Any permanent agreement with Iran “cannot succeed if its President Hassan Rouhani acts according to its words, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday in his report on conversations at last week’s World Economic Forum at Davos.

“Rouhani said that Iran was against international involvement in Syria, but Iran is the country that is most involved and aids the Assad regime in perpetrating mass slaughters on a daily basis,” the Prime Minister noted.

“He said that he was against the killing of innocents, but several days previously dozens of people were executed in Iran, most of whom, I can assure you, were innocent….

“The most important and most significant thing, Rouhani said that Iran would not dismantle even one centrifuge.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu cited Rouhani’s “assault of pleasantness” and added, “There is a problem here. We know the truth. There is a regime here that, under cover of an assault of smiles, is trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons, to reach the status of a threshold state that could achieve nuclear weapons very quickly, and a country that has not changed its true ideology at all.”

President Shimon Peres found himself in rare agreement with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Davos Thursday in denouncing the speech by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the 2014 World Economic Forum.

After the Prime Minister warned everyone not be deceived by Rouhani’s smiles, Peres said at a press conference, “The most significant remarks were the ones he didn’t make – he didn’t express support for peace in the Middle East. He is the only leader I know who didn’t say clearly the time has come to make peace between Israel and the Arabs.

“He excluded the reference to peace and when he was asked if his vision included all countries he said it included only the ones that Iran will accept, that is some definition.

“He didn’t announce that in order to reduce the bloodshed in Syria, he’s going to stop sending arms and money to Hezbollah to the stop the killing. He could have announced that seeing as he doesn’t want a nuclear bomb that he will stop building long range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“He didn’t announce that Iran will stop being the center of terror in our time. “

Lest anyone think that President Peres’ vision of the world might have improved, he put them at ease by stating his support for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. “I believe President Obama is trying to do the right thing and the US has decided not to stop the sanctions fully until they see the results,” Peres declared.” Secretary Kerry is doing an excellent job with dynamism and determination. There are different opinions, different options and it is normal that they are being examined.”

Mohammed “Rouhani is continuing with the Iranian show of deception,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday after the Iranian president’s speech to the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos.

Rouhani said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in constructive cooperation for promoting global energy security, drawing on its vast oil and gas resources. I hereby announce that one of the theoretical and practical priorities of my government is constructive engagement with the world.”

He limited his definition of the world to those countries that Iran recognizes- in other words, a world without Israel.

Rouhani also said with a straight face, “We never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons. I declare that a nuclear weapon has no place in our security strategy.”

The media lapped up the loving words, but Netanyahu warned everyone not to be fooled.

“At a time when Rouhani condemns the killing of innocents, dozens of innocents were recently executed in Iran,” said the Prime Minister. “At a time when Rouhani talks about a positive approach to technology, he prevents Iranians from freely surfing the Internet. At a time when Rouhani talks about peace with the countries of the Middle East, he refuses – even today – to recognize the existence of the State of Israel, and his regime daily calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

“At a time when Rouhani claims that Iran is not interested in a nuclear project for military purposes, Iran continues to strengthen its centrifuges and heavy water reactor, and to arm itself with intercontinental missiles, the sole purpose of which is for nuclear weapons….

“The goal of the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime, which is hiding behind Rouhani’s smiles, is to ease sanctions without conceding on their program to produce nuclear weapons.”

The United Nations has bowed to pressure from  the United States and Saudi Arabia and has rescinded its unexpected invitation to Iran to attend  the Geneva II  conference for peace in Syria Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon reconsidered the invitation after Iran stated refused to back up a previous promise that it would publicly support the creation of a transitional government for Syria.

“Iran, despite assurances made to the secretary-general, has made a disappointing statement,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said earlier in the day before the decision to rescind.

“The Islamic Republic doesn’t consider the Geneva II conference legitimate if it hinges on accepting the terms of Geneva I,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, senior foreign-policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We don’t accept Geneva I under any circumstances.”

The sudden changes in preparations for the conference could scuttle the lakes, which are given zero chance of succeeding anyway.

Iran now has made it is clear how much it can be trusted, but that does not mean that President Barack Obama and other members of the P5+1 will understand that Tiran will not live up to its commitments under the agreement for supervising its nuclear development.

The United States has backed an ultimatum by Syrian opposition forces to rescind an invitation to Iran to joint the Geneva II peace talks scheduled for Wednesday unless Tehran publicly accepts that the conference will establish a political process to end the rule of Syrian President Bassar al-Assad.

The peace talks appeared to be over before they were to start following an ultimatum Monday by the  Syrian National Coalition that the invitation be rescinded by Monday night.

“The Syrian Coalition announces that they will withdraw their attendance in Geneva II unless Ban Ki-moon retracts Iran’s invitation,” it said in a Twitter post.

The coalition said it could accept Iran at the talks only if it were to remove its forces  fighting with  to maintain his control of war-torn country.

Given pre-conditions by Assad and the Opposition concerning a future government, the chances of anything positive coming out of Geneva II are nil.

Originally published at Daniel Pipes.

According to a sensational report by Awad Mustafa in DefenseNews, a Gannett publication, not only has Tehran signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates over three disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz, but it has also reached a possibly even more important accord with the government of Oman. Both of these agreements have vast implications for the oil trade, the world economy, and Iranian influence.

According an unnamed “high level UAE source,” secretive talks taking place over six months led to a deal on the Greater and Lesser Tunbs finalized on Dec. 24: “For now, two of the three islands are to return to the UAE while the final agreement for Abu Musa is being ironed out. Iran will retain the sea bed rights around the three islands while the UAE will hold sovereignty over the land.”

