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Top Stories
Reuters:
"Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are due to vote on a
tough Iran sanctions bill this week that seeks to squeeze the Islamic
Republic's oil exports to a trickle. The Republican-led House is due to
vote on Wednesday on the bill that seeks to cut Iran's oil exports by
another 1 million barrels per day within one year, congressional aides
said. The bill, expected to pass easily in the House, would not become
law immediately as no companion legislation has yet passed in the Senate.
The Senate Banking Committee could consider its version of a bill in
September and then the legislation would move to the full chamber for a
vote. If the House acts this week it would highlight a divide between
lawmakers in Congress and the some in President Barack Obama's
administration... Robert McNally, the president of energy consultancy the
Rapidan Group and former White House energy advisor to President George
W. Bush, said that in effect Washington is working on a two-track
strategy on Iran that could pay off. 'For diplomacy to have any chance of
succeeding, it must be coupled with the threat of increased sanctions,'
McNally said." http://t.uani.com/14cMSNy
NYT:
"Bogged down in faltering nuclear talks with the European powers
nearly 10 years ago, Hassan Rouhani did something that no Iranian
diplomat before or since has managed to do. He took out his cellphone,
say Western diplomats who were there, dialed up his longtime friend and
associate, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and convinced
him that Iran needed to suspend nuclear enrichment. The call by Mr.
Rouhani, who was elected president in June and will take office next
week, resulted in an agreement in October 2003, the only nuclear deal
between Iran and the West in the past 11 years. 'Rouhani showed that he
is a central player in Iran's political establishment,' said Stanislas de
Laboulaye, a retired director general of the French Foreign Ministry, who
was a member of the European delegation during the talks between 2003 and
2005. 'He was the only one able to sell something deeply unpopular to the
other leaders.' There is growing optimism in Iran and in the West that
Mr. Rouhani, 64, is ready to restart serious talks on the nuclear
issue... But they caution that he is, above all, a Shiite Muslim cleric
who has dedicated his life to the Islamic Revolution, which he will never
betray. 'Our opponents are wrong to expect compromises from Rouhani; the
sanctions and other pressures will not make us change our stances,' said
one of his former closest associates during an interview in Tehran."
http://t.uani.com/150n7Py
The Citizen
(Tanzania): "Tanzania has launched fresh
investigations to establish whether Iranian oil tankers were still
illegally using the national flag to evade shipping sanctions imposed on
Iran by the US and the European Union (EU). Foreign Affairs and
International Co-operation minister Bernard Membe says the government has
been alerted on the new reflagging and directed the relevant state organs
to thoroughly look into the matter... Mr Membe said that if it was true
that the national flag was still being wrongfully used, Tanzania would
officially complain to Iran and involve the international community to
resolve the issue.. The New York-based watchdog organisation United
Against Nuclear Iran said 32 tankers of the blacklisted NITC, which owns
the vessels that were deregistered last year, were still signalling the
Tanzanian flag. The organisation played a key role in exposing links
between Tanzania's flag and Iran's tankers, which the government had
initially denied. It conceded only after evidence showed that Iran
secured the cover through Zanzibar, which had contracted Philtex of Dubai
to oversee its ship registration services." http://t.uani.com/13Sjn0r
Sanctions
Business Times (South Africa): "The
shock resignation of MTN's finance chief, Nazir Patel, this week stems
from how he allegedly broke the cellular giant's procedures by diverting
money out of MTN's thriving business in the pariah state of Iran. In an
almost unprecedented move among blue chip companies, the cellular company
revealed on Monday that Mr Patel had resigned 'with immediate effect'
after a preliminary investigation had apparently highlighted numerous
governance breaches... But Business Times has established that the
investigation into Mr Patel revolved around how he allegedly broke MTN's
procedures in transferring its cash out of Iran through Dubai.
Investigative teams in Dubai and Iran are understood to be scrutinising
the case, and have handed a draft report to the board. It is the second
scandal to emanate from MTN's Iranian business. Sixteen months ago, Chris
Kilowan, the former head of MTN's Iran business, testified that the
company had lavished bribes on Iranian ministers, as well as South
Africa's former ambassador to the country, Yusuf Saloojee, to grab Iran's
second cellular licence in 2007 from rival Turkcell." http://t.uani.com/17auXls
The Hindu:
"In a sign that Western sanctions weigh heavily on it, Hindustan
Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has virtually slammed the door on
Iran for crude oil imports during 2013-14 and has instead increased
imports from Iraq. The HPCL's strategy paper for crude imports during
2013-14 - a copy of which is available with The Hindu - states that
because of the sanctions the U.S. and the European Union imposed on Iran,
it is proposed to have only an optional contract of one million tonne
with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC); and it will be used on a
need basis, if only there is no negative impact on HPCL business. The
existing term contract for April 2012-March 2013 was 2 million tonne
(40,000 barrels a day), with an optional contract of 1 million tonne
(20,000 barrels a day) for 2013-14. But NIOC turned the proposal down,
saying it did not have a policy to make a mere optional contract. 'Hence,
there is no crude-lifting contract with NIOC for 2013-14. This is due to
the ongoing US/EU sanctions on Iran,' the paper says." http://t.uani.com/15Y5fBI
Hartford Courant:
"United Technologies Corp. disclosed in regulatory filings Friday
that one of its foreign businesses worked on the security system for the
Paris branch of Iran's national bank, an entity singled out under U.S.
