Netanyahu Calls Iran Nuclear Agreement a Threat to Israel's Survival

.@netanyahu responded to the deals reached in the #Irantalks with a tweet. pic.twitter.com/Rkw0Kpdxrg
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) abril 2, 2015

Any deal must significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear capabilities and stop its terrorism and aggression. #IranTalks pic.twitter.com/BOQ7YcHxyn
— בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) abril 2, 2015

             

          

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Iranian Dictator Calls for 'Death to America' as Nuke Talks Approach Deadline

Breitbart

By Jordan Schachtel

www.frontpagemag.com

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei led chants of “Death to America” over the weekend, as talks between the P5+1 world powers and the Iranian regime are closing in on a March 31 deadline to accept a basic framework for an agreement.

Just one day after President Obama was commending the Ayatollah for his supposed (but never evidenced) fatwa against nuclear weapons development, Khamenei told a crowd in Iran’s capital, “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure.”
“They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy. What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,” said the Ayatollah. “The politics of America is to create insecurity.”
The Iranian negotiating team left the talks in Switzerland on Friday under unusual circumstances. An unnamed Iranian official told Bloomberg that the entire delegation was flying to Tehran to attend the funeral of the mother of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The Washington Post reported that the Iranian team was originally going to break for the Persian new year of Nowruz, but then decided on tentatively staying through the holiday, before they suddenly packed up and left. Others have suggested that the Ayatollah has intervened directly and has pulled back his negotiating team for unknown reasons.
Nevertheless, Secretary of State John Kerry remains optimistic that a framework will be agreed upon by the March 31 deadline. Kerry told reporters over the weekend that “substantial progress” has been made, but “important gaps remain.”
“It’s time to make hard decisions. We want the right deal that would make the world, including the United States and our closest allies and partners, safer and more secure. And that is our test,” added Secretary Kerry.
France remains the most skeptical of the P5+1 that a good deal will come by the deadline. “France wants an agreement, but a robust agreement,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a French broadcaster. “That is to say, an accord that really guarantees that Iran can obviously have access to the civilian nuclear (program). But to the atomic bomb? No.”

'Innocent mistake': UK’s nuclear weapons web data routed through Ukraine

UK traffic diverted through Ukraine included nuclear weapon maker AWE http://t.co/Df15sVUsDg pic.twitter.com/8BvpsbwR6w
— Dyn Research (@DynResearch) marzo 13, 2015

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EEUU condenó a un científico que ofrecía una bomba nuclear a Venezuela

Univision Noticias

Leonardo Mascheroni

Un excientífico del Laboratorio Nacional de Los Álamos dijo a un agente encubierto del FBI que podría construir 40 armas nucleares para Venezuela en 10 años y diseñar una bomba que tuviera como blanco la ciudad de Nueva York.

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni fue sentenciado el miércoles a cinco años de prisión y tres de liberación supervisada, luego de declararse culpable de tratar de ayudar a Venezuela a desarrollar un arma atómica.

En grabaciones de audio que se escucharon este miércoles en la Corte de Distrito, Mascheroni, de origen argentino y naturalizado estadounidense, dice a un agente que se hace pasar por funcionario venezolano que las bombas podrían evitar que Estados Unidos invadiera al país sudamericano.

El excientífico de 79 años aseguró que su bomba en Nueva York no mataría a nadie, pero dejaría inhabilitado el sistema eléctrico de la ciudad y ayudaría a Venezuela a volverse una potencia nuclear.

Él y su esposa Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni se declararon culpables en 2013 de ofrecer ayuda a Venezuela para desarrollar un arma nuclear a través de un agente encubierto del FBI.

Mascheroni fue sentenciado el miércoles por un juez federal en Albuquerque en un caso que comenzó en 2010. Su esposa fue condenada a un año y un día de prisión por confabularse con su marido para vender secretos nucleares.

El gobierno estadounidense no ha acusado a Venezuela de buscar acceso a secretos del país.

Mascheroni estuvo bajo investigación aproximadamente un año. El FBI confiscó computadoras, cartas, fotografías, libros y teléfonos celulares en la casa de la pareja en Los Álamos.

