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TOP STORIES
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani yesterday said the top
foreign policy priority for his new government was to protect the
nuclear deal from being torn up by the United States. "The most
important job of our foreign minister is first to stand behind the
JCPOA, and not to allow the US and other enemies to succeed,"
Rouhani told parliament, using the technical name for the 2015 deal
that eased sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran's nuclear
programme. "Standing up for the JCPOA means standing up to
Iran's enemies," he said on the last day of debates over his
cabinet selections.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for decisive
diplomatic action to foil US attempts at scrapping the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying the Foreign Ministry's
main task in his second term would be safeguarding the nuclear
agreement. Addressing the parliament on Sunday, President
Rouhani said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has been
chosen to assume the office for the second term, will have a heavy
duty to protect the JCPOA and not let the US succeed in implementing
its obstructive plots. The real Iranian heroes are those trying to
maintain the nuclear deal and protect it against hostile attempts by
the US, Israel and some minor countries in the region, the president
added.
Iran's UN envoy denounced recent hostile remarks by his
US counterpart, which he said were only the latest in a barrage of
"provocative" comments and accusations by US officials
meant to undermine Iran's global image and the nuclear deal.
"The 15th August press statement by US ambassador to the UN
[Nikki Haley] on Iran is devoid of any shred of truth,"
Gholamali Khoshrou said in a statement published by IRNA on Friday.
"The rhetoric and baseless accusations against Iran contained
therein represent the latest examples of a series of provocative
words, outright threats and irresponsible actions from some senior
officials of the US administration in demonizing Iran and undermining
the JCPOA inconsistent with the US commitments under paragraph 28 of
the nuclear deal," he said.
UANI IN THE NEWS
COMING ATTRACTIONS -- United Against Nuclear Iran is
hosting a day-long gathering of current and former foreign leaders,
lawmakers, and Iran experts at its second annual Iran Summit on Sept.
19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. Among the speakers: Ret. Gen.
David Petraeus, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, former Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Italian
Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.),
former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.),
Amb. Dennis Ross, former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and
Ambassador Mark D. Wallace. RSVP http://bit.ly/2vP6dVb
Jewish Insider's
Daily Kickoff: August 18, 2017 | Haaretz
COMING SOON: United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) will
host its second annual Iran Summit, on September 19 at the Roosevelt
Hotel in New York. The event will coincide with President Donald
Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speeches on the opening
day of the UN General Assembly. Speakers include General (Ret) David
Petraeus, HRH Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, Joe Lieberman, John
Bolton, Dennis Ross, former Governors Jeb Bush and Bill Richardson;
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former Congressman Steve Israel, and former
Senator Mark Kirk.
Former Sen. Mark Kirk R-Ill., a strong foe of the Iran
nuclear deal, will be honored Aug. 27 by an Illinois based pro-Israel
PAC and next month will be speaking to a group in New York,
"United Against Nuclear Iran." Until now, Kirk has kept a
relatively low profile since his November defeat by Sen. Tammy
Duckworth D-Ill. Kirk will be honored at a fundraiser "Protect
Our Heritage PAC," at the Northbrook Hilton, with the keynote
speaker Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent and analyst
for the Jerusalem Post - and a Chicago native. The PAC has been a
Kirk supporter for years. There are many events that occur at the
same time the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New
York takes place, and Kirk will appear at one of them, a forum hosted
by "United Against Nuclear Iran" to "examine the
political and economic environment" since the deal, a legacy
item of former President Barack Obama, signed in 2015.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
A top Iranian lawmaker said the country has a wide range
of options to respond to Washington's hostile actions, stressing that
Tehran's vow to react to violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA) is not just a slogan. Speaking to the Tasnim
News Agency, Chairman of the Parliament's National Security and
Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran has
"multiple options for responding to US anti-Iran measures."
Iran's choices are not limited when it comes to reaction to US
breaches of the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the
Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), he
added.
BUSINESS RISK
Attracting foreign investment for Iran´s oil sector will
continue to be a top priority during President Hassan Rouhani´s
second term, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Sunday.
"Attracting foreign investment and technology is a priority for
us in the oil industry, whether in shared fields or for increasing
the production of oil at fields that are already operational,"
he said during a live television interview on state TV. Zanganeh, who
won parliamentary approval on Sunday to stay on as oil minister, has
been credited with increasing Iran's crude output since many global
sanctions were lifted last year following an international deal on
Iran's nuclear programme. He has also won praise with a
multi-billion-dollar deal with France's Total to develop South Pars,
the world's largest gas field.
