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TOP STORIES
The Trump administration's decision to renew waivers
under the nuclear deal and add seven to its blacklist adheres to the
status quo regarding the U.S. posture on Iran, sanctions experts
said. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department put seven individuals
and entities, including two senior Iranian defense officials and a
China-based network, under sanctions for their alleged roles in
Iran's missile programs. Treasury said it took action in conjunction
with a report on Iranian human rights violations released by the U.S.
State Department. An official told The Wall Street Journal that the
administration is also signing a sanctions waiver for Iran in line
with the terms of the nuclear agreement. Together, experts said, the
twin moves of renewing waivers and expanding non-nuclear sanctions
targets "preserve the status quo" under the nuclear deal as
the administration continues a broader policy review. President
Donald Trump criticized the nuclear agreement during the campaign,
but he has toned down his remarks since taking office.
The Trump administration signaled on Wednesday that it
would not, for now, jettison the Iran nuclear deal, despite the
president's harsh criticism of the agreement during the campaign.
Facing a deadline of Thursday, the administration said it was waiving
sanctions against Iran, as required under the deal. To have done
otherwise would have violated the accord, freeing the Iranians to
resume the production of nuclear fuel without any of the limits
negotiated by the Obama administration two years ago. But while
acknowledging that the deal would remain in place, the administration
imposed modest new sanctions against several Iranian individuals and
four organizations, including a China-based network that supplied
missile-related items to a key Iranian defense entity. That appeared
to be an effort to mollify Republican critics of the deal, which
President Trump has called a "disaster" and said he would
have negotiated far more skillfully.
As it reviews the landmark Iranian nuclear deal
President Trump once vowed to tear up, the Trump administration
imposed a fresh set of sanctions on Tehran's ballistic missile
program Wednesday. But the administration also re-upped the program
that eased other economic sanctions on Iran as a result of the 2015
international deal that has essentially blocked Tehran's ability to
create the fuel used for nuclear bombs. The dual action appears to be
part of strategy to stick with the nuclear agreement while trying to
punish Iran for its continued development of ballistic missiles and
support for terrorist groups, a policy consistent with President
Obama's approach.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
President Hassan Rouhani faces a hard-line opponent in a
national vote Friday that is shaping up as one of the most
contentious and consequential elections since the founding of the
Islamic Republic in 1979. The contest puts before Iranian voters two
candidates with conflicting visions for the country-Mr. Rouhani, who
has made an opening to the West, and a political newcomer wary of
where such a path leads Ebrahim Raisi, a 56-year-old cleric with
close ties to Iran's supreme leader, has emerged as a
tougher-than-expected challenger, taking advantage of economic
troubles and railing during campaign rallies against inefficient
government and its failure to address corruption.
US President Donald Trump passed up a chance to derail
the nuclear deal with Iran on Wednesday, a move analysts said
reflected business interests at home and diplomatic relations abroad.
During Trump's election campaign he vowed to "rip up" the
nuclear agreement with Tehran if elected, calling it "the worst
deal ever". Trump had until Thursday to extend a sanctions
waiver on Iran, and the US state department announced a day earlier
it would be signed, meaning old sanctions wouldn't be re-imposed and
the nuclear deal will continue - at least for now. "We are
communicating to the US Congress that the United States continues to
waive sanctions as required to continue implementing US
sanctions-lifting commitments," a State Department statement
said.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
China said on Thursday it had lodged a complaint with
the United States after it imposed narrow penalties on Iranian and
Chinese figures for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program China
has complained repeatedly to the United States about unilateral
sanctions against Chinese individuals and companies linked to either
Iran or North Korea's nuclear or missile programs. U.S. President
Donald Trump on Wednesday extended wide sanctions relief for Iran
called for under a 2015 international nuclear deal even as he imposed
the new penalties. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying
said China followed local rules and regulations and closely adhered
to its responsibilities to the international community. "China
is opposed to the blind use of unilateral sanctions particularly when
it damages the interests of third parties. I think the sanctions are
unhelpful in enhancing mutual trust and unhelpful for international
efforts on this issue," she told a daily news briefing.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday extended wide
sanctions relief for Iran called for under a 2015 international
nuclear deal even as he imposed narrow penalties on Iranian and
Chinese figures for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program. The
dual actions, announced by the Departments of State and Treasury,
appeared intended to signal a tough stance on Iran even as Trump
continued predecessor President Barack Obama's pact under which Iran
agreed to limit its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
While Trump criticized the nuclear agreement as a presidential
candidate - at one point saying he would "dismantle the
disastrous deal with Iran" - Wednesday's actions demonstrated
that he has decided, at least for now, to keep it.
