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International-relations scholar Dalia Dassa Kaye has a question after reading a New York Times story about the possibility of the U.S. rejoining and reviving the nuclear-weapons agreement with Iran:

The short answer is easy: No. Almost certainly not. Hardly anyone will change their vote regardless of what happens with the Iran deal.

The long answer is a little more complicated. As far as voting is concerned, theres very little evidence that anyone changes their mind based on foreign affairs. In fact, theres little evidence that international political events, even fairly dramatic ones, havemuch of an influence on presidential popularity, with the exception of short-lived rally effects.Even the most dramatic spike in the history of presidential polling, after the Sept. 11 attacks, gave George W. Bush a surge thattook only about 15 months to dissipate. Normal rallies are gone in weeks, sometimes days.

The one big exception is that wars producing U.S. casualties do usually hurt apresidents popularity, typically after an initial positive rally. The major examples are Harry Truman withKorea, Lyndon Johnson (and to some extent Richard Nixon) withVietnam, and George W. Bush withIraq. But winning a war doesnt really do much for a president. George H.W. Bush was president during a brief successful conflict with Panama, a decisive war with Iraq, and a very successful end to the Cold War. None of that saved him from a defeat when he sought re-election in 1992. (The most famous example of such a loss was from abroad:Winston Churchill lost soon after World War II.For that matter, Trumans Democrats lost majorities in both chambers of Congress in the first midterm after World War II.)

So my guess is that as long as war doesnt break out with Iran, President Joe Biden will be neither helped nor hurt by whatever happens.

That said, candidates do talk about foreign affairs during campaigns, whether or not voters pay attention. If the U.S. does re-enter the nuclear deal, Republicans will criticize Biden for that. If itdoesnt, theyll blame him as Iran grows closer to testing a nuclear weapon. Andcampaign promises can be very important, whether they change election outcomes or not. Indeed, weve seen that twice now on this specific policy question:Donald Trump campaigned against the nuclear dealin 2016 and then withdrew from it, while Biden campaigned on re-entering and has worked toward doing so.

In part, these promises come about simply because candidates for federal office, especially governors and others who have only minimal foreign-policy experience, want to demonstrate competence in theseareas. But another reason isbecause both Democrats and Republicans have groups within their parties that care a lot about foreign policy, in general or over specific policy areas. Winning support from those groups may be important for winning nominations. So candidates will try to align their policy preferences and priorities with them. And because foreign-policy experts within the Republican Party do tend to care a lot about Iran, we can expect Republican candidates to talk about it in 2022 and 2024. Regardless of what voters think.

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Could an Iran Deal Sway the Next Election? - Bloomberg

The Lead: Yemen reset linked to Iran

US ups the ante in Yemen

The Biden administration is shifting its approach to the Yemen war, now entering its seventh year, in response to escalating drone and missile attacks by Ansarallah (Supporters of God, the formal name of the Houthis) on the home territories of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Just this week, the United States committed more military support to its Gulf partners while weighing whether to return Ansarallah to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizationsor, failing that, sanctioning key Houthi leaders.

The bottom line is that the United States is getting more, not less, involved in Yemen, as crucial nuclear talks with the Houthis backer, Iran, enter their final weeks. Consider this timeline:

2021: A particular focus on Houthi sanctions

2022: Holding Houthis accountable

So far in 2022, again according to the UN, there have been 1,403 coalition airstrikes on Yemen and an additional 39 attacks by the Houthis directly on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Our take: Watch the Iran talks

1. Iran and Israel: Bennett knocks Bibis unacceptable legacy

In what Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has touted as a period of unprecedented buildup, the Israeli military has embarked on a massive spending spree that includes acquisitions of missiles, rockets, ammunition, refueling aircraft, development of laser-based interceptor systems and new cyber tools. Bennett told Al-Monitor that the billions in additional defense expenditure will prevent war, not bring it closer, and he hopes to raise Israels GDP to $1 trillion within 12 years.

Bennett also discussed Benjamin Netanyahus unacceptable legacy on Iran, Israels disagreements with its great friend the United States and his view of the Vienna talks. [Iran] must be given a choice survival of the regime or a continued race to nuclear capabilities, and they must not be given a gift of tens of billions, he said. Read more of Ben Caspitsrecent interview with Bennett here.

