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TOP STORIES
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson warned Europeans on
Sunday not to invest in certain Iranian businesses as the Trump
administration considers walking away from the Iran nuclear deal and
reimposing sanctions against Iran. Speaking during a visit to Saudi
Arabia, Mr. Tillerson said, "Both of our countries believe that
those who conduct business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, any
of their entities - European companies or other companies around the
globe - really do so at great risk."
A top Trump White House official ripped
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a "terrorist
enabler" on Thursday and warned businesses against engaging with
the freshly designated organization. The Treasury Department designated
the IRGC for terrorism last Friday, citing its support for the Quds
Force, the IRGC's overseas arm. The IRGC, which touts military,
economic, political, and nuclear power, has a pervasive presence in
Iran's economy. Trump's national security adviser strongly urged
companies not to do business with IRGC-controlled entities.
"Don't do business with the IRGC. Don't enrich the IRGC. Don't
enable their murderous campaign," H.R. McMaster said... "We
cannot afford to do business with the IRGC, because all of us, the
world, will pay for it later."
A week after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a
blistering speech about Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the most
powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic has shown
it has no intention of curbing its activities in the Middle East. In
defiance of other world powers, Trump chose in a speech last Friday
not to certify that Tehran is complying with a pact to curb Iran's
nuclear work and singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), accusing Tehran of destabilizing the region. A senior IRGC
commander said after the speech Trump was "acting crazy"
and was following U.S. strategy of increasing "the shadow of war
in the region". Iran's Shi'ite militia proxies have made
formidable military gains in recent months in Syria as well as Iraq,
stretching from northern Iraq to a string of smaller cities and this
week, after the Trump speech, re-captured the oil-rich city of
Kirkuk.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Russia's foreign minister says the landmark Iran nuclear
deal can be amended only as long as his country and other signatories
agree to proposed changes.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
German security officials accused Tehran of trying to
develop nuclear-tipped missiles on the same day President Trump
decertified the Iran nuclear deal. After FoxNews.com exclusively
reported that Iran's regime made over 30 attempts in 2016 to buy
nuclear and missile technology in Germany, security officials in the
country told the Berlin-based "Der Tagesspiegel" paper: "Iran
has clearly not given up its long-term goal to become a nuclear power
that can mount nuclear weapons on rockets." The security
officials added,"Despite the nuclear agreement,
Iran has not given up its illegal activities in Germany. The mullah
regime also made efforts this year to obtain material from [German]
firms for its nuclear program and the construction of missiles."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the Trump
administration's case for isolating and containing Iran in the Middle
East and beyond to two Gulf Arab nations on Sunday, pushing for Saudi
Arabia and Iraq to unite to counter growing Iranian assertiveness. He
also called for a quick resolution to the ongoing crisis between
Qatar and its Arab neighbors, which he said was unintentionally
bolstering Iran. In Saudi Arabia and later Qatar, Tillerson denounced
Iran's "malign behavior" and urged nations of the region
and elsewhere, notably Europe, to join the administration to halt any
business they do with Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. He also
demanded that Iranian and Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq either
return to their homes, integrate into the Iraqi army or leave the
country.
As U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits the
Middle East this weekend, he'll hope to achieve something that has
eluded top American diplomats for a generation: sealing a new
alliance between Saudi Arabia and Iraq that would shut the doors of
the Arab world to neighboring Iran. While the United States strives
to heal the rift between the Gulf Arab states and Qatar, and resolve
civil wars in Yemen and Syria, Tillerson is the Trump
administration's point man on an even more ambitious and perhaps even
less likely geopolitical gambit. U.S. officials see a new axis that
unites Riyadh and Baghdad as central to countering Iran's growing
influence from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea,
particularly as the Iraqi government struggles to rebuild recently
liberated Islamic State strongholds and confronts a newly assertive
Kurdish independence movement.
US Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin will be visiting
the Middle East this week to discuss the Terrorist Financing Target
Center (TFTC) partnership and other matters on Iran. Accompanying
Mnuchin is Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
Sigal Mandelker. The visit is set to take place from October 25
through to October 30. The US representatives will be stopping in
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.
US President Donald Trump has slammed the nuclear deal
which his predecessor Barack Obama sealed with Iran ever since he was
a presidential candidate. Everything he said about this shameful and
imperfect agreement is right. Trump thus recently announced a
new strategy towards Iran and its Revolutionary Guards Obama's foreign
policy was isolationist and this undervalued America's international
status thus allowing its rivals to expand their influence zones and
alter balances of power in sensitive areas, including the Middle
East, which were out of their reach before Obama governed.
CONGRESS & IRAN
U.S. sanctions against Iran automatically would kick in
if Tehran violates new constraints, according to a draft Republican
bill sought by President Donald Trump as he tries to unravel the
landmark 2015 international accord to prevent Iran from assembling an
arsenal of atomic weapons. The draft bill, crafted by GOP Sens. Bob
Corker of Tennessee and Tom Cotton of Arkansas with input from the
Trump administration, wouldn't necessarily violate the Iran nuclear
deal if passed into law. But the measure, obtained by The Associated
Press, could still end up derailing the agreement by holding Iran to
a series of requirements not previously agreed to when the deal was
forged by the U.S. and other world powers two years ago.
