Triasian Assymetry: China-Pakistan-India (Daniel 8:4)

US nuclear deal will add to regional conventional asymmetry

* Spokesperson says US-India defence agreement can only add to conventional imbalance in region
By Sardar Sikander Shaheen
January 30, 2015
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ISLAMABAD: Continuing to share concern over India-US defence and nuclear cooperation, Pakistan on Thursday said that the defence agreement between the two sides could only “add to the conventional asymmetry and hence strategic instability in the region”.

It also said India’s massive acquisition of weapons ‘complicates’ regional stability. “India’s defence spending has increased by 12 percent in 2014-15 and stands at $38.35 billion. India has been the top buyer of arms for the last three years. In this backdrop, the US-India ten-year defence agreement can only add to the conventional asymmetry and hence strategic instability,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told a weekly press briefing.

Her comments referred to the recent headway made in India-US nuclear, defence and strategic cooperation following US President Barrack Obama’s visit to New Delhi. Separately, in a linked development, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry told National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that Washington’s “growing tilt towards New Delhi could lead to instability and imbalance of power in the region”. The secretary furthered, “US is an all important stakeholder in this region and if South Asia’s peace and stability are challenged, the American interests would be at stake too. We alone would not be at the suffering end.”

In Thursday’s media briefing, the FO spokesperson said Pakistan has been proposing a three-pronged ‘Strategic Restraint Regime’ based on conflict resolution, nuclear and missile restraint and conventional balance. “Pakistan firmly believes that confidence-building and arms reduction in the regional and sub-regional context are of paramount importance,” she said.

On proposed reforms in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the steps being taken by Islamabad to ‘block’ New Delhi’s way from getting UNSC’s permanent membership, Aslam said Pakistan, as a part of the Uniting for Consensus (UFC) group, has always advocated an effective and feasible reform of the Security Council based on consensus among the UN membership. “A reformed Security Council should reflect interests of the wider UN membership. In our view, the idea of new permanent members creates new centres of power and privileges, and could make the UNSC even more undemocratic…India is in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir and the right of people of Kashmir to self-determination. How does a country with such record qualify to become a permanent member of UNSC?”

The spokesperson said Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan, which was postponed last year, was “very much on the cards” but exact dates were not finalised as yet. The FO diplomat termed China a ‘global power’. “China is a global power and it is a factor of regional stability. We are engaged with China very extensively and we believe that globally and regionally China has an important responsibility and role to play for peace, stability, prosperity and development,” Aslam said.

Asked whether Pakistan would support China for the membership of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), she said, “I’m not aware that China has evinced interest in becoming a full member of SAARC but China’s engagement has a positive and salutary impact on SAARC. If China’s role increases, it would benefit the organisation as such.

Jordan May Become The Next Nuclear Horn Of Prophecy (Daniel 8)

The Middle East’s Next Nuclear Power?

It may not be the one you’re thinking about.

By DAVID SCHENKER

January 28, 2015

The Kingdom of Jordan has for more than a decade watched near-continuous turmoil swirl around its borders—an American invasion of Iraq on one side, an Israeli war with Lebanon on another, and a Syrian civil war to the north that has seen ISIL flourish. For much of that decade, while Jordan absorbed refugees and was targeted by terror, it largely escaped the first-hand effects of war itself. Wednesday’s news that the Kingdom was prepared to trade a terrorist involved in the worst terrorist attack in Jordanian history to free one of its pilots captured by ISIL after his F-16 crashed in December, represents a new chapter in Jordan’s perpetual struggle against the militants on its borders. Over all of these regional challenges has hung another dark cloud—the fear, uncertainty, and tension that’s sprung from Iran’s secret nascent nuclear program.

And yet even as Western attention has focused all around Jordan—and especially on the nuclear negotiations with Iran—in a little-noticed series of moves, the Kingdom’s been edging closer to going nuclear itself. In fact, the Kingdom of Jordan, Washington’s most reliable Arab partner, is the latest Middle Eastern state considering nuclear energy that is refusing to relinquish its right to enrich.
That “right to enrich” uranium has proved to be one of the key sticking points in the Iran nuclear talks and was at the top of the list of why Washington and Tehran missed and subsequently extended their late November deadline to reach an agreement regulating the theocracy’s nuclear program.

