Elijah Magnier: No return to the 2015 nuclear agreement

IRAN WILL BE A FULL 

NUCLEAR POWER BY THE 

END OF 2020: NO RETURN 

TO THE 2015 AGREEMENT

Elijah Magnier

Elijah Magnier,

10 September, 2019

By Elijah J. Magnier: @ejmalrai

French President Emmanuel Macron failed to promote successfully his Iranian initiative with the US administration despite the initial blessing of his US counterpart. This failure led Iran to make a third gradual withdrawal from its JCPOA nuclear deal commitment, raising two main issues. Iran has become a regional power to be reckoned with, so we can now scrap from reactions to its policies the words “submit,” or “bow to the international community”. Moreover, since Europe is apparently no longer in a position to fulfil its commitments, Iran will now be headed towards a total pull-out following further gradual withdrawal steps. Just before the US elections due in November 2020, Iran is expected to become a nuclear country with the full capability of producing uranium enriched to more than 20% uranium-235, weapons-usable and therefore in a position to manufacture dozens of nuclear bombs (for which uranium must be enriched to about 90%). However, this does not necessarily mean that this is Iran’s ultimate objective.

Industry data shows that half of the effort goes into enriching from 0.7% to 4%. If Iran reaches the level of 20%, the journey towards 90% is almost done. A few thousand centrifuges are needed to reach 20% enrichment while a few hundred are enough to cross from 20% to the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb. When Iran announces it is reaching a level which is considered critical by the west, there is the possibility that Israel might act militarily against Iran’s capability as it did in Iraq in 1981, in Syria in 2009, and in assassinating nuclear scientists. If this happens, the Middle East will be exposed to a mega earthquake whose outcome is unpredictable. But if Israel and the US are not in a position to react against Iran’s total withdrawal from the JCPOA (nuclear deal), Iran will no longer accept a return to the 2015 deal. Its position will become much stronger and any deal would be difficult to reach.

Sources within the decision-making circle have said “Iran will become a state with full nuclear capability. It is also aiming for self-sufficiency and is planning to move away from counting solely on its oil exports for its annual budget. It is starting to generate and manufacture in many sectors and it will certainly increase its missile development and production. Missile technology has proved to be the most efficient and cheapest deterrent weapon for Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Yemen”.

Iran has been following a “strategy of patience” since US President Donald Trump unlawfully revoked the nuclear deal. Tehran allowed Europe, for an entire year, to think about a way to tempt Iran to stay within the nuclear deal on the basis of 4 (France, Russia, China, UK) + 1 (Germany), excluding the US. 

After that long waiting period, Iran has taken the initiative into its own hands and is gradually pulling out of the deal. It seems Trump did not learn from President Obama who signed the deal, convinced that US sanctions would be ineffective.

But Iran is not missing an opportunity worth trying to make its case. At the G7 in France, Iran Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif cut short his visit to Beijing to meet European leaders and ministers at the request of President Macron. It was hinted that there were chances for Iran to sell its oil and that Macron had managed to break through the US-Iran tension.

Iran President Hassan Rouhani thought there was a real opportunity to smooth over tensions and that Trump, according to the source in Tehran, was ready to ease the sanctions in exchange for a meeting and the beginning of discussion. 

This is why Rouhani overtly stated his readiness to meet any person if that helped. But Zarif was surprised to learn that Macron didn’t fulfil his promises- because Trump had changed his mind. The initiative was stillborn and all are back at square one.

Macron understood that the problem doesn’t lie with the US President but in his consigliere Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his neo-con team Pompeo-Bolton. The meeting between the French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly and the Pentagon Chief Mark Esper was an attempt to convince the US Secretary of Defence to distance himself from the Pompeo-Bolton team before the situation gets out of control and Iran became unstoppable. 

