Eye on Iran: What is The Fate of the U.S. Campaign on the Lebanese Banking Sector?

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories As-Safir (Lebanese Daily, Arabic): "As-Safir Daily revealed on Thursday that Beirut residents and officials are worried these days due to the launching of the UANI campaign (United Against Nuclear Iran) targeting the Lebanese banking sector, mainly the governor of the Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh. The Daily added that the campaign was officially launched in July, but has been under preparation since the beginning of the ongoing year. The executive president of the campaign Mark Wallace sent a letter to Governor Riad Salameh on February 20 raising questions on the commitment of the Lebanese banking sector to the sanctions against Iran. On February 24, Salameh replied to Wallace confirming that there was no financial relation between the Lebanese Central Bank and the Iranian Central Bank, and providing technical answers to Wallace's queries." http://t.uani.com/OX8wJ9 Reuters: "MTN Group, Africa's top telecom, is in talks with South African and U.S. officials about moving money out of its Iran business, as tightening sanctions have prevented it repatriating funds, its chief executive said. Johannesburg-based MTN, which reported a 14 percent rise in first-half profit, also said on Wednesday a likely devaluation of the Iranian rial -- another result of U.S.-led pressure on Tehran -- could have a 'severe impact' on second-half results. The mobile operator owns 49 percent of MTN Irancell, which contributes nearly 10 percent of its total revenue, but has become an increasing headache, with the potential to tarnish MTN's image as a post-apartheid success story." http://t.uani.com/MTj6Qr WSJ: "Iran has been a money-spinning market for MTN Group Ltd. But now there's a catch: South Africa's mobile-phone company hasn't figured out how to get the money it has earned out from the country. That is because U.S. sanctions ban transactions with most Iranian banks, preventing MTN from repatriating profits through them. On Wednesday, MTN said first-half revenue for the period ending June 30 grew by 18% to 66.43 billion rand ($8.1 billion), with the highest increase coming from its operation in Iran. The country is its fastest-growing market in terms of subscribers and the third-largest contributor to MTN's revenue... On Wednesday, MTN said it has entered talks with U.S. officials in a bid to unlock its earnings from Iran. MTN said it expects Iran's currency to weaken amid sanctions on the economy, which in turn would erode its earnings when it eventually is able to expatriate its profits." http://t.uani.com/QILg4D     Nuclear Program   Reuters: "Iran's nuclear moves are becoming harder for Israeli and U.S. intelligence to assess, making Teheran's suspected atomic weapons drive an even more urgent matter, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday. He was commenting a report in the newspaper Haaretz that said U.S. President Barack Obama had received a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) saying Iran had made significant and surprising progress toward military nuclear capability. 'There probably really is such an American intelligence report -- I don't know if it is an NIE one -- making its way around senior offices (in Washington),' Barak told Israel Radio." http://t.uani.com/TjOVp9 WSJ: "Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz has triggered alarm about the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, but for the arid, oil-rich countries in the region it poses another uncomfortable question: For how long can they feed their people if the strategic waterway is blocked? Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are among the world's richest countries, but as much as 90% of food needs for these mostly desert nations is brought in from abroad, according to the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. Much of those imports come to the Persian Gulf via the narrow Strait of Hormuz. Iran has threatened to block the strategic waterway-through which about 35% of the world's ship-borne oil is exported, in the opposite direction-in response to sanctions over its nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/RCXDR5 NYT: "The United States and its Arab allies are knitting together a regional missile defense system across the Persian Gulf to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack, according to government officials and public documents. It is an enterprise that is meant to send a pointed message to Tehran, and that becomes more urgent as tensions with Iran rise. But it will require partner nations in the gulf to put aside rivalries, share information and coordinate their individual arsenals of interceptor missiles to create a defensive shield encompassing all the regional allies." http://t.uani.com/MTdCVX Wired: "A newly uncovered espionage tool, apparently designed by the same people behind the state-sponsored Flame malware that infiltrated machines in Iran, has been found infecting systems in other countries in the Middle East, according to researchers. The malware, which steals system information but also has a mysterious payload that could be destructive, has been found infecting at least 2,500 machines, most of them in Lebanon, according to Russia-based security firm Kaspersky Lab, which discovered the malware in June and published an extensive analysis of it on Thursday. The spyware, dubbed Gauss after a name found in one of its main files, also has a module that targets bank accounts in order to capture login credentials. The malware targets accounts at several banks in Lebanon, including the Bank of Beirut, EBLF, BlomBank, ByblosBank, FransaBank and Credit Libanais. It also targets customers of Citibank and PayPal." http://t.uani.com/MBdBV6 Sanctions Reuters: "The U.S. Treasury told the British government on Wednesday that it takes financial sanctions violations 'extremely seriously' and is coordinating with federal and state agencies in an investigation of the UK's Standard Chartered bank. Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, told the British Treasury in a letter obtained by Reuters that his office is investigating the bank for 'potential Iran-related violations as well as a broader set of potential sanctions violations.' The letter, dated August 8, was in response to a British request for clarification of U.S. sanctions laws and comes after New York State authorities alleged that Standard Chartered hid $250 billion of Iranian banking transactions, in violation of U.S. law." http://t.uani.com/MB6I6u Reuters: "Investors are proving slow to rally behind Standard Chartered after allegations the bank broke U.S. sanctions against Iran, spooked by talk of risky countersuits, record fines and fears that top executives could lose their jobs. Chief Executive Peter Sands' defense of StanChart's cherished image as one of the cleanest names in global finance has so far failed to convince some shareholders, who are taking their time to reappraise their exposure to the latest in a string of British banking scandals. StanChart lost more than a quarter of its market value in 24 hours after the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) accused the bank on Monday of assisting $250 billion of money-laundering transactions with Iran, earning lucrative fees over nearly 10 years." http://t.uani.com/RCZu8z Bloomberg: "Iran's ministry of industries, mines and commerce will pay 10 trillion rials ($816 million) to Iranian carmakers as they are going through 'financial problems,' Tehran Times reported. Iran's two biggest automakers, Iran Khodro Co. and SAIPA, are struggling to pay debts to domestic part makers, Industries, Mines and Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari said according to the newspaper. Car production decreased by 37.4 percent in the first four months of the current Iranian year that started on March 20, compared to the same period last year, the report said. Some 1.6 million cars were manufactured in Iran last year and about 55,000 cars exported, Ghazanfari told the newspaper." http://t.uani.com/P7y21E Terrorism NYT: "A magnetic bomb detonated on a diplomatic car in New Delhi. The police uncovered a cache of explosives at a golf course in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. Five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed in an attack outside the airport in the Black Sea coastal city of Burgas. These were just a few of what some Israeli and American intelligence officials say were nearly a dozen plots that form the backbone of a continuing offensive by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel and its allies abroad. But the links seem tenuous at times, the tactics variable, the targets scattered across the globe, from the Caucasus to Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean. 'This is not a spy thriller that necessarily has a plot readers can follow from page to page,' said Matthew Levitt, director of the program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 'Iran and Hezbollah both thrive on reasonable deniability.'" http://t.uani.com/MAmjJd JPost: "The lawyer representing victims of Hezbollah's 1983 Beirut barracks bombing said on Wednesday that a recent court ruling ordering Iran to pay $167 million in damages was another step toward making it accountable for state-sponsored terrorism. Virginia-based attorney Joseph Peter Drennan, representing the families of eight US marines killed in the bombing, told The Jerusalem Post that the judgment would teach Tehran that sponsoring terrorism was not only cowardly but also expensive. 'Our mantra has always been that the best way of fighting state-sponsored terrorism is to make the cost of that terrorism unacceptably high,' Drennan said." http://t.uani.com/MzvS5e Syrian Civil War Reuters: "Iran said an abrupt end to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad would have catastrophic consequences for his country, as Tehran pushed ahead with a diplomatic meeting of allies it says is the best way of resolving the intensifying conflict in Syria. Nations with 'a correct and realistic position' would attend a meeting on Thursday in Tehran to discuss the conflict, a senior Iranian diplomat said this week, indicating that no nation that backs the opposition and calls for Assad to leave power would be present. Russia - which along with Iran has strongly supported Assad since the crisis erupted 17 months ago - has said it will attend the meeting at ambassadorial level but it was unclear which other key players would be present." http://t.uani.com/MTeLwR Domestic Politics Atlantic: "The regime seems to have realized that foreign films were going to trickle into the country whether they permitted it or not, so perhaps better to 'bring [the movies] under their own jurisdiction,' as a report by the advocacy group Article 19 put it. That means censoring foreign movies instead of banning them outright, and