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TOP STORIES
The United States said on Tuesday it had issued a
second license to France's Airbus (AIR.PA) to sell commercial planes
to Iran Air, bringing Iran's flag carrier a step closer to receiving
new Western jets under last year's deal to ease sanctions. The move in
the waning months of Democratic President Barack Obama's
administration to further unlock jetliner sales to Iran prompted
complaints from Republicans in Congress and is likely to raise the
ire of President-elect Donald Trump... Licenses allowing such sales
could easily be withdrawn by the Trump administration if he chose to
do so, sanctions experts said... The U.S. Treasury's Office of
Foreign Assets Control on Monday issued the license for the sale of
106 planes to Iran Air, a source familiar with the matter said on
Tuesday, on condition of anonymity... Before the license was issued
on Monday, Airbus had U.S. permission for the sale of 17 jets to
Iran... Opponents of the nuclear deal argue that passenger aircraft
could be used for military purposes, such as transporting fighters to
battle U.S. troops or allies in Syria, something Iranian officials
deny... On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce
sent a letter to Obama asking him to refrain from trying to boost
international investment in Iran or issuing new regulations, licenses
or guidance on remaining sanctions in the last two months of his
administration. McCarthy said in a statement on Tuesday that Obama
should not allow for the Airbus sale. "Actions like this
underscore the need for the upcoming Trump Administration to review
all options when it comes to this failed deal," the statement
said.
House Republican leaders are urging President Barack
Obama to take no more action on Iran that could reinforce the nuclear
deal before he leaves office. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority
Leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce
are issuing the request in a letter to Obama dated Tuesday. The
Republicans say they expect to pass a bill soon extending Iran
sanctions. They say signing it should be Obama's only further step on
Iran. The leaders say Obama shouldn't waive sanctions, grant new
commerce licenses or issue new guidance to companies about doing
business legally in Iran. The leaders say President-elect Donald
Trump deserves the chance to assess U.S. policy toward Iran without
Obama making it more complicated.
Extending U.S. sanctions on Iran for 10 years would
breach the Iranian nuclear agreement, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei said on Wednesday, warning that Tehran would retaliate if
the sanctions are approved. The U.S. House of Representatives
re-authorized last week the Iran Sanctions Act, or ISA, for 10 years.
The law was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's
energy industry and deter Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Iran
measure will expire at the end of 2016 if it is not renewed. The
House bill must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President
Barack Obama to become law... "The current U.S. government has
breached the nuclear deal in many occasions," Khamenei said,
addressing a gathering of members of the Revolutionary Guards,
according to his website. "The latest is extension of sanctions
for 10 years, that if it happens, would surely be against JCPOA, and
the Islamic Republic would definitely react to it."
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed on the
campaign trail to rip up the Iranian nuclear treaty, should do more
to enforce the agreement rather than discard it right away, U.S. Sen.
Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Monday. Corker, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and a critic of the deal that outgoing
President Barack Obama negotiated with Tehran leaders last year, said
he expects the incoming Trump administration should and will do more
to police what he said were ongoing violations of the pact by the
Iranian government. But since the U.S. government and its allies have
already returned billions of dollars of once-frozen assets to Iran,
Corker cautioned against reneging on the agreement once Trump is
sworn into office in January. "I don't think that [throwing out
the deal) is a very good place to start," Corker told reporters
in his hometown of Chattanooga. "If you tear the agreement up on
the front end, it's almost like cutting your nose off to spite your
face because they already have assess to all of their dollars."
REGIONAL DESTABILIZATION
Talk of changing US priorities in the Middle East
after the election of Donald Trump often seems to have only a
tangential relationship with the reality of the region, large chunks
of which have dissolved into a Hobbesian morass of paramilitarism...
Paramilitaries are hardly new to the Middle East. During the Lebanese
civil war of 1975-90, for example, Israel backed two Maronite
Christian forces, while various Arab regimes instrumentalised
Palestinian factions. And Iran, of course, created Hizbollah, the most
formidable militia in the world. But the present scale of
paramilitarism looks like a lethal new paradigm - as well as a
powerful magnet for meddling and a recipe for chaos. Not least
because Iran is by far the best paramilitarist practitioner, and it is
in alliance with Russia.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
A dual citizen of Iran and the United States was found
guilty on Tuesday on charges that he tried to help acquire
surface-to-air missiles and aircraft components for the government of
Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Reza Olangian, 56, was convicted
by a federal jury in Manhattan on all four counts he faced, including
conspiring to acquire and transfer anti-aircraft missiles,
prosecutors said. Olangian faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence
of 25 years and a maximum of life. He is scheduled to be sentenced on
March 13... Prosecutors said Olangian negotiated a deal involving 10
missiles and dozens of aircraft parts, and during a video conference
with the informant, stated that he ultimately wanted to acquire at
least 200 missiles.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran says Germany's Munich Re - the world's biggest
reinsurance company - is considering to provide its services to the
Islamic Republic. The announcement was made by Abdul-Nasser Hemmati,
the president of the Central Insurance of Iran. Hemmati, during a
visit to Germany to discuss the prospects of post-sanctions
investment opportunities in Iran by insurance companies, emphasized
that top officials from Munich Re had told him that the company is
interested in providing life insurance and other related services to
the Iranians and also cooperate with the Central Insurance of Iran in
training programs. Those officials included the company's Board
Chairman Von Bomhard and Vice President Joachim Wenning, Hemmati
said. He further added that he had urged Munich Re to offer its
latest services to the Iranian market.
