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Page added on January 16, 2016

Iran Sanctions Are Lifted

Just hours after Tehran and Washington swapped long-held prisoners, the United States and European nations lifted oil and financial sanctions on Iran and released roughly $100 billion of its assets, after international inspectors concluded the country had followed through on its promises to dismantle large sections of its nuclear program.

At the end of a day of high drama that played out in a diplomatic dance across Europe and the Middle East, five Americans, including a Washington Post reporter, Jason Rezaian, were being flown out of the country on a Swiss aircraft right after the nuclear accord was implemented. The detention of one of the released Americans, Matthew Trevithick, who had been engaged in language studies in Tehran when he was arrested, according to his family, had never been publicly announced.

“Iran has undertaken significant steps that many people — and I do mean many — doubted would ever come to pass,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday evening at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which earlier issued a report detailing how Iran had shipped 98 percent of its fuel to Russia, dismantled more than 12,000 centrifuges so they could not enrich uranium, and poured cement into the core of a reactor designed to produce plutonium.

Mr. Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaking in Vienna. Credit Joe Klamar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But Mr. Kerry was clearly energized by the release of the Americans, an issue he took up on the edges of almost every nuclear negotiation, and pursued in a separate, secret set of talks that many involved in the nuclear issue were only vaguely aware were happening.

The release of the “unjustly detained” Americans, as Mr. Kerry put it, came at some cost: Seven Iranians, either convicted or charged with breaking American embargoes, were released in the prisoner swap, and 14 others were removed from international wanted lists. Many of the presidential candidates, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Donald J. Trump, denounced the swap as a sign of weakness, and they have long promised to review or withdraw from the nuclear agreement.

They particularly object to the release of about $100 billion in frozen assets — mostly from past oil sales — that Iran will now control, and the end of American and European restrictions on trade that had been imposed as part of the American-led effort to stop the program. It was not only sanctions that forced Iran to the table: the United States and Israel also developed one of the world’s most sophisticated cyberweapons to destroy the centrifuges that Iran has now been dismantling.

With the start of the so-called implementation day, the day that the accord goes fully into operation, the structures are finally in place for Tehran to re-engage with the world after decades of isolation.

Jason Rezaian Credit Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post, via Reuters

But even in a week that started with the release of 10 sailors who drifted into Iranian waters — the Defense Department still has not provided an explanation of how that happened — and ended with a prisoner swap that seemed drawn from the pages of the Cold War, it was far from clear whether Tehran would choose to re-engage — at least very quickly.

In Tehran and Washington, political battles are still being fought over the merits and dangers of moving toward normal interchanges between two countries that have been avowed adversaries for more than three decades. But Mr. Kerry suggested that the nuclear deal had broken the cycle of hostility, enabling the secret negotiations that led up to the hostage swap. It was far from a sure thing: Just weeks ago, Iran was demanding the release of nearly 20 Iranians convicted or indicted in the United States; an administration official said that number had been whittled down to seven, but even that still rankled some.

“Critics will continue to attack the deal for giving away too much to Tehran,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who started the sanctions against Iran that were lifted Saturday as the No. 3 official in the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. “But the fact that Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be effectively frozen for the next 10 to 15 years is a real advantage for us,” he said, adding that “it was achieved by tough-minded diplomacy and not war.”

Still Mr. Burns, who now teaches diplomacy at Harvard and has advised Hillary Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president, argued that recent encounters with Iran — including its ballistic missile tests and its propping up of President Bashar al Assad of Syria, “demonstrate how complicated our relationship with Iran will continue to be.” He urged President Obama to issue new sanctions against Iran this weekend for the ballistic missile tests — a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions — to demonstrate that he will keep up the pressure.

A copy of the proposed sanction leaked three weeks ago, and the Obama administration pulled it back — perhaps to avoid torpedoing the prisoner swap and the completion of the nuclear deal. Negotiations to win the release of Mr. Rezaian, who had covered the nuclear talks before he was imprisoned on vague charges, were an open secret: Mr. Kerry often alluded to the fact that he was working on the issue behind the scenes.

Mr. Rezaian was held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison for practically all of his incarceration, and spent the first several months in solitary confinement. He suffered vision problems and relatives said he lost about 40 pounds. It wasn’t until about a year ago that the Iranian authorities publicly explained the nature of the charges against him.

