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Top Stories
The Hill:
"The House is scheduled to vote this week on new Iran sanctions,
bucking the Obama administration's call for a temporary hiatus ahead of
President-elect Hassan Rouhani's inauguration... The bill from House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) has been scheduled
for a floor vote on Wednesday or Thursday. It has 374 co-sponsors and
cleared Royce's committee unanimously in May. Royce and others say Iran
is getting closer to acquiring the technology to build a nuclear weapon
and that the United States should toughen, not loosen, sanctions. His
bill would extend existing sanctions to human rights violators, require
other countries to further reduce Iranian oil imports, penalize people who
engage in significant commercial trade with Iran and impose greater
shipping sanctions while limiting Iran's access to overseas currency
reserves." http://t.uani.com/13WqxRp
FP:
"With the House of Representatives expected to vote on a tough Iran
sanctions bill on Wednesday, a cohort of liberal Democrats are staging a
last-ditch effort to stop it. In a letter obtained by The Cable, Reps.
Jim McDermott, John Conyers, Keith Ellison and Jim McGovern urge the
House leadership to delay the vote on the bill which they fear could
jeopardize the Obama administration's renewed effort to engage Iran's
newly-elected President Hassan Rouhani on the country's nuclear program.
The dispute highlights the wide gulf on Iran policy between Congress and
the White House. On the one side, you have the Obama administration
easing sanctions on Iran last week and planning to engage with Rouhani, a
relative moderate, on the nuclear issue in September. On the other side,
the Republican-controlled House wants to squeeze Iran's oil exports to a
trickle in a bill expected to pass with ease. That bill could then move
to the Senate Banking Committee in September. 'We believe that it would
be counterproductive and irresponsible to vote on this measure before
Iran's new president is inaugurated on August 4, 2013,' reads the
letter." http://t.uani.com/1bFkXZr
Reuters:
"If Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani wanted to signal his
determination to rebuild relations with the United States and strike a
'grand bargain,' he could hardly do better than pick Mohammad Javad Zarif
as his foreign minister. Iranian news agencies reported on Monday that
Zarif, a former ambassador to the United Nations and Tehran's leading
connoisseur of the U.S. political elite, is set to be in the cabinet
Rouhani will announce after taking office on Sunday. A source close to
Rouhani confirmed Zarif will be nominated as foreign minister. A fluent
English speaker who earned his doctorate at the University of Denver,
Zarif has been at the center of several secret negotiations to try to
overcome 35 years of estrangement between Washington and Tehran,
diplomats said. Those talks failed because of deep mistrust on a range of
disputes from Iran's secretive nuclear program and support for
anti-Israeli militants to U.S. sanctions and hopes of engineering 'regime
change' in Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1aUBwMY
Cyber Warfare
WT: "Iran's limited cyber
capabilities enable it to launch attacks against the U.S. that would do
more damage to public perceptions than actual infrastructure, a new study
said. 'Iran does not need the equivalent of a Ferrari to inflict damage
on U.S. infrastructure: A Fiat may do,' states the study 'Iran: How a
Third Tier Cyber Power Can Still Threaten the United States.' The study
was published Monday by the Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO think tank in
Washington. Previous cyberattacks on nation-states, like the
Russian-backed one against Estonia in 2007, were not destructive and
'caused a political crisis, not a military one,' the study says. In the
same way, 'a significant Iranian cyberattack against the United States
would take on outsized importance, regardless of its technical
sophistication.'" http://t.uani.com/1ca76cO
Commerce
Hurriyet:
"Turkey's trade volume with Iran could reach $30 billion on the back
of improving foreign trade volume, a Turkish minister has said. Meeting
with Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Ali Reza Bikdeli, Turkey's customs and
trade minister, Hayati Yazıcı, said the trade volume between Turkey and
Iran was behind the potential, according to a statement issued by the
ministry. 'We want to carry the trading volume one step further,' the
minister said. 'The two countries have great responsibilities and roles
with regard to elevating our bilateral trading volume, which was $22
billion in 2012, to $30 billion in the forthcoming period. We, as the
Customs and Trade Ministry, endeavor to achieve this target in
consideration of works in revenue administration and reciprocal
agreements in the field of customs between the two countries.' ...
Meanwhile, Yazıcı also highlighted how Turkish Cargo, an affiliate of
Turkish Airlines (THY), had announced plans to launch cargo flights to
Tehran. The THY press agency said Tehran flights were scheduled at least
once per week, starting tomorrow. Turkish Cargo's freight network now
reaches 46 international destinations with the addition of Tehran, it has
said." http://t.uani.com/1e8hRJj
Domestic Politics
NYT:
"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, whose tumultuous two-term
tenure is in its final few days, will be moving to academia. The
government's Islamic Republic News Agency announced Monday that Mr.
Ahmadinejad had been granted a license to start an international
university in Tehran. It was the first official confirmation of Mr.
Ahmadinejad's postpresidential plans, which had been the subject of
speculation for some time. The news agency said the charter of Mr.
Ahmadinejad's university, which apparently has not been named yet, must
still be approved by two government ministries. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who
could not run for a third term, is to relinquish the presidency on Sunday
to the cleric Hassan Rouhani." http://t.uani.com/156IcIm
Opinion &
Analysis
David Albright
& Serena Kelleher-Vergantini in ISIS: "Iran has
taken many actions that have compounded suspicions that it has not
stopped its uranium laser enrichment activities. They include
Iran's development of advanced lasers suitable for uranium enrichment,
its past secret laser enrichment program, the extensive construction at
the site of its original undeclared uranium laser enrichment program
(Lashkar Ab'ad), and a 2010 high-profile Iranian announcement about
having a uranium laser enrichment capability. As a result, although
concerns about Iran's centrifuge and heavy water reactor programs are
more pressing, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is justified
to also pursue whether Iran has had undeclared uranium laser enrichment
activities since 2003. Iran has so far not provided the IAEA with
the necessary information and access to resolve these concerns. This ISIS
report uses commercial satellite imagery to show the substantial growth
of the Lashkar Ab'ad site, where Iran conducted secret laser enrichment
activities into 2003. This report reviews Iranian scientific journal
articles, and compares authors, their organizational affiliations, the
addresses of such affiliations, and the evolution of these affiliations,
concluding that Iran has developed advanced lasers that are suitable for
use in laser enrichment of uranium, and that Lashkar Ab'ad is at the center
of this work. In addition, Iran has taken steps to hide the linkage
of Lashkar Ab'ad to these organizations, one of which has been sanctioned
by the United States and the European Union allegedly for work on laser
enrichment of uranium. As long as Iran does not satisfy the IAEA's
concerns, additional measures are recommended that increase Iran's
difficulty to pursue laser uranium enrichment programs. They
include additional sanctions designations for specific organizations and
individuals. In addition, countries should make a higher priority
of detecting and thwarting any Iranian procurements of laser enrichment
related technology, equipment, and materials, including subcomponents of
advanced lasers. Questions about Iran's laser enrichment activities reinforce
the need for it to ratify the Additional Protocol and accept additional
verification measures as soon as possible to ensure that Iran, a known
multiple violator of its safeguards agreements, is not pursuing secret,
undeclared nuclear activities." http://t.uani.com/17Rbfxm
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