To prevent proliferation, the US has long held that Middle Eastern states seeking nuclear energy must forego the right to enrich nuclear material. The principle of no-enrichment has underpinned the so-called “gold standard” of US-bilateral nuclear agreements. While this standard does not uniformly apply outside the region—Washington’s 2014 Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation with Hanoi included no such stipulation—in its December 2009 agreement with the US, the United Arab Emirates acquiesced to forego enrichment and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

Jordan and Washington have been discussing nuclear cooperation for some time, but the conversation gained urgency following the 2011 Egyptian revolution—and the subsequent and repeated destruction of the Sinai natural gas pipeline—when the Kingdom lost its most consistent source of energy. In 2013, these disruptions resulted in a $2 billion, or nearly 20 percent, budget deficit.
Over the past four years, the Kingdom has increasingly focused on nuclear energy, in particular the construction of two 1000-megawatt power plants, to fill this gap. By 2030, Jordanian officials estimate nuclear power will provide 30 percent of the state’s electricity.

Amman’s proposed nuclear facilities have met with opposition both at home and abroad. Washington’s stated opposition to the program revolves around enrichment. Jordan’s resolve to maintain this right has stymied efforts to reach a “123 agreement” governing US international nuclear cooperation. The Kingdom, which has no oil, has significant deposits of uranium ore—reportedly 35,000 tons or enough to last Jordan 100 years—and is hoping to commercially exploit the resource.
Israel, too, has taken issue with Jordan’s nuclear ambitions, primarily due to concerns about safety. One of Jordan’s proposed nuclear plants, at least initially, was slated to be built in the Jordan River Valley, a major earthquake fault line. According to a US diplomatic cable disclosed by WIKILEAKS, Israel highlighted these apprehensions during a meeting with their Jordanian counterparts in 2009—two years before the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe—only to have the Jordanian officials respond by citing Japan as an earthquake-prone country that builds safe nuclear reactors.
The biggest opposition to Jordan’s nuclear project, however, is domestic. It’s not difficult to see why. To start, one of the proposed plants is slated to be built in the heartland of the Bani Sakr, Jordan’s largest tribe. A charismatic young parliamentarian named Hind al Fayez—who hails from the tribe and happens to be married to a prominent local environmental activist—has adopted the no nukes agenda as her cause celebre. In May 2012, she spearheaded a successful vote in parliament to suspend the program.

Among other concerns, Al Fayez questions how a state with such little water will be able to cool a reactor situated more than 200 miles from the shoreline, and whether Jordan has sufficient human capital (i.e., enough nuclear physicists) to safely operate the facilities. She has also expressed dismay with the $10 billion price tag, a sum roughly equivalent to Jordan’s total 2013 annual budget.
Refuting the critics is Jordan’s Atomic Energy Commission Chair Khaled Toukan, who holds a Ph.D in Nuclear Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Toukan is an impressive government advocate for the project.

No access to water, Toukan says, no problem. Like the three nuclear power plants in Palo Verde, Arizona, Jordan will use wastewater from the nearby Khirbat al Samra sewage treatment plant to cool the blistering reactors. The second reactor, closer to the port of Aqaba, will utilize water pumped from the Red Sea—easing Jordan’s water crisis through desalinization.
A dearth of local nuclear technicians? Not for long, says Toukan. The Kingdom is building a research and training reactor, recently established an undergraduate nuclear engineering program, and has sixty-one nationals currently enrolled in graduate programs in nuclear engineering and related fields abroad. As for the financing challenge, according to Toukan, Russia—which is presently slated to build the reactors—will fund and own 49.9 percent, leaving Government of Jordan to finance the remaining and controlling share.

While Toukan’s answers are authoritative, they have not yet succeeded in convincing Jordanian skeptics. Perhaps that’s because serious safety problems emerged at Palo Verde in 2013. Or maybe Toukan’s unsubstantiated 2014 claims before parliament—that radiation leaks from the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona were resulting in increased incidences of cancer in the Kingdom—have further soured Jordanians on nuclear energy. It’s also possible that heightened fears of terrorism fueled by the recent territorial gains by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq or ISIS, are dampening enthusiasm for the project.

Last year, Hind Al Fayez said “They’ll build that plant over my dead body.” A year on, her hostility toward the program has not noticeably diminished.

To be sure, Jordan needs energy. Indeed, the requirement is so acute that months ago the palace ignored significant domestic disapproval and signed up to a 15-year $15 billion deal to procure natural gas from Israel. (Amman has temporarily frozen negotiations as Israel deals with anti-trust concerns in its offshore gas sector). While important, however, the agreement is insufficient to meet the Kingdom’s requirements in the decades to come.

