笨狼發牢騷
發發牢騷，解解悶，消消愁
正文
伊朗核談近尾聲。6月底的期限過了，延到今天（【1】，【2】，【3】，【5】），看來今天還是了不了，說是要延到周五。
完不了，是因為雙方有底線（西方叫紅線，“redline”），難讓步；不走，還要談，是因為幾乎就成了，確實盡了，要談下去，目前最大的難題是伊朗要立即免去所有製裁，而美國歐洲要全麵監視伊朗國內一切（軍事民用）設施。看看誰讓步吧。
這兩天媒體剛剛說起了一個新的難題，就是軍禁（軍事禁運）【4】，不知道這一直是個難題，還是新的，是個大難題。
【後記】據說消除軍禁是伊朗提出來的新要求，中俄支持，俄國尤其強烈支持，大家猜測是為其軍工打算。消除軍禁是美國不會做讓步的一個限製，伊朗在最後一霎那提出，大家有各種各樣的猜測。
紐約時報記者MICHAEL GORDON解釋美國的立場
央台美國站：
美國的綜合立場：
從報道來看，美國咬得很緊，立了底線，一點兒也不讓，主要原因是奧巴馬在國內受攻擊很大，怕稍讓點兒步，不但怕下不了台，還怕國會借口不通過（解除製裁）。反觀伊朗談判團盡管言辭嚴厲，處處堅持原則，讓步的傾向很大，往往依賴宗教領袖霍梅尼的講話來增加籌碼，也許如同西方所猜測【7】，伊朗的整個核工業跟美國衝突得不償失。不管如何，伊朗國內的利益集團紛紛做好準備，就像是談成了的樣子。美國人不傻，見此，知道伊朗遲早要投降，就等著吧。今早伊朗推了一把，西方還是不接受（路透社），不過據說軍禁是唯一的難題了。
伊朗外長紮裏夫
世界上誰對美伊達成協議反得最厲害？以色列和沙特。另一個機構，是美國國會，當然可以說美國國會是聽了以色列的。美國國內鷹派反的也很厲害，但不能左右局勢。整過談判過程，法國最熱乎，有時比美國還硬，法國總統奧朗德還訪問沙特，保證給沙特大量出售武器。奧巴馬為了安撫中東“盟友”，許諾大量美國軍火【12】，一石兩鳥，為美國軍工業賺了幾百億美元。
我幾個月前做了預測：
2015.03.07美伊核談預言
說雙方會達成協議，而且中國會借此機會大肆增加在伊朗的投資，把整個伊朗市場占住。之後，中伊互有行動（【14】，【15】）。美國國際財團受國內政治因素限製，隻能放過這塊肥肉了，不過歐洲的就沒那麽含蓄了，德國公司【16】隻是眾多例子裏麵的一個（參見【13】）。
央台美國站：
為什麽伊朗是中東最佳的地方？
在中東，伊朗可以說是最佳的投資環境。伊朗資源豐富（原油質量差點兒）；伊朗政治軍事跟整個地區相比無比穩定，像伊拉克、阿富汗、利比亞，資源再多，開采是問提（整天戰火連天，連開工都成問題），運輸是問題；修了路，叛軍以騷擾，運也沒法運。所以中國投了不少錢，幹著急。
伊朗政治上的相對開放，如女性參與政治、經濟和商業活動，阿拉伯第一，沙特一比整個是封建獨裁製；選舉投票（西方否認這是“民主”，因為選舉人有挑選的嫌疑-跟香港一般，且霍梅尼大概有否決權），比中國還開放；伊朗總產值派世界29，購買力平價總產值18；伊朗人口素質高，教育不錯，人均年齡低等，能保證投資有回報。伊朗軍隊參與經濟商業較嚴重，但從另外一方麵保證了局勢穩定，對投資人有利。
伊朗人口分布：
經濟上，伊朗有實力，消費能力強，有資源人力，買東西給他們，他們有錢付，不難想象以後伊朗取代沙特的時代。
中國投資機會
如Kevjn Lim【17】說，“China views Iran as a central element in its much-touted Silk Road Economic Belt, which aims to extend Beijing's influence overland through Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and Europe”，反之，伊朗覺得中國是跟美國爭鬥中難得的盟友，“During Iran's withering eight-year war with Iraq, Beijing was the only major power to supply Tehran with arms (though it did the same for Baghdad)”【中國還有雙吃的時候】，伊朗的核工業是中國幫出來的（嗬嗬）。
央台美國站：
如果談成，最大的得益者是中國。即使伊朗受點委屈，對中國有利無害，因為反而加強了伊朗對美國西方的怨恨，更依賴靠近中國（俄國）。伊朗大幅提高產油量會壓低油價，對中國也有利。不過，中國應當意思到，世界百姓還是向往西方的生活方式，“自由上進，精神物質雙享受”，據說伊朗年輕還是被美國生活方式吸引，沒聽說過中國的生活方式是誰追求的，所以在具體的交往上得尊重伊朗人的意願，同時追求自己最大的利益，達到中國所謂的“雙贏”。同時，伊朗經濟多為軍方壟斷，跟民意未必相符，中國企業也得小心。總之能幫助伊朗成為經濟軍事上獨立的國家，一對抗外來勢力的欺負，符合伊朗的利益。
伊朗油管：最終至中國
今年4月美國新聞工作者梅查理采訪伊朗外長紮裏夫。紮裏夫能言善辯，不缺情理，不過西方和伊朗觀念差距太大，算是給聾子說了。故此可以理解為何伊朗會跟中俄接近。
譬如紮裏夫指出以色列擁有近200枚原子彈（比中國還多），然而美國緘口不提。
一旦和伊朗建成牢固的盟國關係，將對中國在中東建立了一個穩定的基地，即可對中東最補給，也可以成為西進歐洲的另一條通道的立腳點。
伊朗
伊核談判
真是千載難逢的機會，不知中國外交部在這過程中學到了什麽
如果誰學到了整套過程，就是外交部長的人選。王毅要是沒派個大團去，就是沒腦子了
歐洲是準備要大吃一把了，中國有機會，不能放過這一機會。
【1】《英國廣播公司》克裏稱伊朗需在核談判中做出“艱難選擇”
【2】中國外長王毅：伊朗核談判已經有了新的進展
【3】伊朗消息人士：伊核談判或將持續至7月9日
【4】New sticking point in nuclear talks: Iran wants arms embargo lifted
【5】美媒：美伊核談評論
【6】What it really takes for a US-Iran deal
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.