Italy's industry minister pledged on Tuesday to
support business deals with Iran potentially worth billions of
dollars, undeterred by fears U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could
put slowly thawing international relations back on ice... Italian
Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said he would continue to work to
strengthen trade ties, and travel to Iran in early 2017 along with
Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan... "The central issue is to
make financing channels work fully, so that all the good projects we
have can become reality," Calenda said at a trade fair in Rome
for Iranian companies.
TERRORISM
Israel has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to
the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah. In a letter to the
United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Israeli U.N. Ambassador
Danny Danon accused Iran of using airlines such as Mahan Air. The
United States has sanctioned the Iranian carrier for providing
services to the Quds Force, a special forces unit of the IRGC, as
well as Hezbollah... Danon wrote that Quds Force officers pack arms
and materiel into suitcases that are transferred to Hezbollah either
by commercial flights to Beirut or commercial flights to Damascus in
Syria, and then transferred by land to Lebanon. "It is clear
that Iran is still the primary supplier of arms and related materiel
to Hezbollah, in blatant violation of numerous Security Council
resolutions," Danon wrote. "The Security Council must condemn
Iran and Hezbollah for the violation of its resolutions."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
What does Donald Trump's election mean for the Middle
East? A group of prominent foreign ministers and policy experts
gathered here last weekend to explore the election's implications for
the world's most volatile region. The gathering, known as the Sir
Bani Yas forum, is hosted each year by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the
UAE's foreign minister. Comments here weren't attributable, so I
can't identify the participants by name. But it included
representatives from nearly every Arab country, as well as the United
States, Europe, Russia, China and the United Nations... Two issues
facing Trump garnered special focus at the Sir Bani Yas discussions.
The Iran nuclear deal is the first conundrum. Throughout the
campaign, Trump suggested that he would scrap the agreement or
renegotiate it. But there was near-unanimity here that Trump should
accept the agreement as a done deal and focus instead on curbing Iran's
aggressive behavior in the region. This consensus included even
officials who had been among the agreement's strident critics.
"Only someone who wants to send us into the unknown world would
tear it up," said one prominent Gulf Arab official. "Nobody
is really against the deal," said another, after sharply
criticizing the way it was negotiated. Many in this group expressed
hope that Trump would be tougher in challenging Iranian provocations.
Trump said during the campaign that if Iranian gunboats harassed U.S.
Navy ships in the Gulf, he would blow them out of the water. That's
the kind of anti-Iran pushback the Gulf Arabs want to see (albeit
with someone else's ships at risk).
Last week, Chinese defense minister Chang Wanquan
concluded a three-day trip to Tehran, the latest in a series of
high-ranking bilateral military exchanges over the past two years.
Previously, during a January visit by President Xi Jinping, the two
countries signed a twenty-five-year strategic cooperation agreement
that included a call for much closer defense and intelligence ties.
The June appointment of Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as Iran's
Armed Forces General Staff chairman is expected to expedite that
process. Military relations between the two countries date back to
the early 1980s, but they went through a period of reduced
cooperation as a result of international nuclear sanctions on Tehran.
Today, they are once again poised to revive a relationship that could
have considerable geopolitical implications for the region. The
Chinese defense minister called the latest meetings a "turning
point" in the strategic partnership, while Iran has continued to
present itself as Beijing's only reliable oil supplier. Regarding
specific initiatives, defense officials reportedly discussed
expanding China's use of Iranian air bases and naval facilities in
the Persian Gulf, ostensibly for training and logistical purposes.
They also agreed to exchange their hands-on military experience,
mentioning examples such as facing the U.S. military at sea and in
the air... Together with Iran's significant indigenous military
industries, even limited Chinese assistance could substantially
improve the Islamic Republic's regional military posture in the
medium to long term.
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