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TOP STORIES
An Iranian appeals court has confirmed a 16-year
sentence for one of Iran's most prominent women's rights activists,
her lawyer said Wednesday. The activist, Narges Mohammadi, 44, a
human rights lawyer, has been in and out of jail over the past 15
years and has had several confrontations with Iran's hard-line
dominated judiciary. Her arrest in 2015 and conviction a year later
were severe blows to Iran's small and embattled community of women's
rights activists, highlighting the severe pressures they face.
"She has committed no crime and has just been doing her job as a
lawyer and citizen," said Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer
and prominent activist who spent two years in prison but who was
granted an early release in 2013. Ms. Sotoudeh characterized her
colleague as a law-abiding citizen who defended victims of acid
attacks and voted while in prison during the 2015 parliamentary
elections. "Every day Narges is behind bars is one too
many," Ms. Sotoudeh said.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz defended the 8-month-old
nuclear deal with Iran on Wednesday, despite continued congressional
attacks on the agreement. "Frankly, I think on the nuclear side
we got it right," Moniz said during the Washington Ideas Forum,
hosted by The Atlantic. "Iran's nuclear program is dramatically
scaled back, as the agreement required"... Moniz recently
returned from an IAEA summit in Vienna, Austria, where he met with
the head of Iran's atomic energy agency. In remarks to reporters
following that meeting, Ali Akbar Salehi suggested that countries
around the globe are dragging their feet in rolling back sanctions
against Iran. His remarks echoed previous complaints by Iranian
officials about the pace of international economic engagement with
their country, even months after the deal went into place.
"We'll keep working at it," Moniz said on Wednesday.
"We all want to keep tracking the agreement and see to it that
Iran's entry to the international marketplace is according to the
agreement"... "Frankly, to me, the deal stands on its
own," he concluded. "Success, hopefully, in this,
proscribing their activities to purely peaceful nuclear activities.
But obviously we hope that it will be one contributor to what is
probably a decadal kind of march towards a stronger
relationship."
Austria agreed on Wednesday to significantly increase
its export guarantees for deals with Iran during a visit by the
Islamic Republic's central bank chief, two people familiar with the
matter said. It will raise the total amount of guarantees that
Oesterreichische Kontrollbank, the body responsible, can provide to
roughly 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) from more than 200 million
euros, the people said. "It is about saying that it is possible
to do significantly more than before," said one of the people,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks between Iranian
and Austrian officials were confidential.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
PSA Peugeot Citroen said it plans to sell more than
150,000 Peugeot vehicles in Iran in the second half of this year as
the French carmaker seeks to reclaim the leading position it once
enjoyed in the country. Peugeot, the biggest-selling European
automaker in pre-sanctions Iran, suspended sales in 2012 when an
international boycott due to Iran's nuclear program was extended to
cars. Most sanctions were lifted in January... Iran's Minister for
Industry Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh will visit PSA's Velizy research
center near Paris on Thursday to discuss cooperation with the
carmaker, CEO Carlos Tavares told reporters at the Paris autoshow.
"This is the kick-off for the implementation of the deals we
have signed," said Tavares, who will travel to Iran next week.
Tavares wants to sell 300,000 Peugeot vehicles in Iran in 2017.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Homa Hoodfar arrived in Montreal this morning to hugs
and cheers after being detained in an Iranian prison since June.
"It's wonderful to be home and united with family and friends
again," Hoodfar said at a news conference at Pierre Elliott
Trudeau Airport, as she smiled and clutched the hand of her niece,
Amanda Ghahremani. Hoodfar thanked the federal government and Oman
for helping to secure her release. "I've had a bitter seven
months and the detention has left me weak and tired," she said.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The commander of Iran's navy has been questioned by
the country's security services after he allowed one of his warships
to be featured in a music video by a dissident rapper who has since
been arrested for "promoting corrupt Western
culture". Admiral Habibullah Sayyari allowed the singer
Amir Tataloo and his band to use a destroyer in the waters of the
Persian Gulf to film a song that defended Iran's right to nuclear
energy. The song was released last year, but Mr Tataloo was
subsequently arrested on charges of "promoting corrupt Western
culture among Iranian youth". The admiral claimed that he did
not know who the singer was and defended the decision to allow the
destroyer to be used as music video set.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
From the point of view of Sunni Arab regimes anxious
about Iran's regional ambitions, Islamic State-as repellent as it
is-provides a silver lining. The extremist group's firewall blocks
territorial contiguity between Iran and its Arab proxies in Syria and
Lebanon. This means that now, as Islamic State is losing more and
more land to Iranian allies, these Sunni countries-particularly Saudi
Arabia-face a potentially more dangerous challenge: a land corridor
from Tehran to Beirut that would reinforce a more capable and no less
implacable enemy. Pro-Iranian Shiite militias such as Lebanon's
Hezbollah and Iraq's Badr and Asaib Ahl al-Haq are filling the void
left by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and they are much better
equipped and trained than the Sunni extremist group. They are also
just as hostile to the Saudi regime, openly talking about dismantling
the kingdom and freeing Islam's holy places from the House of Saud...
"Iran's power has spread further afield than before in terms of
direct military power. We have never had so many Shiite militias
operating in so many different areas, and fighting in traditional
Sunni strongholds," said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
U.S. political leaders of both parties argue that
destroying Islamic State is America's top priority in the Middle
East. In reality, that's not nearly as important as confronting the
challenge posed by Iran. The nuclear deal that went into effect a
year ago may have postponed the danger of an Iranian nuclear bomb,
but the multifaceted threat of a militaristic, messianic Iran -
80-million strong - is much more menacing to Western interests than
the Sunni thugs and murderers of Raqqah and Mosul. In negotiating the
nuclear agreement, the P5+1 group of countries - the United States,
Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - registered several
benefits. These include delaying the Iranian military nuclear project
for 10 to 15 years, defusing political tensions with Iran, opening
new markets there, and gaining Iranian cooperation in the fight
against Islamic State. Only one of these - the delay in Iran's
nuclear program - comes at Iran's expense, since both sides shared a
desire to achieve the other objectives. From Tehran's perspective, it
gained much more than it gave up. In exchange for postponing its military
nuclear project, it achieved the lifting of many economic sanctions,
an end to its political isolation and the loosening of restrictions
on its ballistic missile program. And out of the P5+1's exaggerated
fear of taking any steps that might give the Iranians an excuse to
scuttle the deal, Tehran won a lot more too. This includes wide
latitude to advance its influence throughout the region as it no
longer fears a U.S.-led "military option." The evidence of
Iran's rogue behavior is overwhelming.
Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly last week,
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani charged that the West was flouting
its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear
deal... But before the West rushes to provide additional concessions,
it should beware of the snare Tehran has set. Iran's goal is not to
ensure Western compliance with the deal, but to facilitate the
lifting of those international sanctions still in force against it...
Ultimately, it is Tehran's dubious business and banking practices,
not Western obstinacy, that is limiting the anticipated post-deal
windfall. If anything, far from limiting Tehran's payout, Western
governments have redoubled efforts to legitimize Iran's nuclear
program... Iranian officials know the high price they can exact.
Tehran is driving to dismantle U.S. non-nuclear sanctions by
suggesting that a dramatic increase in its nuclear capability may
loom if it doesn't. All of this serves the supreme leader's
interests. Should the West deliver additional sanctions relief, it
would do so explicitly to save Rouhani, the putative moderate who is
up for re-election in 2017. By putting Rouhani on the defensive, and
by having a steady stream of officials decry supposed Western
perfidy, Khamenei is betting that the West will come to his aid.
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