His mother, Mary Rezaian, who lives in Turkey and went to Tehran last June to be closer to her son, said then that he had only just become aware of the global support for him, including an appeal for his release from Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion. Mr. Rezaian’s mother said she was permitted to visit him only occasionally and said it had become “ever harder” for him to cope.

Then, several weeks ago the Iranians leaked news that they were interested in a swap of their own citizens, which American officials said was an outrageous demand, because they had been indicted or convicted in a truly independent court system.

But behind the scenes, one senior American official said, “it was clear this would be the only way.” There was discussion inside the administration of similar swaps during the Cold War, a practice moviegoers have been reminded of recently in “Bridge of Spies,” about the negotiations to win the release of Francis Gary Powers.

Mr. Kerry insisted that the two sets of negotiations were completely separate, but he acknowledged they were related: The intense diplomatic contact with Iran — Mr. Kerry has spent more time with his American-educated Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, than any other foreign minister — made the prisoner talks possible.

The result was two parallel races underway — one involving implementing the nuclear deal, the other to get the prisoner swap done while the moment was ripe. The Iranians beat, by months, the C.I.A. and Energy Department estimates of how long it would take them to dismantle the far-flung elements of its nuclear empire, a long checklist that occupies scores of pages in the nuclear accord.

“They were highly motivated to get it done,” said one American official who was closely involved, because President Hassan Rouhani wanted money flowing into Iran, and more oil flowing out, before a critical election late next month.

But there were last minute hitches. For example, the United States and Iran were struggling late Saturday to define the details of what kind of “advanced centrifuges” Iran will be able to develop nearly a decade from now — the kind of definitional difference that can undermine an accord.

The result was that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Zarif veered from the monumental significance of what they were accomplishing — an end to a decade of open hostility — to the minutiae of uranium enrichment.

But Mr. Kerry emerged to tell reporters he had reached the goals he has talked about for two years.

“Each of the pathways that Iran had to a nuclear weapon have been verifiably closed down,” he declared. Noting that Tehran has frozen much of its activity during the negotiations, he responded to critics of the deal — including, without naming them, the Republican presidential candidates — who say that Iran will immediately cheat.

Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Saturday. International sanctions on Iran related to its nuclear activities were expected to be lifted soon. Credit Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“We have now two years of compliance under our belt,” he said. “Obviously, past performance does not guarantee future results.” But, he argued, “we know without doubt that there is not a challenge in the entire region that wouldn’t become much more complicated if Iran had the ability” to produce nuclear weapons.”

But Iran has something it desperately needs: Billions in cash, at a time oil shipments have been cut by more than half because of the sanctions, and below $30-a-barrel prices mean huge cuts in national revenue.

Just how much cash is a matter of dispute. A senior American official said Saturday that Iran will be able to access about $50 billion of a reported $100 billion in holdings abroad, although others have used higher estimates. The official said Iran will likely need to keep much of those assets abroad to facilitate international trade.

The Obama administration on Saturday also removed 400 Iranians and others from its sanctions list and took a series of other steps to lift selected restrictions on interactions with Iran. Another 200 people, however, will remain on the sanctions list under for other reasons, including terrorist activities, human rights abuses, involvement in civil wars in Syria or Yemen or ties to the country’s ballistic missile program.

Under the new rules put in place, the United States will no longer sanction foreign individuals or firms for buying oil and gas from Iran. The American trade embargo remains in place, but the government will permit certain limited business activities with Iran, such as selling or purchasing Iranian food and carpets and American commercial aircraft and parts.

It is an opening to Iran that represents a huge roll of the dice, one that will be debated long after Mr. Obama he has built his presidential library. It is unclear what will happen after the passing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has protected and often fueled the hardliners — but permitted these talks to go ahead.

The president and Mr. Kerry, with a year and four days left in office, are hoping to foster new discussions that will bear fruit in other areas, including ending the war in Syria and moving, slowly, to the eventual restoration of diplomatic relations.

NY Times

89 Comments on "Iran Sanctions Are Lifted"

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 4:21 pm

Davy,

“Boat, get a grip man. This is not about the other black sheep in the world. We know all too well how bad the rest of the world is”.

Of course it is also about the other black sheep.

“We know all too well how bad the rest of the world is”.

Apparently this is not true because I see no balance with the posts of many of these posters.

“Boat you are encouraging people to be anti-American”

Davy you are naive if you think these anti Americans will ever be anything else.
Those boys attacking you come from a Country that walks lock step with most US foreign policy decisions yet they claim no responsibility for any good or bad. They just generally blame everyone even though they grew up and live the same life styles. How cowardly is that?