En una entrevista con AP, Mascheroni dijo que creía que el gobierno estadounidense lo investigaba erróneamente por espionaje y negó las acusaciones.

El científico dijo que se acercó a Venezuela después que Estados Unidos rechazó sus teorías de que un láser de fluoruro de hidrógeno podía producir energía nuclear.

Según la investigación, Mascheroni dijo al agente encubierto que podía ayudar a Venezuela a desarrollar un arma nuclear en 10 años y que el país podía usar un reactor subterráneo secreto para producir y enriquecer plutonio, así como un reactor no secreto para producir energía nuclear.

Mascheroni trabajó en la división de diseño de armas nucleares en Los Álamos desde 1979 hasta que fue despedido en 1988. Su esposa, redactora de textos técnicos, trabajó allí entre 1981 y 2010.

El científico señaló que estaba motivado porque creía en la producción de energía atómica más limpia, menos costosa y más confiable, así como armas nucleares. Comenzó a acercarse a otros países después que sus ideas fueron rechazadas por el laboratorio, y posteriormente por asistentes legislativos.

©The Associated Press

A nuclear deal with Iran? Weighing the possibilities

American Enterprise Institute

ISIS seizes uranium from lab; experts downplay 'dirty bomb' threat

fox

By Perry Chiaramonte

Iraqi jihadists have grabbed 88 pounds of uranium compounds from a Mosul University science lab, but U.S. and international weapons experts are downplaying the possibility the deadly toxins could be used to make a so-called "dirty bomb."
The material, believed to be low-grade, unenriched uranium mixed with other elements, was taken from a science lab at Mosul University by ISIS, the terrorist group that took over Iraq's second-largest city last month and has vowed to attack Baghdad. Iraq notified the UN in a July 8 letter which sought international help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad," according to Reuters, which saw the letter.
Although the material is not believed to be weaponized, and ISIS does not have known missile delivery capability, the theft stoked fear that a dirty bomb - a primitive explosive used to disseminate radioactive material - could be fashioned from the uranium compounds.

"There is theoretically the potential for a dirty bomb.”- Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association

"There is theoretically the potential for a dirty bomb,” Daryl Kimball, of the Arms Control Association in Washington, told FoxNews.com, explaining that such bombs are more effective at scaring people than killing them. "It explodes and the terrorist is banking on the fear factor of radiation. That’s what we are looking at here at worst.”
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said the compounds were used at Mosul University labs in "very limited quantities" for research, and that they were slated for destruction before ISIS took over the city.
Former International Atomic Energy Agency chief inspector Olli Heinonen said that if the material came from a university it most likely is laboratory chemicals consisting of natural or depleted uranium.
"You cannot make a nuclear explosive from this amount, but all uranium compounds are poisonous," Heinonen told Reuters. "This material is also not 'good' enough for a dirty bomb."
The letter was sent by Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the U.S. is aware of the situation, but does not believe the uranium is weaponized.
“We do not believe that there is weaponized or enriched uranium in Iraq,” Warren said. "Obviously we’ve seen the letter that the Iraqi government has sent to the United Nations. We cannot independently confirm who has control of this uranium.
"It’s important to note that in 2004 the U.S. Department of Energy worked with the Iraqis to remove all enriched uranium from Iraq," Warren added. "So we believe that the enriched uranium has all been removed from Iraq and that this material that is being discussed I think came from a university so it’s more of an academically oriented material.”
David Albright, of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said the likelihood of fashioning a dirty bomb from the stolen materials was remote, noting uranium is not very radioactive.
"However, any uranium in the hands of a terrorist group is concerning, since it shows interest in nuclear material and their interest is unlikely to be for peaceful purposes," Albright, a former IAEA weapons inspector, told FoxNews.com.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich also said the seizure likely posed no direct threat. But, he said the development is troubling.
"The sheer fact that the terrorists ... show unmistakable interest in nuclear and chemical materials is, of course, very alarming," Lukashevivh said.
Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment think tank told Reuters UN inspectors had previously scoured Mosul, including several universities following the Gulf War. He said what remained was uranium liquid wastes, sources, uranium oxides and uranium tetrafluoride.
"Some of these items are still there, but there's no enriched uranium," he said.
Earlier this week, Iraq's U.N. envoy said that the government had lost control of a former chemical weapons facility near Baghdad to "armed terrorist groups."

