Ayatollah ’s illness raises fear of power struggle

DEBKA ─ Spy services world wide have been mystified by the unusual absence from public view of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for nearly three weeks. He was last seen in public on Oct. 5 visiting the military college in Tehran with army chiefs.

According to one theory, he suffered a relapse from a chronic ailment and was secretly treated in the small hospital installed at his home. Another suggested he had gone into seclusion to escape the furor raging in his regime over the future of Iran’s nuclear program and relations wit the United States.

This dissonance erupted most recently in conflicting statements issued Friday, Oct. 26: One official reported that 20 percent uranium enrichment had been halted – only to be contradicted by another.

Khamenei can’t just drop out of sight unnoticed like some other world leaders because he routinely officiates at a heavy schedule of political and religious events.

His absence was widely remarked, when he failed, for instance, to deliver the keynote sermon at the annual Eid, Festival of the Sacrifice, two weeks ago, with explanation.

Neither did he send his usual message to this year’s pilgrimage to Mecca.

Concerns are growing in Iran about the health of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, amid fears of a power vacuum at a critical moment for the Islamic Republic.

Indeed, the Shiite pilgrims abstained from demonstrations in closed tents during the hajj, an arrangement permitted under an agreement with the Saudi authorities after years of violent outbreaks.

And finally, no messages or blessings came from the supreme leader – not just for Eid but for Ghadir, a most important festival on the Shiite calendar. It is a celebration of the Shiite belief that Prophet Muhammad anointed Ali as his successor before a large assembly of the faithful – a claim repudiated by Sunni Muslims.

The rumor that Khamenei was undergoing life-saving medical treatment in the privacy of his home was, according to DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources, denied by recent visitors who found him to be in good health and active. They said he had gone into seclusion by choice, to immerse himself in the final evaluation and drafting of the trilateral US-Russian-Iranian accord for resolving the issues of Iran’s nuclear program.

They add that this accord is already secretly in the bag. But the three leaders have decided not to break the news too abruptly. President Barack Obama is expected to announce publicly in the third week of December that an initial understanding has been reached on the road toward a partial and gradual accord. Ayatollah Khamenei and President Vladimir Putin are planning to drop word of a final agreement unfolding in stages, to avoid shock effects in Tehran as well as in other concerned Middle East capitals, such as Jerusalem and Riyadh.

Ayatollah ’s illness raises fear of power struggle

Inflation and weak rial push Iran’s middle class towards poverty

RT ─ As she points to the empty shelves of her freezer, Nahaal sighs, remembering how they used to be stuffed with meat and delicacies.

Now she can barely make ends meet. “I have never felt under such financial pressure in 15 years of married life,” the 43-year-old retired secretary says in her rented apartment in Motahhari, a central Tehran neighbourhood.

“My husband and I have forgotten about our own needs – sometimes we even forgo medical treatment – and we only focus on education, food and the health of our daughter.”

Iranians count and exchang United States dollars and Iranian rial banknotes. The value of the rial has plunged in recent weeks. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

Maintaining a decent lifestyle is increasingly challenging for middle-class Iranians like Nahaal and her husband Ali, a computer engineer whose earnings have lagged behind Iran’s annual inflation of 40 per cent (unofficial estimates say the real figure is double this) and have been affected by the plunge of the rial by around 50 per cent over the past year.

The country’s economy has deteriorated rapidly thanks to oil and banking sanctions imposed by US and European Union over Tehran’s nuclear programme, and because of the populist policies of former president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who doled out monthly cash payments and gave cheap housing loans to the poor.

Consumer prices have risen consistently as domestic industry has stagnated, GDP has shrunk by 5.4 per cent over the past year and youth unemployment is officially estimated at 28.30 per cent.

During Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s eight-year tenure, the percentage of Iranian families living under the poverty line increased from 22 per cent to more than 40 per cent, according to Hossein Raghfar, a prominent economist who warned that middle class families like Nahaal and Ali’s are feeling increasingly insecure as they see their living standards deteriorate.