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 4:21 pm

Davy,

“Boat, get a grip man. This is not about the other black sheep in the world. We know all too well how bad the rest of the world is”.

Of course it is also about the other black sheep.

“We know all too well how bad the rest of the world is”.

Apparently this is not true because I see no balance with the posts of many of these posters.

“Boat you are encouraging people to be anti-American”

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 4:27 pm

onlooker,
Your list suggests other countries being the source of the genocides. lol

The apeman had a much better list but I had to laugh and quit reading when Pol Pot murders were added to the US tally. No common sense or reasoning to it. If you believe that you will believe anything.

onlooker on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 4:38 pm

You have not digested what I explained. These regimes were either set up by the Oligarchs/Capitalists or were already in place. Now I do not discount that a few of them had their own motives to commit genocide but the majority were secretly exhorted to do so to “solve” the issue of resistance to globalization and the rule of money. Also the part about colonialism and creating artificial countries created instability by mixing together peoples of different religions, sects, tribes or races. That was a powder keg waiting to go off and it did. Capitalism has never cared about creating chaos in fact in thrives in this environment as it uses mafia like tactics to subvert, bribe and coerce ruling elites or wannabe elites to submit to the “game” Of course all this was made easy because most countries were already colonized forcefully by the English, Spanish and a few others whose legacy was a small elite and corrupt class who to this day hold incommensurate power and wealth in many countries. Human nature is already vulnerable to its more negative primitive aspects and Capitalism just took advantage of all this and in fact is a byproduct of negative parts of our nature. Pretty depressing uh, it should be.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 4:55 pm

Another excellent post onlooker, as per usual.

If I might add; The US fought for, and gained independence from Britain, and the European central banking cartel on July 4th of 1776. That independence was lost with the signing of the Federal Reserve Act on December the 23rd of 1913.

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” – Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

onlooker on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:10 pm

Yes Greg this whole modern civilization/globalization was not something people necessarily wanted. It was forced fed to everyone. Culture and Traditions are strong things, people were okay living as they had been. Of course Fossil fuels allowed capitalists and oligarchs to execute this takeover of the world via money. BC has a very good grasp of this also.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:12 pm

“Those boys attacking you come from a Country that walks lock step with most US foreign policy decisions yet they claim no responsibility for any good or bad.”

If you were capable of paying attention Boat, you would know that “those boys” have said many times in the past that our country is also going down the shitter. The problem lies with the people who are dictating US foreign policy, not with the American public per se. That being said, the only people who are able to change this are the American people themselves. Voting for either Trump, or Hillary will only lead to more of the same old shit.

onlooker on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:16 pm

Only with fossil fuels and their incredible energy bounty could we have created a debt/interest based economy reliant on perpetual growth.

Apneaman on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:28 pm

Boat, do you mean like Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos? Or Iraq invasion 2003? Lock step means together.

Boat you live in a black and white world void of nuance. Propaganda diets do that. Permanently out to lunch boat.

Davy on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:38 pm

The week is already starting off in the red

“Oil Plunges To $28 Cycle Lows As Iran Supply Looms, Stocks Slide”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/oil-plunges-28-cycle-lows-iran-supply-looms-stocks-slide

“February WTI Crude futures have plunged to new cycle lows at $28.60 (down 2.7%) as Iran supply looms over an already over-glutted global crude market. Brent is down even more (-3.7%). Dow futures are down 60 points at the open.”

Apneaman on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 5:49 pm

Greg, the Americans would never have gotten their independence in the manner they did if not for the French. Without the French who knows, they might have the queen on their money today. Myths. All apes need their national myths. Where do you think that resentment of the French comes from?

How the French won the American Revolution

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-04/how-french-won-american-revolution

5 Myths About the Revolutionary War Everyone Believes

“France began providing arms and ammunition as early as 1776 (the war started in 1775). In early 1777, months before Saratoga, the French sent American colonists 25,000 uniforms and pairs of boots, hundreds of cannons, and thousands of muskets — all stuff that the colonists would’ve had a hard time surviving without, and all stuff they had no access to on their own. And that was just the tip of the iceberg: From supplies to advice to military reinforcements, France exercised all the fiscal restraint of a drunk businessman at a strip club when it came to funding the American war.

