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TOP STORIES
U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Todd Young (R-IN) and
John Cornyn (R-TX) today reintroduced the Iran Non-nuclear Sanctions
Act, legislation that would impose harsh financial and economic
sanctions countering Iran's non-nuclear provocations, including its
ballistic missile violations, human rights abuses and support for
international terrorism. "After years of unilateral concessions
and flexibility by the previous administration, it's time for the
United States to push back against Iran's support for terrorism, the
regime's menacing ballistic missile activities and its egregious human
rights violations," said Rubio. "I look forward to
working with the new administration to hold Iran fully accountable for
both its nonnuclear and nuclear threats." ... Rubio and Cornyn,
along with then-Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH),
first introduced the bill in December 2016.
The Iranian Judiciary's recent upholding of the
indefensible five-year prison sentence against Iranian-British citizen
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, issued at a secret trial by a Revolutionary
Court, reaffirms the collusion between the Judiciary and the country's
security and intelligence agencies that is undermining justice in Iran.
The Campaign for Human Rights in Iran calls on President Rouhani to use
all the powers of his office to obtain the immediate release of Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the other unjustly imprisoned dual nationals in
the country. "Iran is holding at least nine dual nationals hostage
in prosecutions completely lacking in due process," said Hadi
Ghaemi, the executive director of the Campaign. "Rouhani hides
behind the excuse of an independent Judiciary, but in fact it is not
independent-it is doing the bidding of the Revolutionary Guards and
Intelligence Ministry officials who wish to intimidate dual nationals
from western countries," Ghaemi said.
Iran's president and Kuwait's foreign minister both
appealed on Wednesday for better relation between the Islamic Republic
and Gulf Arab countries, Iranian media reported. According to President
Hassan Rouhani's website, he told visiting Kuwaiti top diplomat Sheikh
Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah that Iran's foreign policy is aimed at
improving "friendly and brotherly" relations with neighboring
Muslim countries. Rouhani also said cooperation was needed to fight
terrorism with "unity, integrity and (by) helping" each
other. Iranian state TV reported earlier in the day that al-Sabah said
Gulf Arab nations hope ties "with Iran will normalize" and
that Iran and the Arab countries should be "regional
partners." The TV said the foreign minister in a meeting with his
Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, handed over a message from
the Kuwaiti emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, for Rouhani about the
"necessity of improving relations." The statements reflect
efforts by both sides to repair ties between Iran and the Gulf
Cooperation Council, which includes Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain,
United Arab Emirates and Oman... Kuwait recalled its Tehran ambassador
in January following attacks by protesters on two Saudi diplomatic
posts in Iran, though its embassy is still operating.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday
downplayed the possibility of sanctions snapback, assuring the Iranian
business community that Iran's nuclear deal with world powers reached
in 2015 was facing no "serious dangers". Addressing the
business community in Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and
Agriculture, the country's top diplomat said the snapback
provision-which makes it possible for the US and other parties to
instantly bring back sanctions if Iran violates the deal-indicated that
the nuclear agreement had been reached on the basis of mutual distrust.
"On our part, snapback means that we can resume our nuclear
programs anytime we want to but that is not the same for the other
party because it will take time for them to re-implement the
sanctions," he said... Zarif noted that just as the imposition of
western-led sanctions on Iran had been gradual, the process of easing
them would also come in fits and starts. "It took the EU six
months to prepare its oil embargo on Iran and just as it took the
banking system's corresponding relations to drop from 670 in 2010-11
down to 50 [just before the nuclear pact was clinched], the process of
scaling them back [to pre-sanctions levels would need time," he
said.
Iran's deputy FM Abbas Araghchi said Wed. the nuclear
deal has turned Iran into a more active and constructive player on the
international scene. Deputy-FM for Legal and International Affairs,
Abbas Araghchi, commended Iran's nuclear deal as an opportunity that
has allowed the country to play a more effective role on the
international scene. He went on to add, "the UN Security Council
recognizes and respects Iran's role in Syria as a guarantor of peace
and security. Before the implementation of the JCPOA, however, the
international organization had called Iran a threat to the region with
regard to nuclear resolutions."
