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TOP STORIES
President Trump agreed on Monday to certify again that
Iran is complying with an international nuclear agreement that he has
strongly criticized, but only after hours of arguing with his top
national security advisers, briefly upending a planned announcement
as a legal deadline loomed. Mr. Trump has repeatedly condemned the
deal brokered by President Barack Obama as a dangerous capitulation
to Iran, but six months into his presidency he has not abandoned it.
The decision on Monday was the second time his administration
certified Iran's compliance, and aides said a frustrated Mr. Trump
had told his security team that he would not keep doing so
indefinitely. Administration officials announced the certification on
Monday evening while emphasizing that they intended to toughen
enforcement of the deal, apply new sanctions on Iran for its support
of terrorism and other destabilizing activities, and negotiate with
European partners to craft a broader strategy to increase pressure on
Tehran. Aides said Mr. Trump had insisted on such actions before
agreeing to the consensus recommendation of his national security
team.
The Trump administration told Congress for a second time
Monday that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and can keep
enjoying sanctions relief, even as it insisted Tehran would face
consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the deal.
President Donald Trump, who lambasted the 2015 pact as a candidate,
gave himself more time to decide whether to scuttle it or let it
stand. Instead, senior Trump administration officials sought to
emphasize their deep concerns about Iran's non-nuclear behavior and
vowed that those transgressions won't go unpunished. In a shift from
Trump's previous threat to "rip up" the deal, officials
said the administration was working with U.S. allies to try to fix
the deal's flaws, including the expiration of some nuclear
restrictions after a decade or more. The officials also said the U.S.
would slap Tehran with new sanctions penalizing it for developing
ballistic missiles and other activity.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will "very
shortly" make an announcement on Iran's nuclear agreement with
world powers that President Donald Trump has called a "bad
deal," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday. Under
U.S. law, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of
Iran's compliance with the 2015 deal Monday is the deadline, and a
senior U.S. official said last week the administration was very
likely to say Iran was adhering to the agreement although Trump has
reservations about it. "The secretary of state will have an
announcement very shortly on that deal," Spicer told reporters.
"I think you all know that the president has made very clear
that he thought this was a bad deal, a bad deal for the United
States."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
A senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned
the United States on Monday that if it designated the group a
terrorist organization and applied new sanctions its action could be
perilous for U.S. forces in the region. U.S. officials said earlier
this year that President Donald Trump's administration was
considering a proposal that could lead to potentially categorizing
the powerful Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
In Mid-June the U.S. Senate voted for new sanctions on Iran
over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related
to the international nuclear agreement reached with the United States
and other world powers in 2015. To become law, the legislation
must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump.
"Counting the Revolutionary Guards the same as terrorist groups
and applying similar sanctions to the Revolutionary Guards is a big
risk for America and its bases and forces deployed in the
region," said Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad
Baqeri, according to Sepah News, an official news site of the Guards.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday
that his country has an entirely "independent judiciary"
set in stone in its constitution, and deflected the notion that he or
the government had much immediate authority in helping free the
jailed Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang."But we hope
an acceptable resolution can be found," Zarif said at the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. "There are
Iranians being detained (by the U.S.) on charges of sanction
violations that are not applicable today... for bogus and purely
political reasons." Wang, who was in Iran working on his
Princeton University thesis on Eurasian history, was sentenced over
the weekend to ten years behind bars for "spying," in a
trial that was held behind closed doors. Zarif also expressed
his skepticism that the Syrian regime, led by embattled President
Bashar al-Assad, had used chemical weapons in the country's
northwestern rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April this year,
despite certainty from U.S officials and other international bodies.
Two Iranians were indicted Monday in the United States
with hacking a defense contractor and stealing sensitive software
used to design bullets and warheads, according to the Justice
Department. According to the newly unsealed indictment businessman
Mohammed Saeed Ajily, 35, recruited Mohammed Reza Rezakhah, 39, to
break into companies' computers to steal their software for resale to
Iranian universities, the military and the government. The two men --
and a third who was arrested in 2013 and handed back to Iran in a
prisoner swap last year -- allegedly broke into the computers of
Vermont-based Arrow Tech Associates. The indictment said they stole
in 2012 the company's Prodas ballistics software, which is used to
design and test bullets, warheads and other military ordnance
projectiles. The material stolen from Arrow Tech was protected by US
controls on the export of sensitive technologies, and its
distribution to Iran was banned by US sanctions on the country.
