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TOP STORIES
Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up
military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and
extremism", Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to
raise concerns in Washington. Iranian Defence Minister Hossein
Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed a memorandum
of understanding which also covered border security, logistics and
training, the official news agency IRNA reported. "Extending
cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and
extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical
and military support are among the provisions of this
memorandum," IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in
Tehran. Iran-Iraq ties have improved since Iran's long-time enemy
Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and an Iraqi government led by Shi'ite
Muslims came to power. Iran is mostly a Shi'ite nation.
When Zuao Ru Lin, a Beijing entrepreneur, first heard
about business opportunities in eastern Iran, he was skeptical. But
then he bought a map and began to envision the region without any
borders, as one enormous market. "Many countries are close by,
even Europe," Mr. Lin, 49, said while driving his white BMW over
the highway connecting Tehran to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad
recently. "Iran is at the center of everything." For
millenniums, Iran has prospered as a trading hub linking East and
West. Now, that role is set to expand in coming years as China
unspools its "One Belt, One Road" project, which promises
more than $1 trillion in infrastructure investment - bridges, rails,
ports and energy - in over 60 countries across Europe, Asia and
Africa. Iran, historically a crossroads, is strategically at the
center of those plans. Like pieces of a sprawling geopolitical
puzzle, components of China's infrastructure network are being put in
place.
Iran's top judge called on the United States on Monday
to release Iranians held in U.S. jails and billions of dollars in
Iranian assets, days after Washington urged Tehran to free three U.S
citizens. The statement by Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani capped a
week of heightened rhetoric over the jailing and disappearance of
Americans in Iran and new U.S. sanctions against the Islamic
Republic. "We tell them: 'You should immediately release
Iranian citizens held in American prisons in violation of
international rules and based on baseless charges'," Larijani
said in remarks carried by state television. "You have
seized the property of the Islamic Republic of Iran in violation of
all rules and in a form of open piracy, and these should be
released." On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged
Tehran to return Robert Levinson, an American former law enforcement
officer who disappeared in Iran more than a decade ago, and release
businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, jailed on espionage
charges.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iran's judiciary chief yesterday accused the United
States of holding Iranians "in gruesome prisons", as the
two countries trade charges of illegally jailing each other's
citizens. "You are keeping our innocent citizens in gruesome
prisons. This is against the law and international norms and
regulations," said Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary,
quoted by Iran's state broadcaster. "We tell them that you must
immediately release Iranian citizens locked up in US prisons."
Washington reacted angrily to news last week that Xiyue Wang, a
Princeton University researcher, had been sentenced in Iran to 10
years in prison for espionage. President Donald Trump warned of
"new and serious consequences" unless US nationals held in
the Islamic republic were released. Iranian officials have in turn
responded by criticising the detention of Iranians in the US. Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused Washington of holding Iranians
on "charges of sanction violations that are not applicable
today... for bogus and purely political reasons", at a meeting
of the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in New York last week.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
The US House of Representatives votes Tuesday to slap
new sanctions against Russia, a move that limits President Donald
Trump's ability to tinker with the penalties and has also triggered
uproar in Moscow and Europe. The legislation, which is the result of
a congressional compromise reached at the weekend and is aimed at
punishing the Kremlin for meddling in the 2016 US presidential
election and Russia's annexation of Crimea, could end up penalizing
European firms that contribute to the development of Russia's energy
sector. New sanctions against Iran and North Korea for their actions
on or testing of ballistic missiles are also included in the bill.
Key among the provisions is one that handcuffs the US president by
making it difficult for him to unilaterally ease penalties against
Moscow in the future -- effectively placing him under Congress's watch.
Initially, Trump resisted the legislation. But faced with near-total
consensus among Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the White House
blinked. In mid-June, the Senate voted 98-2 in favor of tough
sanctions on Moscow and Tehran, but the text stalled in the House.
BUSINESS RISK
French train maker and manufacturing group Alstom has
signed a deal to enter into a joint venture that will build metro and
suburban rail carriages in Iran, the semi-official Mehr news agency
reported on Monday. Alstom is partnering with the Industrial
Development and Renovation Organization of Iran, an investment fund
active throughout the country's industry, and Iranian Rail Industries
Development Co, according to the preliminary accord signed late on
Sunday, Mehr added. Alstom will hold 60 percent of the project, Mehr
added, without giving the value of the deal.
IRAQ CRISIS
Iran and Iraq have pledged to join forces against
militant fighters and ideology in the region by boosting bilateral
defense ties, a move that could present a challenge to U.S. foreign
policy goals. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and Iraqi
Defense Minister Irfan al-Hiyali met Sunday in Tehran to sign a
military agreement aimed at improving joint efforts to curb the
influence of jihadis such as the Islamic State militant group. ISIS
has conducted deadly attacks in both countries and is still being
fought by Iraq with support from Iran and the U.S., but the U.S. has
become increasingly concerned about Iran's growing foothold in Iraq.
