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TOP STORIES
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out
on Sunday at U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and what he
characterized as its hostility to the Islamic Republic.
"This inexperienced group has not recognized the people
and leaders of Iran," he said, according to the website for
state TV. "When they get hit in the mouth, at that time they'll
know what's going on." Khamenei and other senior Iranian
officials have ramped up their criticism of the United States in
recent weeks after Trump went on an official visit last month to
Saudi Arabia, Iran's main regional rival. During that visit,
Trump singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for
militant groups. He has also criticized the nuclear deal between Iran
and six major powers, including the United States, that led to the
lifting of most sanctions against Iran, in return for curbs on its
nuclear programme. Trump has said Washington would review the deal
but stopped short of pledging to scrap it.
Iran on Friday condemned new sanctions adopted by the US
Senate and vowed to respond with "reciprocal and adequate
measures". Tehran "will take reciprocal and adequate
measures to guarantee its national interests", foreign ministry
spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said, quoted by ISNA news agency. He did
not elaborate. The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed tough
sanctions on Iran for its alleged "continued support of
terrorism" and the bill has been sent to the House of
Representatives for approval. The new restrictions impose mandatory
sanctions on people involved with the Islamic republic's ballistic
missile programme and those that transact with them. It also applies
terrorism-related sanctions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
and re-enforces aspects of the arms embargo on Iran. Ghassemi
retorted that the measure against Iran's ballistic missile programme
was "totally illegal and illegitimate".
Iran's ballistic missile strike targeting the Islamic
State group in Syria served both as revenge for attacks on Tehran
earlier this month and a warning that Iran could strike Saudi Arabia
and U.S. interests in the Mideast, an Iranian general said Monday.
The launch, which hit Syria's eastern city of Deir el-Zour on Sunday
night, appeared to be Iran's first missile attack abroad in over 15
years and its first in the Syrian conflict amid its support of
embattled President Bashar Assad. It adds new tensions in a region
already unsettled by a long-running feud between Shiite power Iran
and the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as a campaign by Arab
nations against Qatar. It also raises questions about how U.S. President
Donald Trump's administration, which already said it put Iran
"on notice" for its ballistic missile tests, will respond.
BUSINESS RISK
Iran expects to sign a long-delayed gas deal with French
oil major Total in the next few weeks, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan
Zanganeh was quoted as saying on Saturday. "Iran and Total are
summing up the discussions on signing the contract for the
development of phase 11 of South Pars, and this is almost in the
final stages," said Zanganeh, quoted by the oil ministry's news
website SHANA. "The contract ... will be signed before the end
of the (current) government," Zanganeh said. Re-elected in May,
President Hassan Rouhani is expected to form his new cabinet in
August. Total's chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said in late May that
the company planned to conclude the South Pars gas deal before
summer. Separately, the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)
said it had certified five more companies from Russia and Azerbaijan
to bid for Iranian upstream energy projects.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
Manhattan's Fifth Avenue packs a world of intrigue into
a few blocks. Trump Tower at 57th Street was the launch pad for
Donald Trump's run to the White House. Four blocks south, 666 Fifth
Ave. is a white elephant that has pushed owner Jared Kushner, Trump's
son-and-law and adviser, into a well-scrutinized hunt for rich
investors. Then there's the nearly decade-long legal melodrama over a
36-story building across the street from Kushner's tower. U.S.