BUSINESS RISK
Britain's easyHotel has reached an agreement with developers
to open more than 500 rooms in Iran, joining other foreign chains
that have moved into the country since the lifting of sanctions. The
budget chain, which was launched by easyJet founder Stelios
Haji-Ioannou in 2004, now operates in Britain, six other European
countries and the United Arab Emirates. "There are a number of
hotel companies that are looking to expand into Iran. We're looking
to develop in the Middle East, and it made sense for us to take this
opportunity," easyHotel Chief Executive Guy Parsons told
Reuters. Other chains to have moved into Iran since the lifting of
sanctions include France's Accor Spain's Melia Hotels International
and several hotel companies based in the Gulf. "We're
comfortable that now is the right time to go ... But we're going to
keep monitoring the situation and discussing it with the franchisee
and developer in Iran," he said.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the
southwest Syria ceasefire agreed by Russia and the US since it would
enable Iran to solidify its presence there, an official said Monday.
The July 9 accord creating a de-escalation zone in the Daraa,
Quneitra and Sweida regions includes areas that have seen Israel
retaliate over stray fire into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
from clashes between Syrian regime forces and rebels. Israel has also
conducted several air strikes elsewhere in Syria since the civil war
there erupted in 2011. Most strikes have targeted arms convoys or
warehouses of its Lebanese arch-foe Hezbollah. The Iran-backed Shiite
movement is a key supporter of Syria's regime and is fighting
alongside government forces. An Israeli official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, told AFP that Netanyahu opposed the deal "because
of (the) Iranian presence" in Syria.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The Iranian judiciary's sentencing of
American academic researcher Xiyue Wang to 10 years in prison on
unspecified espionage charges reflects the continued ability of
security and intelligence agencies to dictate unlawful and arbitrary
judicial prosecutions of Western nationals, the Center for Human
Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today. "Over and over
again we're seeing foreigners who were legally allowed to enter Iran
being imprisoned as political playing cards by hardliners who want to
use them as hostages in their dealings with Western countries,"
said CHRI's Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi. "The Rouhani
administration has aimed to present Iran as an open and welcoming
place to visitors, but the continued entrapment of western nationals
with bona fide visas reflects a politicized justice system that sends
a very different message," he added. Judiciary Spokesman
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei did not name the "American
infiltrator" he accused of spying during the press conference
where he announced the sentence on July 16, 2017, but the judiciary's
official news agency, Mizan, quoted an anonymous source identifying
Wang, a 37-year-old American-Chinese graduate student at Princeton
University.
Colleagues of an American student from
Princeton University who was jailed in Iran on spying charges
expressed shock on Monday, calling him a gifted and innocent history
scholar whose ordeal has traumatized his family and community.
Academics and Iran experts said the arrest and punishment of the
student, Xiyue Wang, first announced Sunday in Iran, may chill
scholarly ties between the United States and Iran, subverting
promises of more openness from its president, Hassan Rouhani.
"This kind of situation makes me wake up in a cold sweat,"
said Bruce Carruthers, the director of the Buffett Institute for
Global Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "It
is a deeply worrisome event, and I hope to God that it is not a trend
or harbinger of things to come." Despite the history of
hostility between the United States and Iran, scholarly exchanges
have survived. But Mr. Wang's case, Mr. Carruthers said, shows that
"a visitor like that can be a bargaining chip."
DOMESTIC POLITICS
When the arrest of Hossein Fereydoun, President Hassan
Rouhani's brother, was announced July 16 at a live recording for a
video channel associated with conservative Fars News, the audience
erupted in applause. Conservatives have long sought his arrest, and
so it was natural they would be elated by this news. While questions
remain about the charges, the arrest sends a political message to the
president, who is preparing to announce his new Cabinet as his second
term begins. The arrest of Hassan Rouhani's brother poses a major
challenge for the Iranian president. On July 16, Gholam-Hossein
Mohseni-Ejei, the spokesman for the judiciary, said that bail was set
for Fereydoun and since he did not put up the bail he was taken to
prison. He added that Fereydoun will be released as soon as he puts
up bail. According to an Iranian news website that published
Mohseni-Ejei's comments, the accusations against Rouhani are
"financial matters" but not related to any specific bank,
as has been previously speculated.