Until two years ago, Nahaal and Ali spent most weekends enjoying dinner parties and lunches with relatives and friends. Over rich Persian dishes, talk would revolve around the latest mobile phones and laptops, the best schools and buying apartments.

Then the economic crisis started to bite.

Now Nahaal says her family is invited to a party “maybe” every other month, and the food on offer is much simpler. “While I’m eating I think how much it will cost us when we reciprocate that lunch or dinner,” she says. “And worse than that, everyone just talks about how difficult life has become and how it may even get worse, which stresses me out more.”

About half of Ali’s salary goes toward paying rent – around $500 per month – leaving him unable to save any money. He also has to repay a loan he took out in the summer to treat the family to a four-day holiday to the southern Island of Kish, which cost about $1,500. “I earn a weak rial and spend expensive dollars,” he says.

The election of Hassan Rouhani, the new centrist president, has given Ali and Nahaal a glimmer of hope. Mr Rouhani came to office promising to alleviate hardship through a combination of economic reforms and easing sanctions through nuclear talks negotiations with the major powers.

The couple say they voted for Mr Rouhani and hope his moderation will at least prevent the economy from getting worse. “Rouhani has so far done a good job on nuclear policy and in dealing with the US, like speaking with [President Barack] Obama by telephone,” Ali says.

“His victory has not improved our economic situation yet, but we have no choice but to hope that he can get the sanctions lifted gradually and honourably without sacrificing the nuclear programme or submitting to the US’s bullying.”

But Ali is realistic about the challenges ahead. His salary has been paid late for several months in a row, even though he works for one of Iran’s richest entities, the quasi-state-owned Social Security Organisation.

The organisation lent IR540tn ($21.7bn) to the previous government, which is now part of the IR1,800tn ($72.5bn) debt Mr Rouhani last week said his government has inherited.

The massive debt plus a budget deficit that is unofficially estimated to be as high as $28bn prompted the parliament on Wednesday to revise the budget to accommodate a projected 30 per cent decrease in revenue this fiscal year, which ends in late march. The government warned that it would not be able to pay public-sector salaries without the budget revision.

To further narrow the deficit, the government is to exclude millions of better off Iranians from a monthly cash payment of about $18 designed to compensate the slash in subsidies on energy and basic commodities.

“If this applies to us, we will be under even more pressure,” Ali says.

The couple say they have given up on their dream of owning the apartment they rent. “I have little doubt now that I have to take that dream to the grave,” Nahaal says. “We will be very lucky if we are not forced to sell our carpets or move to a poor neighbourhood in southern Tehran.”

Inflation and weak rial push Iran’s middle class towards poverty

Nuclear group: Time Iran would need to make uranium for a bomb "too short"

CNN ─ Iran may need only a month to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb, a U.S.-based anti-proliferation group says in a new assessment of Tehran’s enrichment program.

But that is only if the country were able to take the most extreme and direct enrichment path, says the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. Under other scenarios, it would take significantly longer for Tehran to produce the material — more than 11 months in one estimate.

And that would still not give Iran a nuclear bomb. Turning enriched uranium into a usable weapon would take a great deal more time, the report suggests.

The warning Thursday from ISIS was released as U.S. lawmakers consider legislation that could tighten sanctions on Iran until a deal is reached on the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program.

It also comes after talks resumed on the program between Iran and six world powers — the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain — known as the P5+1.

The report examines scenarios under which Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb — and “break out” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

In a statement that described the report as “extremely alarming,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, urged the United States to consider all options, including the use of military force, “to prevent Iran from acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons. We all want negotiations to succeed, but time is clearly running out.”

The report adds to the sense of urgency over the talks, said Shashank Joshi, a research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. But, he noted, not all analysts share the group’s view. He said it would be difficult for Iran to secretly work toward a bomb without kicking out international inspectors.