“Trump rejected the French idea to offer Iran a line of credit of 15 billions of Euros (not Dollars). This credit is part of Iran’s acquired right since it has agreed with Europe to sell 700,000 barrels of oil daily as part of a signed deal. Following the US sanctions on any country or company buying Iranian oil, Europe refrained from honouring the agreement. Vice Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calculated the amount at stake of 15 billion euros with European representatives. The agreement was that Iran would sell oil to Europe for this amount in the future, and that Iran could buy any product, not limited to food and medicine which were originally excluded from the US sanctions. Iran, according to the deal with European partners, would have had the right to take the money in cash and transfer it to any other country, including Iran”, said the source.

All this has been thrown to the winds. The result is simple: Iran will continue its nuclear programme but will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor development. It is relying on the nuclear deal articles 26 and 36 to partially withdraw, a deal that was not signed based on trust, but on respect for law. This is the reason why Iran announced its third withdrawal step, increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium and replacing its IR-1 and IR-2m with IR-6 centrifuges (supposed to happen in 2026, as stated in paragraph 39).

Europe has used all its resources to persuade Iran from taking withdrawal steps, but to no avail. Iran has moved from a “patience strategy” to an “aggressive strategy” and will no longer accept a soft approach. It has undergone sanctions since 1979 and though it has learned to live with them, its patience is exhausted.

The US has nothing to offer to Iran but further sanctions and additional pressure on Europe, so the old continent follows its withdrawal path. The US administration planned to form various coalitions, including an Arab NATO, but failed so far to pull off any such alliance. US officials believed the Iranian regime would fall in months and that the population would turn against their leaders. Nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary: Trump and his neo-cons brought Iranian pragmatists and hardliners together for the same cause. 

The US destroyed the possibility of any moderate argument with people like Rouhani and Zarif, and showed that it was too untrustworthy for any reliable deal or agreement.

Iran is feeling stronger: it has downed a US drone, sabotaged several tankers and confiscated a British-flagged tanker despite the presence of the Royal Navy nearby. It has shown its readiness for war without pushing for it. Iran knows its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine will be united as one in the case of war. The Iranian officials did not use revolutionary or sectarian slogans to face down US sanctions but instead managed to create national solidarity behind its firm policy of confrontation with the US. 

Washington, largely responsible for the status quo in the Gulf, failed to weaken Iran’s resolve and has so far been unsuccessful in undermining the Iranian economy. It is putting about the idea that its “suffocation policy” has been successful, but Iran is not giving the submission signals the US administration wants and needs, to justify the tension it has created in the Middle East and the Gulf.

Iran is handling its policy towards the US and Europe in the same way Iranians weave carpets. It takes several years to finish an artisanal carpet and many more years to sell it. The nuclear deal needed several years of preparation but even more time for establishing acceptance and the bona fides of the signatories. Trump’s simple-minded decision destroyed all that work. The US and Europe have lost the initiative. Europe is not politically in any position to stand against the US sanctions, nor does it have sufficient tools or standing to offer Iran and thus force it to the negotiating table. 

Iran is becoming stronger and much more difficult to tame than in the past. It is imposing itself as a regional power and a challenge to the west. It has advanced nuclear technology and capabilities, a self-sufficient armament programme and it is strengthening its allies in the Middle East.

It is difficult to foresee any negotiation between Iran and the West before November 2020, the date of the US elections. Iran is no longer willing to accept in 2019 what it signed in 2015; Trump is responsible for the new scenario. Destroying the nuclear deal now redounds to the benefit of Iran. 

There will be a time when the US administration, due to the realisation of its ignorance in Iranian affairs, will feel regret, and will ask to return to the negotiating table- perhaps after Trump? But conditions will definitely no longer be the same and it may very well come too late to see Iran accepting what it signed for in 2015.

Proofread by: Maurice Brasher and C.G.B

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The sinking German economy and Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel sinks German economy, hands over control of EU to Macron

Germany Stalls and Europe Craters

Alastair Crooke

Strategic Culture,

11 August, 2019

The influential economic commentator on Europe, Ambrose Pritchard Evans, writes:

“German industry is in the deepest slump since the global financial crisis, and threatens to push Europe’s powerhouse economy into full-blown recession. The darkening outlook is forcing the European Central Bank to contemplate ever more perilous measures.