July 01, 2015
【7】Iran's nuclear program may have cost the country $500 billion or more
《路透社》
【8】 Iranian nuclear deal set to make hardline Revolutionary Guards richer
【9】U.S. and Iran: the unbearable awkwardness of defending your enemy（哪有這事兒）
《華爾街日報》
【10】Iran’s Giant Super-Tanker Fleet Eyes Western Waters
【11】Iran Wants to Double Oil Exports After Sanctions Lifted
【12】我說奧巴馬就為賣軍火，紐約時報也說，其它媒體怎麽說？
【13】2015.04.07伊朗解禁，中國準備好了嗎？
【14】2015.04.07走東方“捷徑” 伊朗官員訪華促石油出口
【15】2015.04.08”中國伊朗高層互訪：增加對華石油出口 推動“一帶一路”
這是最新的：
【16】《路透社》2015.07.05German exporters eye lucrative deals in post-sanctions Iran
【17】Iran Seen from Beijing
【附錄：報道分析全文】
《華爾街日報》
【伊朗國企暗示伊朗投降？】
Iran’s Giant Super-Tanker Fleet Eyes Western Waters
Iranian shipping company NITC says its in talks with U.K. marine insurers
TEHRAN—Iran’s biggest oil shipping company has amassed the world’s largest fleet of super tankers and is in talks to sail back into western waters should the Islamic Republic strike a nuclear deal, according to senior officials.
NITC, the privatized Iranian shipping company, says it has 42 very large crude carriers, known as VLCCs, after buying 20 such China-built vessels in the past 2½ years. It is the first time the company has disclosed the size of its VLCC fleet which it expanded as sanctions cut off access to European-insured vessels,
“No other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs,” said Capt. Nasrollah Sardashti, NITC’s commercial director, in an interview in the Iranian capital. VLCCs can carry 2 million barrels of oil each.
NITC’s biggest rivals all list fewer ships, and one London-based analyst who tracks oil-tanker fleets, said he also believes NITC has the largest fleet. Competitors such as Mitsui O.S.K Lines and Nippon Yusen Kaisha of Japan and Belgium’s Euronav NV all confirmed owning fewer. No one could be reached at the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia, but the company says on its website that it owns 31 super tankers.
Iran was forced to rely more on NITC, the former state-owned shipping company, to transport crude oil after Europe imposed sanctions on Iran and banned insurers from covering ships carrying the Iranian crude.
U.S. and European sanctions took a toll on Iran’s exports, cutting them in half since 2012. But Iran still had buyers in Asian countries like China and South Korea, where NITC ships carried oil.
‘No other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs’
—Nasrollah Sardashti, NITC’s commercial director
As Iran and world powers close in on a deal that would lift sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, Tehran has been seeking to build ties with European companies that have traditionally traded with the Persian Gulf country.
Ali Akbar Safaei, the managing director of the NITC, said in an interview that the company is in talks with insurance companies that are part of London’s International Group of P&I Clubs—a form of oil-shipping insurance coverage that pools insurers’ resources to cover high risks—as the company seeks to speed up its return to Europe.
“We have resumed our connections with partners in the maritime field” in the EU, he said. “All conditions are there to call at European ports” when sanctions are lifted.
‘We have resumed our connections with [EU] partners in the maritime field... All conditions are there to call at European ports [when sanctions are lifted].’
—NITC Managing Director Ali Akbar Safaei
Mr. Safaei also mentioned contacts with European safety-rating agencies, shipping logistics agencies and finance houses.
In addition to industrywide sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, the EU also banned dealings with NITC, though a European court deemed the decision illegal and “unreasonable” last year. But the EU subsequently reinstated sanctions against the company.
Mr. Safaei said a team of experts working for the company is now assessing the monetary value of the losses caused by sanctions and “then we will decide the course of action.”
【11】
Iran Wants to Double Oil Exports After Sanctions Lifted
Exports could hit 2.3 million barrels a day, deputy oil minister Moazami says
July 5, 2015
In this file photo from December 2014, an Iranian oil worker rides his bicycle at an oil refinery south of the capital Tehran
TEHRAN—Iran wants to double its crude exports soon after sanctions are lifted and is pushing other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to renew the cartel’s quota system, a top Iranian official said.
Both developments could set up a clash with Saudi Arabia, which is scrambling to raise its own export numbers and has opposed the return of production limits on individual OPEC members.
Iran’s efforts underscore how the country’s full return to the export market would upend the status quo among leading producers if Tehran clinches a deal with six world powers that would lift sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities.
The latest deadline for a deal is Tuesday and officials said the elements of an agreement were falling into place over the weekend, though there were still important sticking points that could scuttle it.
Should sanctions be lifted, Iran’s deputy oil minister for planning and supervision, Mansour Moazami, said in an interview that his country’s oil exports would reach 2.3 million barrels, compared with around 1.2 million barrels a day today.
