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TOP STORIES
Iranians vote for president on Friday in a contest
likely to determine whether Tehran's re-engagement with the world
stalls or quickens, although whatever the outcome no change is
expected to its revolutionary system of conservative clerical rule.
Seeking a second term, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, 68,
remains the narrow favorite, but hardline rivals have hammered him
over his failure to boost an economy weakened by decades of
sanctions. Many Iranians feel a 2015 agreement he championed with
major powers to lift sanctions in return for curbing Iran's nuclear
program has failed to produce the jobs, growth and foreign investment
he said would follow. The normally mild-mannered cleric is trying to
hold on to office by firing up reformist voters who want less
confrontation abroad and more social and economic freedom at home.
One of the leading hard-line candidates for Iran's
presidency withdrew from the race on Monday, in a move aimed at
consolidating the conservative vote ahead of Friday's election. The
candidate, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, threw his
support behind Ebrahim Raisi, a former top official of the judiciary,
who is seen as the main threat to the moderate incumbent, President
Hassan Rouhani. Recent polls have put the combined support for the
two conservative candidates at just over 50 percent, with Mr. Rouhani
at around 42 percent. That is not to say, however, that all of Mr.
Qalibaf's supporters will automatically vote for Mr. Raisi. In
suspending his campaign, the third unsuccessful run he has made at
the presidency, Mr. Qalibaf released a statement calling the Rouhani
camp of moderates and reformists "pseudorevolutionaries"
who are "consuming the roots of the revolution like termites."
Donald Trump's administration is likely to uphold its
part of the historic nuclear deal with Iran this week, despite the US
president's fierce criticism of the agreement, people close to the
issue have told the Financial Times. Three people said that the
administration was set to renew waivers that exempt non-US companies
from sanctions for doing business with Iran, adding that officials
from the US and elsewhere had already informed Tehran the waivers
would remain in place. The waivers, which otherwise would expire in
the coming days, are a central feature of the 2015 deal in which
Tehran agreed to rein in its nuclear programme in return for
sanctions relief.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM
A former CIA analyst said Monday the Iranians are
continuing to help North Korea with weapons technology as Pyongyang's
new missile test over the weekend was described as "a
significant advance." North Korea's launch of an intermediate
ballistic missile test on Sunday appears to be a new model and shows
an improved capability to reach U.S. military bases on Guam. Also,
experts said the new missile is a mid-range ballistic missile and
suggests Pyongyang maybe getting more proficiency with reentry
technology that could be used for longer-range missiles. Such reentry
mastery would be required for a nuclear warhead to withstand extreme
temperatures and other stresses of atmospheric reentry of an
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Top officials from the Obama administration are working
to stymie congressional pressure on Iran, including through a quiet
push in Congress by an organization that has been criticized for
helping mislead the public about the Iran deal, according to
correspondence obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The Ploughshares
Fund, described by the Obama White House as a key promoter of the
nuclear deal, distributed a letter to congressional staffers last
week written by former Obama Treasury official Adam Szubin that
harshly criticizes pending Iran sanctions legislation. Ploughshares
came under fire last May for giving hundreds and thousands of dollars
to media outlets and fueling what Obama Deputy National Security
Adviser Ben Rhodes was an "echo chamber." A Ploughshares
official cc'd Szubin on the email with the letter, and welcomed
congressional staffers to reach out to him for further discussion.
The sanctions bill is expected to move forward in coming weeks.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
French carmakers PSA and Renault are turning their U.S.
absence into an Iranian advantage by piling into a resurgent market
still off-limits to foreign rivals fearful of sanctions under Donald
Trump's administration. The French investment has been seized upon by
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking re-election this
week, as evidence that his pursuit of a nuclear detente and attempts
to attract foreign money will pay off for the economy. PSA - the
maker of Peugeots and Citroens - and Renault have pushed hard into
Iran since its 2015 deal with world powers that saw international
sanctions lifted in return for curbs on Tehran's nuclear activities.
PSA has signed production deals worth 700 million euros ($768
million), while Renault has announced a new plant investment to
increase its production capacity to 350,000 vehicles a year.
IranAir is set to take delivery of four ATR 72-600
turboprop aircraft on Tuesday, part of plans to rebuild its fleet
after nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were lifted last year.