In the face of continued foreign and domestic opposition, it isn’t clear that Jordan will actually proceed with the nuclear option. Today the Atomic Energy Commission is calling nuclear power “a strategic choice,” but with nearly a million Syrian refugees in the Kingdom, a stumbling economy, a rising threat of terrorism on the home front, and with a downed Jordanian pilot currently held captive by ISIL, King Abdullah could punt, delaying a decision—and avoiding confrontation with Washington—for the indefinite future. Given the ongoing challenges, for the time being at least, no nukes should be a no-brainer for the Kingdom.

David Schenker is director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2002-2006, he served as Levant director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Korean Nuclear Horn ReOpens (Daniel 8:8)

North Korea may be trying to restart nuclear reactor: U.S. think tank

WASHINGTON

A North Korean nuclear plant is seen in Yongbyon, in this photo taken June 27, 2008 and released by Kyodo.

Credit: Reuters/Kyodo

(Reuters) – North Korea may be trying to restart a nuclear reactor that can yield plutonium for atomic bombs, a U.S. security think tank said on Wednesday, citing new satellite imagery.

An analysis issued by 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, said it was too early to reach a definitive explanation for signs of activity at the Yongbyon reactor, including steam and indications that snow had melted on the reactor roof.

“One possibility is that the North Koreans are in the early stages of an effort to restart the reactor after an almost five-month hiatus in operations,” it said, basing its observations on commercial satellite images from Dec. 24 to Jan. 11.

“However, since the facility has been recently observed over a period of only a few weeks, it remains too soon to reach a definitive conclusion on this and also on whether that effort is moving forward or encountering problems.”

It said there were clear differences between the latest 2014-1015 imagery and that from more than a year earlier when the reactor was known to have been operating.

Imagery from December 2013 showed snow had melted off the roofs of all the buildings related to the reactor and foam could be seen at the end of the turbine building’s steam and wastewater drainpipe. It said the absence of the foam in recent images could be related to the installation of new piping.

North Korea announced in April 2013 that it would revive the aged five-megawatt research reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, saying it was seeking a deterrent capacity, a move condemned by members states of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank said last year that satellite imagery from late August and late September 2014 indicated the reactor may have been partially or completely shut down, while images from September 2013 until June last year had shown it was operating.

It said the purpose of the shutdown may have been for it to partially refuel the reactor’s core, or for maintenance or renovation.
North Korea is under an array of international sanctions for repeated nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests.

It said this month it was willing to suspend nuclear tests if the United States called off annual military drills with South Korea. Washington rejected the proposal as a veiled threat.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Saudi Request Falling On Deaf Ears (Daniel 7:7)

Salman to Obama: Don’t let Iran get nuclear bomb

 

Jan. 28, 2015 | 01:00 AM

 

RIYADH/ON BOARD AIR FORCE ONE: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and U.S. President Barack Obama tackled a range of sensitive regional issues Tuesday during Obama’s one-day visit to Riyadh, as the Saudi monarch highlighted his country’s stance that Iran should not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.

The two leaders touched on the volatile situation in Saudi Arabia’s neighbor Yemen, where Shiite Houthi rebels have launched a power grab, as well as the thorny negotiations between Iran and the West over a nuclear program that Iran insists is for civilian and not military purposes.

King Salman expressed “no reservations” about the ongoing talks but added that Riyadh was adamant that Iran not be allowed to build a nuclear bomb, an administration official said.

The two leaders also touched on stability in the oil market and the king expressed a message of continuity on Saudi energy policy in their talks, the official said.

The talks were attended by Crown Prince Muqrin and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, along with several high-ranking Saudi officials, while Obama was joined by a high-powered delegation that included former secretaries of state and a Republican critic of the administration’s Middle East policy.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after Obama departed Saudi Arabia, the official said the two men did not discuss current oil prices. He said the king suggested Saudi Arabia would continue to play its role within the global energy market and that one should not expect a change in the country’s position.

During his brief stop in Riyadh Obama held his first formal meeting with King Salman, newly installed on the throne following the death of the 90-year-old King Abdullah Friday.

The roughly hourlong meeting focused on a bevy of Mideast security issues – sectarian divisions in Iraq, the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, the precarious situation in Yemen and support for Syrian opposition fighting President Bashar Assad, said the U.S. official who briefed reporters traveling with Obama on condition of anonymity, citing the private nature of the talks.

Stepping off the plane earlier in Riyadh, the president and first lady Michelle Obama were greeted by Salman and a military band playing both countries’ national anthems.