“We are like a pilot on the runway ready to take off. This is how the whole country is right now,” he said.
Iran is already in contact with former oil buyers in the European Union—traders such as Vitol Group and big oil producers such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Total SA and Eni SpA—as well as existing importers in Asia to help absorb the potential new shipments or invest in new fields if sanctions are lifted, according to the oil ministry and the companies.
Iran’s oil reserves are the fourth-largest in the world and its production capacity stands at about four million barrels a day—making it the second-biggest producer in OPEC if its output were unrestricted.
EU sanctions in 2012 banned the import of Iranian oil and prohibited most big oil companies from working with Iran, while American pressure forced Asian nations to reduce purchases.
The return of Iran’s oil would come at a sensitive time for the world’s oil markets.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, has fallen by more than 45% in the past year, trading at around $61 a barrel, as supply outpaces demand by about two million barrels on any given day.
OPEC nations, especially Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have been pumping at record levels while production in the U.S.—a non-OPEC country—has shown signs of resilience.
Oil-market analysts have expressed skepticism that Iran could increase production as quickly as it says it will.
A senior OPEC delegate said some rival producers doubted Iran has the production and export facilities to reach its previous production levels of 4.2 million barrels a day.
Dr. Moazami said he didn’t expect prices to fall because global economic growth would drive demand higher. He said Iran’s own forecast for oil prices is now $70 a barrel by the end of 2015.
Dr. Moazami said Iran was pushing OPEC to return to individual production allocations or quotas. OPEC discontinued quotas in 2011 because they caused friction and member countries didn’t respect them anyway.
It replaced quotas with a collective ceiling—currently at 30 million barrels a day. But even that is seen as more of a guideline than a limit these days, OPEC officials have said, as the group is currently producing more than 31 million barrels a day.
Restoring quotes would need unanimous approval by the organization, something that is unlikely at this stage given the Saudi opposition.
“Their mechanism right now is not proper. It has to return to its past ability and capacity,” Dr. Moazami said of OPEC.
At its last meeting on June 5, Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh informed other OPEC ministers his country’s production would increase if sanctions are lifted and offered to reinstate the quotas.
But the proposal was brushed off by his Saudi counterpart, Ali al-Naimi, who said the output boost shouldn’t be discussed until it materializes and ruled out the return of production allocations, according to Gulf Arab and Iranian officials.
The senior OPEC official said the organization would return to quotas only if it “is absolutely necessary” and the recent price crash didn’t warrant such a decision.
【17】
《Washington Institute》
Iran Seen from Beijing
Kevjn Lim June 11, 2015
China views Iran as a central element in its much-touted Silk Road Economic Belt, which aims to extend Beijing's influence overland through Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and Europe.
Although China has long been Iran's largest oil customer, international sanctions recently relegated the Islamic Republic from third to sixth place among Beijing's suppliers -- a list consistently topped by Iranian rival Saudi Arabia. Similarly, while China's bilateral trade with Iran reportedly expanded to around $50 billion by late 2014, it remains dwarfed nearly elevenfold by its trade with the United States.
Given these figures, why does Iran play a seemingly disproportionate role in Beijing's regional calculus, often to the puzzlement of its much larger energy and trade partners in Riyadh and Washington? Diplomatic brinksmanship aside, much of the answer lies in Iran's geostrategic value as a key hub in China's westward overland thrust, which Beijing views as essential to countering both Washington's eastward pivot and U.S. naval superiority.
BACKGROUND
China and Iran's durable ties stretch back as far as the Han and Parthian empires, when the two civilizations were trade partners on the ancient Silk Road. When the Arabs invaded Iranshahr in the seventh century, Peroz III, scion of the swansong Sassanian monarch Yazdgird III, sought and was offered refuge in Tang China by the Emperor Gaozong. In modern times, despite substantive ideological differences, Ruhollah Khomeini and Mao Zedong instilled both countries with revolutionary legacies that rejected imperial hegemony and foreign exploitation, putting them on the same side against the U.S.-led status quo.
Over time, China has become Iran's least unreliable -- not to say most reliable -- major power ally and a key pivot for counterbalancing the United States. During Iran's withering eight-year war with Iraq, Beijing was the only major power to supply Tehran with arms (though it did the same for Baghdad). And in 1985, the two governments signed a stealth nuclear cooperation deal during a visit by then parliamentary speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Cooperation went from strength to strength until 1997, when U.S. pressure over the previous year's Taiwan Strait crisis spurred China to suspend nuclear and missile assistance to Tehran. By then, however, years of Chinese and North Korean technical assistance had already helped Iran establish a homegrown missile production industry, a key pillar of its defense posture.
On the economic front, Beijing has reduced its oil imports from Iran in recent years to preserve the U.S. sanctions waivers it enjoys. Owing to Iran's sanctions-induced reductions, however, it continues to buy half of Iran's crude exports. In addition to the lower prices Tehran is offering because of sanctions, Iranian supplies matter greatly to Beijing because the Gulf's other major energy producers are U.S. partners.
EMPHASIZING THE EURASIAN HEARTLAND
China has been pushing west in the context of the Silk Road Economic Belt (Sichouzilu jingjidai) introduced by President Xi Jinping in September 2013. This "westward march" had already been advocated in 2011 by Wang Jisi（北京大學國際關係學院院長王緝思）, one of the country's most lucid strategic minds, with the aim of meeting and counterbalancing President Obama's eastward pivot. Under the Xi administration, Beijing's immediate Silk Road priorities appear to be threefold:
Securing the overland flow of energy from neighboring Central Asia (and Russia) to offset the risk of maritime interdiction, especially at two sensitive waterways: the Strait of Malacca (through which 80 percent of Chinese oil transits) and the Strait of Hormuz (through which about two-fifths of its oil imports pass).