The four turboprop aircraft, painted in IranAir colors, are due to be
handed over at ATR's Toulouse headquarters on Tuesday and are
scheduled to arrive in Tehran on Wednesday, European and Iranian
aviation industry officials said. The deliveries will bring to seven
the number of new Western aircraft delivered to Iran since trade
reopened under a deal between Tehran and major powers to drop most
sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran's nuclear research
activities. The state airline, which has ordered 20 of the planes
made by a joint venture between Airbus (AIR.PA) and Italy's Leonardo
(LDOF.MI), is set to use the four aircraft on underserved regional
routes. The 70-seat ATR 72-600 is worth $26.8 million at list prices.
IranAir is expected to take delivery of the remaining 16 ATR aircraft
by the end of 2018, including another five this year.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Iran has changed the course of a land corridor that it
aims to carve to the Mediterranean coast after officials in Iraq and
Tehran feared a growing US military presence in north-eastern Syria
had made its original path unviable. The new corridor has been moved
140 miles south to avoid a buildup of US forces that has been
assembled to fight Islamic State (Isis). It will now use the
Isis-occupied town of Mayadin as a hub in eastern Syria, avoiding the
Kurdish north-east, which had earlier been mooted by Iranian leaders
as a crucial access route. The changes have been ordered by Maj Gen
Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds force, and Haidar al-Ameri,
the leader of the Popular Mobilisation Front in Iraq, whose
Shia-dominated forces have edged closer to the Iraqi town of Ba'aj, a
key link in the planned route and where the Isis leader, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, is known to have been based for much of the past three
years.
CYBERWARFARE
For 18 days last month, a team of computer security
experts found themselves engaged in a digital version of hand-to-hand
combat with a group of hackers determined to break into the network
of a military contractor. Every time the hackers, believed to be
Iranian, gained a toehold in one server, the defenders shut down
their access. A few days later, the hackers would come in through
another digital door, and again the defenders would block them. While
dueling with the hackers, the security experts said they encountered
something that they had never seen before when dealing with an
Iranian cyberattack: a Russian connection. Specifically, they found
that the Iranians were using a tool set developed by a known Russian
hacker-for-hire and sold in underground Russian forums. The tool had
popped up in connection with an attack in Ukraine in 2015, when
Russian hackers successfully shut down parts of Ukraine's power grid.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Almost
40 years ago a plot of land in the north of Tehran was confiscated
from its wealthy owners in the wake of Iran's Islamic revolution. It
was one of many such land grabs by the country's new leaders who
promised to help the poor and win their support. Today that same
4,000 sq m site is home to a newly-built tower block. But rather than
housing the city's poor, it is occupied by some of its wealthiest
residents. The 10-storey building features tennis courts and a
snooker hall on the ground floor; a garden and swimming pool on the
roof; Porsche sports cars sit in the parking lot and Venetian
chandeliers hang in the elegant high-ceiling lobby. Even the smallest
of the 30-plus apartments would cost at least 120bn rials ($3.8m) to
buy.
As a college student studying mechanics, Hamidreza
Faraji had expected after graduation to land a steady job with a
fixed salary, a pension plan and the occasional bonus. He envisioned
coming home at 6 p.m. to his family and vacationing at a resort on
the Caspian Sea. But Mr. Faraji, 34, has long since given up on all
that. These days, he said, the only people who lead such predictable
lives are government employees. Their jobs are well paid and offer
security, but are hard to get in part because older employees stay on
well past retirement age, limiting opportunities for the next
generation. So millions of Iranians, particularly younger ones, find
themselves caught like Mr. Faraji in a vicious cycle of hidden
poverty, an exhausting hustle to stay afloat, working multiple jobs
and running moneymaking schemes just to keep up. The youth
unemployment rate is 30 percent.
Iran has a history of cracking down on the independent
press ahead of elections, with authorities arresting journalists and
forcing reformist outlets to shut down. As Iranians prepare to vote
in presidential and city council elections on May 19, authorities
have turned their attention to Telegram, arresting several channel
administrators for the app. With mainstream social media platforms
such as Facebook and Twitter blocked for most users in the country,
Telegram has become a popular way for Iranians to share news. A tech
expert and a journalist with whom CPJ spoke said that Telegram played
a critical role in the 2016 parliamentary Iranian election--in which
dozens of moderate and reformist leaning candidates were elected to
the Majles (Iran's parliament)--by allowing users to circumvent
censorship. A video of former president Mohammad Khatami, for
instance, in which he encouraged people to vote for reformist
candidates, was widely shared on Telegram. Iranian media are banned
from showing Khatami and YouTube is blocked, leaving Telegram as one
of the few ways for supporters to share Khatami's message inside
Iran.