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Europe is poised to receive the most Iranian crude in
about five years this month in a sign that the Persian Gulf nation may
be regaining its share of a market it had lost to sanctions. Arrivals
on supertankers will reach 622,581 barrels a day in January, the
biggest flows for a single month since at least November 2011,
according to ship-tracking and European Union data compiled by
Bloomberg. Two Iranian supertankers -- Huge and Snow -- are en route,
bringing about 4 million barrels between them. Sanctions halted all
deliveries back in 2012 and they only restarted early last year as the
measures were eased... Huge and Snow, the two Iranian supertankers,
will deliver their cargoes early next month to the Rotterdam
oil-trading hub, the vessel data compiled by Bloomberg show. They are
the first Iran-owned ships to arrive in Europe since sanctions were eased.
Using Iranian ships affords Iran greater flexibility about cargo
loading and delivery dates, the NIOC official said.
A French trade delegation, comprised of representatives
from six French companies, will arrive in Tehran to meet their Iranian
counterparts at the place of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries,
Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA) on Saturday January 28, the portal of
TCCIMA announced on Tuesday. The Joint Iran-France Chamber of Commerce
will host the meeting. The visiting French companies are reportedly
active in energy, transportation, forestry, baking industry, aviation
industry, mining machineries, healthcare products, home appliances, and
etc. and plan to explore avenues of further ties with Iranians.
Starting on July 2, 2017, Austrian Airlines will take
off four times a week to the Iranian metropolis of Shiraz. The airline
will serve this route Vienna-Isfahan-Shiraz, leaving Vienna on Mondays,
Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays to make an interim stopover in Isfahan.
In addition to existing services of up to 14 weekly flights to Teheran
and four weekly flights to Isfahan, Austrian Airlines is further expanding
its portfolio of destinations in Iran, adding Shiraz. "No other
airline in Western Europe offers 18 weekly flights to Iran. Here we are
number one", says Austrian Airlines CCO Andreas Otto.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
In 2006, in the midst of a fierce war between Israel and
the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, former U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice famously stated that the world was witnessing the
"birth pangs of a new Middle East." She was right-but not in
the sense she had hoped. Instead of disempowering Hezbollah and its
sponsor, Iran, the war only augmented the strength and prestige of what
is known as the "axis of resistance," a power bloc that
includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Palestine. But the
2006 war was only one in a series of developments that significantly
transformed the geopolitical and military nature of the axis-from the
U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which first opened the door to greater
Iranian regional influence, to the more recent fall of Mosul to ISIS in
2014, which led to the proliferation and empowerment of Shiite
militias. These changes have prompted a fundamental reconfiguration of
the contemporary Middle East order. Arab elites, grappling with the
consequences of an eroding Arab state system, poor governance, and the
delegitimization of authoritarian states following the 2011 Arab
Spring, enabled Iran and its partners, including Russia, to build a new
regional political and security architecture from the ground up. With
the support of Tehran as the undisputed center of the axis, Shiite
armed movements in Iraq and across the axis of resistance have created
a transnational, multiethnic, and cross-confessional political and
security network that has made the axis more muscular and effective
than ever before. The most important issue that the new U.S.
administration will face in the Middle East will be the rise of the
Iranian-led axis. But given the deterioration of the regional security
order and the empowerment of Iran and its allies, especially after the
2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, the question is what to do about it. So
far, policy discussions have focused on single issues on a case-by-case
basis: balancing power in Syria, engaging or pushing back on Iran post-nuclear
deal, or managing an increasingly volatile Yemen, for example. But
crafting a Middle East policy requires a more comprehensive approach,
one that understands the nature of the axis and how it has
fundamentally changed over the past several years. The axis' ideology
has evolved: From a primarily state-centered enterprise, it has
transformed into a transnational project supported by an organic
network of popular armed movements from across the region.
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