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Top Stories
WSJ:
"Iran's economy, though still crippled by sanctions, has begun to
improve as a new president and a nuclear accord with the West stabilize
its currency and raise confidence, say economists and merchants here and
abroad. Residents of this ancient trade hub say they are encouraged by
the new administration's economic policies and the prospect of a lifting
of international sanctions in the coming years. Such sentiments have
helped stabilize the volatile Iranian rial, which in turn has eased
rising prices and spurred an uptick in informal trade, economists say...
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday projected Iran's economy to
grow by up to 2% for fiscal year 2014-2015, which begins in March. That
contrasts with a 2% contraction the IMF estimates for the current fiscal
year. It predicts a fall in inflation to between 15% and 20% in the year
starting in March from a 45% high in July. Such data lead critics of the
easing of sanctions to say the White House is undermining its own
efforts. 'As Iran's economy improves and our sanctions regime unravels,
the mullahs will be under less and less pressure to fully dismantle their
nuclear- weapon capabilities,' Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican,
said in an email." http://t.uani.com/1gb4TyJ
WSJ:
"Chinese purchases of crude boosted Iran's oil exports in January,
an energy watchdog said Thursday, confirming an easing of the Islamic
Republic's economic hardship after a sanctions-relief deal with Western
nations. In its closely watched monthly oil market report, the International
Energy Agency, which represents some of the world's largest oil
consumers, said Iranian crude exports rose 100,000 barrels a day to 1.32
million barrels a day, with the largest part of that increase coming from
China and, to a lesser extent, Japan and India. But the volume of Iran's
exports is above a limit agreed with world powers of one million barrels
a day, suggesting the country may have to cut sales to comply... Iran's
exports exceed that limit by 320,000 barrels a day, the IEA data shows,
though last month the deputy oil minister Ali Majedi said the country
intends to comply with the agreed limit over the coming half year." http://t.uani.com/1eSdXtx
NYT:
"The International Monetary Fund issued a sobering appraisal of
Iran's economy on Wednesday, warning that years of government
mismanagement aggravated by the impact of the West's antinuclear
sanctions had left the country vulnerable to anemic growth and rampant
inflation that require urgent attention. The I.M.F. appraisal was the
organization's first on-the-ground assessment of the Iranian economy in
nearly three years. It was issued as Iran is seeking to undo the Western
sanctions through negotiations on its disputed nuclear program. A
temporary agreement reached in November and put into effect last month
provided some limited sanctions relief to Iran. But the basic restraints
remain in force, and they have limited Iran's ability to sell oil, its
most important export, and have largely paralyzed its ability to conduct
international financial transactions electronically. 'Large shocks and
weak macroeconomic management over the past several years have had a
significant impact on macroeconomic stability and growth,' Martin
Cerisola, the I.M.F. assistant director for its Middle East and Central
Asia department, said in a statement on the I.M.F. website... Mr.
Cerisola, who led a delegation to Tehran from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8, said
that the authorities in the administration of President Hassan Rouhani,
which took over last summer, 'are well aware of these challenges and the
need to advance reforms, and have begun the preparatory work in many of
these areas.' He said a more comprehensive Iran report would be prepared
by late March." http://t.uani.com/1dKE6nK
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Free Beacon:
"A leading House lawmaker is calling on President Obama to publicly
release the full text of the recently signed Iran nuclear deal, which is
currently being held under lock and key in a secure compound on Capitol
Hill. Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R., Fla.), a leading member of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Obama on Wednesday in a bid to force
the Iran deal into the public. The precise details of the deal have
remained 'shrouded in secrecy' despite the critical nature of the
agreement, Ros-Lehtinen said. The White House has come under increasing
fire from lawmakers and others for refusing to publicly release the text
of the deal. Lawmakers and qualified Hill staffers must submit to an
extensive security procedure just to view the text, which is being kept
hidden from the American public. The deal was even kept from members of
Congress until the last moment, according to Ros-Lehtinen... The
Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday that those seeking to view
the deal must pass through many layers of security-even though the deal
is technically marked as 'unclassified.'" http://t.uani.com/1nvTTwf
Global Security
Newswire: "An Iranian official on Wednesday set
