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TOP STORIES
President Donald Trump is answering critics who call him
"anti-Islamic" by making his first trip overseas to Saudi
Arabia, to meet with Arab leaders to talk about fighting the
so-called Islamic State. "It lays to rest the notion that
America is anti-Muslim," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir
told reporters Thursday, saying it would "change the
conversation with regards to America's relationship with the Islamic
world." After Riyadh, Trump will travel to Israel and the
Vatican-a tour meant to unite the world's great religions against
radicalism and to put a marker down for restarting
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, senior administration officials told
reporters Thursday. The trip indicates that Trump is re-aligning the
White House with Saudi Arabia's and Israel's anti-Iran position, while
the Obama administration had sought to stay more neutral in order to
deliver the Iranian nuclear deal.
Efforts to unseat the moderate cleric have been aided by
the growing perception that the rewards from the nuclear accord
haven't been evenly distributed. In an April survey by IranPoll, 72
percent of respondents said the deal hadn't improved the living
standards of average Iranians. Khamenei has admonished candidates not
to campaign on their ability to attract foreign investment, a comment
widely seen as a dig at the incumbent. "Rouhani needs in the
next two weeks to work on showing that post-sanctions developments
will benefit the poor, if not now, then in his second term,"
says Adnan Tabatabai, chief executive officer of the Center for Applied
Research in Partnership With the Orient, a think tank based in Bonn,
Germany. Hossein, who owns a shop that sells saffron, barberries, and
spices in the northeastern city of Torqabeh, Qalibaf's hometown,
voted for Rouhani in 2013, but he's considering supporting the Tehran
mayor this time around. "I am of two minds," says the
merchant, adding that business was better under Rouhani's
predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
When Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a
"midget" submarine earlier this week, Pentagon officials
saw more evidence of North Korean influence in the Islamic Republic -
with intelligence reports saying the submarine was based on a
Pyongyang design, the same type that sank a South Korean warship in
2010. According to U.S. defense officials, Iran was attempting to
launch a Jask-2 cruise missile underwater for the first time, but the
launch failed. Nonproliferation experts have long suspected North
Korea and Iran are sharing expertise when it comes to their rogue missile
programs. "The very first missiles we saw in Iran were simply
copies of North Korean missiles," said Jeffrey Lewis, a missile
proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International
Studies at Monterey. "Over the years, we've seen photographs of
North Korean and Iranian officials in each other's countries, and
we've seen all kinds of common hardware."
UANI IN THE NEWS
Former Senator Joe Lieberman discussed the Iranian
elections and the implications of the outcome in a phone interview
with Jewish Insider on Wednesday. "Unfortunately I would say
that there is no preferable outcome for the United States,"
Lieberman said about the May 19 Iranian presidential election.
"In other words, Rouhani was described as the moderate has been
the leader of the government during the time when they have done so
much damage in their own countries with a number of executions of
political opponents is up. They've also presented thousands of IRGC
soldiers into Syria. They've greatly strengthened Hezbollah which
strengthened Syria, but also threatening Israel. And they're involved
in aggression in Yemen. So he may call himself a moderate, but he's
not. Ebrahim Raisi, the main opponent to Rouhani, seems to be more
theologically conservative and enjoys, it appears, the backing of the
Supreme Leader. But in the end, the Supreme Leader is the power and
he's not changing. In fact, very little has changed about the regime
of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979 when it seized power. And,
therefore, they remain, as they say themselves, our determined and
intransigent enemies."
Former Senator Joe Lieberman - now the chairman of
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) - said in an interview with Jewish
Insider published on Thursday that he "would guess that
whoever wins the election in Iran will stick to the nuclear agreement
to the same extent, because it benefits Iran so much."
Lieberman, who spent the bulk of his political career as a Democratic
legislator, expressed confidence in Trump's skeptical attitude toward
Iran. "Trump ... has been a critic of the agreement from the
beginning," he stated. "And I think we can count on his
administration to demand full compliance, not only with the agreement,
but as he's recently said, the spirit of the agreement."
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Congress is considering new methods to crack down on and
expose a state-controlled Iranian airline company that routinely uses
commercial flights to ferry weapons and terrorist fighters to
regional hotspots, according to a copy of new bipartisan legislation
circulating through the Senate and obtained by the Washington Free
Beacon. The legislation comes after U.S. plane manufacturer Boeing has
announced plans to move forward with a multi-billion dollar deal with
Iran Air, an Iranian state-controlled company that is likely to dole
out at least a portion of the new airplanes to Mahan Air, another
state-controlled carrier suspected of playing a key role in the
country's terrorism operations.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
CMA CGM Group has appointed CMA CGM Pars as its new
agency in Iran as from May 1st, 2017.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Russia, Turkey and Iran signed an agreement Thursday for
the creation of "de-escalation zones" in Syria as a step
toward greater stability in the war-torn country, according to
Turkish and Russian officials. U.S. officials reacted warily to the
agreement, questioning whether any plan that includes Iran can
succeed. The deal, signed during Syrian peace negotiations held in
the Kazakh capital of Astana by officials from the three guarantor
nations, covers multiple provinces in the Mideast country that are
contested between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
who is backed by Russia and Iran, and multiple armed rebel groups.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
The White House on Thursday announced that the US
President Donald Trump will visit Saudi Arabia on May 23, and senior
US administration officials said they are working to build a
framework in the Middle East to counter ISIS and Iran, and provide a
security blanket for America's allies in the region. Iran must be
confronted, they said and the new National Security Council and Trump
are placing the Iranian threat within the strategic threat posed by
Russia. The Americans see Iran's actions and goals as similar to
those of Russia's. Both Tehran and Moscow seeks to replace US
influence. In addition, the Americans see Iran as a "potential
for Russia". It is difficult for Russia to keep Bashar al-Assad
in power without Iran. Iran can also help Russia gain a wider
influence in Iraq at the expense of the Americans.