“The influential Ifo Institute in Munich said its business climate indicator for manufacturing went into “free fall” in July, as the delayed damage from global trade conflict takes its toll and confidence wilts. It goes far beyond the woes of the car industry. More than 80pc of Germany’s factories are in outright contraction.”

Why? What is going on here? It seems that, though other European member-states used to be Germany’s largest market, Germany’s first and third largest export destinations are now the US and China, respectively. Together, they account for more than 15% of all outbound German trade activity. More than 18% of Germany’s export goods ended up somewhere in Asia. Therefore, Germany’s industrial struggles in 2019 point the finger in the direction of its external focus, which means the US, China, and Asia – i.e. its largest marginal trade partners. And the principal assailants in today’s trade and tech wars.

Clemens Fuest, the Ifo president, says: “All the problems are coming together: It’s China, it’s increasing protectionism across the board, it’s disruption to global supply chains”.

But if Germany’s manufacturing woes were not sufficient in and of themselves, then combined with the threat of trade war with Trump, the prospect indeed is bleak for Europe: And the likelihood is that any of that ECB stimulus – promised for this autumn, as Mario Draghi warns that the European picture is getting “worse and worse” – will be very likely to meet with an angry response from Trump – castigated as blatant currency manipulation by the EU and its ECB. EU Relations with Washington seem set to sour (in more ways than one).

But there is more: Speaking in the German parliament, Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, tore into Chancellor Merkel for her, and Brussel’s, botched handling of Brexit (for which “she, Merkel bears some responsibility”). Weidel pointed out that “the UK is the second biggest economy in Europe – as big as the 19 smallest EU members combined”. “From an economic perspective, the EU is shrinking from 27 member-states to 9. In the face of such an enormous event, the EU reaction verges on a pathological denial of reality … [they should recall] that German prosperity and jobs are at stake here. It is clearly in Germany’s interest that trade and investment continue unhindered. But, out of blind loyalty, you [Merkel], follow France, which wants to deny Britain access to the Single Market. Yes, you [Merkel] are considering not allowing Britain access to the European Economic Area, because France does not want it. [Sarcasm] that would be too much: Too much free trade; too much fresh air in the markets … France with its failed industrial policy serves as [the new] blueprint [for the EU]”. (See video here).

Weidel’s last point is key: She is implying that Macron is positioning himself to eclipse Merkel as the EU leader on the waning of the Chancellor’s influence and credibility. Macron intends to impose instead, the “failed” French industrial model, to Germany’s disadvantage, Weidel suggests.

She is not alone in this suspicion. Trump too, dislikes any prospective Macron take-over of the EU leadership that will (almost certainly) be more hostile to any trade agreement with the US (especially on agriculture), and which would open French industry to US competition. Hence Trump’s riposte (on French wine) in retaliation to France’s new taxes on US tech firms – contributing little, or nothing, to the French Treasury. Trump is enlisting too in the battle for the future shape of Europe. It is going to be a battle royal.

A major threat to the EU now emanates from the least anticipated direction – from the US. At no point did European leaders consider their project as a challenge to US power. Rather, they saw progress in their careers as contingent on receiving the US approval. Consequently, they deliberately chose not to found the Euro in anything other than within the dollar sphere. They never considered the possibility that the United States might change attitude. And now – suddenly – the EU finds itself exposed to all manner of sanctions through the Euro’s close vulnerability to dollar hegemony; from a possible trade and tech war between Europe’s two key trading partners; and even a falling-out as a result of a changing US defence calculus. Steering a course between the US and China will challenge deeply Europe’s imbedded cultural predisposition.