aside the idea of potentially altering a nuclear reactor that other
nations fear could produce atomic-bomb fuel. Iran cannot convert its Arak
heavy-water reactor to a light-water facility, Hamid Babaei, a spokesman
for Iran's delegation to the United Nations, wrote in a Wednesday
commentary published by the London Guardian. Such a change would reduce
the unfinished site's capacity to produce weapon-usable plutonium once
activated, addressing a major concern shared by world powers as they seek
a deal with Iran aimed at preventing its atomic assets from supporting
any nuclear-arms production. But the diplomatic official said this kind
of modification would prove infeasible. 'It is now too late to change
[the Arak reactor] into a light-water prototype, as some have suggested
in the West,' Babaei wrote. 'This generous offer should have been made much
earlier.'" http://t.uani.com/NFDTNX
Sanctions
Relief
Bloomberg:
"Imports of Iranian crude rose by 100,000 barrels a day last month,
with China, Japan and India taking more oil as a deal easing sanctions
over Iran's nuclear program took effect, the International Energy Agency
said. Purchasing countries received 1.32 million barrels a day last
month, the IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 28 nations, said in an e-mailed
report today. An increase in the number of barrels shipped to the three
Asian importers more than made up for reduced deliveries to South Korea,
Syria and Taiwan, the agency said... Iran had an estimated 30 million
barrels of crude held on tankers at the end of January, including 6
million barrels in vessels off China's coast, according to the report.
Total production rose by 30,000 barrels to 2.78 million last month, as
cold winter weather in Iran boosted domestic fuel use." http://t.uani.com/LX5b0i
Reuters:
"Iran has asked India for $1.5 billion in back oil payments under
the nuclear deal that provides Tehran some relief from Western sanctions,
Indian sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. If
the payments are approved, this could make India the third of Iran's
major buyers, after Japan and South Korea, to start processing frozen
back payments. The payments are contingent on Iran holding to its
agreement to start curbing its nuclear programme. Indian refiners are
holding about $3 billion in payments due the Middle Eastern crude
producer, one of the sources said. Other funds owed to Tehran are held in
a rupee-denominated account at India's UCO Bank." http://t.uani.com/1hfD7E2
AFP:
"Russia's economy chief on Wednesday announced plans to visit Iran
amid reports of the two sides nearing a mammoth oil-for-goods deal that
has raised consternation in the United States. Economy Minister Alexei
Ulyukayev told Russian media his late April trip would focus on a 'wide
range of trade and economic issues' but provided no further details.
Moscow's Kommersant business daily on January 16 said the two close
trading partners were negotiating a barter agreement under which Russia
could import up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day... Tehran's
Fars news agency quoted Moscow's Iranian ambassador as saying on Saturday
that the latest terms of the proposed deal would see Russia build Iran
railroads in exchange for oil... Moscow media have been speculating since
the weekend that the deal would see Russia re-export the oil to China
while also providing Iran with train cars and locomotives. Russian
Railways state corporation chief Vladimir Yakunin had earlier expressed
interest in helping Iran develop a railroad to its northern neighbour
Armenia." http://t.uani.com/1eShtnF
Bloomberg:
"Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie defended a
visit by a French trade delegation last week to Iran as a way for
companies to gain a competitive edge should sanctions be lifted. 'When it
becomes legal to work in Iran and contractual terms are satisfactory, I
don't see why Total would deprive itself of the possibility to beat out
its Anglo-Saxon competitors in Iran,' de Margerie said today at a press
conference. 'We have the right to move, that's not illegal.' The U.S. has
criticized the visit, during which more than 100 representatives of French
businesses including oil producer Total met top Iranian trade officials
in Tehran." http://t.uani.com/1lIR4sO
Sanctions
Enforcement & Impact
Reuters:
"BNP Paribas, France's biggest listed bank, has set aside $1.1
billion for a possible fine for breaching U.S. sanctions on countries
including Iran, the latest bank to take a hit to profit from a legal
investigation... BNP said on Thursday it had set aside the funds after
talks with the U.S. authorities, though it said there had been no
discussion on the size of any potential penalty. 'We've been doing a
retrospective review for several years and we've basically now presented
our findings to the U.S. authorities,' BNP Chief Financial Officer Lars
Machenil told Reuters Insider TV." http://t.uani.com/1brOQxg
Terrorism
Al-Monitor:
"Iranian officials on Feb. 5 received a high-level Palestinian
Islamic Jihad delegation headed by Ramadan Shallah, the movement's
secretary general. Accompanying him was Islamic Jihad's deputy leader,
Ziyad al-Nakhalah, whom the US Department of State announcement on Jan.