prosecutors are in the home stretch of an attempt to seize 650 Fifth
Ave. and related assets from a charity that owns it, alleging the
organization is a front for Iran's government and that it violated
economic sanctions against Iran since 1995. In a trial entering its
fourth week in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors say the
building's primary owner, the Alavi Foundation, has illegally
funneled millions of dollars to Iran under cover of its charitable
activities. They hope to recapture more than $500 million with the
proceeds going to victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Iran fired missiles on Sunday into eastern Syria, aiming
at the bases of militant groups it holds responsible for attacks in
Tehran which left 18 dead last week, Iran's Tasnim news agency
reported. Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched the mid-range
ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour
region of eastern Syria, killing a "large number" of
terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons, it said. The
missiles targeted the "headquarters and gathering centers of
Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs", it said.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. Military
leaders and officials in Iran, a predominantly Shi'ite country, often
refer to Sunni Muslim radicals as Takfiris. The Revolutionary Guards
are fighting in Syria against militant groups who oppose President
Bashar al-Assad. The attack last week, which included shootings and
at least one suicide bombing, was on Iran's parliament and the shrine
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Sunday it launched
missiles into eastern Syria targeting Islamic State militants in
response to an attack on Iran's parliament and a shrine in Tehran,
warning that it would retaliate in like manner on anyone else carrying
out attacks in Iran. The paramilitary force said it launched
surface-to-surface medium range missiles into Syria's Deir el-Zour
province, an extremely rare direct attack from the Islamic Republic
amid its support for embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A
Guard statement carried on its website said the strike came from its
bases in western Iran. It said many "terrorists" were
killed and their weapons had been destroyed in the strike. The
paramilitary force warned Islamic State militants and their
"regional and international supporters" that similar
retaliatory attacks would target them as well if another assault in
Iran occurs.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Kuwait's highest court on Sunday overturned the death
sentence imposed by a lower tribunal against a man convicted of
belonging to a group Kuwait said was trying to destabilise the Gulf
Arab state on behalf of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Iran has denied
any links to the alleged cell. Some Kuwaiti officials and some other
Gulf Arab countries, mostly ruled by Sunnis, accuse Tehran of seeking
to weaken them by infiltrating local Shi'ite communities and stirring
up local politics. The so-called "Abdali cell" was
uncovered when security forces raided a farmhouse in Abdali outside
Kuwait City in 2015 and found a cache of guns and explosives. In
January, a court found 23 guilty of various crimes, including intent
to carry out "hostile acts" against Kuwait and possessing
weapons.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasimi said
that the Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs,
Hossein Jaberi Ansari, paid a short visit to Qatar where he met with
Qatari officials and exchanged views about the bilateral relations
and the most important international issues. The Iranian news agency
"IRNA" stated that Qasimi pointed out that Jaberi Ansari
carried friendly messages from Iranian officials to Qatari officials.
He stressed that the Islamic Republic of Iran always seeks unity and
solidarity among the Islamic world and helps to set foundations of
peace and security in the region. The Spokesman for the Iranian
Foreign Ministry said that this visit comes in the framework and the
continuation of previous consultations with Qatari officials.
"Iran era" site, which is close to the government, reported
that Ansari carried a verbal message from Rouhani to Sheikh Tamim bin
Hamad, emir of Qatar.
MILITARY MATTERS
Iran and China began a joint naval exercise in the Gulf
on Sunday, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
The military drill comes at a time of heightened tension
between the Iranian and U.S. military in the Gulf and is likely to be
a cause of concern for Washington. In recent months, the U.S. navy
has accused the Iranian navy of sending fast-attack boats to harass
warships as they pass through the Strait of Hormuz. An Iranian
destroyer and two Chinese destroyers are among the vessels that will
participate in the exercise, which will take place in the eastern
portion of the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman, according to
IRNA. Some 700 Iranian navy personnel will be participating in the
drill. Two Chinese warships docked at Iran's Bandar Abbas port
to take part in a joint naval exercise in the Gulf for the first time
in 2014.
IRAQ CRISIS
Iran's support to Shi'ite groups in Iraq is obstructing
efforts to bridge the sectarian divide ahead of a parliamentary
election next year, Iraqi Vice President Iyad Allawi said on Friday. Iraqi
leaders hope to restore control over all Iraqi territory, defeating
Islamic State, before an election due by the middle of next year.
"Iran has been interfering even in the decision (making process)
of the Iraqi people," he told Reuters. "We don't want an
election based on sectarianism, we want an inclusive political
process ... we hope that the Iraqis would choose themselves without
any involvement by any foreign power." Allawi, a secular Shi'ite
politician who has supporters among some Sunnis, was in Cairo to meet
Egyptian leaders including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for
discussions about oil and the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.
Iraq lies on the faultline between Shi'ite Iran and the mostly Sunni
Arab world. Deep-running animosity and distrust between the two sides
is fueled by sectarian divides.