Some of the all-male Saudi delegation shook hands with Mrs. Obama while others gave her a nod as they passed by.

Salman formally greeted Obama and the U.S. delegation at the Erga Palace on the outskirts of Riyadh, where dozens of Saudi officials filed through a marble-walled room to greet the Americans under massive crystal chandeliers.

Then they sat for a three-course dinner of grilled meats, baked lobster and Arabic and French deserts.
Obama cut short his trip to India to spend just a few hours in Riyadh. Further underscoring Saudi Arabia’s key role in U.S. foreign policy was the extensive delegation that joined Obama for the visit.

Secretary of State John Kerry joined Obama in Riyadh, along with former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and James Baker III, both of whom served Republican presidents.

Former White House national security advisers Brent Scowcroft, Sandy Berger and Stephen Hadley also made the trip, as did Sen. John McCain, a frequent critic of Obama’s Middle East policy.

CIA Director John Brennan and Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, which overseas military activity in the Middle East, also took part in the meetings with the Saudis.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have worked in close coordination to address evolving security concerns in the tumultuous region. Most recently, Saudi Arabia became one of a handful of Arab nations that have joined the U.S. in launching airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Yet Obama’s presidency has also been marked by occasional strains with the Saudi royal family, particularly as Abdullah had pressed the U.S. to take more aggressive action to force Assad from power.

In his initial days on the throne, the 79-year-old Salman has given little indication that he plans to bring fundamental changes to his country’s policies. He’s vowed to hew to “the correct policies which Saudi Arabia has followed since its establishment.”

– See more at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jan-28/285566-salman-to-obama-dont-let-iran-get-nuclear-bomb.ashx#sthash.Usc9LDrG.dpuf

US-India Deal WILL Destabilize Pakistani Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8:8)

Pakistan Warns U.S.-India Nuclear Ties May Destabilize Region

by Kartikay MehrotraKamran Haider

1:28 AM MST
January 28, 2015

(Bloomberg) — Pakistan has warned that growing U.S. cooperation with India on its civilian nuclear program could destabilize a region with a quarter of the world’s people.

President Barack Obama announced during a three-day trip to New Delhi this week that the U.S. would support India’s entry into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. He also said the countries reached a breakthrough that would pave the way for investment in its civilian nuclear power sector.

“The operationalization of Indo-U.S. nuclear deal for political and economic expediencies would have a detrimental impact on deterrence stability in South Asia,” Sartaj Aziz, an adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said in a statement on Tuesday night. “Pakistan reserves the right to safeguard its national security interests.”

Pakistan and China are among nations questioning whether neighboring India deserves to gain further international legitimacy for its nuclear program, putting them at odds with the Obama administration. The Nuclear Suppliers Group, a set of nations exporting atomic reactors and fuel, was created in response to India’s widely denounced nuclear tests in 1974.

Pakistan also objected to Obama’s support for India to get a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, Aziz said. Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman for India’s foreign ministry, wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The moves may be part of Pakistan’s strategy to build more nuclear reactors with China, said Anit Mukherjee, an assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
India-U.S. Ties

“I don’t think either country understands that by pressurizing India, they’re pushing them to the U.S.,” Mukherjee said on Jan. 28. “China should be afraid of this, as a strong bond between India and the U.S. could threaten their own regional freedom.”

In a joint statement on Jan. 25, Obama said India was ready for membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. He agreed to work with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi toward “phased entry” that would include joining three more global non-proliferation assemblies: The Missile Technology Control Regime, the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group.

An agreement with the U.S. in 2008 helped India gain a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which barred trade with any nation that hadn’t endorsed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which India has refrained from signing. Pakistan isn’t a member of the group and doesn’t have a waiver.
China noted Obama’s trip to New Delhi and said that India still needs to take more steps to meet the requirements of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Jan. 26.

Strategic Balance

“Pakistan values its relations with the United States and expects it to play a constructive role for strategic stability and balance in South Asia,” Aziz said.

Nuclear cooperation highlighted the meetings between Modi and Obama, who was India’s chief guest for its annual Republic Day parade. Among the breakthroughs was an end to a years-long deadlock on obstacles that blocked the U.S. from installing nuclear plants in India, which plans a $182 billion expansion of its nuclear industry.

