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Bloomberg: "When Iran and global powers
signed a nuclear deal last year, supporters and detractors agreed on
one thing: the accord would get billions of investment dollars flowing
into the Islamic Republic. The only question was how much. The answer
so far -- 'not much' -- is infuriating Iranian officials, who are
demanding more U.S. concessions, including access to dollar-denominated
trades, after curbing their nuclear program. In the U.S., opponents of
the original agreement are warning against any further easing of
restrictions, vowing to hold up Treasury Department nominees to ensure
it doesn't happen... 'The Iranians thought they'd get more help from
the banks,' said Matthew Levitt, a former deputy assistant secretary of
Treasury. 'As long as they engage in illicit conduct, they're going to
find banks not willing to engage with them.' Worried that the Obama
administration's efforts will go too far, Republican Senators Marco
Rubio and Mark Kirk warned Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in a May 19
letter that they will hold up Treasury Department nominees until they
receive assurances that 'the U.S. will not enable Iranian access to
U.S. dollars elsewhere in the international financial system, including
assisting Iran in gaining access to dollar payment systems outside the
U.S. financial system.' ... 'Promotion of banking and commercial
activity in that environment is completely anathema to the message the
U.S. government has been sending internationally for last 15 years,'
said Juan Zarate, chairman of the Financial Integrity Network who was a
White House adviser on combating terrorism under President George W.
Bush... To really draw investment, Iran needs to embrace wholesale
economic and political reform, said Suzanne Maloney, a senior analyst
at the Brookings Institution. 'Tehran's challenges in luring capital is
further complicated by its reputation for provocative domestic and
regional behavior,' Maloney wrote in a May 20 report. 'As the old adage
goes, capital is a coward. And the Islamic Republic is a haunted house.'"
http://t.uani.com/1Udghgn
NYT: "An Iranian council that
would have the authority to select a new supreme leader elected an
89-year-old hard-liner as its chairman on Tuesday, Iranian state news
media reported. The council, the Assembly of Experts, holds an
increasingly important role in light of concerns about the health of
the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who received treatment for
prostate cancer in 2014. 'We should act in such a way that both God and
the leader are satisfied with us,' the new chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad
Jannati, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency after his election. The
selection of Ayatollah Jannati, who won a majority of the 86 votes,
suggested that seniority was a higher priority than the preference of
voters. During parliamentary elections in February, Ayatollah Jannati
managed to secure the last of 16 seats in the Tehran constituency. It
also signals new obstacles for a coalition of reformists and moderates
under President Hassan Rouhani who are seeking very modest changes in
the Islamic republic, analysts say. In addition to his new post,
Ayatollah Jannati leads the influential Guardian Council, a vetting
body that disqualified over 3,000 reformist and moderate candidates for
the February elections, which were held in parallel with the vote for
the Assembly of Experts. If Mr. Rouhani was upset at the vote on
Tuesday, however, he did not let on. He called the assembly an example
of 'religious democracy,' and reaffirmed that, when the time comes, the
'people have chosen' those who will make the decision on a new supreme
leader... One newly elected member of the Assembly of Experts,
Ayatollah Ali Eslami, said the new chairman had been elected to 'give a
powerful slap to the British government,' the Fars News Agency
reported. 'Indeed, the respected members of the Assembly of Experts
intended to give a crushing response to the evil Britain,' Ayatollah
Eslami said." http://t.uani.com/1Wipg3n
Reuters: "U.S. senators questioned on
Tuesday whether India's development of a port in southern Iran for
trade access risked violating international sanctions, and a State
Department official assured them the administration would closely
examine the project. 'We have been very clear with the Indians (about)
continuing restrictions on activities with respect to Iran,' Nisha
Desai Biswal, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian
Affairs, said on Tuesday. 'We have to examine the details of the
Chabahar announcement to see where it falls in that place,' she
testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pledged up to $500 million to develop
the Iranian port of Chabahar, to try to give his country trade access
to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The route is currently all but
blocked by Pakistan, long at odds politically with India." http://t.uani.com/1Vi2NCq
U.S.-Iran
Relations
Fars
(Iran):
"Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force Commander Major
General Qassem Soleimani warned of the Americans' extensive presence in
the regional states in the forms of military, security and political
institutions. 'Today, we are witnessing that the Americans have the
largest volume of presence and attention to the region and in the
current conditions, the highest number of the US political and security
institutions are stationed in the region. The highest number of the US
armed forces, equipment and weapons are in this region and the US
diplomats make the most visits and the highest number of countries
dependent on the West are in this region and we should realize its
reason,' General Soleimani said, addressing a forum in the Central city
