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TOP STORIES
The U.S. intelligence community and Treasury Department
can make it harder for Iran to meddle in regional affairs by exposing
Iranian businesses that have ties to the nation's elite security
force, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor H.R.
McMaster said on Thursday. Their comments suggest the investment
climate in Iran could become more challenging just as foreign firms
seek to build or restore ties in the country following the lifting of
sanctions last year.
A US military official has revealed his country's
intention to form forces to send them to the Arab region to help
counter Iranian threats. "The United States wants to help the
Arab countries deal with Iranian threats," said General Joseph
Votel, commander of the US Central Command at the 26th annual
Arab-American Policymakers Conference in Washington. "The
Pentagon is working to achieve that desire and ensure its effective
implementation. That includes the establishment of US military
battalions sent as missions to the region and be designed
specifically to provide advice and assistance," he noted,
stressing that such cooperation was an example of
"partnership" between Washington and its allies in the
region.
Iran's military chief of staff visited a frontline
position near the Syrian city of Aleppo, a military news outlet run
by the Lebanese group Hezbollah reported on Friday, during a visit
that has underlined Tehran's deep military role in Syria.
General Mohammad Baqeri visited the position with a number of
Iranian officers, according to the report, which was accompanied by
photos showing Baqeri looking at a map and peering through
binoculars. Neighboring Israel has expressed deep concern over Iran's
role in Syria, where Iranian fighters and Iran-backed groups such as
Hezbollah have played a major role fighting in support of President
Bashar al-Assad. Baqeri met Assad on Thursday during a visit to set
out a joint military strategy, Syrian state media reported.
UANI IN THE NEWS
The debate over the future of Washington's posture
towards Tehran has revolved around three basic nuclear options:
legitimation of the deal; decertify, waive, and replace; or outright
repeal. It has reached a fever pitch as the Trump administration
completed its long-awaited Iran policy review. But beyond the
headlines, lurks a menacing trend line that is making global hot
spots - like Afghanistan - hotter. The unholy alliance between Russia
and Iran in the graveyard of empires continues to look for trouble in
all the wrong places, seeking to be both firefighters and arsonists
at the same time. Without a comprehensive strategy that addresses
this new axis of instability, Afghanistan's fires will grow even
worse.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The leaders of the 28 members of the European Union are
showing their support for the Iran nuclear agreement, despite U.S.
President Donald Trump's opposition to it. EU spokesman Preben Aaman
tweeted that the EU leaders agreed at a summit Thursday to show their
joint commitment to the international agreement curbing Iran's
nuclear program.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
Argentina offered to supply Iran with nuclear expertise
and technology as part of a secret pact exonerating the Tehran regime
of responsibility for the July 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA
Jewish center, a former Argentine intelligence operative told a court
in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Eighty-five people were killed and
hundreds more wounded in the bombing in the Argentine capital, which
was coordinated by Iran and its Lebanese Shia proxy Hezbollah.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to the Middle
East, South Asia and Europe this week on a diplomatic mission focused
on conflicts in Iraq and Syria and blunting Iranian influence in the
region, the State Department said Thursday. Tillerson departs on
Friday for travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and India before
returning home through Switzerland on Oct. 27, the department said in
a statement. In Riyadh, Tillerson will explore ways of improving
relations between Saudi Arabia and Iraq by participating in the first
meeting of the two countries' new coordination council, it said. That
effort, which U.S. officials say Tillerson has pushed for months, is
aimed reducing Iran's increasing influence in Iraq by encouraging
Baghdad to align more closely with Riyadh.
CONGRESS & IRAN
The Senate has a difficult path to walk if it is going
to pass changes to the Iran nuclear deal demanded by President Trump
to stave off a U.S. withdrawal from the agreement. Senate Foreign
Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
have unveiled plans to enact Trump's proposals, but their legislation
would need 60 votes - including support from at least eight Democrats
- to pass the chamber.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Russia's Rosneft has been in talks with Tehran to set up
a supply chain to deliver oil from Iran and Central Asia nations to
the global markets, Igor Sechin, chief executive of Russia's oil
major Rosneft, said on Thursday. Rosneft will forge a partnership
with China's CEFC firm in a number of projects including exploration,
production, refining, oil and oil products trading, Sechin told an
industry forum in Verona.
