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TOP STORIES
Even as the Pentagon remains focused on deterring North
Korea and fighting ISIS, multiple US officials tell CNN that Defense
Secretary James Mattis is asking planners to think about what action
to take on Iran. Discussions are taking place on how to use the US
military to deter and contain Iranian activities in neighboring
countries, short of a direct conflict.
On Nov. 4, Yemen's tribal insurgents launched a
short-range ballistic missile from a remote valley in the
northwestern governorate of Amran over 1,000 miles to the outskirts
of Saudi Arabia's capital, its warhead exploding on the edge of the
King Khalid International Airport. The brazen strike appears to have
claimed no victims, but the missile debris left in its wake provided
an evidentiary trail for U.N. investigators struggling to test claims
by Washington and Riyadh that the Yemeni Houthis' increasingly
advanced missile program is being supplied by Iran. An examination of
key missile fragments, documented last month in a confidential U.N.
report, supported U.S. claims that the missile was comprised of
Iranian hardware. But the report, which was reviewed by Foreign
Policy, provided a new twist: The weapon also included a component
that was manufactured by an American company.
The Trump administration plans to install a political
appointee at the State Department to a key position managing policy
on Iran and Iraq, a move that will replace a career diplomat with a
loyal supporter of the president. Andrew L. Peek, a former captain in
the U.S. Army Reserve and member of the president's State Department
transition team, will become the new deputy assistant secretary of
state covering Iran and Iraq, according to three State Department
officials familiar with the matter.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
During Friday prayer in Tehran today, a senior Iranian
cleric said that the Islamic Republic will further enhance the range
and power of its ballistic missiles to threaten America and
annihilate Israel, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
Looking nervous and somber, the FBI's star witness
entered from the lockup and shuffled across the New York federal
courtroom in a beige prison smock. The Turkish-Iranian gold trader
took a seat at the witness stand for the hearing on Nov. 29, the
second day of testimony in a money laundering and sanctions-evasion
case brought by the U.S. government. Asked to state his name, he said
he was Reza Zarrab.
HUMAN RIGHTS
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held almost an
hour of talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday after
flying to Tehran to seek the release of a jailed British-Iranian aid
worker.
Britain's foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, left Tehran
on Sunday without a clear public resolution on the fate of Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the imprisoned British-Iranian dual citizen whose
plight he had been accused of worsening. But Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's
husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said he was encouraged by the progress
made toward her release.
Since her arrest on 3 April 2016, the British-Iranian
charity worker has been sentenced to five years in prison - for
allegedly plotting against the Iranian government. She maintains her
innocence, saying she was on holiday in Iran visiting family.
The Iranian authorities' transfer of an imprisoned US
doctoral student within Tehran's Evin prison heightens fear for his
safety, Human Rights Watch said today. On December 6, 2017, Xiyue
Wang, a Princeton Ph.D. student and US citizen, was moved to Evin's
Ward 7 and was threatened by another inmate there in front of a
guard, a knowledgeable source said.
Iranian Media
Workers Warn of 'Death of Independent Journalism' | Al-Monitor
"Working as a professional journalist is subject to
obtaining a journalist's license from the Media Governance
Organization [MGO] of the Islamic Republic of Iran." This
sentence is part of Article 52 of the [MGO] Bill, which is currently
being reviewed by the administration's Cultural Commission... An
independent journalist living in Iran and identifying herself only as
Mina... said... "This bill reminds me of what we have heard
about the conditions surrounding the political factions, journalist
committees and writers under the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union..."
... She believes that the bill will result in more censorship and
further elimination of independent journalism from the mainstream of
Iranian media.
RUSSIA & IRAN
Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami plans to visit
Russia soon, the RIA news agency reported on Friday, citing a source
at the Iranian defense ministry.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Somewhere in the mountains of northern Yemen, the
missile lifted off in a dense cloud of fire and smoke and began its
arc over Saudi Arabia. After roaring north for some 600 miles, the
Iranian-made Qiam-1 reached its target, the international airport
just outside of Riyadh. The Saudis claimed they blew the missile out
of the sky with a U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptor, but experts said
the incoming missile exploded upon impact, narrowly missing the
domestic airport terminal.
The chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said
President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's
capital will "usher in a new intifada against the Zionist
occupying regime."
In response to President Donald Trump's decision to
recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Iranian government today
staged nationwide anti-American and anti-Israeli rallies. Protestors
chanted "Down to America" and "Down to Israel"
slogans and burned the two countries' flags. Iranian leaders also
called for an uprising against Israel and stressed that Washington's
move will only accelerate the annihilation of the Jewish state.
A senior Iranian cleric called during Friday prayers for
Palestinians to "rage" against Israel after US President
Donald Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
After the prayers Iranians took to the streets of Tehran and other
cities to protest against Trump's decision, calling for
"death" to Israel and the United States and burning their
flags.
MILITARY
MATTERS
On 31 October 2017, the Iranian military launched a
multiday military exercise named "Devotees of Velayat
Airspace-7" near Isfahan to showcase its latest military
capabilities. While the exercise included bombing runs with F-4, F-5,
and indigenous Saeqeh ["Lightening"] jets (derived from the
F-5), the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim
News highlighted the use of smart bombs dropped from unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs).
PROXY WARS
Shi'a Iran has been steadily recruiting, training, and
equipping Shi'a foreign fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan, and their capabilities are growing. Shi'a foreign fighters
have participated in conflicts throughout the region, including in
Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. There is evidence the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps is providing the training to transform these fighters
into a professional transnational militia proxy force modeled after
Lebanese Hezbollah. The formalization and expansion of these networks
risks exacerbating geopolitical and sectarian tensions throughout the
region.
On November 21, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), sent a
letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in which he declared victory
over the Islamic State (IS) "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq.
In his reply, Khamenei called on all "Mojahed" forces
(i.e., fighters in the name of God) to maintain readiness for meeting
future regional challenges. In that vein, recent statements by IRGC
chief Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari and other commanders have
emphasized the "Basij of the Islamic World" (Basij-e
Jahan-e Islam, or BJI) as an emerging model for international Shia
mobilization under Soleimani's leadership. Armed forces chief of
staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri believes a combination of this model
and Iran's expanded military capacities can unite allied countries to
prevent an IS resurgence, especially in Afghanistan and parts of
Pakistan, which Iranian commanders see as future flashpoints with the
group. In addition to continuing the momentum against IS, this
expanding "resistance front" will be asked to soldier on
"until the destruction of Israel and expulsion of the last
American service member from the region," according to a
November 24 statement by acting general staff chairman Brig. Gen.
Masoud Jazayeri.
World powers attempted to shore up Lebanon's stability
on Friday by pushing Saudi Arabia and Iran to stop interfering in its
politics and urging Hezbollah to rein in its regional
activities.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad on Monday he wanted to work with Iran and Turkey to
kick-start the Syrian peace process, Russian news agencies
reported.
IRAQ CRISIS
As Iraq emerges from three years of war with the Islamic
State group, the U.S. is looking to roll back the influence of
neighboring Iran and help the central government resolve its dispute
with the Kurdish region, the American envoy to the country told The
Associated Press.
Iraq has agreed to swap up to 60,000 barrels per day of
crude produced from the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield for Iranian
oil, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Saturday. The
agreement signed by the two countries provides for Iran to deliver to
Iraq's southern ports, on the Gulf, "oil of the same
characteristics and in the same quantities" as those it would
receive from Kirkuk, Luaibi said in a statement.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, LEBANON, AND IRAN
The majority-Sunni Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and
the home of Shiite Islam, Iran, have for decades been locked in a
cold war for geopolitical, economic and sectarian influence-with
devastating effects on the region.
President Hassan Rouhani says Iran is ready to restore
ties with Saudi Arabia if it stops bombing Yemen and cuts its alleged
ties with Israel.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proposed to parliament
on Sunday a conservative state budget of about $104 billion for next
year, with the outlook for the economy and state revenues clouded by
tensions with the United States.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani submitted a $337
billion draft budget to parliament that earmarks about $100 billion
for public service programs that would create jobs, address a banking
crisis and introduce a new social security program.
Iran's judiciary says the former head of the country's
largest state-controlled bank who fled to Canada amid a massive
embezzlement case has been handed a lengthy prison sentence in
absentia.
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