The Iraqi prime minister is reaching out to regional
powers such as Saudi Arabia and Iran for support for his anti-terror
campaign. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office says he left for
the kingdom on Monday, his first stop on a three-day regional tour
that will also include Kuwait and Iran. The statement says the visit
aims to boost bilateral relations and seeks more cooperation in
fighting terrorism. The visit comes as Gulf Arab states are embroiled
in a major dispute with Qatar over allegations the small nation backs
terror groups and that its policies, including its support for
Islamist groups, threaten the region. Qatar denies the charges and
says the decision to isolate it is politically motivated. Al-Abadi
has said that his government will not take sides in the dispute.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Saudi border guards have opened fire on an Iranian
fishing boat in the Gulf, killing a fisherman, Iran's Tasnim news
agency said on Saturday, amid high tension between the two rival
states. "Two Iranian boats that were fishing in the waters of
the Persian Gulf were pushed off their course by waves. There was
shooting by Saudi border guards ... and one Iranian fisherman was
killed," the semi-official agency quoted an Interior Ministry
official as saying. "We are pursuing this matter to determine if
the Iranian boats had crossed the Saudi border or not, but the action
of the Saudis does not comply with humanitarian and navigational
principles," Majid Aqababai, director general of the ministry's
border affairs, was quoted by Tasnim as saying. There was no
immediate Saudi reaction. Iranian reports said the incident happened
late on Friday. Relations between the two countries are at their
worst in years. Last week Riyadh, along with other Arab governments,
severed ties with Qatar, citing its support of Iran as a reason.
HUMAN RIGHTS
To those Iranians shaking their hips
and backsides to Latin American music during Zumba exercise classes,
Iran's Muslim clerics - and an American company - have the same
message: Stop it. It's illegal. The country's Zumba fans, however,
are refusing to back down. Iran has undergone a health revolution in
recent years, with gyms and fitness clubs opening in many
neighborhoods. Men lift weights to become buff; women sweat in
aerobic classes to stay lean. As in many countries, Zumba, an
aerobics dance class, has attracted a wide following here, especially
among women who gather a couple times a week to work out to upbeat
tracks by singers like Ricky Martin and Shakira and lose weight in
the process. "It's fun. It's positive," said Sunny Nafisi,
33, a Zumba instructor who works in an upscale Tehran gym. But recent
days haven't been fun or positive at all, Ms. Nafisi admitted.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
The regime in Tehran continues to be in a state of shock
after the passage of unprecedented United States Senate sanctions on
Thursday targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, support for
terrorism in the Middle East and flagrant human rights violations.
Many of the new measures imposed on Iran are far more complex than
any sanctions even prior to the Iran nuclear deal. There is no need
for the Trump administration to tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), as these new sanctions provide the US President
vast authority for further punitive action. This new initiative also
contains a classified amendment believed to describe Iran as an
extremely dangerous state.
Several neighboring Arab states have cut or reduced
their ties with the Arabian Gulf state of Qatar, ostensibly in
retaliation for Qatar's support for terrorist groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood. For most Americans, any collaboration with terrorists is
immoral and dangerous. Thus, many Americans may support the actions
of Saudi Arabia and others in ostracizing the oil-rich nation. Such a
rush to judgement, however, fails to take into the account the
strategic realities that Qataris have to face, and the U.S. decisions
that make those strategic calculations even more difficult. With a
population of only 2.2 million, a land area the size of Connecticut,
and a small military force, Qatar is barely 100 miles from Iran, the
enemy of oil-producing states throughout the region, and a budding
nuclear power. (By comparison, Iran has a population of 83 million,
land area the size of Alaska, and one of the most powerful militaries
in the world.) Geographically, Qatar is perhaps the most vulnerable
of all the Arab Gulf states, jutting as it does into the Gulf like a
piece of ripe fruit.
In December of 2016 Boeing announced that a new sale of
80 aircraft to Iran Air would "support nearly 100,000 U.S.
jobs." Those numbers seem murky at best. Since the
implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement in January 2016,
government-owned Iran Air has flown at least 134 flights from Tehran
to Damascus, even while this route does not appear in Iran Air's
formal booking system. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies'
research shows that these flights are unlikely to be civilian
flights, but rather airlifts of weapons and military personnel that
enable Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to continue waging war
against his own population. That's the main reason the Treasury
Department should block the deal, which it can do if it finds that
Iran Air is in fact engaging in this activity. But does Boeing's
job-creation justification hold water? Recent history suggests that
while the deal will surely add revenue to Boeing's coffers, it would
not create new U.S. jobs to fill these orders. Rather, they would be
filled by an increasingly automated production line.
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