of Qom on Monday. Noting that the Americans believe that the Islamic
Revolution has affected their power in the entire world, he warned,
'Therefore, they seek collapse of the Islamic Revolution.' General
Soleimani blamed Washington for the events in the past 20 years in the
region, and said, 'The Americans pursued different ways, including
fomenting clashes and tribal wars, but we are still witnessing that the
Islamic Republic of Iran has gained victory in war against the
Takfiris.'" http://t.uani.com/1qJc0Hb
Fars
(Iran): "Commander
of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad
Ali Jafari warned that certain reactionary regimes in the region have
become a tool of the US to wage proxy wars to block Iran's growing
influence in the region. 'The US has opted for a warmongering approach
using evil and reactionary regimes in the region after the Islamic
Revolution's continued success and the hegemonic system's failure in
controlling the Islamic Revolution's influence,' General Jafari said,
addressing a ceremony in Tehran on Monday. He said that the corrupt
regional regime's greed for power has led them commit savage acts
against the defenseless people in Yemen and Syria, attempt to disturb
the political and security system in Iraq, supply the Takfiri groups with
weapons and suppress the innocent Bahraini people. General Jafari also
blasted a number of the world Muslim bodies for turning into
instruments of protecting the US and Israel's interests in the
region." http://t.uani.com/27SlsKj
Fars
(Iran): "Top
Military Aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim
Safavi called on Iranian officials to keep vigilant against the plots
hatched by the US officials to influence and penetrate into the
country's decision-making bodies. 'One of the tactics used by the
enemies is to penetrate into different decision-making bodies,' Rahim
Safavi said, addressing a gathering in the Central city of Isfahan
Tuesday afternoon. The Leader's top aide noted that the enemies have
changed their tactics and instead of conventional war they are trying
to penetrate into the decision-making bodies." http://t.uani.com/1WirQXa
Business
Risk
Reuters: "Deutsche Bank expects to see
strong growth in Asia for its global payments and trade financing
business in the coming years, despite recent signs of emerging market
cooling, the head of its Global Transaction Banking unit said. 'Within
the transaction bank, the share of revenue coming from Asia could rise
to a quarter in the coming years from 18 percent now,' Werner
Steinmueller told Reuters in an interview... 'On top of that, we are
taking a much closer look at customers in risky regions, also because
of regulators' stricter demands. We have become more cautious,'
Steinmueller said. The note of caution also applies to doing business
with Iran, despite the lifting of some international sanctions earlier
this year. Deutsche Bank paid nearly $260 million last year to settle
charges in the United States that it did business with entities in
U.S.-sanctioned countries, including Iran. 'We remain extremely
reserved when it comes to Iran,' Steinmueller said." http://t.uani.com/25gOKA6
Sanctions
Enforcement
Globe
& Mail: "A
Canadian was sentenced Monday to three years in a U.S. prison for
shipping banned electrical equipment to his native Iran - including
some packages he put together from his jail cell. Starting in 2009 and
continuing until late last year, 45-year-old Ali Reza Parsa traded in
'cryogenic accelerometers' bought from U.S. suppliers before he moved
them through a Canadian front company. The end goal was to get the
devices to Iran, where they have 'both commercial and military uses,
including in applications related to ballistic missile propellants,'
prosecutors said in a statement Monday. Prosecutors said Mr. Parsa, who
pleaded guilty to sanction-busting in January, was so determined to get
the goods overseas that he continued to do business while locked up awaiting
trial in New York's Metropolitan Detention Center. The U.S. government
alleged that, as an inmate, he continued to order parts from German and
Brazilian suppliers, and have them sent to his Canadian front company
for shipment to Iran. During this time, he directed 'a relative to
delete e-mail evidence of his ongoing business transactions while in
jail, emphasizing the need for secrecy in their dealings,' prosecutors
said." http://t.uani.com/1TykLkP
Terrorism
WSJ: "U.S. spy agencies zeroed in
on Mullah Akhtar Mansour while he was visiting his family in Iran,
laying a trap for when the Taliban leader crossed the border back into
Pakistan. While U.S. surveillance drones don't operate in the area,
intercepted communications and other types of intelligence allowed the
spy agencies to track their target as he crossed the frontier on
Saturday, got into a white Toyota Corolla and made his way by road
through Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to U.S. officials
briefed on the operation. Then, the U.S. military took over. Operators
waited for the right moment to send armed drones across the Afghan
border to 'fix' on the car and made sure no other vehicles were in the
way so they could 'finish' the target, the officials said, using the
argot of drone killing-all before Mullah Mansour could reach the
crowded city of Quetta, where a strike would have been more
complicated." http://t.uani.com/27SjDwX
Syria
Conflict
Press
TV (Iran):
"Iran's defense minister says Iraq and Syria, currently engaged in
war on Takfiri groups, have fallen prey to a plot designed jointly by the
United States and the Zionists. 'What is today happening in Syria and
Iraq is a deep-seated US-Zionist conspiracy that has triggered war in
Muslim territories,' Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan told reporters on
Tuesday. 'Zionists are supporting terrorists and equipping them, i.e.
