By: AP & Fern Sidman
Iran’s parliament Tuesday advanced a bill that would end UN inspections of its nuclear facilities and require the government to boost its uranium enrichment if European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal do not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions.
The vote to debate the bill, which would need to pass through several other stages before becoming law, was a show of defiance after the killing of a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist last month. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all nuclear policies.
The official IRNA news agency said 251 lawmakers in the 290-seat chamber voted in favor, after which many began chanting “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
The bill would give European countries three months to ease sanctions on Iran’s key oil and gas sector, and to restore its access to the international banking system. The U.S. imposed crippling sanctions on Iran after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement, triggering a series of escalations between the two sides.
The bill would have authorities resume enriching uranium to 20%, which is below the threshold needed for nuclear weapons but higher than that required for civilian applications. It would also commission new centrifuges at nuclear facilities at Natanz and the underground Fordo site.
Parliament would need to hold another vote to pass the bill, which would also require approval by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog. Lawmakers have pressed for a more confrontational approach since the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018.
Cabinet spokesman Ali Rabiei acknowledged the limitations of such an approach on Tuesday, saying the nuclear file is under the authority of the Supreme National Security Council, and “nobody can work on it independently.” President Hassan Rouhani, heads the council, which answers to the supreme leader.
The bill was first tabled in parliament in August but gained new momentum after the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who headed a program that Israel and the West have said was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that “structured program” ended in 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies concurred with that assessment in a 2007 report.
Israel insists Iran still maintains the ambition of developing nuclear weapons, pointing to Tehran’s ballistic missile program and research into other technologies. Iran long has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Iran has blamed Fakhrizadeh’s killing on Israel, which they claim has long waged a covert war against Tehran and its proxies in the region. Israeli officials have declined to comment on the killing, and no one has claimed responsibility.
An opinion piece published Sunday by a hard-line Iranian newspaper urged Iran to attack the Israeli port city of Haifa if Israel carried out the killing of Fakhrizadeh. Though the hard-line Kayhan newspaper has long argued for aggressive retaliation for operations targeting Iran, Sunday’s opinion piece went further, suggesting any assault be carried out in a way that destroys facilities and “also causes heavy human casualties.”
Kayhan published the piece written by Iranian analyst Sadollah Zarei, who argued Iran’s previous responses to suspected Israeli airstrikes that killed Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria did not go far enough to deter Israel. He said an assault on Haifa also needed to be greater than Iran’s ballistic missile attack against American troops in Iraq following the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian general in January.
Striking the Israeli city of Haifa and killing a large number of people “will definitely lead to deterrence, because the United States and the Israeli regime and its agents are by no means ready to take part in a war and a military confrontation,” Zarei wrote.
Some Iranian officials have suggested that the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been regularly inspecting Iran’s nuclear facilities in recent years as part of the 2015 agreement, may have been a source of intelligence for Fakhrizadeh’s killers.
Iran began publicly exceeding uranium enrichment levels set by the nuclear agreement after the U.S. restored sanctions. It currently enriches a growing uranium stockpile up to 4.5% purity.
That’s still far below weapons-grade levels of 90%, though experts warn Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least two atomic bombs if it chose to pursue them.
On Monday, a top Iranian security official accused Israel of using “electronic devices” to remotely kill Fakhrizadeh, according to an AP report.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, made the comment at the funeral for Fakhrizadeh, where Iran’s defense minister separately vowed to continue the man’s work “with more speed and more power.”
Israel insists Iran still maintains the ambition of developing nuclear weapons, pointing to Tehran’s ballistic missile program and research into other technologies. Shamkhani’s remarks drastically change the story of Fakhrizadeh’s killing, which took place Friday. Authorities initially said a truck exploded and then gunmen opened fire on the scientist, killing him and a bodyguard. State TV even interviewed a man the night of the attack who described seeing gunmen open fire.
State TV’s English-language broadcaster Press TV reported earlier Monday that a weapon recovered from the scene of the attack bore “the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry.” State TV’s Arabic-language channel, Al-Alam, claimed the weapons used were “controlled by satellite,” a claim also made Sunday by the semiofficial Fars news agency.
None of the outlets immediately offered evidence supporting their claims, which also give authorities a way to explain why no one was reportedly arrested at the scene.
“Unfortunately, the operation was a very complicated operation and was carried out by using electronic devices,” Shamkhani told state TV. “No individual was present at the site.”
Satellite control of weapons is nothing new. Armed, long-range drones, for instance, rely on satellite connections to be controlled by their remote pilots. Remote-controlled gun turrets also exist, but typically see their operator connected by a hard line to cut down on the delay in commands being relayed. Israel uses such hard-wired systems along the border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
While technically feasible, it wasn’t immediately clear if such a system had been used before, said Jeremy Binnie, the Mideast editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly.