2. Iran and Turkey: Iranian gas outages trigger energy review

In other Iran news, a disruption of Iranian gas supplies to Turkey this month triggeredan unprecedented energy crunchthat put Ankaras energy preparedness under new scrutiny. The gas cut on Jan. 20, which was blamed on a technical hitch in the pipeline between neighbors, forced Turkeys state pipeline operator to slash gas supplies to industrial zones and resulted in a supply drop of about 20 million cubic meters per day.

The energy crunch hit production at hundreds of enterprises at a time when Turkeys industry is already grappling with economic turmoil and skyrocketing gas and electricity prices, raising questions over Ankaras energy ties with Tehran and its energy policies, writes Muhdan Saglam. Energy pundits say the Turkish government was slow to respond to the stoppage, having failed to prepare for harsh winter weather and tough market conditions.

3. Iran and China: Beijing bolsters Iran ties with new consulate

Meanwhile, Iran has approved Chinas opening of a new consulate in the port city of Bandar Abbas, in what Sabena Siddiqui calls a significant development for Sino-Iranian ties. The consulate Chinas first in Iran is likely linked to the 25-year strategic pact the two countries signed in March 2021, which brought Tehran into Beijings Belt and Road Initiative.

China remains Irans top trading partner. But whether the pair can deepen economic ties with the Islamic Republichinges on the outcome of theVienna talks, including whether the United States will lift its secondary sanctions on Iran.

4. Egypt boosts Africa investment with new solar plant

As the long-running dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt continues over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian government is shoring up relations with other African countries. Most recently, Egypt inaugurated a solar power plant in eastern Uganda,whichIbrahim Ayyadreportsis the latest example of an Egyptian development project on the African continent. The power plants opening comes amid recent reports that Addis Ababa has begun testing power generation at the GERD at a time when Cairo called for resuming negotiations on a binding agreement.

5. Hamas producesalternative to Israels Fauda

A new Hamas-backed action series is coming to television screens across the Arab world this spring. The 30-episode show called Qabdat al-Ahrar ("Fist of the Free") portrays the infiltration of an Israeli cell sent to the Gaza Strip to abduct a prominent Palestinian resistance leader.

The series was filmed on location in the Gaza Strip with local actors.Ahmad Melhem writes thatHamas is framing the showas the alternative to Fauda, a popular Israeli series about an Israeli counterterrorism unit operating in the West Bank.

Listen: Back from her reporting trip to Ukraine, Amberin Zaman and analyst lliya Kusa discuss why Ukrainians are so fond of Turkey and its authoritarian leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Link here.

Watch: A search is now underway to find Islamic State fighters who escaped from a Kurdish-run prison in northeast Syria last month. Link here.

Listen: Ben Caspit interviews Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli minister and retired brigadier general, about the Bennett-led governments policy on the Palestinians.Link here.

Watch: Gilles Kepel talks with former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud about his new book, The Afghanistan File.Link here.

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The Takeaway: Yemens future may be affected by Iran talks - Al-Monitor

TEHRAN Mohammad Eslami, the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), visited the family of martyr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on Wednesday during which he said the Iranian nation will see soon feel the benefits of nuclear industry in their life.

Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear physicist and scientist, was assassinated in a terrorist attack on November 2020 about 40 kilometers northeast of Tehran. Israel was considered the first and foremost culprit behind the assassination.

At the meeting, Eslami congratulated the auspicious days of the victory of the Islamic Revolution and commemorated the memory of Imam Khomeini and the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution.

Our high-ranking martyrs, including martyr Fakhrizadeh, were taking steps to establish the honor and authority of Islamic Iran, an authority in the light of which dignity, comfort and security were established for Iranians, and now our compatriots are moving steadfast in advancing the lofty goals of the country and the Revolution, without being influenced by the power of foreigners, Eslami stated.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran added that he went to pay tribute to the Fakhrizadeh family in a sign of respect to martyrs.

I ask God Almighty to keep us steadfast in this path. I hope that the prayers of the families of the martyrs and the people will accompany us on the path of the Islamic Revolution and the lofty goals of the country, the nuclear chief wished.

