Iran's Khamenei: Nuclear Weapons are Religiously Forbidden Under Islamic Law; Stopping Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Weapons Had Nothing to Do with Nuclear Talks; He Says U.S. Created ISIS

Iran's Khamenei Signals Approval Of Nuclear Deal With 'Arrogant' U.S.

July 18, 2015

NPR - Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signaled his all-important approval of a historic nuclear deal forged with the West, but he portrayed the agreement as having been on Tehran's terms.

"Our policy toward the arrogant U.S. government won't change at all," Khamenei said in televised a speech in Tehran marking Eid, the end of Ramadan.

"After 12 years of struggling with the Islamic republic, the result is that they have to bear the turning of thousands of centrifuges in the country," Khamenei said, referring to the United States and its five other powers that reached the agreement in Vienna on Tuesday.

"The Americans say they stopped Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," Khamenei said. "They know it's not true. We had a fatwa, declaring nuclear weapons to be religiously forbidden under Islamic law. It had nothing to do with the nuclear talks," he said.

Gulf News reports:

"Khamenei also said Tuesday's nuclear agreement would not alter Iran's support for the governments of Syria and Iraq nor its backing of "oppressed people" in Yemen and Bahrain, and the Palestinians.

"The comments reflected the supreme leader's longstanding position that Iran's engagement with the six powers was solely to reach a nuclear deal that was in its national interest."

The Independent notes: "The speech contrasts with the warm language used to greet the pact by Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, and foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has said it could lead to co-operation in other areas. Ayatollah Khamenei has in the past appeared to back this view, so long as Washington [acts] in good faith over the nuclear deal."

However, as The New York Times observers: "Though analysts said his positive portrayal of the agreement would probably quiet hard-line critics in Iran, it also seemed likely to become fodder for critics in the United States, complicating President Obama's efforts to sell the deal to Congress and the American people."

Iran's Khamenei: Policies toward 'arrogant' U.S. unchanged by nuclear deal

July 18, 2015

Chicago Tribune - Iran’s supreme leader declared Saturday that his nation’s policies toward an “arrogant” United States would not be changed by the nuclear agreement reached with major powers in recent days.

Iran will continue to support the militant Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, the embattled government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels in Yemen, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared in televised comments.

Whether the nuclear agreement wins approval, “we are not going to stop our support for people in Yemen, Palestine, Syria, Iraq; and our politics toward the arrogant power of America will not change at all," Khamenei said in an address to hundreds of officials on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the festival ending the fasting month of Ramadan.

His statements at a Tehran mosque were greeted by chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel.”

Iran and six world powers — the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — reached an agreement Tuesday designed to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, which despite Iranian denials, many in the international community fear is designed to produce weapons. In turn, the accord offers Iran eventual relief from punishing international sanctions that have crippled its economy.

In his own statement marking Eid al-Fitr, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani congratulated the nation for the “victory of their political will” in reaching the deal, which he has suggested could bring an era of better relations between Iran and the international community.

“America regards brave Hezbollah [members] in Lebanon as terrorists but support the infanticide Israeli regime,” he said. “American statesmen and stateswomen are ranting these days; they claim Iran has been deprived from nuclear weapons, while the fatwa [Islamic religious edict] forbids production, storage and using nuclear weapons. They rant that they have brought Iran to her knees; I should say their dream never ever will be fulfilled.”

Iran has given aid and support to Hezbollah in its conflict with Israel, to Assad as the Syrian government battles rebels backed by the U.S. and others in the international community, and to Houthi rebels in their war with the ousted government of Yemen and its Saudi-led allies.

Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran over matters of state, did not suggest any personal resistance to the nuclear deal and noted:

“They wanted to dismantle all cogs of our nuclear industry and stop our R&D [research and development], but now they have [to] tolerate our thousands [of] centrifuges and R&D.”

In his weekly radio address, President Obama acknowledged Saturday that the deal would not “resolve all of the threats Iran poses to its neighbors and the world” but defended the agreement as doing more than any past effort to assure Tehran does not produce nuclear weapons.

"As commander-in-chief, I make no apology for keeping this country safe and secure through the hard work of diplomacy over the easy rush to war,” he said. “We have before us an historic opportunity to pursue a safer, more secure world for our children. It might not come around again in our lifetimes."

After The Nuke Deal, Iran Dictator Calls For Muslim World To Unite And Destroy Israel, Says USA Created ISIS

July 20, 2015

Breitbart - Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei went into a conspiracy-laden tirade on Saturday, blaming the “arrogant powers” for getting in the way of the Muslim world’s mission to unite and destroy Israel.

“If the Islamic Ummah were united and relied on their own commonalities, they would certainly be a unique power in the international political scene but big powers have imposed such divisions on the Islamic Ummah to pursue their own interests and safeguard the Zionist regime [of Israel],” Khamenei said in remarks to commemorate the end of Ramadan.

Khamenei also defended Iran’s support for its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and the Assad regime in Syria.

“The Americans dub the Lebanese resistance as terrorist and regard Iran as a supporter of terrorism because of its support for the Lebanese Hezbollah, while the Americans, themselves, are real terrorists,” Khamenei said. 

Hezbollah was originally created by Tehran’s first “Supreme Leader” with the mission to “turn Lebanon to a graveyard for Jews,” according to its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Iranian dictator claimed that al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terror group were created by the United States, according to Iran’s state-controlled media.

The U.S. “have created al-Qaeda and Daesh [ISIL]” and “support the wicked Zionists [Israel],” he said.

