Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Eye on Iran: U.S. Grants Second Airbus License to Sell Planes to Iran


   EYE ON IRAN
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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 Licenses allowing such sales could easily be withdrawn by the Trump administration if he chose to do so, sanctions experts said...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.






Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email press@uani.com.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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