even broadcasting them widely enough that people won't feel it's worth their time to track down an uncensored version. The censors, offensive though their mission may be, don't have an easy job. There are 37 rules, laid out in 1983, 1993, and 1996 laws, detailing the ideas and images banned from movies. Many pertain to women: no close-ups of their faces, no makeup, no exposed necklines; men and women can't sit closely, appear to be alone together, touch, or exchange 'tender words or jokes.' Veiled women, bearded men, policemen, and soldiers can't be portrayed negatively without 'a good excuse.' No booze, no profanity against religion (yes, Iran protects faiths other than Islam), or neck ties, which are seen as a symbol of foreign culture. Oh, and no sorcery -- sorry, Harry Potter." http://t.uani.com/QOcyIT Foreign Affairs LAT: "Signaling a new era in Egypt's diplomacy, President Mohamed Morsi met with Iran's vice president Wednesday in the highest-level official contact between the two strategic nations in decades. Morsi's visit with Hamid Baghaei gave Iran a diplomatic coup amid sharpening international pressure over its nuclear program and links to Syria. It came as Egypt's new Islamist president looks to gradually reshape the pro-American policies of toppled leader Hosni Mubarak to reflect political shifts brought by the 'Arab Spring' revolts. The brief meeting in the Egyptian capital did not produce any breakthroughs, but it was symbolic." http://t.uani.com/S4sr9g Opinion & Analysis Mehmet Kinaci in Journal of Energy Security: "The Iranian oil embargo is an important step, within the context of general sanctions, and it has been strengthened by a freeze on Iranian financial sanctions and assets.  Do the US and its Allies' believe sanctions on Iran can work? To what extent is the oil embargo effective? Several key variables affect the answer to these questions. First and foremost, the answer is not black and white (failure or success). While US economic measures will not force Iran to stop its development of a nuclear capability, whether it is for peaceful or military purposes, sanctions will bring Iran to the table for negotiations over International Atomic Energy Agency oversight. The oil embargo and associated financial sanctions will make a difference and force Iran to continue with the P5+1 negotiation. The key element for Iranian non-proliferation is that Tehran stop uranium enrichment and allow a mechanism to monitor and to follow the 2008 P5+1 proposal.   The second key finding is the high value Iran gives to its nuclear program in order to obtain a dominant position in the Persian Gulf region. This has to be understood within a geopolitical and historical context. The West argues that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon; Iran suggests that it plans to continue uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes. As the US helped Iran to get rid of its historical enemy Saddam Hussein, and a friendly regime is now in charge in Iraq, the time is right in Iran for such a move.  Joining the nuclear club would enable Iran to assert its position across the Arab region. The US Administration would like to express its determination that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and to assure its public and Israel. Any Israeli unilateral action against Iran, using military force, would damage the alliance established to enforce the sanctions and would subsequently destabilize the entire region.  This would have a negative impact on energy, in particular oil prices, which have already been volatile due to increased demand, recent changes in the Middle East, and increased tensions in the Persian Gulf. A final observation is the importance of keeping the alliance intact to achieve maximum effect on Iran. In order to get the desired effect from sanctions, it is important that most of its current customers follow the US request to reduce their oil imports from Iran.   In order to achieve this solidarity, the US and other petroleum producing countries in particular, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq should increase their oil production. The US and other IEA countries should also be ready to release their Strategic Petroleum Reserves.   Additionally, India, China, Turkey and South Korea have to be convinced that these sanctions are not against them, but for the benefit of all to avoid a future crisis in the Middle East. The final point is oil's role as a strategic commodity. Oil has been used as a strategic weapon and oil and gas will continue to be used as foreign policy tools in the future. This may create sensitivity in those countries which have had an exponential increase in demand in recent years.  As the US is expected to continue to decrease foreign oil imports in coming years, the increased US role in the Persian Gulf area will create distrust on those countries heavily reliant on oil imports from the Middle East such as India and China. Finally, although the sanctions are going to harden Iran's positions, they may create a separation between the President and the Supreme Leader. Because President Ahmadinejad has openly challenged the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in recent elections Ali Khamenei has been able to obtain more conservative seats in Iranian parliament (majlis). Also, their approach towards International Atomic Energy Agency inspections has been reportedly different." http://t.uani.com/NpPny7 Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.