France provided a whopping 90 percent of the rebels’ gunpowder. Let that sink in for a second. Without France, the entire American Revolution would have devolved into a bunch of dudes swinging their muskets as clubs within weeks.

Still, the most important French contribution to the revolution (or, if you’re British, their ultimate dick move) was the least visible to Americans. As mentioned, the reason France pampered the Patriots was always selfish. They were out to weaken the British forces — particularly their naval strength — in order to take the fight to them, perhaps even conquer them. That’s why, for much of the Revolutionary War, the British ships tasked with kicking America’s ass had to survive 12 rounds with the French navy before they could even think of crossing the Atlantic. France gleefully fought the British, eventually teaming up with Spain, declaring a war, attacking from all sides, and even setting up an invasion force. In those battles, America’s independence was a fart in the desert.”

http://www.cracked.com/article_20306_5-myths-about-revolutionary-war-everyone-believes.html

Ever notice when it’s just them, Vietnam, Iraq, they can’t win shit?

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:03 pm

apeman,

I talk politics, rehash old wars and internal US policy on another site. I am known there for being anti war including Iraq and Vietnam. I am also think our military should be able to defend the US with 300 billion per year, not 600 billion. How is that for void of nuance. lol

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:11 pm

GrgT,

You don’t get to make the rules. You live in that country so you take responsibility for it. Your hypocrisy may slide with the doomers but not in the real world. You travel their roads, pay their taxes, buy their goods. You are Canadian and your tar sands is more responsible per barrel than about any other oil. So yes gregT and the ape are as much at fault as any other Canadian.

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:15 pm

onlooker,
“Only with fossil fuels and their incredible energy bounty could we have created a debt/interest based economy reliant on perpetual growth”.

That was so profound. Next the sky looks nice when it’s blue.

You forgot the hard working humans that made all happen. That oil was there before humans ya know.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:25 pm

Again Boat, you display a complete lack of logic.

antaris on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:30 pm

Brent at 28 late Sunday afternoon. Monday should be interesting.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:33 pm

The slaughter continues…….

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:36 pm

Apeman,
Since the beginning of man those in power used a whack a mole approach to get more. Genghis Kahn might be the most famous of all. You must be void of nuisance not to notice the difference of today’s US conflicts.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:40 pm

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

– Abraham Lincoln

onlooker on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 6:54 pm

How does hard working humans negate my argument that fossil fuels have powered this hyper capitalism and the multiple consequences that stem from it. For that matter what exactly is the point your trying to make? Capitalism has exploited everything and everyone to create modern civilization. Yes some benefits have accrued to a minority segment of the world population I concede that. None of this negates the argument that Capitalism has rendered this planet a rather nasty place to live in for most people and is bringing us deeper into ecocide and extinction for many species including ourselves. Present to me any coherent argument that refutes this otherwise I am done wasting time talking with you Boat.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 7:58 pm

Boat believes that he is on a crusade to fight the evil doomers that want nothing more than to see the world to collapse onlooker.

There is no point in attempting to have a rational conversation with someone who is delusional.

makati1 on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:00 pm

Ap, few know real history. They only know the propaganda they were force fed as children, written by the ‘winners’.

Your point about France and the American Revolution is spot on, yet I don’t remember ever hearing that in school.

Even fewer know that the Russians won WW2, not the West. But you will never see that mentioned in any Western history books. LOL

makati1 on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:09 pm

GregT, there are a few ‘doomers’ here, and I am on that fence for now. I don’t want to see the end of humanity, just the necessary paring back of the excesses existing today. Notably, the end of vampire capitalism and the end of the US as a super power. How it happens will not be pretty. There will be death and pain in volumes not seen in the past, but if that is what it takes….

I have no control over the future so I just sit back and watch it unfold. I like to put in my two cents occasionally, as it might stir up a thought in someone that will help them survive or their rebuttal will make me consider my position or help me in some positive way. Learning should never end.

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:11 pm

onlooker,

“How does hard working humans negate my argument that fossil fuels have powered this hyper capitalism and the multiple consequences that stem from it”.

I was sarcastically agreeing with your statement of the obvious.

“Capitalism has exploited everything and everyone to create modern civilization” Yes some benefits have accrued to a minority segment of the world population I concede that”.