23 was being added to its list of 'specially designated global
terrorists.' It was the first visit by Islamic Jihad representatives to
Iran since President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013. 'While this trip
can be classified as a routine visit, it is important given that it comes
after Nakhalah was added to the terrorist list and after Rouhani took
office,' said Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab. During a meeting with
Al-Monitor at his office, Shihab noted that this is not the first time
Iran has publicly expressed its support for Islamic Jihad and its
leaders. He asserted that Iranian officials had at other meetings
confirmed their rejection of the targeting of the Palestinian people and
figures." http://t.uani.com/1evtjOm
Human Rights
Al-Monitor:
"The 32nd Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran has been
riddled with controversy, including numerous incidences of censorship
during the live broadcasts and backlash against two films dealing with
the sensitive topics of Ashura and the 2009 elections. The live broadcast
of the closing ceremony of the film festival was interrupted by the head
of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Ezatollah Zarghami, so
often that Ghanoun mockingly awarded Zarghami the 'Best Censorship' prize
on its front page. The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) compiled a
list of the moments IRIB cut from the broadcast. One of the most notable
interruptions, according to ISNA, was when Seyed Jamal Satadian accepted
his Best Producer award for his film 'Azar, Shahdokht, Parviz and
Others.' Just as he said during his speech, 'I am hopeful that we reach a
point where we tolerate all of the tastes,' the live feed was immediately
cut. It appears that state TV cut into the ceremony mostly when the
winners of specific films approached the podium to accept their Crystal
Phoenix statues." http://t.uani.com/LX6CvG
Trend:
"Two men were hanged in Iran's southern city of Shiraz this morning,
Iranian Tasnim news agency reported on Feb. 13. The Iranian court has
sentenced them to death by hanging on murder, rape and kidnapping
charges. The two men, identified only as Rahim A. and Mohammad D. were
executed upon the order of Shiraz Public and Revolution Prosecutor in the
public square of the city of Kouzegari." http://t.uani.com/1jaFDs8
Foreign Affairs
Al-Monitor:
"In a Feb. 4 interview with the semi-official Iranian Tasnim News
Agency, Mohammed Majid al-Sheikh, Iraq's ambassador to Iran, was reported
to have revealed his country's intention to strike a deal to buy weapons
from Iran. The agency quoted Sheikh as saying, 'Some well-informed
sources said that the Iranian-Iraqi talks came in light of the Iraqi
Ministry of Defense's vision of the need to supply the Iraqi army with
Iranian-made military equipment, given their efficiency and importance.'
This style of statement is inconsistent with the ambassador's official
role, which is to present the official position of the Iraqi government,
from official Iraqi sources, not from 'well-informed sources.' This calls
into question the validity of this supposed news, especially since it has
not been confirmed by Iranian authorities or the Iraqi officials
typically involved in such deals." http://t.uani.com/MfDwbS
Opinion &
Analysis
Robert Fisk in The
Independent: "In Iran, there should be a Dead Poets
Society. Or perhaps a Martyred Poets Society, with its newest member a
certain Arab-Iranian from Ahwaz, in the far south-west of the country, on
the Iraqi border. He has been hanged for 'spreading corruption on earth',
one of hundreds put to death by the Islamic revolution since 1979.
Everything about Hashem Shabaani cries out in shame against his
executioners: his pacifist poetry, his academic learning, his care for
his sick father - a disabled soldier seriously wounded in the 1980-88 war
against the Iraqi invaders of his country - and his love for his wife and
only child. Already, of course, he has become a political corpse. His
killers, the Iranian interior ministry and a revolutionary tribunal judge
called Mohamed-Bagher Moussavi, must be the first culprits... Shabaani,
needless to say, was accused of helping the 'resistance', presumably
writing poetry in Arabic - and even translating Farsi poetry into the
Arabic language - qualifies a writer as a subversive in Iran these days.