Weidel also warns the German Parliament that that the biggest consequence for Germany from Brexit is not just its exports, but rather, without the UK as a EU member, Germany will lose its ability to assemble a blocking majority (35%) in Council: And, absent this ability to block, Germany may not be able “to stop the crisis-ridden, Club-Med States and France, from reaching into community funds”.

This goes to the crux of the European crisis: an accord rooted in Germany’s traumatic experience of the inter-war hyper-inflation; in the Great Depression of the 30s; and to the social erosion to which it led. To exorcise these ghosts, Germany deliberately painted the EU into an automatic system of austerity ‘discipline’– enforced through a German surveilled, Central Bank (the ECB). The whole was ‘locked-fast’ in automaticity (i.e. in Europe’s ‘automatic stabilising mechanisms’). This was conceded by other European states (the core accord), since it seemed the only way (it was said), that Germany would agree to put its revered ‘Ark’ of the then stable Deutsche Mark, into the common ‘pot’ of the ECM system.

Professor Paul Krugman explains:

“How [then] did Europe manage to follow a common monetary policy … with an European Central Bank, explicitly … set up to give each country an equal voice, and yet satisfy the German demand for assured monetary rectitude? The answer was to put the new system on autopilot, pre-programming it to do what the Germans would have done if they were still in charge.

First, the new central bank – the ECB – would be made an autonomous institution, as free as possible from political influence. Second, it would be given a clear, very narrow mandate: price stability, period – no responsibility at all for squishy things like employment or growth. Third, the first head of the ECB, appointed for an eight-year term, would be someone guaranteed to be more German than the Germans: W. Duisenberg, who headed the Dutch central bank during a period when his job consisted almost entirely of shadowing whatever the Bundesbank did”.

Krugman is too polite to say it explicitly, but it never was a common policy. It was German control, hidden in stabilising mechanisms, designed by Frankfurt. The loss of this mechanism is what is frightening man of the German élite.

And Macron has just exploded that original Franco-German compact through putting a French woman (Lagarde) in charge of the ECB; a self-declared Federalist (“I want a United States of Europe”) as EU Commission President, and a Brexit hawk as President of the EU Council. Macron’s triumph over Merkel is intended to de-throne Germany. And a punishment Brexit – both to weaken Germany, and to sap Germany’s voting power at the Council – as well as the satisfaction of seeing a chastised Britain being chased from out of the EU.

So Macron is ushering in his notion of a closer centralised European governance – but who is to pay for it now? Without Germany’s former level of contributions and Britain’s input as a major contributor nation, the EU can neither reform itself (since many reforms would require Treaty re-writes), nor afford itself.

And wide political discontent to the Macron formula is already baked in for the future, as Frank Lee notes:

“Those Eastern European states which emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union had been led to believe that a bright new world of West European living standards, enhanced pay levels, high rates of social mobility and consumption were on offer.

Unfortunately, they were sold an illusion: the result of the transition so far seems to have been the creation of a low-wage hinterland, a border economy on the fringes of the highly developed European core; a Euro version of NAFTA and the maquiladora, i.e., low tech, low wage, low skills production units on the Mexican side of the US’s southern borders”.

And we are not talking ‘just Latvia’: For many in the East of Germany (the AfD’s electoral heartland), German unification in 1990 was not a merger of equals, but instead an “Anschluss” (annexation) with West Germany taking over East Germany. Reasons for East German disenchantment can be seen everywhere: The eastern population has shrunk by about 2 million, unemployment has soared, young people are moving away in droves, and what was one of the Eastern Bloc’s leading industrial nations is now largely devoid of industry.

And here lies the kernel of the crisis. There has been a call from all sides to try something different: such as relaxing the fiscal rules that are destroying public services; or, more daringly, to touch the ‘holy grail’: of reform of the financial and banking system.

But here is the rub: All such initiatives are prohibited in the locked-down treaty system. Everyone might think to revise those treaties. But that is not going to happen. The treaties are untouchable, precisely because Germany believes that to loosen its hold over the monetary system will be to open Pandora’s Box to the ghosts of inflation and social instability rising, to haunt us anew. Weidel was very clear on this danger.

