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TOP STORIES
Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile
production factory and will keep developing its missile program, the
semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior commander of the elite
Revolutionary Guard as saying. The development is likely to fuel
tensions with the United States in a week when President Donald
Trump, on his first foreign trip, has called Iran a sponsor of
militant groups and a threat to countries across the Middle East.
"Iran's third underground factory has been built by the Guards
in recent years ... We will continue to further develop our missile
capabilities forcefully," Fars quoted Amirali Hajizadeh, head of
the Guard's airspace division, as saying.
The U.S. Treasury is reviewing licenses for Boeing Co
and Airbus to sell aircraft to Iran, department head Steven Mnuchin
said on Wednesday, telling lawmakers he would increase sanctions
pressure on Iran, Syria and North Korea. "We will use everything
within our power to put additional sanctions on Iran, Syria and North
Korea to protect American lives," Mnuchin said in testimony to
the House Ways and Means Committee. "I can assure you that's a
big focus of mine and I discuss it with the president." Mnuchin
did not elaborate on the review of the licenses, which were issued
under a 2015 agreement between Tehran and world powers to lift
sanctions in return for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities.
The Trump administration is taking significant steps to
target a full range of Iranian military aggression and human rights
abuses, functionally reversing the Obama administration's near-total
prioritization of the 2015 nuclear deal, according to discussions
conducted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD with sources inside and outside the
White House. The administration this month announced sanctions on
seven Iranian and Chinese entities linked to Iran's ballistic missile
program, imposed other penalties on persons linked to the Iran-backed
Bashar al-Assad regime, and published a State Department report
detailing Iranian human rights violations. Those measures coincide
with a Treasury Department review of licenses for the sale of
commercial aircraft to Iran. Experts and lawmakers charge that Iran
regularly uses civilian aircraft to ferry weapons and troops to
Syria.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM
Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht
said on Tuesday that his country's policy on developing the national
ballistic missiles program is not negotiable. Nobakht's
commentary was delivered following a neat roll back on
anti-ballistic-missile-program sentiment by Iran's re-elected
'moderate' President Hassan Rouhani. "The Iranian nation
has decided to be powerful. Our missiles are for peace and for
defense ... American officials should know that whenever we need to
technically test a missile, we will do so and will not wait for their
permission," Rouhani said in a news conference, broadcast live
on state TV. Second Deputy of the Parliament Ali Motahari urged the
quick formation of a qualified administration that would include
popular personalities like Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Motahari's suggestions come amid talks on replacing the current
conservative parliament chairman Ali Larijani.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Former Secretary of State John Kerry used his first
"tweetstorm" as a retired diplomat to warn the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday to "tread
carefully" on legislation regarding the future of the Iran
nuclear deal. "On the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), we engaged in an important back and forth. And I welcomed
that debate," Kerry wrote, referring to the Obama-era deal
negotiated between the U.S. and five global powers with Tehran. The
former Obama administration official cited Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani's recent reelection, which was largely seen as a referendum
on Iran's nuclear deal, in pushing back against any calls for "a
new Iran bill." "After Rouhani's reelection, there is much
up in the air/room for misinterpretation. This is not the moment for
a new Iran bill," Kerry tweeted.
TERRORISM
In the hours after the May 22 terrorist bombing in
Manchester that claimed at least 22 lives, Iranian media sought to
cover developments second by second and published analyses about it.
Iranian media ties the deadly bombing in Manchester to the West's
relationship with Saudi Arabia. On May 23, Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said, "We believe that the
roots and the ideological origin of the terrorist incidents in Iran's
Mirjaveh and the UK's Manchester are one and the same,"
referring to a recent attack in the southeastern border district of
Mirjaveh in which 10 Iranian soldiers were killed by the terrorist
group Jeish al-Adl, which is allegedly funded by Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, both Reformist and conservative print and online media in
Iran notably tied the bombing in Manchester to US President Donald
Trump's recent high-profile trip to Saudi Arabia.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Saudi Arabia blocked access to several Qatari news
websites after they carried fake articles about Gulf efforts to
isolate Iran, stories Qatari officials said were the result of a
hack, exposing tensions among Sunni-ruled monarchies seeking to form
a united front against the Islamic Republic. Qatar said hackers first
posted a fake story on the Qatar News Agency website at 12.14 a.m.
that included comments falsely attributed to the Qatari emir describing
attempts to confront Iran as a mistake. They then took over the
agency's Twitter account to announce that Qatar was recalling its
ambassadors from other Gulf countries and Egypt. The reports, which
were later deleted, were picked up by Saudi and Dubai-based media.