economic sanctions against the Middle East country. Delta Security
Solution's business with the Bank Melli Iran's Paris branch amounted to
$7,582 in 2012 and 2013, a portion of which occurred after President
Barack Obama signed an executive order last October limiting U.S.
companies and their foreign subsidiaries from 'engaging in any
transaction, directly or indirectly, with the Government of Iran.'
According to securities filings, UTC reported sales of about $3.59
million over the past two years to banks, insurance companies, oil
companies and embassies controlled or owned by the Iranian government.
All of the sales were through foreign subsidiaries of the Hartford-based
company, which declined to comment further on the sales." http://t.uani.com/18HZPNC
AP:
"A senior Iranian official says the country has ordered 315 subway
cars from China in place of payment for oil that can't be transferred due
to sanctions. Amir Jafarpour, who is deputy head of the Transportation
and Fuel Management Committee, says officials were forced to order the
coaches because billions of dollars of payments from crude oil exports to
China have not been transferred to Iran because of sanctions." http://t.uani.com/13TrSZc
Radio Zamaneh:
"Iran's automotive sector announced today, July 21, that close to
122,000 workers in auto parts factories have lost their jobs in the past
year. A spokesman for the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association
said that since last year, economic fluctuations have forced many
production units to lay off between 30 to 50 percent of their workforce.
'The crisis has reached a stage where many parts manufacturers have cut
back their three daily shifts to only one a day,' Mohammadreza Najafai
announced." http://t.uani.com/152dsYX
Bloomberg:
"Iran needs the highest oil price among OPEC members to balance its
2013 budget, according to an inter-governmental Arab energy lender. Iran
requires an average crude price of $144 a barrel this year to break even,
up from $127 last year, the Arab Petroleum Investments Corp., known as
Apicorp, said today in an e-mailed report." http://t.uani.com/1c4BCVA
Syrian Civil War
WT:
"The House Committee on Foreign Affairs this week will focus on
Iran's support for the Syrian regime in a civil war that has claimed
100,000 lives and Iranian influence in Latin America, where an Argentine
prosecutor accuses the Islamic regime of running spy networks in nine
countries. Iran has sent 'cash, goods, arms and foreign fighters' to help
Syrian President Bashar Assad retain power, said Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the Middle East and North Africa
subcommittee. 'This conflict has brought the entire region to the
precipice of utter chaos, and directly threatens the United States, our
national security interests and our allies.'" http://t.uani.com/18MLN0w
Human Rights
AP:
"An Iranian semi-official news agency is reporting that a member of
a small religious minority set himself on fire next to the country's
parliament building. ISNA's late Saturday report says the man, a member
of the Ahl Al-Haq, suddenly poured a bottle of fuel on his body and lit
it. It said he was taken to hospital. Iranian opposition websites have
reported two other such self-immolations since June by Ahl Al-Haq
adherents following the alleged abuse of a group member in prison." http://t.uani.com/17akDd8
AFP:
"Conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari on Sunday called for the release
of political prisoners in Iran and questioned the ongoing house arrests
of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. A vocal
critic of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Motahari broached the
topic in a statement read on the floor of conservative-dominated
parliament, less than a week before moderate president-elect Hassan
Rowhani takes office on August 3. 'There are now political prisoners
jailed only for criticising the government,' said Motahari, according to
his personal website." http://t.uani.com/12wxkTE
BBC:
"Fresh concerns have been raised about the health of Iranian
opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest since 2010. Mr
Karroubi's son said he was taken to hospital three times recently due to
heart and lung problems. Mehdi Karroubi, 76, was detained after
anti-government street protests. He has not been formally charged." http://t.uani.com/17NZGa8
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"Iran's Supreme Leader is calling on top opposition figures to
apologize for claiming vote fraud in the country's 2009 presidential
elections. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments are seen as a response to
demands from Iranian politicians for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi
and Mahdi Karroubi, both under house arrest since 2011. Khameini's remarks
were carried by state TV Monday." http://t.uani.com/1aSB41Z
Guardian:
"With a week until Rouhani's inauguration, such signs have fuelled
hope that a peaceful 'Iranian spring' could be on the way, reversing the
intensifying repression of the last eight years under Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Yet those hopes are tempered by bitter experience. Green
shoots of civic freedoms and human rights were even more apparent under
the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and at the peak of the
2009 opposition Green movement, only to be emphatically quashed by
conservatives in the regime and security forces... Ali Ansari, professor
of modern history at Saint Andrews University, said the regime would
ultimately have to resolve its contradictory views on dealing with the west.