U.S. technology suppliers have questioned the depth of the agreement between Obama and Modi. Westinghouse Electric Co., the Monroeville, Pennsylvania-based nuclear builder owned by Toshiba Corp., said it would study an offer by India to create an insurance pool to shield suppliers from liability in the event of an accident.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in New Delhi at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net; Kamran Haider in Islamabad at khaider2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net Arijit Ghosh

Extremism Is No Longer Extreme, Welcome To Mohammed’s Vision (Quran Sura 2:161)

Former U.S. Military Leaders Outline Extremist Threat

By: John Grady
Published: January 27, 2015 7:00 PM • Updated: January 27, 2015 7:00 PM

Former senior U.S. military leaders outlined the threat that violent Islamist extremists pose and put it into a larger global security context at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on global threats.

Gen. John Keane—a former vice chief of staff of the Army—recognized the split between the radical Shi’ia branch of Islam and the role Iran plays not only in the Middle East but beyond, using “proxies to attack the United States”—such as Hezbollah did in Lebanon or its sectarian militias did in Iraq—while developing its own nuclear and long-range missile capabilities and radical Sunnis.

The radical Sunnis, through al Qaeda and its affiliates, “exceed Iran” in attracting recruits and threatening Europe and North America. He cited the recent attack in Paris at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket as an example of radical Sunni reach outside of the Middle East.

“We sure as hell are opinionated” as witnesses, he said. “[But] it is unmistakable that our policies have failed” in rolling back the Islamic State (sometimes called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) or in using drones to attack suspected terrorist targets in Yemen and Pakistan. Those actions “guarantee we will be incrementally engaged” without an overall strategy, Keane said.

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, a former Central Command (CENTCOM) commander, described the Middle East “as a region erupting in crisis” and the United States and its allies need to decide whether “political Islam is in our best interest.” Including Afghanistan in his assessment, he asked rhetorically “Are we asking for the same outcome [when the United States pulled its troops] out of Iraq?”

“We can’t have everything,” Adm. William Fallon, who also served as CENTCOM commander, said. “We’ve got to make choices,” he added, noting that it is impossible for the United States to solve the centuries-old divide between Shi’ia and Sunni and the even longer battle between Persians [Iran] and Arabs over control of the region.

Fallon warned against, “the hype about everything that happens with these characters [radical extremists],” characterizing extremists as mostly, “a pick-up band of jihadists.”

Zeroing in on Iraq, Fallon said it is critical that Sunnis there believe they “are getting a fair shake going forward” from the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. If they believe that, the tribes would be more likely to join the Kurds and largely Shi’ia Iraqi military in fighting ISIS.

“We know ISIS and ‘reconcilable Sunnis’ are on a collision course,” Keane added. He said the Abadi government and its military do not want to wait any longer to retake Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul.

“I don’t know if we will be ready by summer” to assist them with forward air controllers and air strikes, increased intelligence-gathering and sharing, special forces and additional trainers to be with Iraqi front-line forces in an attack on Mosul, Keane said. “We’ve got to have people on the ground with them,” he said. When asked, he put the number at 10,000 in that advise and assist role.

He added that several brigades of ground forces, including coalition troops, should be in place in Kuwait if the attempt to retake the city stalls or fails.

Mattis agreed on embedding forces with the Iraqis. Using forward controllers as an example, “you are seeing a much faster decision process” when they are available for planning and follow-up on a military operation that could keep an enemy off-balance.

Across the Iraqi border, Keane called the situation of the Free Syrian Army “as complex a thing as we have had on our plate” as it tries to battle ISIS with its roots in among Sunnis and the regime with its ties to Shi’ia at the same time. Most coalition nations assisting the Iraqi government have limited air strikes against ISIS to that country. Iran is supporting the Syrian regime with forces and equipment.

On halting Iran’s nuclear program, Fallon reminded the committee that the United State negotiated with the Soviet Union during the Cold War over limiting these weapons. “We didn’t trust them. They didn’t trust us. The key thing is to verify.”

“Rigorous inspection” was the way Mattis described it. He said, “Economic sanctions worked better than I expected” in bringing Iran to the negotiations. Other steps could include a blockade, striking Hezbollah and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria if talks fail.

Keane said he had “no confidence that the Iranians will not move to undermine” any agreement. “The supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is on a path for a nuclear weapon.”

“The threat has shifted” in Europe, Keane said pointing to the Russian seizure of Crimea, support of separatists in Ukraine and threats to the Baltic States, now members of NATO. “Let’s put some permanent bases there,” closer to the Russian border, and re-look the decision to pull the missile defense system from Eastern Europe.