Leveraging development projects to pacify the restive but energy-rich western province of Xinjiang, where Uyghur separatists advocating the establishment of an East Turkestan state have repeatedly taken up arms against the Han Chinese.
Encouraging greater regional stability and integration by locking China's western neighbors into a zone of prosperity extending to Europe, with Beijing at its political and economic nexus.
China is the world's largest net importer of oil. Given the risks of maritime interdiction, the need for overland energy conduits is particularly important. Accordingly, two new pipelines came onstream in 2006 and late 2009. The first pumps oil mostly from Kazakhstan's northern Caspian region of Atyrau through China's Xinjiang province and toward the coast, amounting to roughly 4 percent of the 6.2 million barrels per day that China imported in 2014. The other pipeline brings natural gas mainly from the Saman-Depe field in Turkmenistan, which has been China's largest supplier since 2012. In 2013 terms, Turkmen gas accounted for about half of China's 53 billion cubic meters in annual gas imports and about a sixth of its overall gas consumption. Ashgabat plans to more than double these exports by 2020.
In accordance with the Chinese saying "if you want to prosper, first build roads" (yao xiang fu, xian xiu lu), Beijing has also been modernizing the vast network of roads and railways crisscrossing Central Asia, financing its efforts through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund. In 2012, it completed a rail line extending from Khorgos to Zhetygen, Kazakhstan, and onward to Western Russia and Europe, paralleling an existing line from Xinjiang's provincial capital of Urumqi through China's Dzungarian Gate (Alashankou) and into Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty. This east-west corridor may eventually cleave through Iran to the Gulf. According to strategist Gao Bai, Beijing has sought to offset U.S. naval superiority by building a high-speed railway capable of projecting power from China's eastern seaboard into the Eurasian interior -- a continental hedge of sorts in the event of maritime trouble. And despite the challenges that a China-bound Eurasian order could pose to Russia, President Vladimir Putin reportedly gave Xi Jinping his blessing in October 2014 after the latter agreed to include the Trans-Siberian and BAM railways in the Silk Road Economic Belt.
IRAN'S GEOSTRATEGIC VALUE
So where does Iran fit into all this? Tehran is not a dominant actor in Central Asia, partly because of its deference to Moscow, and also because the countries in question remain wary of Iranian soft-power penetration. Even its trade with the Central Asian republics is conspicuously modest. Rather, Iran fills a geostrategic role as their most convenient non-Russian access route to open waters, and the only east-west/north-south intersection for Central Asian trade. In May 1996, Iran and Turkmenistan forged this missing link by inaugurating a 300-kilometer railway between Mashhad and Tejen. And in December 2014, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran inaugurated a railway from Uzen (Zhanaozen) to Gorgan and onward to Iran's Gulf ports.
Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Iran completed a gas pipeline in 1997 linking Korpeje to Kordkuy, followed in 2010 by the Dauletabad-Serakhs-Khangiran pipeline. Turkmenistan supplies about 14 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Iran, as well as a large proportion of the country's imported electricity. Similarly, Kazakh oil sent via Caspian Sea tankers has powered Iran's hydrocarbon-deprived northern provinces, in a swap arrangement that sees Tehran selling equivalent amounts on Astana's behalf via the Persian Gulf. In addition to the shorter export pathways it offers, energy relations with Iran are tempting given Russia's long history of price extortion with its Central Asian vassals. Nevertheless, such relations have not been entirely smooth -- bureaucratic disagreements have emerged with Tehran over transit fees, fuel prices, payment methods, and the like.
For Beijing, Iran's geostrategic value is enhanced by its position astride one of China's two overland bridges to the west. The other bridge skirts the northern coast of the Caspian through Kazakhstan and southwestern Russia near the Caucasus region, but Iran arguably presents the more important route because it connects with both Europe and the Gulf. Given this continental anchor, the Islamic Republic has taken on an importance in Beijing that exceeds the size of its domestic market or its role as energy purveyor.
NEXT STEPS
If a nuclear agreement with the United States brings sanctions relief to Tehran, China will no doubt intensify its presence in Iran's economy. Likewise, it will encounter fewer obstacles in extending its road, rail, and pipeline networks through the land bridge that is the Iranian plateau. A nuclear deal could also pave the way for Iran's full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a request that has been rejected since 2008 on the grounds that Tehran is under UN sanctions. The SCO, whose full members include China, Russia, and all of the Central Asian republics except Turkmenistan, is widely perceived as a counterbalance to NATO and the United States, so Iran almost certainly regards it as an additional layer of insurance in the event of future hostilities with the West.
Against this backdrop, Washington has admittedly precious little room for maneuver. Containing both China and Iran is a surefire way to drive them together. And counteracting Iran while accommodating China -- or, more improbably, vice versa -- would leave loopholes that either could exploit. The more the White House is distracted by Persian imponderables, the less robust its "rebalancing" of resources toward Asia will be, which eminently suits Beijing. The Middle East and Iran in particular are Washington's more immediate priorities, but China represents its most important long-term foreign policy challenge. How Beijing and Tehran interact in the meantime will have significant consequences for America's grand strategy.
Kevjn Lim is an independent researcher focusing on foreign and security policy in the Middle East, where he has been based for nearly a decade.