In a letter from prison, Shabaani said that he could not remain silent
against the 'hideous crimes against Ahwazis perpetrated by the Iranian
authorities, especially arbitrary and unjust executions... I have tried
to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should
have - which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all
these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these
atrocious crimes except the pen.' Perhaps that was Shabaani's undoing. In
Iran, the pen can indeed be mightier than the sword, especially when the
nation's security services are growing increasingly paranoid about the
danger of separatism, not only in Ahwaz, but in Baluchistan, Iranian
Kurdistan and among the country's other minority communities... Shabaani
himself should have been feted in his native Iran. Born in Ahwaz, he
published poetry in both Persian and Arabic, got an MA in politics and
led marches in protest at the arrest of students and the expulsion of
professors. The prominent Iranian writer and journalist, Amir Taheri, has
written of Shabaani's poetry - much of it non-political - and quoted from
Shabaani's verse within days of his judicial killing. 'For seven days
they shouted at me:/You are waging war on Allah,' Shabaani wrote of his
trial in a poem he called 'Seven Reasons Why I should Die'. 'Saturday:
because you are an Arab!/Sunday, well you are from Ahwaz ... Tuesday: You
mock the sacred revolution ... Friday: You're a man, isn't that enough to
die?'" http://t.uani.com/1nvUCh1
Aaron David Miller
in FP: "here are many reasons that President Barack
Obama doesn't want to get involved in Syria. And when I say involved, I'm
not talking about providing humanitarian assistance or participating in
the Geneva process. I mean significantly militarizing the U.S. role by
either supporting the opposition with sophisticated military equipment or
by directly applying U.S. military force -- or both... Yet it is more
than likely that no real shift in America's limited, risk-averse strategy
on Syria is in the offing. Obama has been stunningly clear on why.
Indeed, reading David Remnick's interview with the president, it is
refreshing to hear such honesty and clarity -- whether you agree with the
policy or not. 'I am haunted by what's happened. I am not haunted by my
decision not to engage in another Middle Eastern war. It is very
difficult to imagine a scenario in which our involvement in Syria would
have led to a better outcome, short of us being willing to undertake an
effort in size and scope similar to what we did in Iraq. And when I hear
people suggesting that somehow if we had just financed and armed the
opposition earlier, that somehow Assad would be gone by now and we'd have
a peaceful transition, it's magical thinking.' Yet there is one reason
for the president's caution that he almost never mentions -- and it may
be one of the most compelling. Not surprisingly, it is derivative of
Obama's most important foreign-policy objective in the Middle East: a
nuclear deal with Iran. Aside from another al Qaeda attack on the homeland,
Iran is the only foreign-policy issue that has the power to mess up the
remaining years of Obama's presidency. If diplomacy fails and Iran moves
to break out and weaponize, or even come close to being able to make a
deliverable weapon, the risks of three very unpleasant things happening
go up: first, Obama getting blamed for being the leader on whose watch
the mullahs got the bomb; second, Israel striking Iran; and third,
America having to do the same thing, or getting dragged into an
Israeli-Iran fight. The first development would leave Obama looking poor
in the legacy department, weak and outfoxed. The latter two events would
open up a box of very bad juju -- and would risk things like plunging
financial markets, rising oil prices, attacks on U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, and proxy terror. So, if at all possible, avoiding a
confrontation with Iran is the president's core goal in the Middle East.
(And, if I'm reading him correctly, he also believes it might have the
fringe benefit of helping stabilize the region.) Where does Syria fit
into all of this?Simply put, to have any chance of getting things done
with Iran, America needs to be talking with the Iranians -- not shooting
at them in Syria or anywhere else. Indeed, the last thing Obama wants or
can afford now is direct military intervention in Syria that would lead
to a proxy war; kill Iranian Revolutionary Guard units assisting Assad's
forces; or convince Tehran that U.S. policy is designed to encircle
Syria's Shia regime with a U.S.-backed Sunni arc of pressure. Critics of
the president's Iran and Syria policy want him to pursue these
objectives. Their argument holds that, if America brings Assad down, Iran
will be more constrained and less of a threat, and that it will scale
back its nuclear weapons ambitions. This is an interesting take -- and
essentially great game strategy." http://t.uani.com/1kECF2H
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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