The reality is that the European ‘lock-down’ derives from a system that has willfully removed power from parliaments and governments, and enshrined the automaticity of that system into treaties that can only be revised by extraordinary procedures. No one in Brussels sees any prospect of ‘that’ happening – hence the Brussels ‘record’ is stuck: repeating the mantra of ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA) to more, and closer, Euro-integration. And that is precisely what the European ‘sovereigntists’ are determined to oppose, by all means possible.

Only the onset of the coming recession in Europe and the associated sovereign debt crisis may prove sufficient to shake Brussels from its smug torpor, and to focus minds on how to manage the coming crisis. As Evans-Pritchard concludes, the ECB cannot save the eurozone another time. The baton passes to the politicians – if they are able?

Welcome to the new phase of Westphalian struggle: European ‘Empire’ – to be, or not to be.

The Yellow Vests on Bastille Day

Yellow Vests gain strength, as Macron booed by massive crowds on Bastille Day

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the Saturday Yellow vest protests, which resulted in violent clashes with French police on Bastille Day.

Is France on brink of revolution?

RT America

Clashes between Yellow Vest sympathizers and riot police marred Bastille Day, France’s national holiday after protesters booed President Emmanuel Macron’s motorcade and chanted, “Macron, step down!” RT’s Charlotte Dubinsky reports from the streets of Paris for the News with Rick Sanchez.

This is what Macron, who DEMANDS "climate change action" does to his own people

This is the APPEARANCE from a globalist tyrant

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world/frances-emmanuel-macron-says-climate-red-line-at-g20-4141271.html

This is the REALITY

On 'Hottest Day in History of France,' World Told 'Do Not Look Away' as Police Tear-Gas Climate Campaigners in Paris

"Watch this video and ask yourself," said Greta Thunberg, "who is defending who?"

Commondreams, 
29 June, 2019


 French riot police tear-gassed climate protesters in Paris on Friday as the county sweltered under record heat.

Activists with Extinction Rebellion (XR) were occupying a bridge over the Seine to demand the French government declare a climate emergency and take necessary action to avert planetary catastrophe.


"We need to civilly disrupt because, otherwise, nothing is going to be done," a British woman who took part in the protest told Euronews.


Video shows the police teargassing the protesters at a close range and then forcibly trying to remove them from the scene.

350 Europe described the display of police violence as "shocking."


Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who ignited the School Strike for Climate movement, said on social media: "Watch this video and ask yourself; who is defending who?"


The action also drew praise from the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement, who gave props to the protesters for "putting their bodies on the line for climate justice."
The XR action took place as temperatures hovered in near 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32° C) in Paris—far cooler than in some other parts of the country.

The French meteorological agency said that temperatures topped 45° C (113° F) for the first time on the books, with the threshold being passed in three cities.

The steamiest reading was in Gallargues-le-Montueux, where it hit 45.9 °C (114.6° F) in the late afternoon.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/06/europe-s-record-heatwave-sets-forests-alight.html?fbclid=IwAR1MiY9KKCZEsx18S6whjqx-SETfN8BbDFjprAU-_B03jUqsulfTTcc-ed8

And a bit more reality

https://www.france24.com/en/20190626-climate-council-france-falls-short-emission-targets

https://thesaker.is/much-safer-to-be-a-protester-in-hong-kong-china-than-in-france/?fbclid=IwAR2qkmXNCOfDzScC7beJm8rU8hIOy2GlBxaa1uLlHQIf0vRKelmxXcEZ2Dc

Meanwhile it is the 33rd week of Yellow Vest protests

And then there is THIS


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/393268/g20-summit-may-urges-leaders-to-follow-uk-on-co2?fbclid=IwAR1H7XIw6sbDQeevyj7akE8piLwYGmXj235zBLli5PekmEQiNVP50nGnETw

Facebook is reportedly supplying Macron with details of Yellow Vests

Facebook I sgiving the French authorities details of Yellow Vests in France. This is the sort of tyrant our PM Jacinda Adern hobnobs with in her effort to stifle free speech

Facebook and Marcon Forces Conspires Against Free Speech

From mid-May

https://www.france24.com/en/20190515-france-macron-ardern-paris-summit-online-extremism-facebook-twitter

But they are not going anywhere!

