Obama Administration Ends Sanctions on Iran

Barack Hussein makes Neville Chamberlain look like a piker.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Nuclear deal ends era of crippling sanctions for Iran":

World powers signed off Saturday on a historic deal that curbs Iran's nuclear weapons-building, eases economic sanctions that have long crippled the Islamic Republic and rewrites diplomatic dynamics throughout the Middle East.

Tens of billions of dollars will soon be available to Iran, as well as access to the international banking system and global markets for the sale of oil and gas for the first time in years, greatly bolstering its ability to rejoin the world economy.

President Obama immediately issued an executive order canceling numerous sanctions levied by the U.S.

The deal, coupled with a secretly negotiated swap that freed prisoners including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, signals a new, if still tentative, era of cooperation between Washington and Tehran after decades of sharp-edged acrimony.

“Today marks the first day of a safer world,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in Vienna after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, headquartered there, certified that Iran had complied with significant steps aimed at dismantling its nuclear production capabilities and had agreed to the most rigorous inspections on Iranian soil to date.

“Today marks the moment that the Iran nuclear agreement transitions from an ambitious set of promises on paper to measurable action in progress,” Kerry added.

Word of the U.N. certification rang out from Vienna to the capitals of the negotiating countries; on the campaign trail, where Republicans were quick both to praise the Americans' release and to decry the administration's negotiating techniques; and in Los Angeles, home to the world's largest Iranian expat community.

The two countries have been bitter enemies since Iranian Islamic revolutionaries seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took hostages. No one is expecting the renewal of diplomatic ties any time soon — indeed, sanctions remain in place tied to Iran's human-rights record and funding of groups the U.S. views as terrorists — but the Obama administration credited a newfound rapprochement with seeing the nuclear deal to fruition as well as securing the freedom of the American prisoners.

That same spirit, which experts agree has to have been approved by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, also led to the quick release last week of 10 U.S. sailors detained in Iranian waters. What might have become a major international incident a few years ago was resolved within hours.

Even as Washington's relationship with Tehran seems on a smoother course — Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, are on the phone just about daily — the United States' longest-standing allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel, have appeared increasingly on the outs.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel opposed the nuclear deal, saying Iran could not be trusted and fearing a less-isolated Iran able finally to join the world economic and political stage. The governments of both are notoriously distrustful of and unfriendly with the Obama administration. U.S. officials can point to more fruitful talks with Iran while relations with Israel and the Saudis have turned increasingly frigid...

Still more.

Outrage Over Iran Releasing Images of Captured U.S. Sailors on Their Knees (VIDEO)

Watch, via Inside Edition.

A nice clip that should go viral, jeez.

PREVIOUSLY: "WATCH: Humiliating Video Shows U.S. Sailor Apologizing for Vessel Drifting Into Iranian Waters," and "WATCH: Footage Shows U.S. Sailors Being Captured by Iranian Naval Forces (VIDEO)."

WATCH: Humiliating Video Shows U.S. Sailor Apologizing for Vessel Drifting Into Iranian Waters

Total humiliation.

This is the treatment we get for giving Iran the nuclear green light, to say nothing of the freed $100 billion in financial assets to be released this week.

Americans are laid down low with this jihad-loving administration. For shame. For stinking shame.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Iranian video shows U.S. sailors kneeling in surrender pose":

U.S. Central Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Ben Tisdale said the video "appears to be authentic" but said he had no other information about its contents.

"We cannot speak to the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time," Tisdale said in a statement. "The crew is currently undergoing the reintegration process and we will continue to investigate this incident. What matters most right now, however, is that our sailors are back safely."

The video depicts seized weapons and ammunition laid out on a platform and scenes from inside a boat, including shots of a U.S. Navy uniform, a storage room and racks of equipment, along with a scene of an Iranian officer in a green beret and fatigues examining a document as he sits in a pilot’s chair.

In one part, Americans are seen being served food in a room, while someone flips through a number of U.S. passports, presumably belonging to the sailors.

One of the captives identified as the commander is interviewed and makes a statement that at times is directed straight at the camera.

“It was a mistake that was our fault and we apologize for our mistake," said the U.S sailor, whose name was not given.

"It was a misunderstanding. We did not mean to go into Iranian territorial water," he said. "The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here. We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance.”

The U.S. State Department says no formal apology was proffered to Iran.