Despite the volatile history of the two majority Shiite-Muslim
neighbors and their differing views on Washington, the new deal will
reportedly see Iran and Iraq's armed forces work together on a number
of strategic levels. "Extending cooperation and exchanging
experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and
educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the
provisions of this memorandum," Reuters quoted Iran's state-run
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) as reporting.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The names may be unfamiliar but the services are
immediately recognisable: Snapp is Iran's answer to Uber, Digikala is
its Amazon, and Pintapin its Booking.com. US sanctions have protected
the Islamic republic's tech sector, barring Silicon Valley from
profiting from one of the world's most promising emerging markets,
and giving a free run to domestic start-ups to recreate their
services. Even some Californian mumbo-jumbo has been imported: one
booth at the Elecomp tech fair in Tehran this week claimed it was
"Creating Artificial Mindfulness". But don't dare call them
copycats -- transplanting a foreign business model to Iran is never
straightforward. "It's not a matter of copying code
line-by-line," said Amirali Mohajer, the 32-year-old chief
operating officer of Pintapin. "You need local expertise that
has to be built from the ground up, and it might need an entirely
different business model to make it successful."His office sits
alongside several other fast-growing start-ups in the offices of the
Iran Internet Group (IIG), a haven of north Tehrani hipsterdom where
the jeans are skinny, the headscarves loose, and 20-somethings sip
espressos in glass meeting rooms.
Border guards in northwestern Iran have seized 30 mules
and horses which were being used to smuggle arms and explosives into
the country, the semi-official Tasnin news agency reported on Monday.
Clashes with Iranian Kurdish rebel groups based in Iraq are fairly
common near Iran's mountainous northwestern borders with Iraq and
Turkey. "The 30 horses and mules were carrying smuggled
weapons, ammunition and explosive devices in the northwest,"
General Qasem Rezaei, head of Iran's border guard command, was quoted
by Tasnim as saying. He did not give further details and did
not say if the arms smugglers themselves had been arrested.
Early in June, Islamic State attacked parliament in Tehran and
the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing at least 18
people All of the attackers were Iranian Kurds. The Revolutionary
Guards fired several missiles at Islamic State bases in Syria on June
18 in response to that attack.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Last week, the Trump administration recertified that
Iran is complying the nuclear agreement, setting off predictable
debate between who those want to exit the deal immediately and those
who see it as his predecessor's signature foreign policy achievement.
But for all the will-he-or-won't-he attention on Trump's decision,
the focus on the nuclear deal is missing the point: The
administration's real agenda on Iran doesn't hinge on the nuclear
agreement-a dangerous deal that puts the U.S. in a impossible
situation. Instead, the Trump administration's priority should be
restoring leverage against Tehran, so that we can dissuade Iran from
sprinting toward a bomb and create far more favorable circumstances
to negotiate an agreement that-unlike Obama's deal-actually prevents
a nuclear Iran. Abiding by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), as the agreement is known, will only enable a nuclear and
hegemonic Iran.
On the second anniversary of President Obama's nuclear
deal with Iran, which President Trump sharply criticized during his
campaign for the White House, the Trump administration has
signaled its strong and continuing displeasure with Iran's
hostile and dangerous behavior. The State Department announced new
sanctions Tuesday on 18 Iranian entities and individuals for their
support of Iran's ballistic missile program or military purchases by
the nation's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Although the Trump
administration certified that the Islamic Republic continues in
compliance with the letter of its agreement to limit its nuclear
weapons program, the State Department said Iran is violating the
spirit of the agreement. It said the U.S. "remains deeply
concerned about Iran's malign activities across the Middle East which
undermine regional stability, and prosperity." The rhetoric
sounds good and is a welcome change from the repeated lame excuses
the Obama administration made for Iran's destabilizing behavior. But
the tough talk is deeply unserious unless we go further to constrain
and ultimately depose the Mullahs ruling Iran.
Two years have passed since the signing of the
ineffective nuclear agreement between world powers and Tehran,
officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
For those who are familiar with the theocracy in Iran, it is a known
fact that all foreign policy in Iran are decided by the Supreme
Leader, Ali Khamenei. This is even true in the case of the highly
promoted nuclear deal. It is worth noting that before and during the
negotiations, Khamenei, said that Oman had a key role in breaking the
ice between Iran and the US. Thus, it is naive to think that the new
president, Hassan Rouhani, was the one who changed the 10-year-long
stalemate. Iran has an abundance of oil, gas and others natural
resources, hence, using nuclear energy is both expensive and
controversial. Independent experts acknowledge that Iran's goal of
maintaining a nuclear program is to produce nuclear weapon. However,
Iran has consistently refused these views and claims that its program
is of a peaceful nature.
President Trump has reluctantly followed the advice of
his national security advisers and certified that Iran is complying
with the 2015 agreement to limit its nuclear weapons program for a
second time. The July 17 recertification was a mistake, and the president
would be wise to exit the deeply flawed agreement as soon as
possible. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly
and accurately criticized the agreement reached by the Obama
administration and the despotic government of Iran, calling it
"the worst deal ever." The Iranians are state sponsors of
international Islamist terrorism who shout "Death to
America" and vow to wipe Israel off the map. They made fools of
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry by negotiating a
nuclear deal that gave Iran nearly everything it wanted at little
cost.
The war for Mosul has come to an end; the city is freed
and the Islamic State (IS) is out. But the reverberations of the monthslong
battle will likely impact Iraq as a nation and the region for years
to come. In fact, the war that started after IS' occupation of Mosul
in June 2014 wasn't merely a war for a country that was partly
occupied by a group seen by all regional and international players as
a serious threat to global stability. There was another parallel
battle silently going on between the two faces of Iraq: that of Iraq
following the US occupation that began in 2003 and that of post-Arab
Spring Iraq that began taking shape in early 2011. To those concerned
about Iran's role in post-Islamic State Iraq, there might be no
choice but to engage with Tehran's allies to balance the expansion of
the Islamic Republic's reach. When Mosul fell into the hands of IS,
few thought that it would eventually be liberated by Iraqi
fighters.
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