完不了，是因為雙方有底線（西方叫紅線，“redline”），難讓步；不走，還要談，是因為幾乎就成了，確實盡了，要談下去，目前最大的難題是伊朗要立即免去所有製裁，而美國歐洲要全麵監視伊朗國內一切（軍事民用）設施。看看誰讓步吧。
這兩天媒體剛剛說起了一個新的難題，就是軍禁（軍事禁運）【4】，不知道這一直是個難題，還是新的，是個大難題。
【後記】據說消除軍禁是伊朗提出來的新要求，中俄支持，俄國尤其強烈支持，大家猜測是為其軍工打算。消除軍禁是美國不會做讓步的一個限製，伊朗在最後一霎那提出，大家有各種各樣的猜測。
紐約時報記者MICHAEL GORDON解釋美國的立場
央台美國站：
美國的綜合立場：
從報道來看，美國咬得很緊，立了底線，一點兒也不讓，主要原因是奧巴馬在國內受攻擊很大，怕稍讓點兒步，不但怕下不了台，還怕國會借口不通過（解除製裁）。反觀伊朗談判團盡管言辭嚴厲，處處堅持原則，讓步的傾向很大，往往依賴宗教領袖霍梅尼的講話來增加籌碼，也許如同西方所猜測【7】，伊朗的整個核工業跟美國衝突得不償失。不管如何，伊朗國內的利益集團紛紛做好準備，就像是談成了的樣子。美國人不傻，見此，知道伊朗遲早要投降，就等著吧。今早伊朗推了一把，西方還是不接受（路透社），不過據說軍禁是唯一的難題了。
伊朗外長紮裏夫
世界上誰對美伊達成協議反得最厲害？以色列和沙特。另一個機構，是美國國會，當然可以說美國國會是聽了以色列的。美國國內鷹派反的也很厲害，但不能左右局勢。整過談判過程，法國最熱乎，有時比美國還硬，法國總統奧朗德還訪問沙特，保證給沙特大量出售武器。奧巴馬為了安撫中東“盟友”，許諾大量美國軍火【12】，一石兩鳥，為美國軍工業賺了幾百億美元。
我幾個月前做了預測：
2015.03.07美伊核談預言
說雙方會達成協議，而且中國會借此機會大肆增加在伊朗的投資，把整個伊朗市場占住。之後，中伊互有行動（【14】，【15】）。美國國際財團受國內政治因素限製，隻能放過這塊肥肉了，不過歐洲的就沒那麽含蓄了，德國公司【16】隻是眾多例子裏麵的一個（參見【13】）。
央台美國站：
為什麽伊朗是中東最佳的地方？
在中東，伊朗可以說是最佳的投資環境。伊朗資源豐富（原油質量差點兒）；伊朗政治軍事跟整個地區相比無比穩定，像伊拉克、阿富汗、利比亞，資源再多，開采是問提（整天戰火連天，連開工都成問題），運輸是問題；修了路，叛軍以騷擾，運也沒法運。所以中國投了不少錢，幹著急。
伊朗政治上的相對開放，如女性參與政治、經濟和商業活動，阿拉伯第一，沙特一比整個是封建獨裁製；選舉投票（西方否認這是“民主”，因為選舉人有挑選的嫌疑-跟香港一般，且霍梅尼大概有否決權），比中國還開放；伊朗總產值派世界29，購買力平價總產值18；伊朗人口素質高，教育不錯，人均年齡低等，能保證投資有回報。伊朗軍隊參與經濟商業較嚴重，但從另外一方麵保證了局勢穩定，對投資人有利。
伊朗人口分布：
經濟上，伊朗有實力，消費能力強，有資源人力，買東西給他們，他們有錢付，不難想象以後伊朗取代沙特的時代。
中國投資機會
進口另外，伊朗跟西方尤其美國多方麵敵對意識強烈，盡管歐洲在努力，雙方製度道德文化差別大，還是有敵對。
原油、天然氣、資源
農產品
出口
民用商品：市場很大
（藥品有機會嗎？至少醫療器械有微小的機會）
基建材料（化肥、水泥）
基建設備
大型基礎工程（交通、煉油廠、發電、電力網絡）
軍工
中國在軍工上有無可媲美的優越性。首先西方不可能賣武器給伊朗，伊朗要升級，隻有中俄。中國遠比俄國有優越性。俄國有中國沒有的武器，如防空導彈係統，但能與中國競爭的不多，中國有全麵給伊朗軍備升級的能力，也是伊朗需要的。對此，伊朗要求解除軍禁很關鍵。
俄國是軍火出口大國，覺得自己有優勢，這是一般的判斷。不過我覺得中國也有自己的優勢，不比俄國差多少。不過像彈道導彈之類的長距離進攻性武器，中國就別摻乎了。
如Kevjn Lim【17】說，“China views Iran as a central element in its much-touted Silk Road Economic Belt, which aims to extend Beijing's influence overland through Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and Europe”，反之，伊朗覺得中國是跟美國爭鬥中難得的盟友，“During Iran's withering eight-year war with Iraq, Beijing was the only major power to supply Tehran with arms (though it did the same for Baghdad)”【中國還有雙吃的時候】，伊朗的核工業是中國幫出來的（嗬嗬）。
央台美國站：
如果談成，最大的得益者是中國。即使伊朗受點委屈，對中國有利無害，因為反而加強了伊朗對美國西方的怨恨，更依賴靠近中國（俄國）。伊朗大幅提高產油量會壓低油價，對中國也有利。不過，中國應當意思到，世界百姓還是向往西方的生活方式，“自由上進，精神物質雙享受”，據說伊朗年輕還是被美國生活方式吸引，沒聽說過中國的生活方式是誰追求的，所以在具體的交往上得尊重伊朗人的意願，同時追求自己最大的利益，達到中國所謂的“雙贏”。同時，伊朗經濟多為軍方壟斷，跟民意未必相符，中國企業也得小心。總之能幫助伊朗成為經濟軍事上獨立的國家，一對抗外來勢力的欺負，符合伊朗的利益。
伊朗油管：最終至中國
今年4月美國新聞工作者梅查理采訪伊朗外長紮裏夫。紮裏夫能言善辯，不缺情理，不過西方和伊朗觀念差距太大，算是給聾子說了。故此可以理解為何伊朗會跟中俄接近。
譬如紮裏夫指出以色列擁有近200枚原子彈（比中國還多），然而美國緘口不提。
一旦和伊朗建成牢固的盟國關係，將對中國在中東建立了一個穩定的基地，即可對中東最補給，也可以成為西進歐洲的另一條通道的立腳點。
伊朗
伊核談判
真是千載難逢的機會，不知中國外交部在這過程中學到了什麽
如果誰學到了整套過程，就是外交部長的人選。王毅要是沒派個大團去，就是沒腦子了
歐洲是準備要大吃一把了，中國有機會，不能放過這一機會。
【1】《英國廣播公司》克裏稱伊朗需在核談判中做出“艱難選擇”
【2】中國外長王毅：伊朗核談判已經有了新的進展
【3】伊朗消息人士：伊核談判或將持續至7月9日
【4】New sticking point in nuclear talks: Iran wants arms embargo lifted
【5】美媒：美伊核談評論
【6】What it really takes for a US-Iran deal
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.