Vice President Joe Biden said there was "nothing to apologize for."

"When you have a problem with the boat, you apologize the boat had a problem? No, and there was no looking for any apology," Biden told "CBS This Morning." "This was just standard nautical practice."

It is still unclear if the stricken boat suffered mechanical or navigational failure. The two vessels, known as riverine command boats, were en route from Kuwait to Bahrain when U.S. authorities lost contact with them, the Pentagon said.

More at WSJ, "Videos Raise Questions About Iran’s Treatment of U.S. Sailors."

WATCH: Footage Shows U.S. Sailors Being Captured by Iranian Naval Forces (VIDEO)

The sailors were forced to apologize before their release.

We grovel to Iran. We just grovel to that tinpot country.

Via CNN:

Secretary John Kerry Thanks Iran for 'Quick Release' of U.S. Sailors Held Hostage (VIDEO)

Well, thank goodness they're released.

The U.S. had to get down on bended knee for the mullahs.

At the BBC, "Iran frees US Navy sailors held in Gulf after incursion," and the Los Angeles Times, "Iran releases 10 detained U.S. sailors who strayed into country's waters."

And watch, via CNN:

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Demands 'Apology' Before Releasing U.S. Sailors: Dismisses Talk of Prompt Release

I said as much earlier, "DEVELOPING: Tehran Takes 10 U.S. Sailors Captive as Two Small Navy Ships Seized by Iran (VIDEO)."

At the Telegraph UK, "Iran demands apology from US before it releases 10 sailors":

As well as playing down reports of a prompt release of the sailors, Iran is said to be demanding an apology from the US after its sailors were arrested for "violating" Iran's waters.

"Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in touch with US Secretary of State Kerry," Iran's Revolutionary Guards' naval commander, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, said in an interview broadcast live on state television.

"Zarif took a firm stance as the sailors had violated Iran's territorial waters and asked the United States for an apology," he added.

Source: Sky News on Twitter.

Reuters: Iran's Revolutionary Guards dismissed talk of the prompt release of 10 U.S. sailors they had arrested as speculation by others

— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) January 13, 2016

Update - Reuters: Iran's Revolutionary Guards say Tehran has asked the U.S. for an apology for "violating" Iran's territorial waters

— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) January 13, 2016

Previous blogging on Iran's seizure of U.S. naval vessels here.

UPDATE: Reports Say Iran Accusing Captured U.S. Navy Vessels of 'Snooping'

At IBT, "Iran-US Navy Dispute Live Updates: Iranian Military Holds 10 American Sailors On Iran’s Farsi Island":

UPDATE: 5:50 p.m. EST — Two small U.S. Navy boats that were stopped by Iran Tuesday may have run out of gas or had mechanical problems when they drifted into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, the Washington Post reported. The ships were within 12 nautical miles of Iran when they broke down. It was unclear how the American crew and vessels were “picked up” by Iran, according to a Defense Department official. Fars, an Iranian state news agency, said 10 sailors had been arrested and were suspected of “snooping,” the New York Times reported.

The two boats each had several 50. cal guns and were "snooping around" in Iranian waters, Fars News Agency says

— Thomas Erdbrink (@ThomasErdbrink) January 12, 2016

I seriously doubt reports that Iran will be releasing our people shortly:

Iran agreed to return sailors soon, after 2 U.S. Navy boats drifted into territorial waters https://t.co/RHBaiWeQXb

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) January 13, 2016

Jen Psaki, White House Communications Director, Says Obama Has 'No Plans' to Address Iran Hostages at Tonight's #SOTU

This just in:

Obama has 'no plans" to address new Iranian hostage crisis in tonight's #SOTU, per Jen Psaki, the administration's Baghdad Bob. Via @CNN.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 12, 2016

I'll update with video if it becomes available.

PREVIOUSLY: "CNN's Barbara Starr Reports: Iran Assures U.S. of Safe Return of Sailors (VIDEO)." 

Also, "DEVELOPING: Tehran Takes 10 U.S. Sailors Captive as Two Small Navy Ships Seized by Iran (VIDEO)," and "UPDATE: U.S. Sailors Taken Hostage by Iran Revolutionary Guard, the Gestapo of the Tehran Mullahs!"