In February 2016, Helga Kern boarded a plane to Iran,
registered with the depository to trade stocks and within weeks
opened a broker account and started buying shares, all with the aim
of launching an Iran fund for Western investors. But on the eve of
Friday's presidential election in Iran, Kern, who is a managing
partner at Swiss fund advisory firm KK Research, has little hope that
other investors will emulate her dash into the oil-rich country which
had appeared on the verge of ending three decades of isolation.
"If you had asked me a year ago, I would have been more
optimistic," said Kern, who still travels to Iran regularly but
for now focuses on research on Iranian firms and industries. The
launch of the investment fund has been postponed. "At the time I
was very much convinced that Iran would open up fast - but now I
would put a question mark over the 'fast'," she told Reuters
from Zurich.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Israel has often had hostile relations with its Muslim
neighbors. But right now its greatest enemy may be Iran, which has
one of the most powerful militaries in the region and has for years
been openly hostile toward the very existence of Israel. The situation
may only be getting worse, with Iran seemingly on the rise since the
Obama administration hatched a deal with the country that lifted
international sanctions and gave the Islamic Republic approximately
$100 billion in frozen assets. Israel's relations with Iran have
changed since the Jewish state's founding in 1948. Up until 1979, the
two countries had relatively close ties. With Israel sometimes at war
with its Arab neighbors, the non-Arab Iran was an important ally.
A recent study of political statements by key Iranian
officials throughout 2016 and the first half of 2017 provides
interesting insights into the country's political vision and
identifies future trends in its foreign policy, especially with
regards to bilateral relations with the United States, Russia, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey and key issues such as the nuclear deal, Syria, and
the Palestinian question. The study, conducted by Al Jazeera Centre
for Political and Strategic Studies and titled Priorities of Iran's
Foreign Policy, analysed 1400 statements by prominent figures
including Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan
Rouhani, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, the
leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the minister
of defense and armed forces, Hossein Dehghan. While both the Supreme
Leader and the IRGC leadership showcase Iran as a regional
powerhouse, the more reformist Rouhani and the ministry of foreign
affairs focus on Iran's role in combating "terrorism".
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced the
heated rhetoric of Iran's presidential election campaign on Wednesday
as "unworthy", a thinly-veiled rebuke of pragmatist
President Hassan Rouhani's attacks on his main conservative
challenger. The withdrawal of other conservative candidates has
turned Friday's election into an unexpectedly tight two-horse race
between Rouhani, 68, and hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, a 56-year-old
protege of the supreme leader. Khamenei's intervention could help
sway the vote by signaling dissatisfaction with Rouhani's conduct.
"In the election debates, some remarks were made that were
unworthy of the Iranian nation. But the (wide) participation of the
people will erase all of that," Khamenei told an audience on Wednesday,
according to his own website.
President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday urged Iran's
powerful Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia under its control
not to meddle in Friday's presidential election, in a rare warning
that underscored rising political tensions. The Guards, who oversee
an economic empire worth billions of dollars, are seldom criticised
in public, but the pragmatist Rouhani is locked in an unexpectedly
tight race against hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is believed to
have their support. "We just have one request: for the Basij and
the Revolutionary Guards to stay in their own place for their own
work," Rouhani said in a campaign speech in the city of Mashad,
according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA). Rouhani
reinforced his appeal by quoting the late Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, who he said had warned the
armed forces against interfering in politics.