The brother and close advisor of Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani was transferred to hospital on his second day of
detention, according to reports on Iranian news sites. Hossein
Fereydoun was summoned for questioning on Saturday in a corruption
case in which he faces unspecified charges. He was later detained
when he could not post bail, which was set at more than 15 million
dollars, according to Fars News. The Mehr news site later reported a
representative had posted bail on Fereydoun's behalf on Monday
evening so he would not need to return to prison from hospital. The
site did not specify the amount of the bail posted. Fereydoun is a
senior diplomat who took part in the talks that led to a 2015 nuclear
agreement between Iran and world powers. Some Rouhani supporters have
interpreted the charges against him as a move by the hard-line
judiciary to discredit the president. Fereydoun appeared in court on
Monday but was transferred to hospital after appearing unwell,
according to the Tasnim news site.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead,
in fact it's not even past. The story of the coup that toppled
Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but
it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American
establishment-former CIA agent and presidential grandson Kermit
Roosevelt-and reams of studies by left-wing professors have sustained
the myth that the Eisenhower administration ousted Mossadeq. The
Iranians are mere bystanders in this story, watching helplessly as a
malevolent America manipulates their nation's destiny. Most academic
speculations remain cloistered in college campuses, but the myth of
Mossadeq's overthrow long escaped those boundaries. It is in the
Democratic party that the tale of Mossadeq's demise has found its
most hospitable home. In 2015, Barack Obama confided to Tom Friedman,
"if you look at Iranian history, the fact is that we had some involvement
with overthrowing a democratically elected regime in Iran."
My number one priority," Donald Trump said to the
America Israel Public Affairs Committee on March 21, 2016, "is
to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran." Six months into
Trump's presidency, it's looking more like number 10 or 20. THE
WEEKLY STANDARD reported last week that the White House had decided
to recertify Iranian compliance with the terms of the 2015 deal
negotiated between the Obama administration and the Iranian
government (cumbersomely known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, or JCPOA). And today, accordingly, the administration will
take that course of action. But the debate goes on at the highest
levels of our government. The debate isn't between those who favor
the deal itself and those who don't. No one in the current
administration, thankfully, thinks it was a good idea to lift
economic sanctions on Iran for the promise that it wouldn't pursue
the development of nuclear weapons.
Earlier this month, the French oil giant, Total, in
partnership with a Chinese and an Iranian private company, signed a
$4.8 billion agreement with the Iranian oil ministry to develop a
portion of the vast South Pars offshore gas field, which Iran shares
with Qatar. This is the first major energy deal that Iran has signed
with a foreign company since the 2015 nuclear agreement. After the
Obama administration gave the green light to the Boeing deal with
Iran in 2016, and the Trump administration confirmed the U.S. remains
committed to the nuclear deal for now, thus continuing to waive nuclear-related
sanctions against Iran, European companies have felt more comfortable
entering the Iranian market. The German carmaker Volkswagen follows
French Peugeot into the Iranian market, the Italian company Ferrovie
dello Stato has signed a €1.2 billion deal with its Iranian
counterpart to build Iranian railways and French Total and Iran have
reached a preliminary agreement to build three petrochemical plants
in a deal that if finalized, could see the French oil giant investing
up to $2 billion in Iran.
President Trump allowed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
to announce late Monday that Iran is in compliance with the terms of
the 2015 nuclear deal. Trump did not want to certify in April or
recertify in July but was persuaded on condition his team come back
with a new strategy to confront Tehran. The first draft did not
make the cut, reports The New York Times. The second draft
did, and a notice was sent for Congress to continue withholding
nuclear-related sanctions against Iran. Although it's a close call,
Tillerson's decision is a mistake. And the Iran policy review should
result in: stricter enforcement of the Iran deal; renegotiation or
additional non-nuclear sanctions imposed on Tehran for its ballistic
missile testing as well as its state sponsored international
terrorism.
When President Trump met earlier this month with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, their exchange about Moscow's interference
in the 2016 presidential election was all anyone seemed to care
about. Trump's efforts to present an agreement between the two
countries on a cease-fire in Syria as a major achievement were
largely ignored by a media determined to focus exclusively on
allegations of collusion between the Republicans and Russia. But it
turns out his critics were wrong to dismiss the Syrian pact as a
distraction. It's now clear that in his eagerness for a deal, the
president fell into virtually the same trap his predecessor did when
he signed the Iran nuclear deal. The real surprise here is that the biggest
critic of the Syrian pact is one of the president's staunchest
friends: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He spoke out once
he discovered that Trump hadn't taken into account Israel's concerns
about Iran being the real beneficiary of the agreement.
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