He said pressure by the arrogant powers put the country on the path of dignity and independence.

Regarding the achievements of the Islamic Revolution and the countrys nuclear advances and the ineffectiveness of sanctions, Eslami noted that new technologies are a source of authority and power.

From the viewpoint of the arrogant powers, the presence of Islamic Iran among the powerful countries is considered forbidden, because access to new technologies for the sake of wealth creation as well as empowerment for our country, takes us out of the domination of arrogant powers and this is not what they want, he added.

Eslami added that Irans young scientists have achieved very important accomplishments in new technologies through selfless, loving and sincere efforts without taking care of warnings by foreigners, and one of these cases is the recognition of Iran's nuclear activities among the countries of the world.

He continued, The arrogant powers do not like Iran's authority and they took any action to hinder the progress of our youth and create obstacles on our way. But our revolutionary youth took a step towards the development of the country and aspirations with a vision, and today our Revolution celebrates the forty-third anniversary of its victory with fervent youth.

Regarding the development of nuclear technology and the impact of this technology on people's daily lives, Eslami said today nuclear technology is the driver of the development of the country and the impact of this technology in other industries and different parts of people's lives will be manifested.

He added Iran has plans to produce nuclear electricity.

We are trying to achieve this goal with high speed, he reiterated.

According to the AEOI chief, another issue is facilitating the use of radiation in improving the quality of the health sector by using radiopharmaceuticals, which can be widely used in treatment and diagnostics.

Another area is the use of radiation in agricultural, food and environmental industries, in which we will see a direct impact on people's lives, both economically and in terms of health, Eslami further noted.

For his part, the son of Martyr Fakhrizadeh congratulated the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

He also talked about the high goals of the nuclear martyrs for their scientific development of the country.

The path of our scientists in the rapid movement towards new technologies should not be stopped, he noted.

He added that Iranian scientists proved that without any dependence, they conquer the peaks of knowledge that were unimaginable for the world.

He concluded his remarks by saying that the officials must be careful to pave the way for the development of science, especially new technologies, without fear and with confidence.

Whenever we decided to enter a field, we were successful and proud, he asserted.

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Iran's Eslami: People will soon see fruits of nuclear industry - Tehran Times

January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this year's commemoration came at an especially grim time for Jews in the United States and all across the world.

Americans reacted in horror just two weeks prior as an Islamist terrorist took the rabbi and three congregants hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. Apparently a believer in conspiracy theories of Jewish control of the U.S. government, Malik Faisal Akram demanded that the rabbi help gain the release of Aafia Siddiqui, currently serving an 86-year sentence in a nearby Texas prison for the attempted murder of a U.S. Army officer. The Biden administration released a statement in the aftermath declaring it would "stand against antisemitism." But absent a major course correction in the Biden administration's foreign policy, Jews are poised to be held hostage by terrorists on a scale far greater than they were in Texas. Those are the stakes for Israel if Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of antisemitism, acquires a nuclear weapon.

The Biden administration has spent the past year negotiating with Iran via European intermediaries about a mutual return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Though reports suggest that the two sides are still quite far apart, there's no doubt that the administration is eager to reenter the flawed accord. And Iran is leveraging the administration's enthusiasm for rejoining the deal to extract as many concessions as possible; for instance, the mullahs are trying to secure a promise that the U.S. will never abandon the deal and reimpose sanctions in the future, if both sides now come back into compliance.

But Iran's leaders are careful observers of American politics, and they know such a commitment could not hold in a future Republican administration. So, all such a "promise" would amount to is a useful pretext for Iran to walk away in the future. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic has enriched uranium at a 60% level, and claims to be able to enrich at a 90% levelthe threshold for a nuclear bomb.

Regardless of whether the Biden administration secures a new deal, don't expect Iran to abide by it anyway. In 2018, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu definitively exposed how Iran had continued to maintain a secret nuclear weapons program forbidden under the terms of the 2015 deal, when he showed the world a trove of documents Israeli agents had procured during a raid. Current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett used his United Nations General Assembly speech last fall to claim Iran is continuing nuclear activity at secret sites in Turquzabad, Tehran and Marivan.