“Could you set up a weapon with a camera which then has a feed that uses an open satellite communications line back to the controller?” Binnie said. “I can’t see why that’s not possible.”
It also raised the question whether the truck that exploded during the attack detonated afterward to try to destroy a satellite-controlled machine gun that was hidden inside the vehicle. Iranian officials did not immediately acknowledge that. It also would require someone on the ground to set up the weapon.
Shamkhani blamed the Iranian exile group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq as well for “having a role in this,” without elaborating. The MEK, as the exile group is known, has been suspected of assisting Israeli operations in Iran in the past. Shahin Gobadi, an MEK spokesman, dismissed Shamkhani’s remarks as “rage, rancor and lies” sparked by the group’s earlier exposes over Iran’s nuclear program.
Monday’s service for Fakhrizadeh took place at an outdoor portion of Iran’s Defense Ministry in Tehran, with officials including Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the Guard’s Quds Force leader Gen. Esmail Ghaani, civilian nuclear program chief Ali Akbar Sahei and Intelligence Minister Mamoud Alavi. They sat apart from each other and wore masks due to the coronavirus pandemic as reciters melodically read parts of the Quran and religious texts.
Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami gave a speech after kissing Fakhrizadeh’s casket and putting his forehead against it. He said Fakhrizadeh’s killing would make Iranians “more united, more determined.”
“For the continuation of your path, we will continue with more speed and more power,” Hatami said in comments aired live by state television.
Hatami also criticized countries that hadn’t condemned Fakhrizadeh’s killing and warned: “This will catch up with you someday.”
Overnight, the United Arab Emirates, which just reached a normalization deal with Israel, issued a statement condemning “the heinous assassination.” The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, warned the killing “could further fuel conflict in the region.”
Last year, the UAE found itself in the middle of an escalating series of incidents between Iran and the U.S. Though long suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program, the Emirates has said it wants to de-escalate the crisis. The UAE just started passenger air service to Israel and Israelis are expected to vacation in the country over Hanukkah in the coming days.
Bahrain, an island kingdom off Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf that also recently normalized relations with Israel, similarly condemned Fakhrizadeh’s killing.
“In light of the current situation in the region, the kingdom of Bahrain calls on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid new levels of instability,” Bahrain’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz has sent a cable to all Israeli diplomatic delegations around the globe urging diplomats to maintain “the highest level of readiness and awareness of any irregular activity” around missions and Jewish community centers.
Hebrew-language media in Israel reported that following the Fakhrizadeh’s killing, the Foreign Ministry ordered security increased at certain Israeli diplomatic missions overseas. The ministry declined to comment on diplomatic security matters.
In a related development, Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reported that a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) accused Israel of terrorism following the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.
Kredo reported that Matt Duss, a Sanders foreign policy adviser and frequent critic of Israel and Jews, wrote on Twitter that incoming president Joe Biden should reenter the landmark nuclear deal with Iran and offer it billions of dollars in sanctions relief to send a message to Israel that “terrorism doesn’t work.”
“Responding to the Fakhrizadeh assassination by reaffirming the commitment to rejoin the JCPOA would be a good way to send the message that terrorism doesn’t work,” Duss tweeted, referring to the nuclear deal by its acronym.
The WFB reported that Duss’s voice is one of many on the left pressuring the Biden administration to take a softer approach to Iran in service of renewing diplomacy. His commentary was criticized by regional experts who said Fakhrizadeh was a legitimate military target due to his role in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s paramilitary fighting force, and efforts to procure illicit nuclear technology, as was reported by Kredo.
“This was a general in the terror-designated IRGC working to create one of the world’s most dangerous weapons for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with the expressed purpose of committing genocide,” said Richard Goldberg, a former White House National Security Council member who worked on Iran issues. “Mr. Duss’s comments reflect a deeply disturbing worldview that calls it terrorism for a democracy to defend itself by eliminating a genocidal military-nuclear terrorist.”
Kredo reported that Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, a watchdog group that tracks Tehran’s nuclear progress, said the nuclear deal has not deescalated tension in the region.
“The argument that the JCPOA deescalates tensions in the region is fundamentally untrue,” Brodsky told the Washington Free Beacon. “The experience of the JCPOA has shown that nuclear-related sanctions relief today risks non-nuclear destabilization tomorrow.”
Since the deal was inked, Iran has sent troops to several Middle Eastern nations and armed the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
The WFB reported that Brodsky also pointed out that Fakhrizadeh “wasn’t a civilian,” an important distinction when discussing killings of this nature. (AP & Washington Free Beacon–washingtonfreebeacon.com)