This is big news, but yet bigger potentially is the source’s stating that “Oman will grant Iran a strategic location on Ras Musandam mountain, which is a very strategic point overlooking the whole gulf region. In return for Ras Musandam, Oman will receive free gas and oil from Iran once a pipeline is constructed within the coming two years.”

Both agreements center around the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil passageway and vulnerability.

The UAE deal involves the tiny but strategic islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs near the straits, occupied by Iranian forces since 1971, just as the UAE emerged as an independent country.

It’s not clear what granting to the Iranians “a strategic location on Ras Musandam mountain” means but Musandam is the very tip of the Straits of Hormuz and Tehran winning access to any sort of military position there could enhance its ability to block the oil trade as well as make trouble on the peninsula.

Oman’s role in facilitating the UAE-Iran talks, says the source, was approved by Washington: “Oman was given the green light from Iran and the US to reach deals that would decrease the threat levels in the region and offset the Saudi Arabian influence in the future by any means.”

Comments:

(1) As if the Joint Plan of Action announced by the P5+1 and Tehran on Nov. 24 were not a disaster on the nuclear issue, it is also encouraging regional governments to appease the bellicose and ambitious Iranian regime.

(2) That the Obama administration seeks to “offset” Saudi influence with Iranian influence sounds unlikely – but given the geniuses occupying the White House these days, who knows? (January 15, 2014)

Jan. 18, 2014 update: The Middle East Forum’s Steven J. Rosen points out to me that news reports last month alleging Iranian concessions on the three Persian Gulf islands prompted a vehement denial from the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Dec. 11:

We have always emphasized that the issue of sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the Lesser Tunb, the Greater Tunb, and Abu Moussa cannot be the subject of Iran-UAE negotiations. … Any type of news fabrication on Iran-UAE negotiations on the sovereignty of those three islands is absolutely baseless, and sheer lies, and we categorically deny them.

In similar fashion, one would now expect an even stronger denial from Tehran, as well as one from Musqat, the capital of Oman.

Three days after the DefenseNews article, however, silence reigns. As best I can tell, news reports in all languages, including Arabic and Persian, on this alleged deal derive from that single report. This could either mean that its author, Awad Mustafa, struck gold or it is completely off the mark.

The United States, which almost ignores the Palestinian Authority when it praises terrorists, has condemned the Iranian foreign minister for honoring Hezbollah mastermind terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in 2008.

“The United States condemns the decision taken by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari to place a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a former leader of Lebanese Hezbollah responsible for heinous acts of terrorism that killed hundreds of innocent people, including Americans,” Caitlin Hayden, the White House National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement after Zarif visited Mughniyeh’s grave in Beirut.

Mughniyeh is believed to be behind the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, which together killed 268 Americans and scores of others, as well as attacks in the 1990s on the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which together killed 114 people.

“The inhumane violence that Mughniyeh perpetrated – and that Lebanese Hezbollah continues to perpetrate in the region with Iran’s financial and material support – has had profoundly destabilizing and deadly effects for Lebanon and the region,” Hayden added. “The decision to commemorate an individual who has participated in such vicious acts, and whose organization continues to actively support terrorism worldwide, sends the wrong message and will only exacerbate tensions in the region.”

The Obama  administration apparently thinks differently when it comes to terrorists working out of Ramallah, where PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his officials constantly honor “martyrs.”

After the Palestinian Authority again celebrated the return of murderers whom Israel freed from jails under pressure from  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a reporter covering the U.S. State Dept. asked spokeswoman Jen Psaki if making heroes out of murdered is not incitement. “I’m not going to give an analysis of every action and what is incitement and what is not incitement,” she replied.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said less than two weeks ago that the Palestinian Authority continues to incite Arabs to commit violence by honoring terrorists and promoting violence in official PA media and in the school system, but Psaki again played foosie rather than say anything that might upset Abbas.

“We’ve spoken about our concerns about incitement consistently over the course of years…I don’t know that we have anything new to report or any analysis on the recent comments over the last couple of days,” she said.

Over the years?

Three years ago, in March 2011, the Palestinian Authority named a town square near Ramallah in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, the female terrorist responsible for an attack that killed 35 Israelis in the 1978 “Coastal Road” massacre. Abbas was on hand for the ceremony.

The Obama administration said nothing for four days.

Silence.

Not a word was heard, because honoring terrorists is not okay if the murderers are from Hezbollah, but it is nice and proper if the killing is part of the Palestinian Authority “resistance” of Israel as  Jewish state.

The State Dept. initially said it was trying to “clarify” the report” of the Palestinian Authority’s honoring Mughrabi.

The spokesman at the time, Mark Toner, finally stated four days later, “We condemn this commemoration of terrorism and have conveyed our deep concern about this incident to senior officials in the Palestinian Authority and have urged them to address it. We underscore that all parties have an obligation to end any form of incitement.”

The Obama administration is “concerned” about Palestinian Authority incitement, just like it is “concerned” about Israel’s building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Compare that comment with the White House National Security Council’s statement above: ““The decision to commemorate an individual who has participated in such vicious acts, and whose organization continues to actively support terrorism worldwide, sends the wrong message and will only exacerbate tensions in the region.”

A terrorist group linked with Al Qaeda and whose leader was arrested and later died in Lebanon has threatened  to attack Iran.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades accused Hezbollah of killing its leader Majid al-Majid after Lebanese authorities arrested him and then claimed he died in a hospital from a chronic illness.

The Brigades, comprised of Sunni Muslims,  blamed Hezbollah, backed by Iran, for Majid’s death.

The terrorist group claimed responsibility for a November attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut that killed 25 people.