Putin's New 'Nuclear' Option

breitbart

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

The escalating crisis in Ukraine being engineered by Vladimir Putin is taking on the feel of the Guns of August: an inexorable march towards a wider conflict, and perhaps a conflagration. 

Having few good options to prevent the Russian autocrat from taking whatever he wants from Ukraine and possibly other neighboring states in what the Kremlin calls “the Near Abroad,” Europe and the Obama administration have been ratcheting up economic sanctions on individuals, banks, and companies known to be favored by the Putin regime.

The London Daily Telegraph gives a flavor of what is in store in the wake of murderous attacks on Ukrainian military personnel by Russian special forces and others and retaliatory action by the government in Kiev:

The International Monetary Fund said the conflict risks deep damage to Russia’s economy, starving it of foreign funds and knowhow. “Geopolitical tensions have brought the Russian economy to a standstill.
"Russia’s actions in Crimea have increased the uncertainty of doing business in Russia and are having a chilling effect on investment. Capital outflows could reach $100bn (£58.3bn) in 2014.
"This comes at a crucial moment when the old growth model based on energy has been exhausted,” it said.
...
Russia’s central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said capital flight was playing havoc with exchange rate policy.
“Rouble stability is impossible unless we slow capital outflows,” she said.

If Putin intensifies his interference in Ukrainian affairs, the Russians seem likely to experience still worse economic dislocation. The Telegraph reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has issued a strategy paper that “called for a complete change in policy, deeming it impossible to work with the Kremlin so long as Vladimir Putin is in charge.” That would mean that the Western government heretofore most determined to avoid harsh sanctions on Russia (not least because they would harm Moscow’s many trading partners in Germany) will no longer run interference for the Kremlin and will seek the downfall of its longtime master.

So far, Vladimir Putin is responding to such economic measures and strategic developments by doubling down. He declared on July 1, “I want everyone to understand: Our country will continue to defend the rights of Russians abroad and to use our entire arsenal.”

Such statements would be ominous under any circumstance. That arsenal is formidable and has, to varying degrees, already been brought to bear.

Putin has put into place the ground forces needed to seize the industrial heartland of Ukraine. Other nations on Russia’s littorals – including NATO member nations in the Baltics – could also suddenly face Kremlin-manufactured separatist movements that ask Mother Russia for solidarity and protection.

Putin has already engaged in economic warfare against Ukraine, most recently cutting off its access to natural gas imports – ostensibly over payment arrearages, but clearly with an eye toward euchring accommodation of Russian demands.

President Putin has made no secret of his determination to brandish Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile. He is comprehensively modernizing it, in contrast to the steady atrophying of America’s strategic forces, rationalized by President Obama’s reckless, unilateral pursuit of a “world without nuclear weapons” – starting with ours. The Russian despot has resumed provocative, Cold War-style penetrations by long-range nuclear-capable bombers of U.S. and allied airspace. He has also threatened to engage in nuclear attacks on adversaries, near and far.

It appears, however, that Putin may have just added to his “arsenal” a new weapon, one that could give him a new and devastating “nuclear option.” In fact, the mere threat of its use against the Europeans and the Americans may be sufficient to impel their acquiescence to his demands on Ukraine and, for that matter, just about anything else he wants.

According to a CNBC report on July 1, “The industrial control systems of hundreds of European and U.S. energy companies have been infected by a sophisticated cyber weapon operated by a state-backed group with apparent ties to Russia.” If true, Putin could threaten to unleash at any time via a Stuxnet-like computer worm an attack on the electric grids of the United States and Europe. Such a cyber attack could potentially disrupt the distribution of power to their respective critical infrastructures for protracted periods.

Should that occur, societal breakdowns, economic collapse, and losses that run to the hundreds of millions of lives are distinct possibilities, if not certainties. The Free World as we have known it could cease to exist, without a shot being fired.