Regulators in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates then barred
access to the Qatari sites, according to the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya
television.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Laws and policies that discriminate
against women interfere with Iranian women's right to work, Human
Rights Watch said in a report released today. Women confront an array
of restrictions, such as on their ability to travel, prohibitions on
entering certain jobs, and an absence of basic legal protections. The
59-page report, "'It's a Men's Club': Discrimination Against
Women in Iran's Job Market," examines in detail the
discriminatory provisions and insufficient protections in Iran's
legal system that represent obstacles to women's equal access to the
job market. Over the past four decades, Iranian women have become
half of the country's university graduates. But, based on the most
recent official statistics available, for the period between March
2016 and March 2017, only 14.9 percent of Iran's women are in the
workforce, compared with 64.1 percent of men.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Maryam was 22 days old when Iranians dethroned their
king in 1979. The Islamic regime that followed-with its black and
brown robes, covered heads, and dour religiosity-was "just a
fact" of life, she says. "We never thought about anything
different, because we hadn't seen anything else." Thirty-eight
years later, that acceptance is wearing thin. The May 19 presidential
vote-and the jubilant street celebrations that followed the reelection
of President Hassan Rouhani, the nearest thing to a liberal allowed
onto the ballot-showed an Iranian society much changed since the days
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution and unwilling to
turn back. "One of my teachers used to tell us that if any
strand of your hair showed, you would be hung up by it," says
Maryam, who like others interviewed for this article declined to give
her last name for fear of retribution. "Now you can drive around
in a car with your boyfriend, and no one says anything."
Chief executives of state-run banks have pledged their
support for President Hassan Rouhani and his economic vision for the
country, as he is basking in a landslide reelection victory on May
19. In a letter to Rouhani signed by members of the Coordination
Council of Banks, the CEOs congratulated him on his triumph and
emphasized the importance of services provided by the banking system,
particularly state-owned lenders. "[Public-sector] banks carry
the main weight of financing the production and housing sectors and
fund industrial, mining and infrastructure projects," the letter
was cited as saying by Banker.ir. In their letter, the bankers also
refer to "non-stop work" of bank executives and staff to
ensure the continuity of production and generating jobs. The missive
refers to the participation of the banking system in providing
working capital for production units and pulling them out of
stagnancy caused by years of financial drought.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
On May 19, an estimated 70 percent of Iranians partook
in the Islamic Republic's 12th presidential "election."
Winning 57 percent of the vote, Hassan Rouhani received a larger
electoral mandate than he did in 2013. He also beat another man of
the cloth - arch-hardliner Seyed Ebrahim Raisi - who had the support
of the security services and was widely rumored as a potential next
supreme leader. Rouhani's victory was aided by his skillful embrace
of anti-establishment and reformist rhetoric. He also benefited by
being constantly billed as a "moderate" by select audiences
in the West and in Iran. But the arguments in favor of his purported
"moderation" miss a larger point. Rouhani is neither a
moderate nor an enigma. He is simply an exceedingly competent
bureaucrat focused on security matters - a type of adversary the U.S.
is most unaccustomed to dealing with in the Middle East.
The latest round of Syria peace talks in Astana
concluded May 4 with Russia, Iran and Turkey - the three guarantors
of the cease-fire - agreeing on a plan to establish
"de-escalation zones" in Syria. The initiative, which was
first put forward by Moscow with the declared aim of securing the
fragile truce and making it easier to concentrate on the political
process, sparked different reactions by the various involved parties.
While the establishment of "safe zones" has never been part
of Russia's or Iran's plans, their agreement to create
"de-escalation zones" at this juncture serves the interests
of both countries. Although UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan
de Mistura commended the agreement as "an important, promising,
positive step in the right direction," the United States
presented a more cautious approach, saying that more details are
needed to judge the exact nature of the plan. On the other hand,
while the Syrian government declared its full support for the Russian
initiative, the main coalition representing the Syrian opposition in
Astana refused to accept it, expressing reservations about its
noninclusive territorial scope and also the role of Iran as one of
the peacekeepers.
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