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote next week on
new sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and on Lebanon's
Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, senior House Republicans said on
Friday, seeking to take a tough line against Iran without immediately
moving to undermine the international nuclear deal. "It is
Congress' responsibility to work with the executive branch on a
clear-eyed strategy to stop Iran's reckless behavior," Majority
Leader Kevin McCarthy, the number two House Republican, and Representative
Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a
joint statement emailed to Reuters. "Immediate action towards
this goal will come from the House next week .
TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM
The deputy head of the Palestinian
Islamist group Hamas vowed to keep close ties with Israel's
arch-enemy Iran and to maintain its weapons, Iranian media reported
on Sunday, rejecting Israeli preconditions for any peace talks. Hamas,
which is designated as a terrorist group by Western countries and
Israel, signed a reconciliation deal this month with Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.
Palestinian movement Hamas said on Sunday that a visit
by its delegation to Iran was a "rejection" of the Israeli
conditions on reconciliation with rival faction Fatah. The two
largest Palestinian groups have agreed a deal that is supposed to see
Islamists Hamas hand over control of the Gaza Strip to the
Fatah-dominated West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Israel has
said it will reject any deal in which Hamas does not disarm and cut
its ties with Iran, the Jewish state's longtime foe. Despite this, a
delegation of senior Hamas leaders arrived in Iran on Friday for
meetings with government officials. In a statement Hamas's deputy
leader Saleh al-Aruri, who led the delegation, said "the visit
to Tehran is a rejection of the Zionist entity's conditions to cut
ties with (Iran)". The statement reiterated that Hamas would not
be forced to give up its armed wing. Hamas has fought three wars with
Israel since 2008.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
France wants to take action to tackle Iran's missile
program and "destabilizing" behavior, but believes
scrapping the 2015 nuclear deal would help hardliners and be a step
towards future war, France's defense minister said on Friday.
MILITARY MATTERS
From its nine-story headquarters in an upscale
neighborhood of Tehran, a giant construction company directs its
operations across Iran, building mosques, airports, oil and gas
installations, hospitals, and skyscrapers. Armed guards stand watch
at the doors, and small posters on its exterior walls honor Iranians
who have died in the current wars in Syria and Iraq. But this is not
just any company. Khatam-al Anbiya, whose name means "seal of
the prophet," is the most important economic arm of Iran's elite
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It employs nearly 1.5 million
people, including subcontractors, and is led by a military commander.
Yet the company's outward signs of strength belie the powerful
currents of change that are eroding its business. A crackdown is
being led by Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, who ran for office
promising to unleash economic growth by completing a nuclear deal and
freeing the country from international sanctions.
IRAQ CRISIS
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed Saudi Arabia to
counter Iran's influence in Iraq by deepening ties with Baghdad as
Iraq looks to rebuild itself after a three-year war against Islamic
State. The top U.S. diplomat met Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Iraqi
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
where the three leaders held the first session of a new Saudi-Iraq
Coordination Council aimed at counterbalancing Iran's sway in Iraq.
Mr. Tillerson ended the visit by calling for Iranian-backed militias
that have been operating in Iraq to go home, but he appeared to
conflate Iranian militias with Iranian-backed Iraqi militias-a
slip-up that Tehran quickly seized upon to criticize the secretary of
state.
Raqqa, self-styled capital of the self-styled Islamic
State's self-styled caliphate in eastern Syria, fell to Kurdish and
Sunni Arab forces last week. The event was an indisputable success
for the US-led anti-Isis international coalition... However, the one
state that has so far gained more than it has lost in this
multifaceted regional war is surely Iran. With its troops and its
proxies deeply involved on the ground, Iranian sway has grown across
Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It has capitalised on chaos as well as on
American errors and miscalculations.
It makes no sense for a nation to treat its enemies
kindly and its allies harshly. Any nation that tries this foolish
approach will see its enemies grow stronger and more dangerous, and
will lose its allies when it abandons them. Yet for eight years, the
Obama administration followed this upside-down policy, and received
contempt and bad behavior in return from nations around the world.
And now, unfortunately, the Trump administration is following this
policy with Iran, by "not taking sides" to prevent the
Iraqi government from using military force against our Kurdish
allies.
GULF STATES & IRAN
Top US diplomat Rex Tillerson pursued efforts to curb
Tehran's influence in talks with his country's Gulf allies Sunday,
demanding that Iran pare down its involvement in Iraq as the fight
against the Islamic State group draws to a close. Tillerson's visit
to the Gulf, his third as secretary of state, also aims at persuading
Qatar and a rival Saudi led-alliance to open the door to dialogue --
a goal he said had come to a deadlock Sunday.
Yemen's foreign minister Abdulmalik Al-Mekhlafi
reiterated accusations that Iran is threatening stability and
spreading chaos in the entire region. During his meeting with US
Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield in Riyadh, Mekhlafi
said Tehran seeks to replace the state with sects and armies with
militias in order for its project to sow chaos lives on.
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