As for a pivot to Asia and the Pacific, Fallon said the difference is rather small. During the Cold War, the Fleet was about evenly divided between the Atlantic and Pacific and the shift now would allocate 60 percent of the Navy’s 280 ships to the Pacific, a move of 28 ships. But it would be a step to reassure allies and partners in the region and China that the United States was still engaged, he and Mattis said.

When asked about a return to the draft, all said that would not be a good idea, but the growing divide between the 1 percent who serve voluntarily and the American public is “a huge problem,” Fallon said. Mattis said the All-Volunteer Force “has been good for the military [in terms of quality] but bad for the country” [in terms of the divide].

“The force looks like America, and they want to be there,” Keane said.

A Nuclear Deal With Iran Will Cause Chaos With Oil (Rev 6:6)

A Nuclear Deal with Iran: The Impact on Oil and Natural Gas Trends

Brenda Shaffer

January 27, 2015

Most immediately, lifted sanctions on Iran’s oil and gas industry could spur tensions with other energy producers, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

In last week’s State of the Union Address, President Obama threatened to veto new legislation affecting five issues, four of them in the domestic policy arena and just one covering foreign policy. The foreign policy issue in question involved the prospect of new sanctions legislation targeting Iran. Correspondingly, the administration has recently ramped up efforts to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran.

Should the United States and its partners in the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, and Germany — strike a deal with Iran, the global oil and gas markets would no doubt be affected. Indeed, several leading oil and gas companies are already preparing for a return to business in Iran in the event sanctions are lifted. Such jockeying would only intensify once the Iranian oil and gas sector became fully available to international markets.

Oil

In mid-2012, sanctions were imposed against Iran’s oil exports, precipitating a drop from 2.5 million exported barrels a day to close to 1.4 million a day. If sanctions were lifted now, Iran might need a full year to bring its production to pre-sanctions levels. Moreover, given current market conditions, only limited international investment will likely be available to help restart its production. For one thing, Iran has not offered particularly attractive terms to investors, and at today’s oil prices, investors are cutting back everywhere. Such realities cast major doubt on Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh’s recent claim that if sanctions were to end, “Iran will double its oil exports within two months.”

However, the announcement alone of an agreement with Iran that removes international sanctions would accelerate the current steady downward trend of the global oil price. Thus, the oil price would be affected even before increased physical supplies of Iranian oil reached the market. And more oil would gradually return to the market, helping keep global oil prices low and perhaps depressing them even further. Burdened by sanctions, Tehran has offered discounts to regular buyers such as China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. The end of sanctions would most likely mean that such consumers would pay a price more in line with global prices. Accordingly, this could create an opportunity for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers to increase their market share.

Natural Gas

Since the Russia-Ukraine crisis erupted last year, Tehran has tried to position itself as a reliable alternative to Russia as a gas supplier to Europe. Indeed, Iran is the only state close to Europe’s borders that possesses enough natural gas to rival Russia’s dominance in most European gas markets. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani even stated recently that “Iran can be a secure energy center for Europe.” And Iran’s deputy oil minister, Ali Majedi, boasted in official Iranian media that “Iranian natural gas is Russia’s only competitor for Europe.” He continued that European countries could import Iran’s gas through three separate routes: Turkey, Iraq, or a pipeline running through Armenia and Georgia, and then under the Black Sea.

The notion of Iran as a future alternative gas supplier for Europe is acknowledged by European officials as part of their recent drive to lessen dependence on Russian imports. In April, the EU’s foreign policy arm — the Directorate-General for External Policies — published a study of the EU’s natural gas import options in light of the Ukraine crisis and concluded that “Iran is a credible alternative to Russia.”

However credible an option Iran might be for supplying Europe, two main obstacles would slow Iran’s entry into Europe’s gas markets: one, the need to produce more gas and, two, the need to build infrastructure to get it to Europe. To be sure, Iran is a significant natural gas producer, generating 160 billion cubic meters a year, third globally behind just Russia and the United States. Its output constitutes about 35 percent of annual EU gas consumption. Iran also has vast reserves. Yet interestingly, Iran is a net gas importer, with the country consuming a larger proportion of natural gas than any other country in the world. Iran’s high natural gas consumption rate is due in part to its very low domestic gas prices and thus low energy efficiency. Iran imports gas from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, while it exports a bit less to Turkey and Armenia.

