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. *[image: WAR REPORT] <http://www.spacewar.com/War_Report.html>* *US ready to risk Israel, Saudi wrath to seal Iran deal* *IAEA chief holds nuclear talks in Iran* Vienna (AFP) Nov 11, 2013 - The head of the UN atomic watchdog holds talks in Tehran on Monday after Iran and world powers failed to cut even an initial nuclear deal over three gruelling days in Geneva. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said before leaving Sunday that his negotiations were "independent" to those of Iran with six world powers, known as the P5+1. But after Iran and the six powers dramatically fell short in Switzerland, a deal with the IAEA could help repair damaged hopes for progress ahead of the next P5+1 round on November 20. "The only reason he (Amano) would go would be if he's confident that they were going to agree on something," one Western diplomat in Vienna told AFP, predicting an initial accord with "confidence-building measures". Talking to a scrum of reporters before he took off from Vienna airport on Sunday, the Japanese Amano said that Iran and the UN body had reached a "very important point". "Iran presented a new proposal (to the IAEA) last month that includes practical measures to strengthen cooperation and dialogue, and we hope to build on it," Amano said. Mindful of his last Tehran trip in May 2012 when he failed to clinch an accord, Amano though stopped short of echoing Iran's IAEA envoy in predicting a breakthrough. The IAEA conducts regular inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but it also wants Tehran to answer allegations that it was trying before 2003, and maybe since, to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and says the IAEA's claims are based on faulty intelligence from the likes of the CIA and Israel's Mossad. For two years and in numerous meetings, Tehran has resisted IAEA requests to visit sites where these alleged activities took place as well as to consult documents and speak to certain Iranian scientists. The sites include the Parchin military base where the IAEA wants to probe claims that scientists conducted explosives tests that it says would be "strong indicators of possible nuclear weapon development". But the election this year of the more moderate Hassan Rouhani as Iranian president has created fresh hope and momentum, as it has with Iran's separate but related talks with world powers. Those discussions with the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany are focused more on Tehran's current activities, in particular uranium enrichment, with Iran seeking sanctions relief. The two diplomatic "tracks" are closely related, however, since world powers want Iran to answer the IAEA's questions in order to ease fears that Tehran wants the bomb. The six countries -- all of which except Germany have nuclear weapons -- also want Tehran to submit to more intrusive inspections by the watchdog as part of a wider accord. The IAEA would also be closely involved in monitoring any freeze in enrichment and in Iran sending its stockpiles of nuclear material to a third country. Hopes had soared for a deal in Geneva after foreign ministers including US Secretary of State John Kerry joined the talks. But cracks emerged among the powers and nothing was signed. Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power which has refused to rule out bombing Iran, had expressed massive misgivings, calling the mooted agreement "bad and dangerous". by Staff Writers Washington (AFP) Nov 11, 2013 The United States remains ready to upset key allies Israel and Saudi Arabia by securing a swift nuclear deal with Iran despite the failure of talks in Geneva, US-based analysts said Sunday. While Tehran remained under the greatest pressure to reach a speedy deal with the major powers, they said, Washington was anxious to take advantage of Iran's willingness to negotiate an accord and avert future conflict in the Middle East. Three grueling days of discussions between Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany ended early Sunday without agreement. The parties had been hoping to broker an accord that would curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. By searching for a deal in Geneva, the US was "maybe trying to go a little too far, too fast, but they were induced by the Iranian enthusiasm," according to Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. "It is really the convergence of US and Iranian desires to avoid an even deeper confrontation over the nuclear file that makes an agreement possible at this stage," he added, citing the 10-year impasse concerning the nuclear program, which Western powers suspect of being geared towards producing an atomic bomb rather than peaceful civilian uses. Alireza Nader, a senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation think-tank, questioned the suggestion that the United States was "rushing" to reach a deal at any cost with Iran, with whom it has had no diplomatic relations since 1980. Despite the historic phone call between US President Barack Obama and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani at the end of September, any improvement in relations between the two sides must continue to be viewed in the context of the decades of mistrust and animosity that preceded it. However, it was the clear the the United States was keen on reaching an agreement in Geneva, because a "a deal as a first step (provides) an opportunity to stop Iran from moving towards a nuclear weapons breakout capability." Nader said the Obama administration had always favored a diplomatic solution to the nuclear stand-off. "I don't think the US position has changed in the last few months," Nader said. "What we have seen now is the willingness by Iran to negotiate." Iran was keen to see an easing crippling sanctions, notably restrictions, which have frozen overseas assets worth several billion dollars. US Secretary of State John Kerry meanwhile defended Washington against the accusation that it was pursuing a deal with Tehran at all costs. "We are not blind, and I don't think we're stupid," Kerry said. He also sent a new message to Israel and Saudi Arabia, who have grown increasingly alarmed at the warming of US-Iranian ties, saying Washington had a "pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe, and particularly of our allies like Israel and Gulf States." Israel and Saudi Arabia anxious Analysts are adamant that Israel and Saudi Arabia remain resolutely opposed to any deal between Washington and Tehran. "Both the Israelis and the Saudis have indicated publicly they want the United States to go to war with Iran," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. "If there is a deal, there will not be a war, that's why they are upset." RAND Corporation expert Nader also noted the "anxiety" of Israel and Saudi Arabia, who likely feared that a US-Iran deal would be harmful to their long-term strategic interests. "They are worried about Iranian-American relations improving to their detriment," Nader said. The possibility of Iran playing a bigger role in regional affairs "creates anxiety for Israel and Saudi Arabia." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel would do all it could to "convince world powers to avoid a bad deal." American Task Force on Palestine expert Ibish said Gulf states already "seem to be concluding, with alarm, that the US is morphing from the guarantor of regional stability to a broker of unsatisfactory and tenuous agreements with regimes that should be confronted or contained." "The Saudis and other Gulf states are starting to ask the question 'Why does the US seem to be developing a panel of rewarding its enemies and punishing its friends?'" . __._,_.___ __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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