Hawkish Bolton ruins Iran’s nuclear holiday

Bloomberg

As President Donald Trump threatens to tear up the Iran nuclear deal and tensions flare across the Mideast, his hawkish new national security adviser is preparing to start work.
John Bolton, a veteran of Republican administrations who’s called for military action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, takes over the key White House position on Monday, just as
missile strikes on a Syrian military base controlled by President Bashar al-Assad left at least 14 people dead, including Iranians, according to local reports.
The strikes came just hours after an alleged chemical attack on a rebel stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus prompted Trump to warn Iran and Russia that there’ll be a “big price to pay” for backing Assad in Syria’s civil war. It wasn’t immediately clear who fired the missiles at the Syrian airbase known as T-4. The Pentagon said it wasn’t involved and Russia blamed Israel.
As fighting escalated in Syria, President Hassan Rouhani celebrated National Nuclear Technology Day in Tehran with the unveiling of 83 “nuclear achievements” by Iranian scientists before sending envoys to a meeting in Beijing that will underscore China’s key role in the country’s civilian programme.
Trump has set a May 12 deadline to improve or scrap the Obama-era accord that waived sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on the country’s nuclear activities. Unilateral abrogation would almost certainly trigger a diplomatic crisis between the US and the other signatories — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — and could even lead to “military confrontation,” according to Foad Izadi, a foreign policy specialist at the University of Tehran.
“The future of the agreement is very much in doubt,” Izadi said.

Missiles, Terrorists
Then-President Barack Obama hailed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran as a milestone for hard-nosed diplomacy, but Trump has criticised the document for not addressing the country’s missile program or support for terrorist groups. Some of his staunchest allies, including Iran’s regional rival, Israel.
While the US acknowledges that Iran is adhering to all of its commitments, Trump’s envoy, Brian Hook, said the country was violating the spirit of the deal by disrupting “regional and international peace and security.” He spoke in Vienna after the last session of the committee monitoring the deal.
The March 16 meeting focussed on concerns that US stonewalling and saber-rattling were preventing Iran from reaping the economic benefits it was promised from major powers, even though inspectors have repeatedly verified its compliance, documents seen by Bloomberg show.
Trump’s threats to reinstate sanctions hamper the plans of companies eager to invest in Iran, including Daimler AG, Airbus SE and Peugeot SA. Both China and Russia already have major investments in Iran.
Iran is focussed on making sure JCPOA countries follow through on commitments to build a reactor for producing isotopes used in high-tech products for industries from health care to engineering, according to the documents. The pledge was key to convincing Iran to destroy most of the reactor it had spent a decade assembling at
a facility called Arak, which was
designed to produce medical isotopes but could also have yielded plutonium for weapons.
The Atomic Energy Organization in Tehran said that it would announce technological advancements related to heavy water, the element that will moderate reactions in its reactors on April 9. Iran has already hired China to help redesign Arak, but the JCPOA has yet to give the sign-off needed to begin work.
“Any failure of the negotiating partners to provide a new design would be a material violation by that side of the deal since Iran has completed its part,” said Robert Kelley, a US nuclear weapons engineer and former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
This is where Iran and other proponents of the deal get nervous about Trump’s appointment of Bolton, who has a history of scuttling deals.
Back in 2003, as then-President George W. Bush’s undersecretary of state for arms control, he successfully pushed for the US to abandon the so-called Agreed Framework to denuclearise North Korea.

Israel carried out attack on Syrian base: Russia
Bloomberg

Israeli aircraft carried out an attack on an airbase in Syria early on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, shifting suspicion away from the US after President Donald Trump had vowed retaliation for a reported chemical weapons attack.
Israel, which has targeted arms convoys in Syria dozens of times, had no comment, as is its custom. While Israel has maintained a policy of largely staying out of the civil war that’s been raging on its northern frontier, it has claimed the right to take action against activities by Iran and its proxies that threaten its security.
Russia said two Israeli planes attacked the Al Tiyas, or T-4, military base from Lebanese airspace before dawn. Three missiles hit their targets and five others were shot down by Syrian forces, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Russia’s military is backing the Syrian government and helped turn the tide of war in President Bashar al-Assad’s favour.
Syria’s official SANA news agency said eight missiles were intercepted, adding there were casualties. At least 14 people, including Iranians, were killed in the attack, Sky News Arabia reporting, citing the opposition-aligned Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights.
Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to “coordinate a strong, joint response” following a suspected weekend gas attack on rebel-held territory in the east of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Rescue workers and activists said more than 40 people died.
The missile raid on Monday “in some respects takes away the onus on the US, France and the international community to respond in force” because it mirrors actions the US undertook to a previous chemical weapons attack a year ago, said Andrew Freeman, a London-based analyst with consultancy firm Control Risks.
In April 2017, the US hit a Syrian government airfield with missiles after a panel of experts concluded Assad’s forces were responsible for a sarin nerve agent attack on
the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhoun that killed at least 83 people and sickened close to 300.
Israel has warned it won’t let Syria become an Iranian base and will intercept weapons shipments bound for Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fighting alongside Syria’s regime. “We won’t allow Syria to transfer weapons to Lebanon, we won’t allow Iran to build military bases in Syria and we won’t allow the opening of a new front in the Golan Heights,” Yoav Gallant, security cabinet member and minister, told.