CNN's Barbara Starr Reports: Iran Assures U.S. of Safe Return of Sailors (VIDEO)

I don't believe a word the Iranians say, although Barbara Starr is a judicious and reputable source.

Watch:



PREVIOUSLY: "DEVELOPING: Tehran Takes 10 U.S. Sailors Captive as Two Small Navy Ships Seized by Iran (VIDEO)," and "UPDATE: U.S. Sailors Taken Hostage by Iran Revolutionary Guard, the Gestapo of the Tehran Mullahs!"

UPDATE: U.S. Sailors Taken Hostage by Iran Revolutionary Guard, the Gestapo of the Tehran Mullahs!

CNN's Jim Sciutto reports:

Key here: Iran's Fars News agency says US sailors picked up by Revolutionary Guard Corps, from hardline camp & v. opposed to nuclear deal

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) January 12, 2016

@jimsciutto @NickKristof if Fars is reporting that Rev Guard is involved suggests this was no Good samaritan rescue mission.

— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) January 12, 2016

Iranian hardliners have been systematically trying to undermine Rouhani and damage US-Iranian relations. Seizing sailors, that'll do it.

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) January 12, 2016

PREVIOUSLY: "DEVELOPING: Tehran Takes 10 U.S. Sailors Captive as Two Small Navy Ships Seized by Iran (VIDEO)."

DEVELOPING: Tehran Takes 10 U.S. Sailors Captive as Two Small Navy Ships Seized by Iran (VIDEO)

On the day of the State of the Union Address too.

And the Iranians are supposed to be returning the sailors shortly, according to the Obama Pentagon.

That's, of course, Democrat propaganda! Our relations with the mullahs have never been better!

At the Telegraph UK, "Iran holds two US Navy boats in Persian Gulf":

US military officials say they briefly lost contact with two small Navy craft in the Persian Gulf.

Iranian forces seized two US vessels crossing the Persian Gulf it has been claimed, but later gave American officials assurances that the craft and their crews would be returned unharmed.

The Pentagon has said it briefly lost contact with two small Navy craft in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday but has received assurances from Iran that the crew and vessels will be returned safely and promptly.

A Pentagon spokesman said that the boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the US lost contact with them.

"We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly," he said
Fox News claimed that they strayed into Iranian waters.

"Earlier Tuesday we lost contact with two small U.S. Naval craft en route from Kuwait to Bahrain," a US defence official told the Reuters news agency.

The White House confirmed that it was aware of the situation and is working to get U.S. personnel returned.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters at the White House the administration was working to resolve the situation and was hopeful about it.

U.S. officials said that the incident happened near Farsi Island, situated in the middle of the Persian Gulf. They say it stemmed from some type of mechanical trouble with one of the boats, causing them to run aground. The troops were then picked up by Iran.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who has forged a personal relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif through three years of nuclear negotiations, called Zarif immediately on learning of the incident, according to a senior U.S. official...

This is a major slap in the face of the American people.

The sailors should be released within four hours, before the president's address tonight, or we know for a fact this is a hostile act.

Expect updates.

U.S. Navy Rescues Iranians Held by Pirates

A sort of gunboat diplomacy, you might say, although I doubt America's good deed will improve relations with Tehran.

At Los Angeles Times, "U.S. Navy rescues Iran fishermen held by Somalia pirates":

A Navy destroyer rescued 13 Iranian fishermen held hostage by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea only days after Tehran warned the United States to keep its ships out of the nearby Persian Gulf.

Sailors from the guided-missile destroyer Kidd boarded the Iranian dhow Thursday and detained 15 Somalis after one of the fishermen was able to reveal in a radio communication that his vessel's crew was being held captive.

Seeing a publicity windfall at a time of growing tension with Iran, Pentagon public affairs officers quickly swung into action, setting up a conference call for reporters with Navy commanders in the region.

Among those briefing journalists was Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller, who commands the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier strike group, which conducted the rescue and includes the Kidd. Faller later received a congratulatory telephone call from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, the Pentagon said in a statement.

"When we get a distress signal, we're going to respond," Pentagon spokesman George Little quoted Panetta as saying.

The Stennis is the ship that Gen. Ataollah Salehi, head of Iran's army, advised Tuesday not to return to the Persian Gulf after the carrier had passed through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point that Iran has threatened to close in response to economic sanctions by the United States and its allies.