pitting them against Muslims. What is important for them is to
guarantee the Zionist regime's security,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1OWy2Sj
Saudi-Iran
Tensions
Reuters: "OPEC's thorniest dilemma of
the past year - at least from a purely oil standpoint - is about to
disappear. Less than six months after the lifting of Western sanctions,
Iran is close to regaining normal oil export volumes, adding extra
barrels to the market in an unexpectedly smooth way and helped by
supply disruptions from Canada to Nigeria. But the development will do
little to repair dialogue, let alone help clinch a production deal,
when OPEC meets next week amid rising political tensions between arch-rivals
Iran and oil superpower Saudi Arabia, OPEC sources and delegates say...
According to International Energy Agency (IEA) figures, Iran's output
has reached levels seen before the imposition of sanctions over its
nuclear program. Tehran says it is not yet there. But while Iran may be
more willing now to talk, an increase in oil prices has reduced the
urgency of propping up the market, OPEC delegates say. Oil has risen
toward a more producer-friendly $50 from a 12-year low near $27 in
January. 'I don't think OPEC will decide anything,' a delegate from a
major Middle East producer said. 'The market is recovering because of
supply disruptions and demand recovery.' A senior OPEC delegate, asked
whether the group would make any changes to output policy at its June 2
meeting, said: 'Nothing. The freeze is finished.'" http://t.uani.com/27SjmtH
Domestic
Politics
FT: "The next battle between
hardliners and reformers will come during the vote to choose a new
Speaker of parliament, due to take place on Saturday. Reformists
support Mohammad-Reza Aref, who received the most votes in his Tehran
constituency. Hardliners want Ali Larijani, the conservative outgoing
Speaker who, paradoxically, supported reformists' position in the
nuclear negotiations. Analysts say hardliners who are based in powerful
bodies such as the judiciary and the elite Revolutionary Guards hope to
help prevent Mr Rouhani from seeking re-election next year. While they
are not willing to risk disqualifying a sitting president from standing
for office, they are trying to undermine him while he is in office in
the hope that voters will abandon him in next year's poll. They are
highlighting Mr Rouhani's lack of progress on the economy, underscoring
how the nuclear agreement has failed to produce the foreign investment
predicted by the president, largely because of the continuation of
banking sanctions. The country remains in recession and youth
unemployment has stayed steady at around 26 per cent. 'Hardliners are
telling people that their only route to change is to pour into the
streets,' said one analyst, who asked to remain anonymous. 'It is very
dangerous that they cannot understand, and refuse to acknowledge, that
people don't want them any longer.'" http://t.uani.com/27SkLkc
Payam
Akhavan in HuffPost:
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is facing a big problem. As a matter
of fact, the problem is so big that the Iranian leadership and State
media cannot stop talking about it. They are very very upset, suffering
from high levels of stress and anxiety. This problem is so big that it
has unified the otherwise divided hardliners and pragmatists who now
speak with one voice in the name of all that is holy and sacred. If you
guessed that the problem is the highest per capita rate of executions
in the world or the torture of political prisoners, you are wrong. You
are also mistaken if you assumed that the problem is the highest per
capita rate of opium addiction in the world. The problem is also not
billions of dollars of missing funds or one of the highest rates of
corruption in the world. It is not one of the biggest brain drains in
the world because of the despair of its young talented citizens either.