'The conservatives seem to think that Rouhani's election will change
international perceptions overnight,' Ansari said. 'But if they think
that a smiling Rouhani will get sanctions lifted and everything will be
hunky dory without giving something substantial to the west, they may be
surprised.'" http://t.uani.com/17anlzA
Reuters:
"Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani will pick a cabinet of
experienced insiders and will appoint the head of a powerful
charity-cum-business foundation as his chief nuclear negotiator, Iranian
news agencies said on Monday... The ISNA and Mehr news agencies said
Rouhani would nominate Mohammad Forouzandeh as head of the Supreme
National Security Council, effectively making him Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator. The moderate cleric will also bring former Oil Minister Bijan
Zanganeh back to his old job and name former U.N. envoy Mohammad Javad
Zarif as foreign minister, the agencies said. There was no immediate
official confirmation of the reported nominees for top posts. Parliament
must approve all the president's ministerial choices. Forouzandeh, tipped
to head Iran's nuclear negotiating team, is a former Revolutionary Guard,
a former defense minister and now a member of Iran's Security Council. He
also heads the Foundation for the Oppressed and Disabled, the biggest of
the state charitable organizations which dominate large parts of the
economy. It controls companies involved in petrochemicals, shipping,
construction and a host of other enterprises and employs tens of thousands
of people." http://t.uani.com/15qXVj1
Reuters:
"Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani is expected to return
respected former oil minister Bijan Zanganeh to the post he held for
eight years until hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office
in 2005, an Iranian industry source said on Sunday. As oil minister under
the reformist government from 1997 to 2005, Zanganeh helped attract
billions of dollars of foreign investment into Iran's vast oil and gas
industry and was seen as being insulated from political attacks on the
administration by the strong support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei." http://t.uani.com/19rMuf0
Foreign Affairs
Reuters:
"Afghanistan hopes an agreement with Iran to use one of its ports
will help boost exports to Europe and India and reduce its dependence on
neighboring Pakistan's ports for trade. Iran will allow land-locked
Afghanistan to use the port to export goods like fruit and carpets to
India and other countries, according to the spokesman for Afghanistan's
Ministry of Commerce and Industries." http://t.uani.com/16sfgXF
Opinion &
Analysis
Ray Takeyh in LAT:
"Iran will inaugurate its seventh president on Aug. 4. Hassan
Rouhani assumes power at a time when the Islamic Republic is confronting
international isolation and simmering domestic discontent. He has already
changed the tone of the regime, promising moderation and a fresh look at
Iran's many quandaries. The temptation to embrace an Iranian politician
who speaks the language of pragmatism may prove irresistible. However, as
Rouhani settles into office, it is best to hold back and see how much
authority he will have on the nuclear issue and how much of his political
capital he is willing to spend on redeeming his campaign pledges. Rouhani
has been a regime insider since the beginning of the Islamic Republic in
1979. His ability to traverse the treacherous waters of the theocracy
reflects his unparalleled political acumen. He spent his tenure as the
secretary of the Supreme National Security Council settling disputes, dispensing
favors and cultivating national figures. Paradoxically, Iran's nuclear
issues, which helped get him elected this time, also proved his undoing a
decade ago. In 2004, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cynically
blamed Rouhani, Iran's nuclear negotiator, for the nation's voluntary
suspension of its nuclear program. Rouhani was eased out of his position
of influence. The resentment between the two men is palpable, as they
have spent the last few years subtly criticizing each other. Rouhani's improbable
presidency does not absolve him of the need to reassure a skeptical
international community. For the entirety of the Obama presidency, Iran
has rejected sincere offers of dialogue, reneged on its promises of
cooperation and denounced U.N. Security Council measures as illegitimate
and illegal. And this is only on the nuclear front. The Islamic Republic
remains an aggressive supporter of the Assad government in Syria and an
array of terrorist groups plotting against incumbent Arab states. Given
its record of defiance and mendacity, Tehran needs to prove its sincerity
of purpose. One way of determining the scope of Rouhani's authority is to
hold him accountable for his promises. Iran persistently claims that its
nuclear program is firmly anchored in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty
and is merely designed for production of energy. Government functionaries
are quick to point out that the treaty grants all member states the right
to peacefully pursue the limits of nuclear science. They conveniently neglect
to mention that Iran has been censured by numerous International Atomic
Energy Agency injunctions, and that the agency is unsatisfied with
Tehran's record of compliance. The traditional practice of the Islamic
Republic is to insist on its rights while denying its obligations. It is
Rouhani's burden to change all that. In his first postelection news
conference, Rouhani addressed the nuclear issue and stressed that 'Iran
will be more transparent to show that its activities fall within the
framework of international rules.' For many years, Iran has been
unwilling to grant the IAEA access to its key installations and
scientists and to come clean about previous weaponization activities.