Such a scenario was among those validated in London this week at a meeting of top government officials, legislators, public utilities regulators, electric industry leaders, scientists and other experts from the United States, Britain, Israel and a number of other countries. The good news is that, in light of such very bad news about the dangers we face – with or without a Russian Stuxnet 2.0 – this Electric Infrastructure Security Summit seemed to precipitate an unprecedented willingness on the part of the various stakeholders represented to collaborate for the purpose of protecting the grid against all hazards.

The prospect of Vladimir Putin or any other adversaries being able, one way or another, to pose such an existential threat to our nation demands corrective action without further delay. What is needed now is nothing less than a crash, supreme-priority Manhattan Project-style national effort. We must bring to bear the best minds and the necessary resources to protect our critical infrastructure and, thereby, help preserve this country and the rest of the Free World in the face of the present danger – and those in the offing.

New Details on the 1961 Goldsboro Nuclear Accident

National Security Archive
Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually "Armed" When It Crashed to Earth in North Carolina, Sandia Lab Report Concluded

Nuclear Stockpile Safety Review from the Mid-1970s Identified Four Weapons Systems that Needed "Time Urgent" Evaluation Because of "Nuclear Detonation Safety Concerns"

1986 Sandia Lab Study Found that, with Respect to "Fully Assembled" and "Combat-Ready" Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Could Not Claim "in an Absolute Sense, that We Take Every Action to Ensure their Safety"
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 475
Posted - June 9, 2014
For more information contact:
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

One of the two Mk39 thermonuclear weapons that landed when a B-52 bomber broke up over Goldsboro, North Carolina in February 1961. This was the weapon that came closest to detonation.

The T-249 switch used to arm nuclear bombs on Strategic Air Command bomber aircraft. Photo courtesy of Glenn's Computer Museum

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Safety Issues, 1957-1986

Washington, D.C., June 9, 2014 – A recently declassified report by Sandia National Laboratory, published today by the National Security Archive, provides new details on the 1961 Goldsboro, North Carolina, nuclear weapons accident. While both multi-megaton Mk 39 bombs involved in the mishap were in the "safe" position, the report concluded, by the time one of them hit the ground it was in the "armed" setting because of the impact of the crash. If the shock had not also damaged the switch contacts, the weapon could have detonated.
Since the advent of the nuclear age, the nightmarish possibility of an accidental detonation has made weapons safety a boiler-plate item in the U.S. nuclear weapons program — yet potentially serious errors continue to occur. A series of 2013 reports on the Goldsboro accident provided a fresh reminder of the role of luck in preventing nuclear disaster: the same switch involved in the 1961 event had failed in other incidents.[1]
Eric Schlosser's extraordinary book Command and Control Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, raises important questions about the record of nuclear weapons safety in the United States during and after the Cold War. Two major studies by Sandia National Laboratory, cited by Schlosser in his book, have been recently released by the Department of Energy in response to National Security Archive Mandatory Declassification Review requests and are included in this publication. Both are demanding studies which require attentive readers. One is a 1959 study of nuclear weapons safety when experts at the national nuclear laboratories were beginning to review the problem more comprehensively. The other is an overview of safety history published in 1987 which reviews the impact of changing weapons design on safety policy, the impact of accidents on policy, and initiatives taken by experts at Sandia to improve safety.
Also included in today's posting are recently declassified Joint Chiefs of Staff documents from early 1958 which address a problem that increased apprehensions about safety: the introduction of sealed-pit nuclear weapons into the arsenal. Embedding plutonium pits or highly-enriched uranium in the bombs or warheads themselves, unlike previous nuclear weapons where fissile material capsules were kept separate until arming occurred, this development made the weapons ready for use but created new vulnerabilities, including greater contamination risk. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the risk of an accidental detonation — special features on the weapons allegedly made the probability a "negligible factor" — sealed-pit weapons would figure in the major accidents of the following years, including Jonesboro (1961), Palomares, Spain (1966) and Thule, Greenland (1968), where they would do considerable environmental damage.
Some of the highlights of the documents:

• A memorandum of conversation involving President Dwight D. Eisenhower, JCS Chairman Nathan Twining, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in which the two Americans made optimistic statements about weapons safety. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss soon asserted that those statements did not address the conditions that would emerge when sealed-pit weapons entered the stockpile. He presciently observed that "In case of [high explosives/HE] detonation on crash there would be plutonium scattered outside of the HE danger area, and this might necessitate evacuation of personnel and even clean-up operations."
• A statement in one of the JCS papers laid out the requirement that made future accidents possible by SAC bomber aircraft flying sealed-pit weapons: "A portion of SAC must be kept on continual alert status fully armed and ready for instant implementation of emergency war plans."
• A declassified State Department letter from early 1958 indicating a growing risk of accidents in the European Command area because of the eventual "saturation" of nuclear stockpiles.
• According to a Sandia Laboratory 1959 study, the Cold War goal of keeping nuclear weapons in a high state of readiness meant that safety was "fundamentally a matter of playing percentages." This meant that "absolute" nuclear safety was illusory and that giving ground "safety-wise" was necessary in order to have "useful" weapons.
• According to the same report, one of the dangers of an accidental nuclear detonation was that it could produce "public and diplomatic reactions leading to disastrous curtailment of military readiness and nuclear capability." Even worse, "an accident might be mistaken for the opening round of an unannounced nuclear war."
• A safety policy review performed in the late 1960s developed risk criteria for accidental nuclear detonations: in either "normal" or "abnormal" environments (where an accident had occurred) the annual risk of such an accident would be no greater than one in a million for an arsenal of ten thousand weapons or more.
• Studies at Sandia Laboratory of stockpile safety in the mid-1970s identified four nuclear weapons systems which needed review on a "time-urgent basis because of nuclear detonation safety concerns."
• The author of the 1986 safety policy history asserted that "the perceived need to keep weapons fully assembled and deployed on combat-ready systems … prevents us from claiming, in an absolute sense, that we take every action…. to ensure their safety."

This collection includes a declassified State Department history on two major U.S. overseas nuclear accidents, one near Palomares, Spain in January 1966, the other near Thule, Greenland, two years later, in January 1968. First published on the Archive's Web-log Unredacted, this history, prepared by James Miller, provides a detailed account of how the U.S. government tried to manage the diplomatic furor that both accidents triggered. As the AEC had forecast in 1958, accidents involving sealed-pit weapons posed risks of contamination of radioactive material and the Palomares and Thule incidents required major clean-ups which the United States had to undertake. The recovery operation at Palomares was particularly challenging because one of the hydrogen bombs was lost underwater for several months.
Keep reading at  National Security Archive >>

Pentagon to Remove 50 Nuclear Missiles From Silos Near Yellowstone Blast Zone

Mary Greeley

Russia TV host: Russia could turn USA into radioactive ashes

ITN

Russia May Suspend Nuclear Arms Inspections With US: START Treaty

Mary Greeley

U..S. delegation to brief Israel on Iran talks: It's Okay That Iran Has Nukes

Mary Greeley

ALERT: U.S. has accepted country's nuclear enrichment program

Mary Greeley

Does US have good reason to fully trust Iran?

Cuba Supports Nuclear Iran

capitolhillcubans

From Iran's Tasnim:

Cuba Stresses Iran’s Right to Use Peaceful N. Energy

The Cuban foreign minister, in a meeting with visiting Iranian deputy foreign minister in Havana, said Iran has inalienable rights to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The issue was raised by Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla in his Wednesday evening meeting with the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for the European and Latin American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi.

The Cuban official expressed satisfaction with the achievements made by Iran, specially during Tehran’s negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and said based on the international laws, Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

He also voiced Cuba’s support for Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue.

Iran Celebrates American 'Surrender'; Obama Says 'Give Peace a Chance'

breitbart

By Joel B. Pollak 

Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation's interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) enero 14, 2014

Iran's "moderate" president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted this morning that "world powers," including the U.S., had "surrendered" to the "Iranian nation's will" in confirming a six-month interim nuclear deal that will allow the Iranian regime to continue its advanced centrifuge program and develop a new nuclear facility at Arak. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, implored Americans to "give peace a chance" with the Iran deal.