In an underhand move Apple Inc. has once again removed
applications of several Iranian companies from the company's iOS App
Store. The American company has removed applications of several
online businesses including Delion (food delivery service), DigiKala
(Amazon-like retailer), AloPeyk (parcel delivery service), Takhfifan
(group buying website), and Alibaba (online travel agency). In the
early hours of August 19, CEOs of the several local businesses
received an email from Apple, which reads as follows: "We are
unable to include your app on the App Store. Under the US sanctions
regulations, the App Store cannot host, distribute, or do business
with apps or developers connected to certain US embargoed countries."
The statement further adds "This area of law is complex and
constantly changing. If the existing restrictions shift, we encourage
you to resubmit your app for inclusion on the App Store."
Independent observers are of the strong opinion that Apple is randomly
targeting Iranian startups and online applications.
RUSSIA-IRAN COOPERATION
Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak has announced a
Russian oil-for-food deal with Iran that will be implemented next
month by buying 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Iran, Iranian and
Russian media reported. The Russian minister said that the deal will
be in accordance with an agreement signed between the two countries
earlier, according according to Fars and Westk Caucasus. Novak said
that Russia will begin receiving oil shipments at the end of next
month, adding that "the details of legal documents are in the
final stages." The Interfax news agency quoted Novak as saying
that the amount of Iranian oil under the oil-for-goods agreement could
reach 100,000 barrels per day, or 5 million tons a year from Iran.
For his part, Russian Trade Representative in Iran, Andre Luganski,
said that Moscow may in return export to Tehran goods worth $45
billion a year under this program, according to Interfax.
Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan has said
that Iran has acted fully in compliance with its commitments under
the nuclear agreement, noting that the U.S. should not complain in
this regard. "We will insist on our stance when talking with the
Americans," Dzhagaryan said in an interview with ISNA, stressing
that the nuclear agreement must be fully implemented. He said Russia
is deeply concerned about U.S. President Donald Trump's bashing of
the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action. "The European countries are also very concerned and
oppose [such rhetoric]," the Russian diplomat said, adding,
"This is not a deal between Iran and America, but rather a
multilateral agreement."
SYRIA CONFLICT
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said his army has
foiled Western attempts to overthrow his government thanks to
assistance from allies including Russia, Iran, and Lebanon's Hezbollah
movement. "Their direct support -- politically, economically,
and militarily -- has made possible bigger advances on the
battlefield and reduced the losses and burdens of war," Assad
said during a televised address on August 20. He stressed, however,
that "the battle continues" and that it was too early to
speak of victory in the country's 6 1/2-year-old civil war.
IRAQ CRISIS
Turkey and Iran have discussed possible joint military
action against Kurdish militant groups, after talks in Ankara last
week between the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces and Turkish
leaders, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Speaking to
reporters before departing on an official visit to Jordan, Erdogan
also said a more effective struggle against the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) and its Iranian affiliate, PJAK, would be
possible through joint action with Iran. "Joint action against
terrorist groups that have become a threat is always on the agenda.
This issue has been discussed between the two military chiefs, and I
discussed more broadly how this should be carried out," Erdogan
said.
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraqi
Kurdistan appear to have stepped up their armed activities inside
Iran in recent weeks, undermining the Kurdistan Regional Government's
(KRG) efforts to promote its upcoming independence referendum as a
peaceful development. The increased attacks against Iranian forces by
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq raise questions about
the future of relations between Erbil and Tehran. Iranian Kurdish
fighters based in Iraq have repeatedly crossed the border into Iran
and engaged in numerous clashes with Iranian security forces, leading
to casualties on both sides. Iran has responded by shelling border
areas with heavy artillery, causing huge fires, destroying wildlife
and forcing many civilians to flee. The recent clashes contradict
claims by Iraqi Kurdish officials that the Sept. 25 independence
referendum will not lead to instability It also refutes their
insistence that Erbil wishes to enjoy cordial relations with its
neighbors, including Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara.