Perhaps in this new era of transparency, Rouhani will be willing to negotiate
a plan with the IAEA and grant its inspectors the access long denied
them. Should Rouhani pass this rather modest test, then he may be a
figure the great powers can invest in." http://t.uani.com/11pLvXY
Jonathan Tobin in
Commentary: "The reason for the enthusiasm in
Washington and in the liberal press for Rouhani isn't a puzzle. By
portraying the man elected to the largely symbolic post of president of
Iran as a man of peace, some hope to not merely defuse tensions between
Iran and the West over the regime's nuclear program but to revive support
for diplomacy. Since it has long since been made clear that Iran regards
such talks as merely a means to stall the West while it gets closer to
achieving its nuclear goal, belief in more talks with Iran is a tough
sell. But Rouhani is supposed to change all that and offer President
Obama a plausible option for avoiding the use of force in order to make
good on his promise never to allow Iran to go nuclear. The only problem
with this formulation is that the closer you look at it him, the less
moderate he sounds. Indeed, as the Times profile makes clear, for all of
the bouquets being thrown in Rouhani's direction, it's fairly obvious
that his main virtue is that he is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For eight
years, Rouhani's predecessor has been a convenient symbol of everything
that is hateful about Iran's government. Ahmadinejad's open anti-Semitism
and Holocaust denial transformed him into a cartoon character villain in
the West who symbolized the extreme nature of the Iranian government.
Though Rouhani's election is seen as a rebuke to Khamenei, allowing the
loopy-looking Ahmadinejad to be replaced with someone who is viewed as a
moderate in the West is the smartest thing the supreme leader has done in
years. As bizarre as Ahmadinejad's rants were, he was merely the public
face of a government run largely by others that embodied the same
ideology he espoused. But even the proofs offered of Rouhani's moderation
and pragmatism undermine the narrative that he offers a way out for
Obama. The lead of the profile cites Rouhani's ability to use his access
to Khamenei in order to gain approval for a tentative deal that would
have ended Iran's enrichment of uranium. That was quite a feat, but as
the article points out later, the achievement was meaningless. The
Iranians soon reneged on their agreement in what many in Tehran admitted
was part of a strategy to entice the West into talks that would help them
run out the clock on their nuclear program. Agreeing to the terms that
Rouhani accepted was as much a ruse as all the other deals Western
diplomats thought they had reached with Iran over the years. Though the
Times refloats the self-serving analysis of European diplomats that
sought to vindicate their negotiating strategy in which Rouhani is
depicted as an honest interlocutor who was just 'too optimistic,' he was,
in fact, just the star in a clever piece of theater served up by the
ayatollahs." http://t.uani.com/152glsA
Michael Theodoulou
in The National: "When Hizbollah fighters led the
pro-government forces that retook the town of Qusayr after a two-week
siege early last month, Tehran basked in the reflected glory, acclaiming
their success as a turning point in the civil war in favour of the regime
of the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad. Despite its public praise for
its Lebanese Shiite ally, however, Hizbollah's military intervention in
Syria in support of Mr Al Assad poses big political risks for Tehran -
not the least of which is that it enables rival Sunni Gulf Arab states to
claim that Tehran is inflaming sectarian tensions across the volatile
region, analysts say. Recent opinion polls show plummeting support for
Iran and Hizbollah in Sunni-majority countries.Their approval ratings had
already started declining after the Iranian government's crackdown after
the 2009 elections, from a peak three years earlier when Hizbollah fought
Israel's more technologically advanced forces to a standstill in Lebanon.
Tehran's support for Hizbollah deployment in Syria and its backing for the
Assad regime have become the 'nail in the coffin of Iran's favourable
rating in the region', according to James Zogby, a US-based pollster and
president of the Arab American Institute. Iran has obvious geopolitical
and strategic motives for bolstering Mr Al Assad. His replacement by a
Sunni-dominated government hostile to Tehran would be a severe blow to
the Islamic republic, cutting supply lines to Hizbollah and crippling its
ability to project power in the Middle East and maintain a proxy presence
on Israel's northern border. But Hizbollah's entry into the war has put a
sectarian tinge on Tehran's alliance with Mr Assad, according to Emile
Hokayem, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London. 'Iran's foreign policy is not sectarian by design,' Mr
Hokayem said. 'It has elements of sectarianism that are now highlighted
by Hizbollah's involvement in Syria.'" http://t.uani.com/18IIkNa
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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