July 01, 2015
【7】Iran's nuclear program may have cost the country $500 billion or more
《路透社》
【8】 Iranian nuclear deal set to make hardline Revolutionary Guards richer
【9】U.S. and Iran: the unbearable awkwardness of defending your enemy（哪有這事兒）
《華爾街日報》
【10】Iran’s Giant Super-Tanker Fleet Eyes Western Waters
【11】Iran Wants to Double Oil Exports After Sanctions Lifted
【12】我說奧巴馬就為賣軍火，紐約時報也說，其它媒體怎麽說？
【13】2015.04.07伊朗解禁，中國準備好了嗎？
【14】2015.04.07走東方“捷徑” 伊朗官員訪華促石油出口
【15】2015.04.08”中國伊朗高層互訪：增加對華石油出口 推動“一帶一路”
這是最新的：
【16】《路透社》2015.07.05German exporters eye lucrative deals in post-sanctions Iran
【17】Iran Seen from Beijing
【附錄：報道分析全文】
《華爾街日報》
【伊朗國企暗示伊朗投降？】
Iran’s Giant Super-Tanker Fleet Eyes Western Waters
Iranian shipping company NITC says its in talks with U.K. marine insurers
TEHRAN—Iran’s biggest oil shipping company has amassed the world’s largest fleet of super tankers and is in talks to sail back into western waters should the Islamic Republic strike a nuclear deal, according to senior officials.
NITC, the privatized Iranian shipping company, says it has 42 very large crude carriers, known as VLCCs, after buying 20 such China-built vessels in the past 2½ years. It is the first time the company has disclosed the size of its VLCC fleet which it expanded as sanctions cut off access to European-insured vessels,
“No other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs,” said Capt. Nasrollah Sardashti, NITC’s commercial director, in an interview in the Iranian capital. VLCCs can carry 2 million barrels of oil each.
NITC’s biggest rivals all list fewer ships, and one London-based analyst who tracks oil-tanker fleets, said he also believes NITC has the largest fleet. Competitors such as Mitsui O.S.K Lines and Nippon Yusen Kaisha of Japan and Belgium’s Euronav NV all confirmed owning fewer. No one could be reached at the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia, but the company says on its website that it owns 31 super tankers.
Iran was forced to rely more on NITC, the former state-owned shipping company, to transport crude oil after Europe imposed sanctions on Iran and banned insurers from covering ships carrying the Iranian crude.
U.S. and European sanctions took a toll on Iran’s exports, cutting them in half since 2012. But Iran still had buyers in Asian countries like China and South Korea, where NITC ships carried oil.
‘No other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs’
—Nasrollah Sardashti, NITC’s commercial director
As Iran and world powers close in on a deal that would lift sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, Tehran has been seeking to build ties with European companies that have traditionally traded with the Persian Gulf country.
Ali Akbar Safaei, the managing director of the NITC, said in an interview that the company is in talks with insurance companies that are part of London’s International Group of P&I Clubs—a form of oil-shipping insurance coverage that pools insurers’ resources to cover high risks—as the company seeks to speed up its return to Europe.
“We have resumed our connections with partners in the maritime field” in the EU, he said. “All conditions are there to call at European ports” when sanctions are lifted.
‘We have resumed our connections with [EU] partners in the maritime field... All conditions are there to call at European ports [when sanctions are lifted].’
—NITC Managing Director Ali Akbar Safaei
Mr. Safaei also mentioned contacts with European safety-rating agencies, shipping logistics agencies and finance houses.
In addition to industrywide sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, the EU also banned dealings with NITC, though a European court deemed the decision illegal and “unreasonable” last year. But the EU subsequently reinstated sanctions against the company.
Mr. Safaei said a team of experts working for the company is now assessing the monetary value of the losses caused by sanctions and “then we will decide the course of action.”
【11】
Iran Wants to Double Oil Exports After Sanctions Lifted
Exports could hit 2.3 million barrels a day, deputy oil minister Moazami says
July 5, 2015
In this file photo from December 2014, an Iranian oil worker rides his bicycle at an oil refinery south of the capital Tehran
TEHRAN—Iran wants to double its crude exports soon after sanctions are lifted and is pushing other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to renew the cartel’s quota system, a top Iranian official said.
Both developments could set up a clash with Saudi Arabia, which is scrambling to raise its own export numbers and has opposed the return of production limits on individual OPEC members.
Iran’s efforts underscore how the country’s full return to the export market would upend the status quo among leading producers if Tehran clinches a deal with six world powers that would lift sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities.