In Turkey, energy industry sources have reported that Ankara is preparing its pipeline infrastructure to enable transit of Iranian gas to Europe once sanctions are removed. However, natural gas production requires much larger investments than oil production, and concluding a supply contract generally takes a number of years. In addition, either long-distance pipelines or liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities cost billions of dollars, with these costs recovered only over many years. Such investments are therefore not undertaken lightly. Accordingly, after sanctions are removed, it will probably take at least five years, and possibly much longer, until meaningful volumes of Iranian gas hit European markets. Europe will also compete with Asia for Iran’s gas exports, since LNG exports into lucrative Asian markets may be more attractive to Tehran than European markets. If Iran seeks to sell LNG to Asia, U.S. LNG exports to the region could find themselves challenged by a new competitor. However, this would take close to a decade to play out.

Geopolitical Impact

A lifting of sanctions on the Iranian oil and gas industry would have a number of geopolitical ramifications. Regarding the export of oil in particular, the strongest effect would undoubtedly be heightened tensions with Saudi Arabia, including on OPEC policy. Recently, Iranian president Rouhani explicitly criticized Saudi Arabia for what he views as Riyadh’s intentional policy to keep oil prices low and threatened that “[the Saudis] will suffer.”

On gas, Russia would take steps to block Tehran’s entry into European markets, as it has done in the past. In 2007, when Tehran inaugurated gas supplies to neighboring Armenia, Russia’s Gazprom immediately bought up the pipeline project within Armenia and built it with a small circumference to preempt its future use for transiting gas to European markets.

Moscow and Tehran could also find themselves competing for gas market share in neighboring Turkey. Already Russia’s second largest gas export market, Turkey’s role in Russia’s gas export strategy has recently grown with Russia’s proposed route change of the South Stream export pipeline from Bulgaria to Turkey.

Overall, cooperation between Russia and Iran rests on a rocky basis, and once Iran is released from sanctions and its conflict with the West, many issues of strategic competition between Tehran and Moscow will resurface, including in the sphere of gas markets.

Another potential conflict that may emerge once sanctions are removed and Iran’s natural gas industry revives is with Qatar over the delimitation of their shared South Pars/North Dome field. This natural gas field is one of the world’s largest and the main source of Qatar’s massive LNG exports as well as the main area where Iran has been investing in new gas and oil capacity. Conflict between Doha and Tehran over delimitation has been forestalled somewhat by sanctions and the corresponding lack of investment in Iranian production in the contested field.

Conclusion

If the United States and its partners can reach a deal with Iran, all players must understand the potential consequences of Iran’s reentry into the global oil and regional gas market. Most immediately, tensions could surge with other energy producers, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The downward spiral of global oil prices would also be reinforced. Tehran, it must be noted, could face serious difficulties finding markets for expanded output and attracting the needed investment in production and gas transit facilities. But in the long term, expanded Iranian output could create more supply options for European and Asian gas markets.

Brenda Shaffer, a specialist on international energy issues, is currently a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES), on sabbatical from the University of Haifa, where she is a professor in the School of Political Science. She authored the Washington Institute study Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran.

The Australian and Kazakhstan Nuclear Horns (Daniel 8:8)

Australia and Kazakhstan report uranium production

27 January 2015

Last year saw Australia’s uranium production reach its lowest point since 1998 while Kazakhstan maintained its position as the world’s largest uranium producer.

Olympic Dam produced two-thirds of Australia’s uranium output in 2014 (Image: BHP Billiton)

Australian production of 5897 tonnes U3O8 (5000 tU) was down from 2013 production of 7488 tonnes U3O8 (6350 tU) despite the start of operations at the Four Mile in situ leach uranium project in South Australia, and was the lowest for the country in 16 years.

The figures reflect the loss of production at Energy Resources of Australia’s (ERA) Ranger mine, out of action until June 2014 following the rupture of a leach tank in December 2013. The mine had ramped up to full throughput by the end of September and by year end, Ranger had produced 988 tU.

Four Mile also started operations in June and by the end of the year a total of 640 tU had been produced. Uranium from Four Mile is processed at the Beverley plant. Beverley’s own wellfields contributed 21 tU to the annual total, although production has been suspended since early in the year.
The lion’s share of Australia’s 2014 production – 3351 tU – came from BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam, where uranium is produced as a by-product of copper.

