Easing Sanctions on Iran has Begun

The United States and the European Union began easing economic sanctions on Iran on Monday, when Tehran announced that it has ceased certain nuclear activities according to its November deal with the Six Global Powers.

“A nuclear-armed Iran would not just endanger Israel — it would threaten the peace and security of our region,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday at a joint news conference with Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper.

Netanyahu’s remarks came a day after he had said that the Geneva Agreement “does not prevent” Tehran from pursuing its bid to build military atomic capability.

Canada’s sanctions on Tehran would not be removed, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared.

“We truly hope that it is possible to walk the Iranian government back from taking the irreversible step of manufacturing nuclear weapons. But for now, Canada’s own sanctions will remain fully in place,” he asserted. “Should our hopes not be realized, should the present agreement prove ephemeral, Canada will be a strong voice in the world for renewed sanctions.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the announcement by Ali Akhbar Salehi, Iran’s nuclear program chief, that IAEA inspectors had disconnected the centrifuges at the Natanz facility.

Israel has long warned that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state and has refused to rule out a military strike to prevent that from happening.

Netanyahu compared Iran’s bid for a nuclear weapon to a train which needed to pass three stops en route to obtaining a military capacity: enriching uranium to 3.5 percent; enriching to 20 percent; and a “final stop” of enriching to the weapons-grade level of 90 percent.

“The Geneva agreement cancelled the 20-percent stop but left the train on the track and even permits Iran to upgrade and improve the engine, so that one day, Iran will be able to rush forward to the final stop, in a short time and on an express track, without slowing down for the interim stops,” he said.

“In a permanent agreement, the international community must get the Iranian nuclear train off the track. Iran must never have the ability to build an atomic bomb.”

The Los Angeles Times spoke with Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Project at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, who stressed the Iranian threat cannot be underestimated. She pointed to a statement from Iran’s top nuclear negotiator that the country’s reduced capabilities under the agreement could be quickly reversed.

“You have take those words seriously because this is a true indication of how Iran is viewing this,” she said.

Ultimately, Landau said, it’s up not up to Israel but to the Western powers negotiating with Iran – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, known as the P5+1 – to push back on such issues.

“Israel finds itself in the position where it will suffer the most from the consequences of the failure of the international community to deal successfully with Iran through negotiations,” she said. “And those states that are negotiating are the ones that are going to suffer the least.”

“The time has come that the international community, which has been making things easier for Iran and giving it legitimacy of late, also demand that it halt its calls for the destruction of Israel and stop funding terror organizations: Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad,” Netanyahu said.

“It would give Iran’s terrorist proxies a nuclear umbrella. It would launch a multilateral nuclear arms race in the Middle East, it could turn the Middle East into a nuclear tinderbox,” the Israeli PM added.

Author: Shoshana Kesner, contributor, United with Israel
Date: Jan. 21, 2014

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