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TOP STORIES
The U.S. Navy has responded to a report by Iran's
official news agency that a U.S. aircraft carrier fired a warning
shot during an "unprofessional" confrontation with Iranian
vessels in the Persian Gulf on Friday. The Navy describes the
encounter "as safe and professional." The Bahrain-based 5th
Fleet says one of its helicopters was on a routine patrol in international
airspace when it saw several Iranian vessels approaching American
ships "at a high rate of speed." The Navy says the
helicopter tried to establish communications but received no
response, so it sent out flares, prompting the Iranian boats to halt
their approach. Navy spokesman Lt. Ian M. McConnaughey says that
after communications were established, the U.S. saw the Iranians
conduct a "gun exercise" that involved weapons being fired
into the water away from American ships.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned six Iran-based
entities that officials said Friday are central to Tehran's
ballistic-missile program, a move coming one day after the country
tested a rocket designed to carry a satellite. The Treasury, calling
the rocket launch part of a broader series of provocations by Tehran,
said the new measures target subsidiaries of Shahid Hemmat Industrial
Group that make components, provide fuel, research and ground support
for Iran's missile program. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
said the sanctioned entities underscore the administration's concern
over Iran's continued development and testing of ballistic missiles.
"The U.S. government will continue to aggressively counter Iran's
ballistic-missile-related activity, whether it be a provocative space
launch, its development of threatening ballistic-missile systems, or
likely support to Yemeni Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia such
as occurred this past weekend," Mr. Mnuchin said.
The United States punished Iran on Friday for launching
a satellite-carrying rocket into space by hitting six Iranian
entities with sanctions targeting the country's ballistic missiles
program. Three European nations that helped broker the landmark Iran
nuclear deal in 2015 joined the U.S. in condemning the launch, and
said it was too close for comfort to the type of intercontinental
ballistic missiles used to deliver a nuclear payload. At the United
Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Iran was "breaking its
obligation" and added, "We can't trust them." The U.S.
sanctions hit six Iranian subsidiaries of the Shahid Hemmat
Industrial Group, described by the Treasury Department as
"central" to Iran's ballistic missiles program. Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin cast the sanctions as part of an ongoing
U.S. effort to aggressively oppose Iran's ballistic missile activity,
including what he called a "provocative space launch"
carried out by the Islamic Republic on Thursday.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
US President Donald Trump should only withdraw from the
2015 Iranian nuclear deal after the Islamic Republic violates the
deal amid heavy enforcement. This was declared by Chairman of the US
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker to a Washington Post
audience... Corker reiterated the position of Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster, saying, "You can only tear the agreement
up one time. So when you're going to tear it up since nothing bad is
happening today."
BUSINESS RISK
Iran and Iraq are moving closer to building a pipeline
that would export crude oil from the northern Iraqi fields of Kirkuk
via Iran, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Sunday after
meeting his Iraqi counterpart Jabar al-Luaibi, according to the
official news site of the Iranian oil ministry. Agreements were
reached between the two ministers about an international company that
will carry out a feasibility study of the project, Zanganeh was
quoted as saying in the SHANA report. Iraq and Iran signed a
memorandum of understanding in February to study the construction of
the pipeline. Separately, Zanganeh said Iran would begin exporting
gas to the Iraqi city of Basra in coming months. He said there had
been some problems in receiving payments for current gas exports to
Iraq via banks and that Iran was receiving cash payments.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in
Mecca this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after
Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi
Arabia. Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three
flights to nearby Medina on Sunday, the director of the haj at Iran's
Haj and Pilgrimage Organization, Nasrollah Farahmand told state
media. Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the
haj in total this year and 800 coordinators have traveled to Saudi
Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said. Iran
boycotted the haj last year after hundreds of people, many of them
Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015,
and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries who are
vying for power and influence in the region. In a speech to haj
organizers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
said that Iranians would never forget the "catastrophic
events" of 2015 and called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the
security of all pilgrims.
Iran's official IRNA news agency is reporting that an
appeals court has approved the jail sentences for 10 people charged
with attacking Saudi diplomatic missions. The Sunday report says that
a lawyer associated with the case said the prison sentences for the
10 attackers, ranging from three to six months each, was approved by
the appeals court. The report's unnamed attorney also noted that four
of the defendants were clerics and therefore would have to appear
before the Special Clerical Court. The trial began in July 2016. In
January 2016, protesters in Iran, angered by the execution of Shiite
cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudi government, ransacked and set
fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran and also attacked a Saudi
consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faces
sentences on seven verdicts of misusing billions of dollars in
government funds while in office, the public prosecutor at Iran's
Supreme Audit Court said in a newspaper interview published on
Sunday. In one case, dating back to Ahmadinejad's second term in
office between 2009 and 2013, the misused funds amounted to more than
two billion dollars, the prosecutor, Fayaz Shojaie, said in his
interview with the newspaper Etemaad. The verdicts have been
announced to the parliament, Shojaie said. The Supreme Audit Court
operates under the supervision of the Iranian parliament. It is
not clear whether Ahmadinejad was formally tried by the court and is
facing sentencing, or whether the Iranian parliament must now follow
up on the court's verdicts. Ahmadinejad gained support among poor and
working class Iranians by promising to share the country's oil wealth
with them. Subsidy reforms implemented in his second term were aimed
at delivering subsidies to the most needy while cutting their overall
cost to the government.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
President Trump is no fan of Iran. As a candidate, he
had promised to tear up the Iran Nuclear Agreement. Having been
frustrated in his attempts to do that - at least for now - the
administration and its backers have been rumbling about changing the
regime... All this has mostly been rhetorical, and has done little to
address whom Washington would promote to replace the mullahs. But
would a more serious overt or covert effort in Iran bring benefits -
such as a friendly Iranian regime - to the United States?
By increasing sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard,
Washington can signal a different Iran policy. A blanket designation
would facilitate targeting numerous entities owned or controlled by
the guards' business fronts. The administration need not worry about
American compliance with the JCPOA. Even the Obama administration
fully conceded that sanctions on non-nuclear activities are
consistent with the deal. The Revolutionary Guard commanders' angry
response to potential new sanctions shows how painful a terrorism
designation might be. While the Trump administration should take
every precaution to defend American personnel and security
architecture in the region, it must not allow Tehran to intimidate
the United States. A weak response to Iranian threats could have
lasting repercussions. Issuing a terrorist designation against the
overlords of the Islamic Republic's foreign adventures is long
overdue.
In November 1979, a few months after Iran's Mullahs
assumed power, the world got a bitter taste of what was about to come
when Iran's Supreme Leader Khomeini ordered suppressive forces under
the guise of students to storm the US Embassy in Tehran to take 52
hostages. It was only after months of negotiations and generous
concessions that the hostages were returned to the US in January
1981. Unfortunately, this set a catastrophic example for the
following decades, letting Iran's rulers know that taking hostages is
a beneficial business. Ever since, Iran's rulers have been continuing
to implement these old mafia tactics. They are part of Iran's
terrorist arsenal which also includes bombings, the support of
numerous global terror organizations like Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and
ISIS, the export of its 'revolution" into other countries
through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), mass
executions and assassinations of opponents Hostage taking operations
mainly target foreign and dual nationals inside and outside Iran.
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