Iran said on Thursday it is ready for talks with Saudi
Arabia to promote regional peace despite "unlawful and
inflammatory" remarks by the Saudi deputy crown prince, who
vowed to protect his kingdom from what he called Iranian efforts to
dominate the Muslim world. "We have no desire, nor any interest,
in an escalation of tension in our neighborhood," Iran's U.N.
Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo wrote in a letter to U.N.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council. "We
continue to stand ready for dialogue and accommodation to promote
regional stability, combat destabilizing extremist violence and
reject sectarian hatred," he wrote. "We hope Saudi Arabia
will be persuaded to heed the call of reason."
Iran responded angrily on Thursday to criticisms by
Saudi Arabia's defense minister, accusing him of acts that violate
the United Nations Charter and calling his kingdom an instigator of
"dangerous ambitions in the region and beyond." The Iranian
response came in a formal protest letter sent to the United Nations
Security Council and to Secretary General António Guterres by Iran's
ambassador, Gholamali Khoshroo. The latest exchange could further
exacerbate tensions between Shiite-led Iran and Sunni-led Saudi
Arabia, which compete for religious and political influence in the
Middle East and stand with opposite sides in the Syria and Yemen
conflicts.
HUMAN RIGHTS
British-Iranian grandfather will be
entering his seventh year in prison for alleged espionage charges in
Iran, his family said. Kamal Foroughi, a 77-year-old oil and gas
company consultant, was detained in 2011 before being convicted of
espionage and possessing alcohol two years later. Friday marks six
years since the detention of Mr Foroughi, who strenuously maintains
his innocence. The family of the dual national have long campaigned
for his release from Evin prison in Tehran - the same jail where
another dual national, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is being held.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's main pro-reform opposition leaders plan to speak
out from their confinement under house arrest this month to publicly
back President Hassan Rouhani for re-election, aides say, helping win
over voters disillusioned with the slow pace of change. Rouhani was
elected in a landslide in 2013 on promises to ease Iran's
international isolation and open up society. He is standing for a
second term against five other candidates, mostly prominent
hardliners, on May 19, with a run-off a week later if no candidate
wins more than 50 percent of votes cast in the first round. In his
first term, Rouhani expended his political capital pushing through a
landmark agreement with global powers to limit Iran's nuclear program
in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions.
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and prominent Reformist
lawmaker Mohammad Reza Aref have reached a consensus on setting up a
committee to do preparatory work for what has been dubbed the
National Dialogue Plan. The initiative has been discussed in recent
months by members of the Hope (Omid) faction, a Reformist
parliamentary bloc led by Aref. While former Reformist President
Mohammad Khatami's call for national reconciliation earlier this year
was roundly rejected by Iranian conservatives, the initiative may
finally take off with Principlist parliament Speaker Ali Larijani at
its helm. As its running theme, the plan encourages a
dialogue-based solution to discrepancies and disputes between
political groups in a bid to reduce factional tension and sniping.
The six candidates contesting Iran's presidential
elections are to join their second live debate on state television
ahead the May 19 race. The session is to start at 16:30 local time
(21:00 GMT) on Friday. It is to address
"political-cultural" affairs. The debate will gather
incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, First Vice President Es'haq
Jahangiri, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, member of Iran's
Expediency Council Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim, Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, the
current custodian of the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (PBUH) in the
northeastern city of Mashhad and former vice president Mostafa
Hashemi-Taba. The previous debate, which took place last week,
revolved around social issues.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Are there reasonable grounds to believe that the time is
ripe for the United States and its Middle Eastern allies to put
together a new, but sound, positive, and effective Middle East
regional security policy? And which would have as its core three
objectives the US and its allies might adopt: (1) the elimination of
the Iranian Revolutionary Islamic objectives (found in the Iranian
constitution); (2) an end, not a pause, to Iran's nuclear weapons
program; and (3) limits on Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. In
pursuit of such a policy, to get a change in Iranian behavior, here
are some options we might consider, some of which have already been
adopted or are in the process of being adopted.
While Iran is fighting Saudi Arabia and Gulf states
through its militias in Yemen and directly in Bahrain, and combats
for its interests in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, reconciliation and
peacemaking attempts continued between Iran and the Gulf States,
prominently Saudi Arabia. Occasionally, calls for negotiations would
come from former US President Barack Obama, or through European
foreign ministers, and sometimes - shockingly - through Gulf
countries' efforts. Each party credits itself for strengthening their
positions even if it came on the expenses of Arab and Gulf states,
though these calls would benefit Iran. Everyone knows that Iran can't
go on with a reasonable dialogue while executing its expansion and
interference in internal affairs policy. Yet, it seems that the final
chapter of these callings is irreversibly over after Saudi Deputy
Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman explained his
country's position saying it is impossible to reach mutual
understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran: "There is no common
ground between us and the Iranian regime."
"Iran's provocative actions threaten the United
States, the region and the world," Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson warned in a major speech last month. The mere possibility
of Washington pushing back on Tehran's transgressions and focusing
not only on the mullahs' nuclear program but also on "alarming
and ongoing provocations that export terror and violence" has
already sent shockwaves through the clerical establishment. Tillerson
said the Trump administration is reviewing America's overall Iran
policy, a welcome opportunity to end nearly 40 years of botched
rapprochement. A good place to start is by recognizing two basic
realities: The regime is vulnerable to a hostile population eager to
overthrow it, and the notion that the mullocracy can
"reform" itself is a dangerous illusion that prolongs past
mistakes.
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