The Saturday Email Bag - Greece, Yemen, Iran

It's Saturday email bag time again. Your emails are don't focus one one issue this week. They're split among Iran, Yemen, and Greece. So, let's update each topic. ~~~~~ At his meeting with EU finance ministers yesterday, Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis rejected any more wage or pension cuts and said creditors must agree on a realistic target for the primary budget surplus before talkiing about debt service : "Our government is eager to rationalize the pension system (for example, by limiting early retirement), proceed with partial privatization of public assets...create a fully independent tax commission," Varoufakis said. Greek officials say they are aiming for a primary surplus of 1.2 to 1.5% of gross domestic product this year, well below the goals of 3% in 2015 and 4.5% in 2016 agreed in Greece's 2012 EU/IMF bailout program. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told Reuters there was room for maneuver on Greece's primary surplus, "as long as it remains positive." Exactly when Greece's cash reserves run out is unclear, but sources familiar with the matter say it could come when Greece is faced with paying its €750 million installment to the IMF in May. It is long past time for the Eurozone finance ministers group to stop pretending that Greece is capable of structural reform and get on with helping Greece survive the huge debt burden it carries -- both the debt created over years through its own fault and the debt piled on top of that by the EU troika's "rescue" package. We may wish that Varoufakis were more forthcoming about Greece's present fiscal and financial condition, but he is right in refusing to continue to play the EU finance ministers' shell game of writing yet another structural reform fairytale just to please them. ~~~~~ Yemen offers some clearcut news, although the entirety of the situation in the country is anything but clear. The nine-ship Iranian convoy carrying weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen turned around Thursday after being followed by US warships moved to the area to prevent arms shipments, according to sources in the Pentagon, as reported by Fox News. The Pentagon sources said the nine-ship convoy is south of Salalah, Oman, headed northeast in the Arabian Sea in the direction of Iran. The ships, including seven freighters and two frigates, had sailed southwest along the coast of Yemen heading in the direction of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. The Pentagon said the two Iranian warships escorting the convoy are Thondor Type 021-class missile boats and the other ships in the convoy are a mix of commercial vessels with some carrying shipping containers. The turnaround follows the arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier known as the “Big Stick” and her escort, the USS Normandy, a guided missile cruiser, that have been shadowing the Iranian convoy for the past few days, the sources said. Fighter jets from the carrier are relaying the convoy’s location to US Navy command. Pentagon officials say the US Navy deployed the nine ships in a line parallel to the coast of Yemen -- from the Bab-el-Mandeb Straight at Aden to waters south of Oman -- to provide "continuous coverage" of the Iranian convoy. The Pentagon says the Iranian Navy ships are "smaller than destroyers." a Pentagon official also said that the type of weapons the freighters are carrying are "bigger than small arms." Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the USS Theodore Roosevelt came within 200 nautical miles of the Iranian convoy, adding, "It's not over yet, we will continue to monitor them all the way back home." Despite the Iranian convoy's presence and Pentagon assessments that it carries weapons, Iran continues to insist that it provides only humanitarian aid to the Houthi rebels, who chased the Yemeni president from Sanaa and are fighting for control of the Gulf nation. Warships from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who back the Houthi-pursued Yemeni President Hadi are positioned to the southwest of the convoy, forming a blockade of the Gulf of Aden and the port city of Aden, to protect access to Suez. So, while the Iranian weapons convoy has been stopped by the US allied naval presence, the fighting in Yemen continues, including Saudi air strikes. The good news may be that now the Houthis are calling for peace talks. Have they been badly damaged by the air strikes and naval blockade? Could be. ~~~~~ If we turn to Iran and its nuclear deal, I've been reading blogs all week about Obama's declassifying of documents showing that for several years, the Obama administration has known that Iran is 2 to 3 months away from having fuel for a nuclear bomb. One take on this revelation is that Obama is applying more pressure to get Congress to forget its oversight and approval functions and submit to his desire to handle the Iran deal alone. Another take is that, as Iran's positions become more negative about key deal elements, Obama needs to get this information into the public domain without having to admit that he knew all along but hid the critical information from Congress. Netanyahu has been right all along. When Netanhayu spoke to Congress, he said : "A decade from now, the sanctions against Iran would have been lifted and it would be free to build a huge nuclear capacity that could produce many, many nuclear bombs. At that point, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision. My longtime friend, John Kerry, the Secretary of State, confirmed last week that Iran could legitimately possess that massive centrifuge capacity when the deal expires. Now I want you to think about that. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, and this with full international legitimacy." And, we need to keep in mind that with the 2 to 3 month breakout time going all the way back to 2012, perhaps the question we should be asking is how many bombs could Iran assemble with fuel they have already secretly produced. And, just as important, when will the first ICBM roll off the Iranian assembly line with the capability of carrying the nuclear warheads. The seemingly compulsive liars in the White House have once more deliberately misled Congress, US allies and America about the true proximity of the Iranian nuclear threat. This, combined with China's announcement this week that North Korea already has 20 nuclear warheads - and the North Korean leader's coming visit to Moscow - suggest several scenarios : North Korea could deliver more nuclear warheads to Iran through Russia, or Russia could deliver ICBMs to North Korea, and, of course to Iran, under the cover of its air defense systems deliveries. If any of these scenarios is true, the Axis of Evil is alive and functioning, and the world is in trouble - big big trouble. ~~~~~ Dear readers, thanks for taking time to email your comments and questions. Please continue, or join us if you haven't yet -- casey.popshots@yahoo.com. See you at the email bag next Saturday.