As Tehran's notorious traffic slowed, the waiting
campaigners pounced, pushing posters with the smiling face of Iran's
president, Hassan Rouhani, through the open windows of trapped cars,
pleading for votes and shouting slogans as drivers edged away. They were
determined to make every minute count in the last days of a campaign
in which Rouhani began as favourite, but has ended locked in a bitter
and close-run fight with a conservative rival. The short-term stakes
of Friday's election are high: the future of 2015's landmark nuclear
deal and Iran's cautious rapprochement with the west; the direction
of its economy; control of its oilfields; and the freedom given to
dissent. In the long term, the election could decide an even more
crucial political battle -that for Iran's next supreme leader. The
successor to ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamanei will be the most
powerful person in Iran, and only the third person to lead the
Islamic republic since its foundation.
For months now, a black-turbaned cleric from eastern
Iran has been campaigning in provincial cities, presenting himself as
an anticorruption hero as he rallies support among the poor and the
pious in an underdog effort to win the presidency in Friday's
election. While the candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, 56, a hard-liner who
made his career in Iran's judiciary, seems to have come out of
nowhere, he is seen as a favorite and possible successor to Iran's
78-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Winning the
presidency, many analysts say, could be a major step in his ascent to
that all-powerful position. "When he speaks I hear our leader
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei," said Hadi Seifollah, 32, who runs
a shop selling prayer mats, religious rings and the white-and-black
checkered scarves worn by Iran's paramilitary basij forces.
"Raisi believes first in the Islamic Republic, its
ideology," he added. "He will deal with corruption. Other
candidates only talk about the economy."
Iranians vote in a presidential election on Friday that
could decide the country's direction and who gets a more powerful job
that isn't on the ballot paper: the Islamic Republic's next supreme
leader. Since Ebrahim Raisi, until recently a little-known cleric, entered
the race last month talk is rife about whether he is being groomed as
a potential successor to Ali Khamenei. The 77-year-old head of state
is supposed to be above the political fray, but his perceived support
for Raisi has united conservatives and electrified an otherwise
routine election campaign. No Iranian president has lost a bid for a
second term in the history of the republic founded by the 1979
Islamic Revolution. Khamenei's intervention means that although still
the opinion poll favorite, Rouhani has come closer to being the
first.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Tomorrow, Iran will hold its 12th presidential election.
The election is now a two-man race between incumbent President Hassan
Rouhani, the centrist-reformist candidate, and Ebrahim Raisi, the
candidate closest to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In the past week,
polls show Rouhani over the 50 percent threshold he needs to win, but
also show that almost 50 percent of voters are either undecided or
don't express their preference. The election results are anything but
a foregone conclusion. Those who call these elections window dressing
will continue to miss both the intricate politics on display and the
underlying issues that inform them.
The Trump administration had no sooner renewed a waiver
on U.S. sanctions against Iran's crude-oil exports Wednesday than it
introduced a raft of new sanctions against the regime. Call it the
waive-and-slap approach. The oil-exports sanctions waiver, which will
continue to temporarily allow Iran to sell its crude oil to
international customers despite the statutory sanctions, had come due
as part of the Iran nuclear deal. But their renewal is no sign that
President Trump is flip-flopping on his campaign promise to
"tear up" the deal. The Trump administration is currently
conducting an Iran-policy review. The last thing Mr. Trump should do
before this policy is finalized is to make drastic and premature
decisions that could incite a diplomatic backlash.
A CIA official said during the Ronald Reagan time in
office that Saudi Arabia was one of the most important allies of
America during the 1980's, adding that the Americans viewed the Saudi
kingdom as a decisive factor towards fulfilling many significant
aims. The US partnership with Saudi Arabia achieved many mutual
goals, particularly in terms of confronting the communist tide. What
facilitated bilateral cooperation is that both countries were worried
of the consequences of this communist expansion. Back then, Prince
Bandar bin Sultan said Saudi Arabia's influence was major and thought
that the reward for this cooperation must be much more than the AWACs
surveillance aircrafts and it must be "nuclear arms."
Throughout the history of American-Saudi relations, mutual worries
were the ember and flame of cooperation. This has been the case since
the presidential term of Franklin Roosevelt and up until Donald
Trump's. Back then, the communist threat was mutual.
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