About one-fifth of the world's oil exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Regime Change North Korea

I joked about it the other night, but frankly toppling the Kim dictatorship is the only way to solve the never-ending nightmare of North Korea. And now Max Boot is taking that possibility seriously, "North Korea & Iran: Containment vs. Regime Change." After some background on the limited options vis-à-vis Pyongyang — with discussion of the Cheonan incident, which killed 46 South Korean sailors — Boot notes the obvious solution:

The ultimate solution is plain: regime change. But how to achieve it is another matter. China is North Korea’s major remaining lifeline, but unfortunately it is hard to see how to persuade the Chinese to cut off their client state. They may not like Pyongyang’s powerplays, but they are even less wild about the notion of a unified Korea allied with the United States.

Actually, the way to achieve it is clear: The Obama administration should go to the United Nations requesting a resolution condemning North Korean aggression under international law. The U.S. should invoke Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, declare a breach of international peace and call for a "police action" to preempt further North Korean attacks. This is not idle armchair analysis. South Korea's Foreign Ministry yesterday accused North of violating the 1953 armistice, and Seoul "has decided to sharply bolster its military arsenal in the tense Yellow Sea to counter any possible additional attack from North Korea." And the government has directed the military to revise its rules of engagement. Of course, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has already warned that Beijing "opposes any threat of force" on the Korean Peninsula, so we know the difficulties ahead. But we shouldn't blink. Given the Obama administration's soft-peddling responses to global threats so far, the U.S. needs to move beyond the current pleasure cruise gunboat diplomacy now under way off the Korean peninsula. The Washington Post reports on U.S. goals in the naval deployment, "U.S. Aircraft Carrier's Arrival Off Korean Peninsula Also Sends a Message to China":

In dispatching the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday, the Obama administration said it was putting on a show of U.S. support for South Korea.

South Korea was attacked Tuesday by a deadly North Korean artillery barrage, days after the North revealed what could be a new nuclear weapons program, and President Obama said he wanted to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with an American ally.

But the carrier - with 6,000 sailors and aviators and 75 warplanes - has another audience: China. Exasperated with a lack of help from Beijing on the Korean Peninsula, the Obama administration is trying to pressure China to constrain North Korea.

That should be just a start. Developing news earlier today indicated that South Koreans were badly shaken by reports of civilian casualties in the Yeonpyeong attacks. And things won't get better with more patty-cake diplomacy and meaningless démarches from the Hillary Clinton State Department. B.R. Myers' essay at NYT is suggestive: "North Korea Will Never Play Nice." But to be even more explicit: Topple the regime in Pyongyang or be prepared for the next generation of deadly hostilities as Kim Jong-il prepares to cede the stage to his successor.

Great Powers and the Indian Ocean

Robert Kaplan's lead article at the latest issue of Foreign Affairs is a classic, "Center Stage for the 21st Century: Power Plays in the Indian Ocean":

The greater Indian Ocean region encompasses the entire arc of Islam, from the Sahara Desert to the Indonesian archipelago. Although the Arabs and the Persians are known to Westerners primarily as desert peoples, they have also been great seafarers. In the Middle Ages, they sailed from Arabia to China; proselytizing along the way, they spread their faith through sea-based commerce. Today, the western reaches of the Indian Ocean include the tinderboxes of Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and Pakistan -- constituting a network of dynamic trade as well as a network of global terrorism, piracy, and drug smuggling. Hundreds of millions of Muslims -- the legacy of those medieval conversions -- live along the Indian Ocean's eastern edges, in India and Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Indian Ocean is dominated by two immense bays, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, near the top of which are two of the least stable countries in the world: Pakistan and Myanmar (also known as Burma). State collapse or regime change in Pakistan would affect its neighbors by empowering Baluchi and Sindhi separatists seeking closer links to India and Iran. Likewise, the collapse of the junta in Myanmar -- where competition over energy and natural resources between China and India looms -- would threaten economies nearby and require a massive seaborne humanitarian intervention. On the other hand, the advent of a more liberal regime in Myanmar would undermine China's dominant position there, boost Indian influence, and quicken regional economic integration.