Though the Obama administration claims that the interim deal--which includes a secret side deal--will lead Iran to give up any ambitions of becoming a nuclear power, the regime has publicly declared that the agreement reached in Geneva last November is the first step in removing all sanctions, and that it virtually recognizes Iran's "right" to enrich uranium. All agree that it contradicts a decade of UN Security Council resolutions banning such enrichment.

Obama has threatened to veto new sanctions currently under consideration by Congress as a risk to the nuclear deal, even though the sanctions would not take effect until after the interim deal is over, and are designed to act as a deterrent against Iranian efforts to cheat on the agreement. The sanctions enjoy bipartisan support, though most support comes from Republicans: it enjoys 59 co-sponsors in the Senate, near a veto-proof majority.

Iranian Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Allow Production Of Weapons Uranium

Pat Dollard

Excerpted from The Jerusalem Post: Iran’s hardline lawmakers are seeking to increase uranium enrichment under the country’s nuclear program to a level that can produce bomb-grade material, a state-run website said on Wednesday.

The bill could bring Tehran into direct conflict with the major powers that reached an interim agreement with Iran in Geneva last month, requiring Tehran to suspend its enrichment of higher grade uranium.

However, Iran’s most powerful authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has so far backed the accord.

The hardliners, irked by the foreign policy shift since moderate President Hasan Rouhani was elected in June, oppose the Geneva deal.

The bill introduced on Wednesday, “if approved, will oblige the government to … enrich uranium to 60 percent level in order to provide fuel for submarine engines if the sanctions are tightened and Iran’s nuclear rights are ignored (by major powers),” said hardline lawmaker Mehdi Mousavinejad, according to the English language Press TV website.

It was not immediately clear whether or when the parliament might discuss the bill but the official IRNA news agency said it was introduced by some 100 lawmakers and had been tagged with a “double urgency” status, meaning it could be discussed in parliament within a week.

“The bill is aimed at giving an upper hand to our government and the negotiating team … It will allow the government to continue our nuclear program if the Geneva deal fails,” IRNA quoted Hossein Taghavi Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs committee, as saying.

DISSUADING FURTHER SANCTIONS

The November 24 accord is meant to give the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and Iran a period of six months to negotiate a final settlement of the decade-old standoff, easing worries over a new war in the Middle East.

“Iran’s parliament lacks power and particularly after Rouhani’s election win, the hardline lawmakers do not have the upper hand,” a senior western diplomat in Tehran said.

“Iran’s Supreme Leader backs the deal and ultimately, lawmakers have to follow his path.”

The Iranian government would have no choice but to obey such a bill if passed by parliament. But diplomats and analysts believe Iran could be using parliament as a bargaining tool in the talks.

“This draft bill has been prepared in reaction to America’s hostile measures,” Mousavinejad told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.

Despite opposition by President Barack Obama’s administration, 26 US senators introduced legislation on Thursday to impose new sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the Geneva interim deal.

The proposed legislation would require reductions in Iran’s petroleum production and apply new penalties to Iran’s engineering, mining and construction industries if Iran violated the interim agreement or if negotiators failed to reach a final comprehensive deal.

Washington earlier this month also blacklisted 19 more Iranian companies and individuals under sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep reading >>

Iran Delegates Break Off Nuclear Talks

breitbart

VIENNA, Dec. 13 (UPI) --

An Iranian delegation broke off talks with six world powers over implementing a landmark nuclear deal to return to Tehran, Iran's news agency said Friday.

The so-called expert-level delegates, meeting since Monday at the Vienna headquarters of U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, halted the talks on enforcement mechanisms to return to Tehran for consultations, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said in a report monitored by United Press International.

The report did not say why the delegation, led by Iranian Foreign Ministry political and legal affairs Director General Hamid Baeidinejad, suspended the talks Thursday night.

Stephen Clement, leading the talks for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on behalf of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, had no immediate comment.

The suspension of the talks came hours after the Obama administration, facing growing pressure from Congress to maintain or increase economic sanctions on Iran, blacklisted more than a dozen companies and individuals for allegedly helping Tehran evade international oil sanctions.