If you thought it is the fact that more than half the Iranian people
live under the poverty line, you are also incorrect. It is not
desertification and drought either even if this will result in millions
of climate refugees in the coming years. The problem is also not the
murder and starvation of thousands of innocent civilians in Syria.
These problems are all trivial in comparison with the private meeting
between two prisoners of conscience that took place a few days ago. Ms.
Faezeh Hashemi and Ms. Fariba Kamalabadi first became friends in 2012
in the women's ward of Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Ms. Hashemi is
the well-known daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
one of the most influential figures in the Islamic Republic. She was a
former Member of Parliament sentenced to six months for 'propaganda
against the ruling system' because of her Islamic reformist political
views. Ms. Kamalabadi is a psychologist and one of the seven members of
the leadership of Iran's persecuted Baha'i religious minority. She has
been sentenced since 2008 to ten years in prison on absurd charges of
'espionage for Israel' and 'insulting religious sanctities'. Her
lawyer, Ms. Mahnaz Parakand, described the indictment against them as
'full of accusations and humiliations' against Baha'is without a shred
of proof. Ms. Kamalabadi's daughter was thirteen when she was first
imprisoned. She missed her daughter's graduation, wedding, and the
birth of her grandchild. Finally, she was given a few days to visit her
family, during which time Ms. Hashemi visited her on account of their
friendship. She was accompanied by the legendary human rights lawyer,
Ms. Nasrin Soutudeh, who was also a former cellmate. All who have
crossed paths with the imprisoned Baha'is have been inspired by their
example of selfless devotion and moral integrity. It is not a surprise
that they have gained such loyal supporters. Once news of this meeting
spread, the Iranian leadership became apoplectic. Scores of senior
clerics in the religious establishment condemned Ms. Hashemi's meeting
with a member of the vilified and banned Baha'i minority. One
high-ranking figure denounced 'friendly relations' with Baha'is as 'treason
against Islam and the Revolution' while another warned that 'consorting
with Baha'is and friendship with them is against the teachings of
Islam'. Yet another proclaimed that meeting with a Baha'i is 'an
absolute religious deviation' while others threatened Ms. Hashemi with
criminal prosecution to set an example for others. Given the terrible
woes of the Iranian people and their discontent with their rulers, this
obsessive medieval hatred of Baha'is speaks volumes about the moral
bankruptcy of the Iranian leadership and its long-standing scapegoating
of a peaceful religious minority." http://t.uani.com/22oYHJQ
Mehdi
Khalaji in WINEP:
"When members of Iran's fifth Assembly of Experts gathered on May
24 to choose a new chairman, they confirmed what many already knew:
that the recent election did not change the body's hardline fabric or
the Supreme Leader's ability to exert his will over supposedly
democratic processes. Since February, reformists and other supporters
of President Hassan Rouhani have been claiming victory in both the
assembly and parliamentary elections. The regime had taken pains to
disqualify their favorite candidates before the race, so they produced
an unorthodox list of 'reformist' contenders that included many
hardliners and conservatives. Yet today's inaugural assembly meeting
indicates that this strategy will fail to influence decisionmaking in a
body that could eventually be tasked with naming the next Supreme
Leader. Veteran hardliner Ahmad Jannati won fifty-one of eighty-six
votes at the meeting to become chair for the next two years. Rouhani's
camp had hoped that former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of
their most popular allies, would compete for the position, but he
declared a few days ago that he would not be running. Some analysts
believe he withdrew because of a political scandal caused by his
daughter Faezeh, an activist who recently challenged religious and
political taboos by visiting with imprisoned Bahai leader Fariba
Kamalabadi. The Islamic Republic treats those who practice the Bahai
faith not as members of a minority religious community, but rather as a
dangerous pro-Israel 'espionage network' fabricated by anti-Islamic
colonialist powers, so any contact with them has become a potentially
punishable offense. After photos of Faezeh's visit went public,
numerous religious leaders and government officials attacked her, then
blamed her father for not reacting in a satisfying manner... The
selection of such a notorious hardliner to head the new assembly does
not bode well for Rouhani. First, Khamenei almost certainly played a
role in Jannati's victory, in part by having his associates communicate
his preferences and concerns to the new assembly members in advance of
the vote. The outcome highlights the false hopes generated by Rouhani's