Kazakhstan tops table

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan remains the world’s largest uranium producer with 2014 total production of 22,829 tU, according to state nuclear company KazAtomProm. The company’s own share of production accounted for 13,156 tU of the total. The figure is slightly up from the 22,548 tU recorded for 2013, and Kazatomprom says it is in line with its expectations for the year.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

Pakistan Left Out In The Nuclear Cold (Daniel 8:8)

Pakistan Criticizes India’s Inclusion in Nuclear Suppliers Group

By SALMAN MASOOD | New York Times
JANUARY 27, 2015

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In an unusually critical statement, a senior Pakistani official said that Pakistan remained opposed to India’s inclusion in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and feared that the country’s growing nuclear cooperation with the United States could harm deterrence efforts in South Asia.

The statement by Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani national security adviser, came after President Obama wound up his visit to India, during which the United States and India announced an array of trade and strategic agreements.

Pakistan and India have had an antagonistic relationship since the end of British rule and their partition in 1947. In recent years, Pakistan has viewed growing United States-India cooperation with apprehension.

In addition to Mr. Aziz’s criticism, the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, went to China on Sunday for a two-day visit with political and military leaders. The trip directly coincided with Mr. Obama’s visit in India, and Pakistani news organizations covered the parallel trips prominently — particularly statements by Chinese officials that “Pakistan’s concern is China’s concern.”

“Pakistan is opposed to yet another country-specific exemption from N.S.G. rules to grant membership to India, as this would further compound the already fragile strategic stability environment in South Asia,” Mr. Aziz said Tuesday in the statement. The Nuclear Suppliers Group is a 48-nation body established 40 years ago to ensure that civilian trade in nuclear materials is not diverted for military purposes.

In addition to opposing India’s membership in the group, Mr. Aziz also criticized American support for granting a seat to India on the United Nations Security Council.

“A country, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions on matters of international peace and security, such as the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, by no means qualifies for a special status in the Security Council,” the statement read, referring to the Himalayan region of Kashmir, over which Pakistan and India have fought three wars.

Islam Is A GEOPOLITICAL Ideology (Daniel 8:8)

Al-Qaeda Has “Grown Fourfold in the Last Five Years

January 27, 2015
PJ Tattler

The former vice chief of staff of the Army warned the Senate Armed Services Committee today that al-Qaeda has “grown fourfold in the last five years.”

“AQ and its affiliates exceeds Iran in beginning to dominate multiple countries,” retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane testified.

Using a term that the Obama administration now eschews, Keane called radical Islam “the major security challenge of our generation.”

“Radical Islam, as I’m defining it for today’s discussion, consists of three distinct movements who share a radical fundamentalist ideology, use jihad or terror to achieve objectives that compete with each other for influence and power,” he said.

“In 1980, Iran declared the United States as a strategic enemy and its goal is to drive the United States out of the region, achieve regional hegemony, and destroy the state of Israel. It uses proxies, primarily as the world’s number one state sponsoring terrorism. Thirty plus years Iran has used these proxies to attack the United States. To date, the result is U.S. troops left Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, while Iran has direct influence and some control over Beirut, Lebanon, Gaza, Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq, and now Sana’a, Yemen,” the general continued.

“Is there any doubt that Iran is on the march and is systematically moving toward their regional hegemonic objective? Iran has been on a 20-year journey to acquire nuclear weapons, simply because they know it guarantees preservation of the regime and makes them, along with their partners, the dominant power in the region, thereby capable of expanding their control and influence. Add to this their ballistic missile delivery system and Iran is not only a threat to the region, but to Europe, as well. And as they increase missile range, eventually a threat to the United States. And as we know, a nuclear arms race, because of their nuclear ambition, is on the horizon for the Middle East.”

Keane detailed the growth of al-Qaeda in its quest to “eventually achieve world domination.”
“Third, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, ISIS, is an outgrowth from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was defeated in Iraq by 2009. After U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011, ISIS reemerged as a terrorist organization in Iraq, moved into Syria in 2012, and began seizing towns and villages from the Syria-Iraq border all the way to the western Syria from Aleppo to Damascus,” he reminded the committee.

That leads to an “unmistakable” conclusion that “our policies have failed,” Keane added.

“And the unequivocal explanation is U.S. policy has focused on disengaging from the Middle East, while our stated policy is pivoting to the east,” he said. “U.S. policymakers choose to ignore the very harsh realities of the rise of radical Islam. In my view, we became paralyzed by the fear of adverse consequences in the Middle East after fighting two wars. Moreover, as we sit here this morning, in the face of radical Islam, U.S. policymakers refuse to accurately name the movement as radical Islam. We further choose not to define it, nor explain its ideology, and most critical, we have no comprehensive strategy to stop it or defeat it.”

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.