In other words, more than just a geographic feature, the Indian Ocean is also an idea. It combines the centrality of Islam with global energy politics and the rise of India and China to reveal a multilayered, multipolar world. The dramatic economic growth of India and China has been duly noted, but the equally dramatic military ramifications of this development have not. India's and China's great-power aspirations, as well as their quests for energy security, have compelled the two countries "to redirect their gazes from land to the seas," according to James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, associate professors of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. And the very fact that they are focusing on their sea power indicates how much more self-confident they feel on land. And so a map of the Indian Ocean exposes the contours of power politics in the twenty-first century.

Yet this is still an environment in which the United States will have to keep the peace and help guard the global commons -- interdicting terrorists, pirates, and smugglers; providing humanitarian assistance; managing the competition between India and China. It will have to do so not, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a land-based, in-your-face meddler, leaning on far-flung army divisions at risk of getting caught up in sectarian conflict, but as a sea-based balancer lurking just over the horizon. Sea power has always been less threatening than land power: as the cliché goes, navies make port visits, and armies invade. Ships take a long time to get to a war zone, allowing diplomacy to work its magic. And as the U.S. response to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean showed, with most sailors and marines returning to their ships each night, navies can exert great influence on shore while leaving a small footprint. The more the United States becomes a maritime hegemon, as opposed to a land-based one, the less threatening it will seem to others.

Moreover, precisely because India and China are emphasizing their sea power, the job of managing their peaceful rise will fall on the U.S. Navy to a significant extent. There will surely be tensions between the three navies, especially as the gaps in their relative strength begin to close. But even if the comparative size of the U.S. Navy decreases in the decades ahead, the United States will remain the one great power from outside the Indian Ocean region with a major presence there - a unique position that will give it the leverage to act as a broker between India and China in their own backyard. To understand this dynamic, one must look at the region from a maritime perspective.

Readers can access the full article at Foreign Affairs, but they've revamped their website, and free articles require registration (especially recommended for regulars of American Power). I rarely post subscription-only essays, but if I do, I'll make the key sections of articles available at my posts.

Image Credit: Foreign Affairs.

Outlining the McCain Doctrine

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, helped shape John McCain's approach to American foreign policy, the New York Times reports:

Senator John McCain arrived late at his Senate office on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. “This is war,” he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.

Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

Now, as Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America’s security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new “opportunity” to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq.

“Just as Sept. 11 revolutionized our resolve to defeat our enemies, so has it brought into focus the opportunities we now have to secure and expand our freedom,” Mr. McCain told a NATO conference in Munich in early 2002, urging the Europeans to join what he portrayed as an all but certain assault on Saddam Hussein. “A better world is already emerging from the rubble.”

To his admirers, Mr. McCain’s tough response to Sept. 11 is at the heart of his appeal. They argue that he displayed the same decisiveness again last week in his swift calls to penalize Russia for its incursion into Georgia, in part by sending peacekeepers to police its border.

His critics charge that the emotion of Sept. 11 overwhelmed his former cool-eyed caution about deploying American troops without a clear national interest and a well-defined exit, turning him into a tool of the Bush administration in its push for a war to transform the region.

Read the whole thing, here. But check out one more quote that captures McCain's temperment:

He has made the principle that the exercise of military power sets the bargaining table for international relations a consistent theme of his career ever since, and in his 2002 memoir he wrote that one of his lifelong convictions was “the imperative that American power never retreat in response to an inferior adversary’s provocation.”

I've always like this about the man, which explains my support for McCain as soon as he threw his hat in the ring for the nomination.

For readers interested in more on the outlines of a "McCain Doctrine," see the Senator's speech last month at the American GI Forum in Denver, as well as his address to the New School in New York from May 2006, where McCain says:

As blessed as we are, no nation complacent in its greatness can long sustain it. We, too, must prove, as those who came before us proved, that a people free to act in their own interests, will perceive those interests in an enlightened way, will live as one nation, in a kinship of ideals, and make of our power and wealth a civilization for the ages, a civilization in which all people share in the promise and responsibilities of freedom.

Should we claim our rights and leave to others the duty to the ideals that protect them, whatever we gain for ourselves will be of little lasting value. It will build no monuments to virtue, claim no honored place in the memory of posterity, offer no worthy summons to the world. Success, wealth and celebrity gained and kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes us comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear, purchases a fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect that, in the end, matters most. But sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect assured.

We saw some of the McCain vision last night, at the Saddleback civil forum, which marked a clear and decisive victory for American ideals of greatness and moral clarity amid the current world situation.