Iran's May 19 election is seen as a referendum on the
policies of President Hassan Rouhani, the moderate cleric who
accepted limits on his nation's nuclear work in exchange for relief
from international sanctions. In seeking re-election, Rouhani, 68,
has faced criticism from conservatives and from Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he's failed to deliver on promises that
the nuclear deal would bring prosperity. He got a break when his
predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was ruled ineligible to join the
race. But then one of his top challengers dropped out to support the
other, posing a serious threat from the right. At stake in the
election is whether Iran will continue integrating with the rest of
the world or backtrack toward isolation.
"The regime has been given enough chance to come
clean. It hasn't, for good reason. Therefore, I say forget about the
regime, think about the people." He is the oldest son of the Shah
of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Now Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi says he
is fighting for the soul of his nation. During his father's time,
Tehran was a reliable ally and America was not the Great Satan as the
U.S. has been so often called in Iran today. That ended when
Pahlavi's family was overthrown by the 1979 Islamic Revolution of
Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Now Pahlavi wants the Iranian people to
rise up against the regime and establish a Parliamentary democracy
based on democratic values, freedom and human rights.
An Iranian news agency says suspects behind the deadly
attack on security forces in the southern city of Ahvaz have been
arrested. Tuesday's report by the semi-official Tasnim agency cited
the Revolutionary Guard commander for Khuzestan province, Gen. Hassan
Shahvarpour, as saying the gunmen who killed two policemen on Monday
have been arrested. He did not elaborate. On Monday, gunmen attacked
a police station in Ahvaz, setting off a shootout that also wounded
four policemen. Ahvaz was the scene of a series of deadly bombings
and shootouts blamed on Arab separatists living in the region.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran's upcoming presidential election on May 19th has
all the hallmarks of a Western-style democracy: a series of
television debates, endorsements by elder statesmen and catchy
campaign banners adorning cityscapes. But it is all window dressing.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - and not the
President - wields the ultimate power. Regardless of whoever is
declared the winner, the Iranian people cannot expect any real change
for the better either domestically or in their country's posture toward
the outside world. The Supreme Leader controls the field of
candidates from the beginning. He personally appoints half of the
Guardian Council, which is the vetting arm of the Islamic Republic.
The Judiciary Chief names the other half, yet the Supreme Leader
installs the Judiciary Chief. In 2017, the Guardian Council whittled
down 1,600 presidential aspirants to six final "acceptable"
candidates by the Guardian Council.
I know what you're thinking: Why would any American favor
Ibrahim Raisi, the hardest-line candidate for Iran's presidency in
the May 19 election, over the incumbent Hassan Rouhani, who is widely
praised in world capitals as a moderate? There are two reasons, and
the first is that Rouhani is not a moderate-or is at best a moderate
utterly without influence. Consider both Iran's foreign and domestic
policies during Rouhani's five years in office. On the domestic side,
there has been zero improvement on human rights. The two reformist
candidates in the 2009 presidential election, Mehdi Karroubi and
Mir-Hossein Moussavi, were placed under house arrest in 2011. When
Rouhani was elected president in 2013 everyone expected they'd be
released-and indeed during his campaign he had promised to get them
released. But they have not been. Persecution of the Baha'i has not
moderated one iota under Rouhani, and the entire Baha'i community
leadership is this week completing nine years in prison.
In the run up to President Trump's visit to Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia next week, preparations included a visit to the White
House by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on
Monday. The crown prince likely discussed the president's anti-ISIS
and anti-terrorist agenda, how to blunt Iranian aggression and the
robust U.S.-UAE economic and trade partnership. The crown prince's
visit to Washington underscores what has become an exceptionally
strong bilateral relationship - one focused not just on defense and
security but on trade and commerce, as well as common values. To be
sure, the UAE is a critical trade partner to the United States. In
fact, the UAE is one of the few partners with which the U.S. has a
very large trade surplus. In 2016, the U.S. enjoyed a $19-billion
trade surplus with the UAE, the third-largest among our global
trading partners. That is because the UAE is the single largest
export market for the U.S. in the broader region - larger than Israel
and even India.
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