You don’t concede nearly enough. Your so call exploitation has lengthened and saved billions of lives. That isn’t nothing, if fact it’s a man made miracle that goes on today.You doomers like to twist this miracle into some kind of bad thing as with anything that doesn’t fit your narrative.
I don’t care what you do with your time or what you write. Your ideas of coherent thought are simply reruns of doomer comments. Not an original thought to be seen. But when you start name calling like the gregt and the apeman you will be afforded the same line of response.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:27 pm

“You doomers like to twist this miracle into some kind of bad thing as with anything that doesn’t fit your narrative.”

This so called ‘miracle’ is not sustainable Boat, and is destroying the natural environment that every last one of us needs to survive.

You might consider that to be a good thing, but most rational people do not.

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:31 pm

mak,

While Russia was winning WWII a “land ram established.

“To sum up the results of the lend-lease program as a whole, the Soviet Union received, over the war years, 21,795 planes, 12,056 tanks, 4,158 armored personnel carriers, 7,570 tractor trucks, 8,000 antiaircraft and 5,000 antitank guns, 132,000 machine-guns, 472 million artillery shells, 9,351 transceivers customized to Soviet-made fighter planes, 2.8 million tons of petroleum products, 102 ocean-going dry cargo vessels, 29 tankers, 23 sea tugboats and icebreakers, 433 combat ships and gunboats, as well as mobile bridges, railroad equipment, aircraft radar equipment, and many other items.”

Of course the mak history would never mention such a thing.

Americans

Boat on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 8:38 pm

GregT,

Yet you drive the roads, use fuel, buy stuff, have a family like everybody does. Your a hypocrite. You live the life you complain about. Rational people realize the truth. You have a mental block.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 9:17 pm

More irrational nonsense Boat.

I am not complaining about the life that I live, and as I have said many times here before, I enjoy the niceties of modern industrial society as much as anybody else. That does not change the fact that what we are doing is unsustainable, and is destroying our one and only planet. We either learn to change our ways, which I myself am currently doing, or the Earth will do it for us. My mind is wide open Boat, it is you that has a mental block. I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist, I am a realist.

Apneaman on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 9:23 pm

Boat, the species is on it’s way to extinction and you will know it in your heart of hearts before too long. Game over for the ape cancer Boat. We don’t even need climate change either. Hooray for capitalism for putting the cancer on steroids. Capitalism is merely a cultural expression of our biological imperative as a wicked smhart cancer. Communism would have done it too. Maybe even faster (see USSR & China) if it had metastasized to more countries. At least with capitalism a lucky few of us got to live better than the kings and emperors of old and be highly amused the whole time. Commies make shitty music and movies eh?
Boat – captain of the cancer cheerleading squad.

Gimme a C – C

Gimme an A – A

Gimme a N – N

Gimme a C – C

Gimme an E – E

Gimme a R – R

WHAT DOES IT SPELL – HUMANITY!

Boatk humans can on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 9:55 pm

Apeman,

Boat, the species is on it’s way to extinction and you will know it in your heart of hearts before too long.

I actually agree with you. Except, I don’t think humans can change behavior fast enough. That and it will probably happen decades after I am dead. If I am wrong what do I lose. Nothing.

Why ya’ll get so excited over things beyond your control is puzzling. Maybe someday you’ll explain the passion.

My fav is how concerned the doomers are about my market investment. lol It’s just digital money that I have never spent. If the shyt hits the fan there will be no money, or food, or energy etc.

GregT on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 9:58 pm

“While Russia was winning WWII a “land ram established.”

This would be a very good example for the reason why we have agreed upon standards of written communication Boat. Without them, people would not be able to understand one another.

makati1 on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 10:12 pm

“EU officials to visit Iran in February to develop energy ties”

http://www.reuters.com/article/iran-nuclear-eu-idUSL8N15109W?feedType=RSS&feedName=utilitiesSector

Isolate Iran? LMAO

makati1 on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 11:39 pm

GregT, boat has no idea of real history, just his brainwashed version. I might pity him if he didn’t have access to real history right here on the internet.

makati1 on Sun, 17th Jan 2016 11:54 pm

Boat, you equate good with money…

A few boats and machines helped the Russians, but the UK and other European countries got many multiples of them from America’s profit making corporations during the war, when America was selling to BOTH sides and getting rich.

Russians gave more then 20,000,000 lives to save their country from Hitler. The US gave less than 400,000 and only entered the war in the last year or so when Germany was already losing.

If Russia had not won the war, you would be speaking German and saying “Sieg Heil!” to your fuehrer as you goose stepped to work in the mines.

JuanP on Mon, 18th Jan 2016 8:29 am