The latest deadline for a deal is Tuesday and officials said the elements of an agreement were falling into place over the weekend, though there were still important sticking points that could scuttle it.
Should sanctions be lifted, Iran’s deputy oil minister for planning and supervision, Mansour Moazami, said in an interview that his country’s oil exports would reach 2.3 million barrels, compared with around 1.2 million barrels a day today.
“We are like a pilot on the runway ready to take off. This is how the whole country is right now,” he said.
Iran is already in contact with former oil buyers in the European Union—traders such as Vitol Group and big oil producers such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Total SA and Eni SpA—as well as existing importers in Asia to help absorb the potential new shipments or invest in new fields if sanctions are lifted, according to the oil ministry and the companies.
Iran’s oil reserves are the fourth-largest in the world and its production capacity stands at about four million barrels a day—making it the second-biggest producer in OPEC if its output were unrestricted.
EU sanctions in 2012 banned the import of Iranian oil and prohibited most big oil companies from working with Iran, while American pressure forced Asian nations to reduce purchases.
The return of Iran’s oil would come at a sensitive time for the world’s oil markets.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, has fallen by more than 45% in the past year, trading at around $61 a barrel, as supply outpaces demand by about two million barrels on any given day.
OPEC nations, especially Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have been pumping at record levels while production in the U.S.—a non-OPEC country—has shown signs of resilience.
Oil-market analysts have expressed skepticism that Iran could increase production as quickly as it says it will.
A senior OPEC delegate said some rival producers doubted Iran has the production and export facilities to reach its previous production levels of 4.2 million barrels a day.
Dr. Moazami said he didn’t expect prices to fall because global economic growth would drive demand higher. He said Iran’s own forecast for oil prices is now $70 a barrel by the end of 2015.
Dr. Moazami said Iran was pushing OPEC to return to individual production allocations or quotas. OPEC discontinued quotas in 2011 because they caused friction and member countries didn’t respect them anyway.
It replaced quotas with a collective ceiling—currently at 30 million barrels a day. But even that is seen as more of a guideline than a limit these days, OPEC officials have said, as the group is currently producing more than 31 million barrels a day.
Restoring quotes would need unanimous approval by the organization, something that is unlikely at this stage given the Saudi opposition.
“Their mechanism right now is not proper. It has to return to its past ability and capacity,” Dr. Moazami said of OPEC.
At its last meeting on June 5, Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh informed other OPEC ministers his country’s production would increase if sanctions are lifted and offered to reinstate the quotas.
But the proposal was brushed off by his Saudi counterpart, Ali al-Naimi, who said the output boost shouldn’t be discussed until it materializes and ruled out the return of production allocations, according to Gulf Arab and Iranian officials.
The senior OPEC official said the organization would return to quotas only if it “is absolutely necessary” and the recent price crash didn’t warrant such a decision.
【17】
《Washington Institute》
Iran Seen from Beijing
Kevjn Lim June 11, 2015
China views Iran as a central element in its much-touted Silk Road Economic Belt, which aims to extend Beijing's influence overland through Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and Europe.
Although China has long been Iran's largest oil customer, international sanctions recently relegated the Islamic Republic from third to sixth place among Beijing's suppliers -- a list consistently topped by Iranian rival Saudi Arabia. Similarly, while China's bilateral trade with Iran reportedly expanded to around $50 billion by late 2014, it remains dwarfed nearly elevenfold by its trade with the United States.
Given these figures, why does Iran play a seemingly disproportionate role in Beijing's regional calculus, often to the puzzlement of its much larger energy and trade partners in Riyadh and Washington? Diplomatic brinksmanship aside, much of the answer lies in Iran's geostrategic value as a key hub in China's westward overland thrust, which Beijing views as essential to countering both Washington's eastward pivot and U.S. naval superiority.
BACKGROUND
China and Iran's durable ties stretch back as far as the Han and Parthian empires, when the two civilizations were trade partners on the ancient Silk Road. When the Arabs invaded Iranshahr in the seventh century, Peroz III, scion of the swansong Sassanian monarch Yazdgird III, sought and was offered refuge in Tang China by the Emperor Gaozong. In modern times, despite substantive ideological differences, Ruhollah Khomeini and Mao Zedong instilled both countries with revolutionary legacies that rejected imperial hegemony and foreign exploitation, putting them on the same side against the U.S.-led status quo.
Over time, China has become Iran's least unreliable -- not to say most reliable -- major power ally and a key pivot for counterbalancing the United States. During Iran's withering eight-year war with Iraq, Beijing was the only major power to supply Tehran with arms (though it did the same for Baghdad). And in 1985, the two governments signed a stealth nuclear cooperation deal during a visit by then parliamentary speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Cooperation went from strength to strength until 1997, when U.S. pressure over the previous year's Taiwan Strait crisis spurred China to suspend nuclear and missile assistance to Tehran. By then, however, years of Chinese and North Korean technical assistance had already helped Iran establish a homegrown missile production industry, a key pillar of its defense posture.
On the economic front, Beijing has reduced its oil imports from Iran in recent years to preserve the U.S. sanctions waivers it enjoys. Owing to Iran's sanctions-induced reductions, however, it continues to buy half of Iran's crude exports. In addition to the lower prices Tehran is offering because of sanctions, Iranian supplies matter greatly to Beijing because the Gulf's other major energy producers are U.S. partners.
