeBeacon: Russia is doubling the number of its strategic nuclear warheads on new missiles by deploying multiple reentry vehicles that have put Moscow over the limit set by the New START arms treaty, according to Pentagon officials.

A recent intelligence assessment of the Russian strategic warhead buildup shows that the increase is the result of the addition of multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, on recently deployed road-mobile SS-27 and submarine-launched SS-N-32 missiles, said officials familiar with reports of the buildup.

“The Russians are doubling their warhead output,” said one official. “They will be exceeding the New START [arms treaty] levels because of MIRVing these new systems.”

The 2010 treaty requires the United States and Russia to reduce deployed warheads to 1,550 warheads by February 2018.

The United States has cut its warhead stockpiles significantly in recent years. Moscow, however, has increased its numbers of deployed warheads and new weapons.

The State Department revealed in January that Russia currently has exceeded the New START warhead limit by 98 warheads, deploying a total number of 1,648 warheads. The U.S. level currently is below the treaty level at 1,538 warheads.

Officials said that in addition to adding warheads to the new missiles, Russian officials have sought to prevent U.S. weapons inspectors from checking warheads as part of the 2010 treaty.

The State Department, however, said it can inspect the new MIRVed missiles.

Disclosure of the doubling of Moscow’s warhead force comes as world leaders gather in Washington this week to discus nuclear security—but without Russian President Vladimir Putin, who skipped the conclave in an apparent snub of the United States.

The Nuclear Security Summit is the latest meeting of world leaders seeking to pursue President Obama’s 2009 declaration of a world without nuclear arms.

Russia, however, is embarked on a major strategic nuclear forces build-up under Putin. Moscow is building new road-mobile, rail-mobile, and silo-based intercontinental-range missiles, along with new submarines equipped with modernized missiles. A new long-range bomber is also being built.

SS-N 30

“Russia’s modernization program and their nuclear deterrent force is of concern,” Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear forces, told Congress March 10.

“When you look at what they’ve been modernizing, it didn’t just start,” Haney said. “They’ve been doing this quite frankly for some time with a lot of crescendo of activity over the last decade and a half.”

By contrast, the Pentagon is scrambling to find funds to pay for modernizing aging U.S. nuclear forces after seven years of sharp defense spending cuts under Obama.

Earlier this month, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that Russia continues to pose the greatest threat to the United States.

“The one that has the greatest capability and poses the greatest threat to the United States is Russia because of its capabilities—its nuclear capability, its cyber capability, and clearly because of some of the things we have seen in its leadership behavior over the last couple of years,” Dunford said.

In addition to a large-scale nuclear buildup, Russia has upgraded its nuclear doctrine and its leaders and officials have issued numerous threats to use nuclear arms against the United States in recent months, compounding fears of a renewed Russian threat.

Blake Narendra, spokesman for the State Department’s arms control, verification, and compliance bureau, said the Russian warhead build-up is the result of normal fluctuations due to modernization prior to the compliance deadline.

“The Treaty has no interim limits,” Narendra told the Free Beacon. “We fully expect Russia to meet the New START treaty central limits in accordance with the stipulated timeline of February 2018. The treaty provides that by that date both sides must have no more than 700 deployed treaty-limited delivery vehicles and 1,550 deployed warheads.”

Both the United States and Russia continue to implement the treaty in “a business-like manner,” he added.

Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon official involved in strategic nuclear forces, however, said he has warned for years that Russia is not reducing its nuclear forces under the treaty.

Since the New START arms accord, Moscow has eliminated small numbers of older SS-25 road-mobile missiles. But the missiles were replaced with new multiple-warhead SS-27s.

SS-27 Mod 2

“The Russians have not claimed to have made any reductions for five years,” Schneider said

Additionally, Russian officials deceptively sought to make it appear their nuclear forces have been reduced during a recent nuclear review conference.

“If they could have claimed to have made any reductions under New START counting rules they would have done it there,” Schneider said.

The Obama administration also has been deceptive about the benefits of New START.

“The administration public affairs talking points on New START reductions border on outright lies,” Schneider said.

“The only reductions that have been made since New START entry into force have been by the United States,” he said. “Instead, Russia has moved from below the New START limits to above the New START limits in deployed warheads and deployed delivery vehicles.”

Deployment of new multiple-warhead SS-27s and SS-N-32s are pushing up the Russian warhead numbers. Published Russian reports have stated the missiles will be armed with 10 warheads each.

Former Defense Secretary William Perry said Thursday that New START was “very helpful” in promoting strategic stability but that recent trends in nuclear weapons are “very, very bad.”

“When President Obama made his speech in Prague, I thought we were really set for major progress in this field [disarmament],” Perry said in remarks at the Atlantic Council.

However, Russian “hostility” to the United States ended the progress. “Everything came to a grinding halt and we’re moving in reverse,” Perry said.

Other nuclear powers that are expanding their arsenals include China and Pakistan, Perry said.

Perry urged further engagement with Russia on nuclear weapons. “We do have a common interest in preventing a nuclear catastrophe,” he said.

Perry is advocating that the United States unilaterally eliminate all its land-based missiles and rely instead on nuclear missile submarines and bombers for deterrence.

However, he said his advocacy of the policy “may be pursuing a mission impossible.”

“I highly doubt the Russians would follow suit” by eliminating their land-based missiles, the former secretary said.

Additionally, Moscow is building a new heavy ICBM called Sarmat, code-named SS-X-30 by the Pentagon, that will be equipped with between 10 and 15 warheads per missile. And a new rail-based ICBM is being developed that will also carry multiple warheads.

Another long-range missile, called the SS-X-31, is under development and will carry up to 12 warheads.

Schneider, the former Pentagon official, said senior Russian arms officials have been quoted in press reports discussing Moscow’s withdrawal from the New START arms accord. If that takes place, Russia will have had six and a half years to prepare to violate the treaty limits, at the same time the United States will have reduced its forces to treaty limits.

“Can they comply with New START? Yes. They can download their missile warheads and do a small number to delivery systems reductions,” Schneider said. “Will they? I doubt it. If they don’t start to do something very soon they are likely to pull the plug on the treaty. I don’t see them uploading the way they have, only to download in the next two years.”

The White House said Moscow’s failure to take part in the nuclear summit was a sign of self-isolation based on the West’s sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for the military takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea.

A Russian official said the snub by Putin was directed at Obama.

“This summit is particularly important for the USA and for Obama—this is probably why Moscow has decided to go for this gesture and show its outrage with the West’s policy in this manner,” Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the business newspaper Vedomosti.

A Russian Foreign Ministry official, Mikhail Ulyanov, told RIA Novosti that the summit was not needed.

“There is no need for it, to be honest,” he said, adding that nuclear security talks should be the work of nuclear physicists, intelligence services, and engineers.

“The political agenda of the summits has long been exhausted,” Ulyanov said.