At the same time, House and Senate lawmakers agreed Thursday not to vote on new sanctions this year, following a White House campaign to stall legislative action for at least six months while the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany negotiate a comprehensive deal over Tehran's nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Time magazine in an interview published Monday any new sanctions would kill a comprehensive deal.

The talks in the Austrian capital were part of an interim six-month deal reached Nov. 24 in Geneva, Switzerland, calling for Iran to halt production of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in exchange for some relief from economic sanctions amounting to $6 billion to $7 billion.

Obama: Iran Deal Better than 'All-or-Nothing' Approach

breitbart

By William Bigelow 

Barack Obama, speaking at the Saban Forum of the Brookings Institute on Saturday, insisted that the deal he struck with Iran allowing Iran to keep its uranium enrichment while the West relaxed sanctions will “eliminate the incentive” for Iran to build nuclear weapons. Obama lambasted those, including Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who favor what he called an “all-or-nothing” approach in which Iran would dismantle its entire nuclear program before the West relaxed sanctions, saying:

You’ll hear arguments, including potentially from the prime minister, that said we can’t accept any enrichment on Iranian soil, period, full stop, end of conversation. One can envision an ideal world in which Iran said, ‘We’ll destroy every element and facility and you name it, it’s all gone.’ I can envision a world in which Congress passed every one of my bills that I put forward. There are a lot of things that I can envision that would be wonderful.”

Obama said there is no way to stop Iran from enriching uranium: “Theoretically, they will always have some capability because technology here is available to any good physics student at pretty much any university around the world. And they have already gone through the cycle to the point where the knowledge we are not going to be able to eliminate. But what we can do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.”

He continued, “When I hear people criticize the Geneva deal say it’s got to be all or nothing, I would just remind them that if it’s nothing, if we did not even try for this next six months to do this, all the breakout capacity we are concerned about would accelerate in the next six months. They’d be that much closer to breakout capacity six months from now. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to test this proposition.”

Obama said that despite the fact that Netanyahu publicly denounced the deal, they share the same goals: “Bibi and I have very candid conversations and there are occasionally significant tactical disagreements. But there is a constancy in trying to reach the same goal, and in this case that goal is to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.”

Then Obama loaded his argument, insisting that sanctions were ineffective in turning the Iranians from their nuclear ambitions and cunningly making the opposition to the deal look as if it only came from Israel and its American supporters, ignoring the Arab states who are nervous about Iran’s nuclear ambitions: “The idea that Iran, given everything that we know about their history, would just continue to get more and more nervous about more sanctions and military threats and ultimately just say, ‘We give in,’ I think does not reflect an honest understanding of the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. I think even the so-called moderates or reformers inside of Iran would not be able to simply say, ‘We will cave and do exactly what the U.S. and the Israelis say.’”

The reality is: Sanctions brought Iran to the table. The Saudis and others in the Arab world don’t want a nuclear Iran. The deal does nothing to inspect the dangerous nuclear work done in Parchin.

But for Barack Obama, vilifying the Israelis and tacitly encouraging Iran to go forward with its deadly ambitions are the reality he has chosen.

Report: IAEA Stats Show Iranian Centrifuges Jumped 400% Under Obama

breitbar

www.thisismoney.co.uk

According to a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities skyrocketed under President Obama’s administration. According to Fox News’ analysis of IAEA documents, “the vast majority of Iran’s enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration.” In 2007, Iran had 3,000 centrifuges. By 2009, Iran likely had 5,000. Today, Iran has 19,000 centrifuges according to Secretary of State John Kerry.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration wasn’t attempting to blame anyone for the development of Iranian centrifuges; instead, she said, they were focused on “the fact that we're now at a point where we are halting and rolling back the progress of their program and we're working towards a comprehensive agreement to bring an end to it."

The Obama administration has been trumpeting its sanctions as both effective, and conversely unable to stop Iranian nuclear development. President Obama suggested during the 2012 campaign that he had been dramatically harsh on Iran via sanctions, but Kerry recently stated, “sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing.”