EMPHASIZING THE EURASIAN HEARTLAND
China has been pushing west in the context of the Silk Road Economic Belt (Sichouzilu jingjidai) introduced by President Xi Jinping in September 2013. This "westward march" had already been advocated in 2011 by Wang Jisi（北京大學國際關係學院院長王緝思）, one of the country's most lucid strategic minds, with the aim of meeting and counterbalancing President Obama's eastward pivot. Under the Xi administration, Beijing's immediate Silk Road priorities appear to be threefold:
Securing the overland flow of energy from neighboring Central Asia (and Russia) to offset the risk of maritime interdiction, especially at two sensitive waterways: the Strait of Malacca (through which 80 percent of Chinese oil transits) and the Strait of Hormuz (through which about two-fifths of its oil imports pass).
Leveraging development projects to pacify the restive but energy-rich western province of Xinjiang, where Uyghur separatists advocating the establishment of an East Turkestan state have repeatedly taken up arms against the Han Chinese.
Encouraging greater regional stability and integration by locking China's western neighbors into a zone of prosperity extending to Europe, with Beijing at its political and economic nexus.
China is the world's largest net importer of oil. Given the risks of maritime interdiction, the need for overland energy conduits is particularly important. Accordingly, two new pipelines came onstream in 2006 and late 2009. The first pumps oil mostly from Kazakhstan's northern Caspian region of Atyrau through China's Xinjiang province and toward the coast, amounting to roughly 4 percent of the 6.2 million barrels per day that China imported in 2014. The other pipeline brings natural gas mainly from the Saman-Depe field in Turkmenistan, which has been China's largest supplier since 2012. In 2013 terms, Turkmen gas accounted for about half of China's 53 billion cubic meters in annual gas imports and about a sixth of its overall gas consumption. Ashgabat plans to more than double these exports by 2020.
In accordance with the Chinese saying "if you want to prosper, first build roads" (yao xiang fu, xian xiu lu), Beijing has also been modernizing the vast network of roads and railways crisscrossing Central Asia, financing its efforts through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund. In 2012, it completed a rail line extending from Khorgos to Zhetygen, Kazakhstan, and onward to Western Russia and Europe, paralleling an existing line from Xinjiang's provincial capital of Urumqi through China's Dzungarian Gate (Alashankou) and into Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty. This east-west corridor may eventually cleave through Iran to the Gulf. According to strategist Gao Bai, Beijing has sought to offset U.S. naval superiority by building a high-speed railway capable of projecting power from China's eastern seaboard into the Eurasian interior -- a continental hedge of sorts in the event of maritime trouble. And despite the challenges that a China-bound Eurasian order could pose to Russia, President Vladimir Putin reportedly gave Xi Jinping his blessing in October 2014 after the latter agreed to include the Trans-Siberian and BAM railways in the Silk Road Economic Belt.
IRAN'S GEOSTRATEGIC VALUE
So where does Iran fit into all this? Tehran is not a dominant actor in Central Asia, partly because of its deference to Moscow, and also because the countries in question remain wary of Iranian soft-power penetration. Even its trade with the Central Asian republics is conspicuously modest. Rather, Iran fills a geostrategic role as their most convenient non-Russian access route to open waters, and the only east-west/north-south intersection for Central Asian trade. In May 1996, Iran and Turkmenistan forged this missing link by inaugurating a 300-kilometer railway between Mashhad and Tejen. And in December 2014, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran inaugurated a railway from Uzen (Zhanaozen) to Gorgan and onward to Iran's Gulf ports.
Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Iran completed a gas pipeline in 1997 linking Korpeje to Kordkuy, followed in 2010 by the Dauletabad-Serakhs-Khangiran pipeline. Turkmenistan supplies about 14 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Iran, as well as a large proportion of the country's imported electricity. Similarly, Kazakh oil sent via Caspian Sea tankers has powered Iran's hydrocarbon-deprived northern provinces, in a swap arrangement that sees Tehran selling equivalent amounts on Astana's behalf via the Persian Gulf. In addition to the shorter export pathways it offers, energy relations with Iran are tempting given Russia's long history of price extortion with its Central Asian vassals. Nevertheless, such relations have not been entirely smooth -- bureaucratic disagreements have emerged with Tehran over transit fees, fuel prices, payment methods, and the like.
For Beijing, Iran's geostrategic value is enhanced by its position astride one of China's two overland bridges to the west. The other bridge skirts the northern coast of the Caspian through Kazakhstan and southwestern Russia near the Caucasus region, but Iran arguably presents the more important route because it connects with both Europe and the Gulf. Given this continental anchor, the Islamic Republic has taken on an importance in Beijing that exceeds the size of its domestic market or its role as energy purveyor.
NEXT STEPS
If a nuclear agreement with the United States brings sanctions relief to Tehran, China will no doubt intensify its presence in Iran's economy. Likewise, it will encounter fewer obstacles in extending its road, rail, and pipeline networks through the land bridge that is the Iranian plateau. A nuclear deal could also pave the way for Iran's full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a request that has been rejected since 2008 on the grounds that Tehran is under UN sanctions. The SCO, whose full members include China, Russia, and all of the Central Asian republics except Turkmenistan, is widely perceived as a counterbalance to NATO and the United States, so Iran almost certainly regards it as an additional layer of insurance in the event of future hostilities with the West.
Against this backdrop, Washington has admittedly precious little room for maneuver. Containing both China and Iran is a surefire way to drive them together. And counteracting Iran while accommodating China -- or, more improbably, vice versa -- would leave loopholes that either could exploit. The more the White House is distracted by Persian imponderables, the less robust its "rebalancing" of resources toward Asia will be, which eminently suits Beijing. The Middle East and Iran in particular are Washington's more immediate priorities, but China represents its most important long-term foreign policy challenge. How Beijing and Tehran interact in the meantime will have significant consequences for America's grand strategy.
Kevjn Lim is an independent researcher focusing on foreign and security policy in the Middle East, where he has been based for nearly a decade.
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