PM Adern en route to meet with sociopath Macron

PM en route to Paris for 'Christchurch Call' meeting

The Prime Minister heads to Paris tomorrow to meet the French President and seek ways to stop social media being used to promote and organise terrorism.

Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg leaves after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: AFP

RadioNZ,

11 May, 2019

Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron will ask political and tech industry leaders to take action with a pledge labelled the "Christchurch Call", after the mosque shootings that left 51 people dead.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg hailed France's efforts to regulate hateful content online as a model for the European Union after meeting Mr Macron in Paris on Friday.

His comments come after the US social media giant was heavily criticized by politicians and the public for its failure to more rapidly remove footage of the March shooting attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, from its network.

Fifty people were killed in the assault, with footage of it circulating online for days.

Mr Zuckerberg's meeting with Mr Macron coincided with the release of a report commissioned by the French leader recommending increased oversight of Facebook and an independent regulator to police the efforts of large tech companies to deal with hate speech.

"If more countries can follow the lead of what your government has done here, that will likely end up being a more positive outcome for the world in my view than some of the alternatives," Mr Zuckerberg told reporters at Facebook's Paris office after the meeting at the Elysee palace.

"We need new rules for the internet that will spell out the responsibilities of companies and those of governments," he told France 2 television in an interview. 

"That is why we want to work with the team of President Macron. We need a public process."

The French president wants France to take a leading role on tech regulation, seeking to strike a balance between what he perceives as the United States' laissez-faire stance and China's iron grip on the internet.

The 33-page report, co-written by a former lobbyist for Google France, recommends that French authorities should have more access to Facebook's algorithms and greater scope to audit the company's internal policies against hate speech.

The report comes after Facebook allowed a team of French regulators to spend six months inside the company monitoring its policies. It represents a "half-time" assessment for their stint which started in January.

"The inadequacy and lack of credibility in the self-regulatory approach adopted by the largest platforms justify public intervention to make them more responsible," the report said.

Companies like Facebook cannot simply declare themselves to be transparent, it added, noting that checking the integrity of the algorithms they use was a particularly complex task.

'Dominating position'

However, the convergence between French regulators and big tech companies was criticised by some internet lobby groups.

"Up to now, in terms of regulation, only the internet giants have been invited to the table, while others wait for decisions to be taken to have more visibility," 

Constance Bommelaer de Leusse of non-profit group Internet Society said.

"This only reinforces the dominating position of Web giants," she said.

This week, Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook with Zuckerberg while they were at Harvard, wrote in a long opinion piece in the New York Times that he believed the company was too powerful and needed to be broken up.

Mr Zuckerberg declined to comment on Mr Hughes' piece when asked by reporters in Paris, but Nick Clegg, his global communication head and a former British deputy prime minister, dismissed it as "melodramatic".

"For us, the alternative to these melodramatic calls for breaking up companies is exactly what we're discussing here, which is proper regulation. What the tech sector needs is not to be broken up, it is proper rules," Mr Clegg said.

France's parliament, where Macron's ruling party has a comfortable majority, is debating legislation that would give the new regulator the power to fine tech companies up to 4 percent of their global revenue if they don't do enough to remove hateful content from their network.

Facebook's decision to allow the team of French regulators inside the company was the first time the company had opened its doors in such a way.

Facebook's shares fell as much as 5 percent in a single day following the Christchurch shooting, but have since risen by about 10 percent, helped by good first-quarter results.

- Reuters