YEMEN CRISIS
Yemeni Vice President Lt. Gen. Ali Mohsen Saleh has
described Iran as a "source of danger" and said it poses a
threat to Yemen's future. The official Yemeni news agency on Sunday
quoted Saleh as saying that the Houthi militia is an Iranian
instrument in Yemen. The Lt. noted that all Yemenis are aware of the
Houthis' dependence on and loyalty to Iran. Saleh also expressed his
confidence in knowing that all Yemenis are aware of the danger at
hand and its source. He also pointed out that the Yemeni army will
refuse to respond to the orders of those who have targeted their
lives and military equipment. They will also not respond to those who
have replaced them with the militias and tried to engage them in
futile wars with the Yemeni civilians and neighboring countries,
added the Lt. Gen.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Pictures displaying Iran's Quds Force commander Gen.
Qasem Soleimani during the battles with the Islamic State stopped
circulating online with the military phase that ended in the
liberation of Mosul. The Iranian presence and support for the Iraqi
forces were absent in the liberation battles. Iraq's rapprochement
with Arab Sunni countries including Saudi Arabia is putting increased
pressure on Iran. Simultaneously, Iraqi officials visited Saudi
Arabia and Arab Sunni states that cheer for the Saudi axis. Sadrist leader
Muqtada al-Sadr visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Aug. 13-15,
with clerics and politicians welcoming him as an Iraqi leader.
Prominent Sunni Iraqi cleric Ahmed al-Kubaisi and leading politicians
met with Sadr during his visit to the UAE. This was only a few days
after his visit at the end of July to Saudi Arabia, where Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other officials had welcomed him. In
the wake of the visit, Saudi Arabia took various measures in favor of
Iraq, such as announcing the opening of a Saudi Consulate in Najaf,
where Sadr lives. Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, did not object to this proposition, as in the past he
had called for openness in relations.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Hamas have been
teetering on the brink of complete collapse in light of recent
stances by Saudi officials and media outlets against the Palestinian
movement. The Saudis are increasing pressure on Hamas, which might
win them points with US President Donald Trump and Israel, but drive
the Palestinian movement and its allies toward Iran. The Saudi daily
Al-Riyadh called the Palestinian movement "terrorist" in
the headline of a website story the day after a Hamas delegation
attended the Aug 4 inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani. The website soon removed the story, however, after it
prompted a storm of angry tweets, especially in response to Israeli
army spokesman Avichay Adraee, who took to Twitter to support the
terrorist label for Hamas. Hamas condemned the article in a statement
Aug. 6. This was not Saudi Arabia's first attack against Hamas. In a
July 11 TV interview, Saudi Ambassador to Algeria Sami Saleh also
described Hamas as a terrorist group.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won lawmakers' approval
for all but one of his new cabinet, in an overwhelming show of
support for an agenda criticized by some conservatives at home and
threatened by an increasingly confrontational U.S. Parliament on Sunday
voted to reappoint Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, top Rouhani allies during his first
term, as well as 14 other ministers. The only candidate to lose a
vote of confidence was Energy Ministry nominee Habibollah Bitaraf.
Iranian lawmakers on Sunday approved 16 Cabinet members
nominated by recently re-elected President Hassan Rouhani, including
the first defense minister unaffiliated with the elite, hard-line
Revolutionary Guard in 25 years. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said
16 of 17 proposed ministers were approved, including Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the landmark 2015 nuclear deal
with world powers. Oil Minister Began Zanganeh was also approved. The
most votes went to Gen. Amir Hatami for Defense Minister, with 261
out of 288 who voted. He will be the first defense minister with no
ties to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard in nearly 25 years.
However, Hatami told parliament that he is committed to advancing
Iran's ballistic missile program, which has drawn Western sanctions.
In July, Iran launched a rocket capable of carrying a satellite, a
move that provoked international condemnation, including from France,
Britain and the U.S. All three countries were among the world powers
that reached the nuclear deal with Iran.
Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami has called on
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to end the house arrest of
opposition leaders, Khatami's website reported Sunday, the first such
public call by a senior political figure. The continuing detention of
Mirhossein Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom
disputed the results of the 2009 presidential election that triggered
mass protests, is one of the most divisive political issues in Iran.
"By citing your issues and your requests and in your name, I
would like to ask the Supreme Leader to issue an order to solve the
issue of the house arrests," Khatami was quoted as saying after
a meeting of former prisoners from the Iran-Iraq war, adding that
action would benefit the regime and present a sign of its security
and power. Khatami's statement is the first time a senior political
figure has publicly asked Khamenei to intervene on the issue of house
arrests.