post-election narrative -- far from meeting the reformists halfway, the
Supreme Leader seems to be emphasizing that there will be no trace of compromise
going forward... Given the new assembly's makeup and today's election
of such an anti-democratic figure, the hardliners will no doubt be
confident about pushing for an uncompromising candidate to become
Supreme Leader if the succession question does in fact arise. In the
meantime, they will use the assembly and every other institution under
their control to make more problems for Rouhani and weaken any newly
elected members of parliament who assist him. In addition to electing a
chair, assembly members voted on two other positions today: Mohammad
Ali Movahedi Kermani was chosen as Jannati's first deputy and Shahroudi
as his second. Movahedi Kermani is Khamenei's former representative in
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and shares Jannati's politico-religious
mindset. Shahroudi served as first deputy in the previous assembly and
acting head after the death of Muhammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, playing a
substantial role in the institution's management. Given the advanced
age of Jannati (89) and Movahedi Kermani (85), the younger Shahroudi
(67) could play an even more pivotal role going forward." http://t.uani.com/1TWoQK0
Eli
Lake in Bloomberg:
"A network of advocates, experts and messaging specialists the
White House says helped it sell the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 actually
began to campaign for such an accord four years earlier, before the
real negotiations started. Last week I was leaked e-mails and documents
from an internal listserv operated by the arms control nonprofit
Ploughshares Fund. That foundation has come under scrutiny after the
New York Times Magazine quoted top White House foreign policy aide Ben
Rhodes boasting how the foundation amplified the White House message in
2015 on the Iran deal. Rhodes told the magazine that supporters of the
deal comprised an 'echo chamber,' suggesting the independent experts
were tools of a White House media campaign. But the messaging work from
Ploughshares on Iran began long before there was any Iran deal and long
before Rhodes convened his regular meetings with progressive groups on
shaping the Iran narrative. Beginning in August 2011, Ploughshares and
its grantees formed the Iran Strategy Group. Over time this group
created a sophisticated campaign to reshape the national narrative on
Iran. That campaign sought to portray skeptics of diplomacy as
'pro-war,' and to play down the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program
before formal negotiations started in 2013 only to emphasize those
dangers after there was an agreement in 2015. The strategy group, which
included representatives of the Arms Control Association, the National
Security Network, the National Iranian American Council, the Federation
of American Scientists, the Atlantic Council and others, sought to
'develop process and mechanism to implement Iran campaign strategies,
tactics and narrative,' according to an agenda for the first meeting of
the group on Aug. 17, 2011. As a nonprofit, Ploughshares discloses annually
the organizations that receive its grants. But until now, the way this
network of nonprofits, advocacy organizations and policy experts
coordinated its media campaign has been shrouded from the public. The
members of that network had two things in common. They all received
substantial grants from Ploughshares and they all sought to prevent a
war with Iran. But at the time, the progressives assessed the situation
was bleak. An August 2, 2011, memo from Heather Hurlburt, then
executive director of the National Security Network, and Peter
Ferenbach, a co-founder of ReThink Media, shared with the group an
assessment of the 'media environment' on Iran and concluded it was
'extremely difficult.' The problem, according to Hurlburt and
Ferenbach, was that in 2011 a succession of news stories on Iran,
ranging from reports of progress on the country's nuclear program to
the Treasury Department's designations that accused Iran of colluding
with al Qaeda, had put progressives on defense. 'We are left in the position
of responding to the news headlines and parrying the negative
commentary that follows,' they wrote. Among the authors'
recommendations was that the Iran Strategy Group attack conservatives
who advocated military strikes. 'On a messaging note, it would be best
to describe them as 'pro-war,' and leave it to them to back off that
characterization of their position,' they wrote. This approach became a
centerpiece of the White House's own message four years later when
Obama was selling his deal to Congress. In a speech at American
University that summer he said, 'The choice we face is ultimately
between diplomacy or some form of war.'" http://t.uani.com/1Vi3cEX
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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