TOP STORIES
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is turning the
Senate toward passing tougher Iran sanctions, potentially renewing a
fight over financial penalties against Russia. The Kentucky
Republican teed up a procedural vote for Wednesday on the Iran
Destabilizing Activities Act. If lawmakers drag out debate on the
legislation, a final vote could take place as late as Thursday
evening. The Iran legislation has broad bipartisan support after
months of negotiations and easily cleared the Foreign Relations
Committee in late May. It would expand sanctions targeting Iran's
ballistic missile development, support for terrorism any transfer of
weapons and human rights violations. But the bill could restart a
stalled battle over imposing new financial penalties on Russia for
its meddling in the 2016 election, as well as ongoing conflicts in
Syria and Ukraine.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday
night teed up a vote this week to take up a bipartisan Iran sanctions
bill, which also sets up potential battles over sanctioning Russia
and blocking some of President Donald Trump's proposed weapons sales
to Saudi Arabia. The Iran sanctions bill was crafted as a response to
Tehran's human rights abuses and its backing of terrorist-designated groups.Senate
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and the committee's
top Democrat, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, have agreed to pursue
legislation punishing Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election
without the use of sanctions, but senators in both parties have vowed
to push a debate on sanctioning Moscow regardless - particularly
given Thursday's hotly anticipated testimony from former FBI Director
James Comey about Trump's efforts to shut down the bureau's Russia
investigation.
For many, the whereabouts and machinations of al-Qaida
founder Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks
until his death remain shrouded in mystery. The terror mastermind had
been on the run, trying to evade U.S. forces, while al-Qaida itself
was in a period of disarray. Yet even as U.S. Navy SEALs burst into
bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011 and killed
him, things already had begun to change with the help of officials in
Iran and Pakistan. There have been some prior insights into bin Laden
and al-Qaida during his years on the run, including the release by
U.S. intelligence of three tranches of documents recovered from the
Abbottabad complex. But many more remain classified.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
National security experts are warning that the
diplomatic split between Qatar and other Arab nations in the region
may negatively affect the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria (ISIS). Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates announced Monday that they were cutting diplomatic ties with
Qatar. The decision closes all land, air and sea borders with the
country within 24 hours, a decision they say is based on its support
for extremist groups and its relations with Iran. Yemen, the Maldives
and Libya's eastern-based government joined later the diplomatic
break with Qatar, which also backs the Al-Jazeera network, later in
the day. U.S. officials have downplayed the dispute, but outside
observers say the breakdown in diplomacy in and of itself could push
Qatar, home to a large U.S. military presence, closer to Iran.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that
the Iran nuclear deal could hold even if President Donald Trump pulls
out but he warned that imposing new economic sanctions against Tehran
could be dangerous. Kerry said new sanctions on people involved in
Iran's ballistic missile program could send a message to the Iranian
people that there is no gain for them in the 2015 nuclear deal. The
landmark agreement eased economic sanctions in return for a freeze on
Iranian nuclear development. "If we become super provocative in
ways that show the Iranian people there has been no advantage to
this, that there is no gain, and our bellicosity is pushing them into
a corner, that's dangerous and that could bring a very different
result," Kerry said.
BUSINESS RISK
Over the past several years there has been a significant
shift in how Iranians purchase new cars with the beginnings of
broader range of cars and the flurry of financial incentives to
support further growth. Years of stagnation has hampered the domestic
auto market. To understand where the market currently stands, one
should analyze several factors that are involved in the pricing of
cars which vastly differ from locally produced models to imported
vehicles from the Far East and Europe. For those looking from the
outside, Iran's car market is at once both affordable for locally
built vehicles but also incredibly overpriced - largely for imports
that have tariffs of up to 100%. For those struggling to understand
why the Iranian automotive market is the way it is, they need to
first review the years of punitive tariffs on imports that were meant
to protect the local car manufactures. Secondly, the lack of foreign
investment - until very recently - hampered competitiveness that led
to conditions in which the local producers ruled supreme with their
low quality and relatively expensive models.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran called on Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab
states to resolve disputes through diplomacy and said any heightened
tension would not help to resolve the crisis in the Middle East, state
TV said on Monday. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and
Bahrain have severed their ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting
terrorism and opening up the worst rift in years among some of the
most powerful states in the Arab world. "To resolve regional
disputes and the current dispute, they should adopt peaceful methods,
transparent dialogue and diplomacy," foreign ministry spokesman
Bahram Qasemi said. "No country in the region will benefit from
the heightened tension."
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The coalition between Iranian moderates and Reformists
appears to have been emboldened with the re-election of two prominent
lawmakers as deputy parliamentary speakers. In an internal ballot on
May 31, lawmakers re-elected moderate conservative Ali Larijani as
parliamentary speaker while outspoken member of parliament Ali
Motahari and Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian were again chosen to serve
as the first and second deputy of the speaker, respectively. Ahead of
the vote, rumors were spreading about Larijani having forged a deal
with hard-liners to prevent Motahari, who has come under fire from
conservatives on the far right about his outspokenness, from being
re-elected as deputy speaker. As the rumors and conservative
criticisms of Motahari heightened, some Reformist members of
parliament claimed that the Rouhani administration had secretly
agreed to remove Motahari from his deputy post.
After Iranians' vote for reform, a bigger
question looms: Who will be the next supreme leader? | Los Angeles
Times
After President Hassan Rouhani's decisive reelection,
talk in Iran has turned to the future of an even larger political
figure: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Although the topic is
taboo in Iran, the question of who will succeed Khamenei, who is 77
and ailing, reportedly from prostate cancer, loomed over the May 19
election. Rouhani, a relative moderate, won 57% of the vote in a
four-man field, demonstrating strong public support for his policies
of economic pragmatism, international engagement and expanding social
freedoms. But in Iran's theocracy, one vote matters most: that of the
supreme leader.Khamenei and the hard-line "principlist"
faction that is close to him have indicated impatience with Rouhani's
economic policies and outreach to the West - especially the 2015
nuclear agreement.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
With the United States boosting "combat power"
in southern Syria and bolstering measures with the Kurds in the north
in preparation for a major assault on the self-proclaimed ISIS
capital of Raqqa, word is in the air about a confrontation in the
making between the US and Iran in the Middle East, with Syria acting
as a launch site. Does this piece intend to promote war against Iran?
Absolutely not. While some do argue this would play into the Iranian
regime's hands and provide pretext for the clerics to rally fighters
to take on the "World Arrogance" or "Great
Satan," as Tehran describes Washington, there is no basis to go
that far. Most importantly is the sheer fact that the regime lacks
such a social base. Recall how former Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher
Ghalibaf said this regime represents four percent of Iran's society.
And yet the increase in US military presence in the Middle East
should be considered a welcome measure, certainly so after the Obama
administration disastrously created a dangerous void by prematurely
pulling out US troops from Iraq in late 2011.
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