What made this whole rather short-lived saga remarkable
was the level of reaction from politicians to activists and
supporters of the detained leaders of the Green Movement, which was
long thought to be over and ended. Rouhani, who had been under fire
from reformists for not satisfying their requests for cabinet
ministers, was suddenly faced with a united and belligerent front
from his supporters demanding action. Just as he begins his second
term, he is already being torn between the demands of reformists, and
the constraints of the state.
It may be too soon to say whether the incident marks the return of a
resurgent Green Movement, but it has serious implications for
Rouhani's second term. If Karroubi and Mousavi continue to be held
without trial, the President's perceived inability or unwillingness
to do anything about it will harass him throughout the next and final
four years of his presidency.And if either of these now elderly men
should die in the meantime, public anger against Rouhani and the
state could boil to levels not seen since the 2009 protests that
birthed the Green Movement in the first place.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Despite much heated rhetoric, the Trump administration
is doing little to counter Iranian aggression. In Syria, its strategy
of striking deals with Russia has opened the way for Tehran's forces
to establish control over a corridor between Damascus and Baghdad. In
Afghanistan, Iran is steadily building a strategic position even as
President Trump balks at a plan to strengthen U.S. support for the
Afghan government. In Yemen, the United States enables its Persian
Gulf allies to pursue an unwinnable proxy war with Tehran whose main
result has been the world's worst humanitarian crisis. In only one
area has the Islamic Republic's toxic ambition been relatively
contained: the production of material for use in nuclear warheads.
According to international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community,
Iran has largely abided by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which
greatly reduced its stockpile of enriched unranium and placed strict
limits on its nuclear activities. If the regime continues complying,
it could be a decade or more before Iran could again threaten to
become a nuclear power. Yet perversely, Mr. Trump is matching his
passivity toward Iran's regional meddling with an apparent
determination to torpedo the nuclear pact.
Even if the Iran nuclear deal remains intact, says
Heshmat Alavi at Forbes, "the mullahs are hell-bent to continue
wreaking havoc and expanding influence" across the Middle East.
And critics are right to point out that the deal does not address
this "destructive belligerence." But the pro-deal camp is
wrong when it claims "Washington has no evidence to hold Tehran
in violation." Tehran has "exceeded its heavy water
production cap, necessary for a plutonium nuclear bomb, and is
testing more advanced centrifuges." It is also "illicitly procuring
highly sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology in
Germany" and "surpassing its uranium enrichment cap,
another key non-compliance factor." The Iran deal is "very
similar" to the one Washington signed with North Korea, which
"left the world with a rogue state now equipped with at least 20
nuclear bombs."
President Donald Trump likes a good war of words with
foreign leaders. And besides the North Koreans, the leadership in
Iran makes a first-rate target for him. After all, one of his signature
campaign pledges was to undo the 2015 nuclear deal that Barack
Obama's administration signed with Tehran and five world powers.
Since Trump's earliest days in office, he has kept alive the threat
that he might unilaterally withdraw the United States from the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral agreement
unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. This represents a
challenge to Trump's counterpart in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani,
who made the deal his administration's central accomplishment and is
now banking that the U.S. president will stick to it despite Trump's
rhetoric.
As Iran is the world's premier terror backer, we cannot
engage in serial winks any longer. An anti-terror Gulf coalition
cannot be effective if some of its members are themselves supporting
Iran and terrorism. Qatar has been playing a double game, but admittedly
this is a game played (but now diminished) by other regional actors.
Also important is to end the tendency to excuse terrorism.
A new and surprising player has recently entered the
Syrian arena and has already contributed to establishing local
cease-fires: Egypt received Saudi and Russian "permission"
to conduct negotiations between the rebel militias and the regime,
both in Ghouta al-Sharqiya (east of Damascus) and the northern
neighborhoods in the city of Homs. In both cases, it managed to get a
cease-fire deal signed - in the former on July 22, in the latter in
early August. Both areas are part of the de-escalation zones on which
Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed in May, in consultation with the
United States. But this is the first time Egypt has played an active
role in diplomatic negotiations between the warring parties that
produced positive results.
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