RUSSIA & IRAN
The Russian ambassador to the United Nations took the US
and Israel to task on Wednesday for focusing on Iran during a UN
Security Council meeting whose agenda called for a discussion of the
Mideast "including the Palestinian question." US ambassador
Nikki Haley and Israeli envoy Danny Danon both targeted Iran during
the meeting, with Haley accusing Iran of "aggressive,
destabilizing and unlawful behavior" and urging the Security
Council to adopt the Trump administration's comprehensive approach to
the country instead of looking solely at its compliance with the 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... Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
said on Friday that any unilateral changes to the deal "could
bury this agreement, which is vital for strategic stability and
nuclear non-proliferation."
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Israel has been promoting the idea that its ties with
Arab countries are improving, and some experts say there are signs
that shared concerns over Iran are indeed nudging them closer. Formal
recognition of Israel by Arab states does not seem likely anytime
soon, but behind-the-scenes cooperation has opened up in various
areas, a number of experts and officials say. Significant
rapprochement would constitute a departure from the decades-old policy
of Arab countries refusing to deal with Israel until an independent
Palestinian state is created. But in the latest sign of mutual
interests, both Israel and Saudi Arabia congratulated US President
Donald Trump last week after his speech in which he declared he would
not certify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Syria's state news agency says President Bashar Assad
has met with a visiting Iranian army commander to discuss military
cooperation. The Iranian general also conveyed a message from Iran's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. SANA says Assad's meeting
with Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri on Thursday focused on bilateral
relations in all fields, mainly military cooperation, "which has
witnessed a qualitative development during the war that Syria and its
allies, mainly Iran, are waging against terrorism" in Syria.
Iran has been one of Assad's strongest supporters since the country's
crisis began more than six years ago and has sent thousands of
Iranian-backed militiamen to boost his troops against opponents.
IRAQ CRISIS
Look, I think my credentials as an Iran hawk are pretty
strong. When, during the Clinton administration, many American
policymakers and academics were enthralled with newly-elected
President Mohammad Khatami's rhetoric of "dialogue of
civilizations," I warned that it was a public relations
distraction and that the Iranian behaviors that most concerned the
United States remained unchanged. My first monograph, Radical
Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran, focused on how hardline, extra-legal
forces moved to constrain meaningful reform of the system.
Iraqi forces took Kirkuk city from the Kurds this week
with hardly a shot fired. Twenty-two Kurdish fighters were killed in
the sporadic and disorganized resistance, while seven Iraqi soldiers
also lost their lives. It is a remarkable setback for the Kurds, who
just a few weeks ago held an independence referendum. The loss of
Kirkuk especially, given the city's vast oil resources, lessens the
likelihood that an independent state will emerge from the Kurdish
Regional Government area in northern Iraq.
Najmaldin Karim, the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk
Province, will not be returning to the city that elected him in 2011
and 2014. It's too dangerous. In an interview Wednesday, he told me
he fled his home on Tuesday in the early evening and has no plans at
the moment to return. "If I go back, my life is in danger,"
he told me. "Even the night when all this happened, I had to
maneuver carefully to go to safety." Karim's blunt assessment
calls into question a few things the Iraqi and U.S. government have
been saying about the crisis that began after the Iraqi military this
week drove out the Kurdish militias that had secured the city of
Kirkuk since 2014. To start, it suggests many Kurds do not put faith
in Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's recent order for Shiite
militias, many of whom are proxies of Iran, to leave the city.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iranian security forces prevented former president and
opposition figure Mohammad Khatami from leaving his Tehran home late
Wednesday, local media reported. It was the latest sign that regime
hard-liners were seeking to crack down on the country's reformists,
activists said. Two opposition-linked news sites said security forces
arrived at Khatami's home in the Iranian capital to block him from
meeting with political allies, a move that one outlet referred to as
"temporary house arrest."
According to Iranian opposition websites, security
forces prevented former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a
Reformist, from leaving his house to attend an unspecified ceremony
Oct. 18. Saham News, which is affiliated with Mehdi Karroubi, a Green
Movement leader who is currently under house arrest, wrote that three
cars belonging to security forces had parked outside Khatami's home
and prevented him from leaving. Though details about the ceremony
that Khatami was to attend are unknown, news reports state that
Khatami had intended to meet with political figures. Security forces
instructed Khatami and his security detail that they would not be
permitted to leave the house. Afterward, security forces remained
outside Khatami's house.
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