The existential danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon for Israel is obvious. Even short of a nightmare scenario of Iran using a nuke against Israel, Tehran's mere possession of one could very well trigger a catastrophic regional conflict. Bennett also said in his UN address, "Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning." A pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iranian facilities could very well instigate new rocket onslaughts on Israeli targets from the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah in numbers far greater than Hamas' barrages last May.

But what really fuels Israeli alarm over Iran's nuclear program is the regime's vicious antisemitism, which the current crop of leaders will assuredly continue to propagate. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rezaee, now vice president for economic affairs and formerly the chief of Iran's murderous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, helped kill 85 and injure 300-plus in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Mutual Israelite Association, a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The regime is also willing to blackmail Israel using the treatment of Iran's Jews as a bargaining chip. Rezaee has reportedly said, "The Israeli government knows very well that if it makes a mistake, the regime will treat the 10,000 Jews living in Iran differently." All of this is on top of the regime's now-customary genocidal threats: In 2020, the ayatollah called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that "will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed."

In 1979, at the age of six, I fled Iran with my family after the regime executed the leader of the country's Jewish community and my father was threatened with denunciation as a "Zionist" spy. What I fear most is that the regime's longtime mantra of "Death to Israel"which has become pass to Western elites' earsis not just a slogan, after all.

Seventy-seven years after the end of World War II, the U.S. retains a moral obligation to deny the one country in the world that threatens genocide against Jews the means to carry out that threat. The only way to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon is to stop financial concessions, build on the campaign of crippling economic pressure the Trump administration inaugurated, continue the covert activities (likely Israeli-led) that have dealt setbacks to Iran's nuclear march and establish a military deterrence posture that makes clear the intolerable costs the United States and Israel will impose on the regime if it ever does acquire a nuclear weapon.

This year, the Biden administration once again said "Never Again" on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A tougher approach to Iran would put some teeth into those words.

Ellie Cohanim is a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum and is the former U.S. deputy special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism at the U.S. Department of State. Follow her on Twitter: @EllieCohanim.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Want 'Never Again' To Mean Something? Stop Iran's March to the Bomb | Opinion - Newsweek

TEHRAN Iran's decision to produce centrifuge parts in a new complex in Isfahan instead of the Tesa complex in Karaj is done with the knowledge of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and now the UN nuclear watchdog would be able to adjust its regulatory and monitoring standards accordingly, Irans acting ambassador to the IAEA said late on Monday.

The IAEA report is a regular update which provides the latest technical information on Iran's nuclear activities to its members," Mohammad Reza Ghaebi explained.

He continued by saying that according to the report, Iran has informed the Agency that it intends to produce centrifuge parts in a new complex in Isfahan instead of the Tesa complex, which has not yet begun its work, and the IAEA will be able to meet regulatory standards.

However, information about this monitoring will remain with Iran and the IAEA will not have access to it until Iran resumes its nuclear obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he explained.

Iran has informed the IAEA it has stopped production at one of its nuclear facilities attacked last June and transferred work to another site, the watchdog said on Monday.

The move responded to a "security concern" following the attack, with the new site "better protected", a European diplomat told AFP.

The Tesa complex in Karaj near the capital Tehran hosted a workshop to build components for centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium.

Iran said cameras at the site were damaged on June 23, 2021 during what it called an Israeli "sabotage" operation.

In the aftermath, the IAEA said it did not receive permission to gain access and replace the surveillance equipment damaged in the attack.

The two parties finally struck an agreement in December and new cameras were installed.

However, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said "Iran had informed the Agency on 19 January that it intended to produce centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at a new location in Isfahan," according to the UN watchdog.

It said, "the Agency could adjust its surveillance and monitoring measures accordingly."

"A few days later, Agency inspectors applied seals on all the relevant machines in the Karaj workshop, placed them under containment and then removed the surveillance cameras installed there," it said.

"As a result, the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at the Karaj workshop had ceased," it added.

Then on January 24 IAEA inspectors set up cameras at a site in Isfahan "to ensure the machines intended for the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows were under monitoring," it said.

It added that the production of the centrifuge equipment at the new workshop had yet to begin.

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Iran: IAEA informed about moving centrifuge parts to Isfahan - Tehran Times