The U.S. cannot criticize Iran’s support for Hezbollah’s “resistance” movement because the U.S. supports the “Zionist, terrorist and infanticidal” Israelis, added Iran’s ruler.

The “Supreme Leader” declared victory over the United States in Tehran’s recent nuclear agreement with world powers, saying,

“This is the outcome of the Iranian nation’s resistance and bravery and the creativity of dear Iranian scientists.”

He predicted that in the case of war with the United States, The U.S. “will emerge loser,” PressTV reported.
Khamenei swore to never engage the Americans in dialogue over regional differences, asking:

“Our policies and those of the US in the region are 180 degree different, so how could it be possible to enter dialogue and negotiations with them (Americans)?”

In declaring victory over the U.S. in nuclear negotiations, he added:

“Today, they [world powers] have been forced to accept and stand the spinning of thousands of centrifuges and continuation of research and development in Iran, and it has no meaning but the Iranian nation’s might.”

Is this Iran’s time in the Middle East?

July 18, 2015

BBC - "A wild beast unleashed". This damning verdict from Saudi columnist Abdul Rahman Rashed, writing in the influential Ahsarq Al Awsat newspaper, largely sums up the tone of reaction to Iran's nuclear deal across the Arab media.

And judging from the conversations I've had with ordinary Egyptians here in Cairo - and the conversations on Arabic social media - these fears are very much shared by ordinary people.

For many Sunni Arab governments and their people, the worry is that with international sanctions lifted Shia Iran will be able to expand operations in its client states across the Middle East.

That means more military support for Bashar Assad in Syria, for Shia militias in Iraq, for the Houthi rebels in Yemen and for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Much has been made in the Arab press in recent days of a comment by the former UN Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi after a trip to Tehran in 2013.

"We are not an important country in the region," he was told by his Iranian hosts. "We are THE important country in the region."

Viewed through this perspective the nuclear deal, for many in the Arab world, is seen as nothing less than a bid to reshape the Middle East and re-establish the Persian Empire.

Long-term strategy

A decade of protracted negotiations, they say, reflects a long-term Iranian strategy planned with the exemplary patience that comes from mastering the art of weaving Persian rugs.

So how much of this is actually based on reality?

One key issue to bear in mind here is time.

It's clear from a detailed perusal of the terms, timetables and commitments outlined in the Vienna agreement that it's going to take a very long time for Iran to fulfil all the conditions necessary for all sanctions to be lifted.

In some instances this could take as long as 25 years.

So predictions that Iran will imminently have a huge windfall of cash to start spending on military hardware, look seriously off the mark.

And even after bank accounts are unfrozen and money starts to flow again, the Vienna deal stipulates Iran will continue to be subject to an arms embargo for five to eight years.

It's also important to underline that the sanctions due to be lifted post-Vienna are just the ones related to Iran's nuclear activities.

There are still many other US and international restrictions in place, as there have been for the past three decades since the Islamic Revolution.

Iran and the West still have a very long way to go to settle all their disputes and bring a complete end to Iran's diplomatic isolation.

Predictions from some Arab commentators of a new US-Iranian alliance in the Middle East are also hugely wide of the mark.

President Obama has made it clear he does not expect a resumption of diplomatic ties with Iran any time soon.

A possible shift of power to the Republicans in next year's US elections could potentially call the future of the Vienna deal into question.

And with the level of opposition also being raised by key allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, there's no guarantee, even with another Democrat in the White House, that all phases of the nuclear deal will be implemented without future hitches.

Hardline opposition

In Iran itself there's also strong opposition to the deal from hardliners.

So far, Ayatollah Khamenei seems supportive, but future developments in a region as volatile as the Middle East, combined with rising tensions between rival factions inside Iran, could well change his mind.

The idea of rebuilding the Persian Empire might sound like an exaggeration, but it is not solely the product of the wilder imaginations of some Arab politicians.

There are influential political and military figures in Iran who still firmly believe what they chanted during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s: "The road to Qods (Jerusalem) passes through Kerbala."

To them, bringing the whole Islamic world under the leadership of Shia Iran and paving the way for the 12th Imam to return to rule the world after more than a thousand years, is not just a dream.

President Hassan Rouhani's pragmatist policy has little in common with the apocalyptic ideology of the hardliners.

For him and his team the Vienna agreement has been a great victory.

He is now in a much stronger position to start the long task of rebuilding the Iranian economy after a decade of punishing sanctions.

He's made it clear that part of this process will involve settling disputes with Arab states and normalising ties with other influential countries.

Hassan Rouhani:
Born in 1948
Islamic activist prior to Iran's 1979 Revolution
Influential figure in Iran-Iraq War
MP (1980-2000)
National Security Advisor to the president (1989 -97, 2000-05)
Chief nuclear negotiator (2003-05)
Regarded as a centrist politician but favoured by reformists
Profile: Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran
Profile: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Economy top priority

For ordinary Iranians the priority now is to end the economic hardship and diplomatic isolation of the past 10 years.

President Rouhani will need the continued support of the Supreme Leader to make these hoped for changes a reality.

As long as that support remains in place, the hardliners dreaming of Jerusalem can be kept in check.

But, Iran still has serious foreign policy concerns in the Middle East.

The continuing rise of the Islamic State group is seen as a very real and present danger in Tehran.

So while the pragmatic President Rouhani might want to pursue a more nuanced approach to diplomacy with his Arab neighbours, it is unlikely that Iran will step back from the influence it's already established in the Middle East.

The checks and balances of Vienna mean Iran is probably best described now not as "a wild beast unleashed" but more one on a long leash.

But as long as the instability in the region continues, it's also likely to remain very much in defensive mode.