ISIS appears to have overestimated the pace of Iran’s nuclear development in the past, however. In a December 2008 report, it said Iran was expected to reach a nuclear weapons capability “during 2009 under a wide variety of scenarios.”

The Iranian government declared the report baseless.

“This is a huge lie because, according to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, production, storage and use of weapons of mass destruction are haraam (forbidden by Islam),” said Marzieh Afkham, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “Weapons of mass destruction have no place in the Islamic Republic’s doctrine. This kind of report is totally false.”

FILE – In this Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007 file photo, an Iranian technician works at the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the city of Isfahan 255 miles (410 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

 

Important for negotiations

According to ISIS, the quickest route to a usable amount of weapons-grade uranium in the current circumstances could take Iran “as little as approximately 1.0–1.6 months.”

It said it updated its estimates based on the view that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges at its Fordow and Natanz plants and has begun installing a more advanced centrifuge model at Natanz.

“The shortening breakout times have implications for any negotiation with Iran,” the report says. “An essential finding is that they are currently too short and shortening further, based on the current trend of centrifuge deployments.”

The U.S. government has said it believes Iran is about a year away from a nuclear weapon — a more advanced stage than the one the ISIS report is forecasting.

ISIS says that its estimates don’t factor in the time Iran would need to convert enriched uranium into weapons components and to build a nuclear missile.

“This extra time could be substantial, particularly if Iran wanted to build a reliable warhead for a ballistic missile,” the report says. “However, these preparations would most likely be conducted at secret sites and would be difficult to detect.”

Iran would face considerable hurdles to manufacturing a viable weapon without alerting International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

The inspectors frequently visit Iran’s declared nuclear stockpiles — sometimes with less than two hours’ notice — and check that Iranians are not carrying out other enrichment activities or diverting nuclear material, Joshi said.

“So if Iran was trying to bust the rules, it would not in two hours be able to conceal what it had been doing,” he said.

Iranian officials optimistic after Geneva talks

Painful sanctions

Iran, whose economy is suffering severely under the U.S. and U.N. sanctions imposed because of its nuclear program, has long maintained that it is developing nuclear energy capabilities for peaceful purposes only.

But amid a tentative thaw in relations between Tehran and Washington since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office in August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged the world community to be skeptical of Rouhani, calling him “a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

And members from both parties in the U.S. Congress have urged the Obama administration not to prematurely loosen any of the sanctions on Iran’s economy.

Senior congressional staff members met Thursday with White House officials over Iran.

“Congress has been an important partner in our efforts thus far,” said Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman. “We will continue our close consultation, as we have in the past, so that any congressional action is aligned with our negotiating strategy as we move forward.”

Iran nuclear talks

The next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 is scheduled to take place next month in Geneva. A statement after the previous round, last week, described the talks as “substantive and forward-looking.”

The tone of the negotiations appeared to signal a shift, a departure from the diplomatic standoff that prevailed under former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But details on the substance of the talks were scarce.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said this week that the United States will not let up its pressure on Tehran, despite the recent diplomatic overtures between the two countries.

“We will pursue a diplomatic initiative with eyes wide open, aware it will be vital for Iran to live up to those standards other nations that have nuclear programs live up to as they prove those programs are indeed peaceful,” he said in Rome during a meeting Wednesday with Netanyahu.

“No deal is better than a bad deal,” Kerry said, echoing comments from Netanyahu. “But if this can be solved satisfactorily, diplomatically, it is clearly better for everyone.”

Netanyahu, who has said Iran’s nuclear program poses an existential threat to Israel, has listed a series of measures he says Tehran needs to undertake, including a prohibition on centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium to a weapons-grade level.

Tensions over U.S. policy on Iran have emerged with another regional ally, Saudi Arabia. The Sunni nation is wary of any rise in influence by the Shiite theocracy of Iran across the Middle East and has pushed behind the scenes for greater U.S. involvement in Syria, whose President, Bashar al-Assad, is propped up by the regime in Tehran.

Nuclear group: Time Iran would need to make uranium for a bomb "too short"