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TOP STORIES
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley...
called Iran on Thursday "the leading cause of instability in an
unstable part of the world." Tehran supports "terrorists,
proxy militants and murderers like (the head of the Syrian regime)
Bashar Assad," she told the UN Security Council... Haley said
the international community must respond to Iran's "dangerous
violations" of its obligations in the UN resolution endorsing
the nuclear deal, "not because we want the nuclear deal to fail,
but because we want the cause of nonproliferation to succeed."
A bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives
on Thursday aimed at tightening the terms of the Iran nuclear deal,
despite Tehran's rejection of changes to the accord.
Iranian Spies in Germany Targeted Israel
Embassy, Jewish Kindergartens | Times of Israel
The German journalist who first reported raids by local
security forces at the homes of suspected Iranian spies across
Germany supplied new details Wednesday about the Israeli and Jewish
targets allegedly monitored by the suspects. Josef Hufelschulte, of
the weekly German-language magazine FOCUS, told Israeli public
broadcaster Kan that the suspected spies had been gathering
information on the Israeli embassy in Berlin, as well as on targets
related to the local Jewish community, including kindergartens.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Russia's foreign minister is warning that a failure of
the Iran nuclear deal, especially as a result of action by the Trump
administration, would send "an alarming message" to North
Korea and impact all international agreements.
[T]he president has a high card to play in his demand
for an allied showdown with Iran on its ballistic missile programs,
its support of the Syrian government, its creation of unrest in other
parts of the Middle East, and its long-term nuclear ambitions. He may
be able to use it to get the agreement he seeks, or a large part of
it.
IRAN PROTESTS
Publicly, the Islamic Republic of Iran blames the United
States-and the other usual foreign-enemy suspects-for the nationwide
protests that gripped the country of some eighty million people for
at least a week. Talk about rich. The demonstrations clearly arose as
the direct result of the regime's repressive and misguided policies,
not because of some foreign power's interference or meddling. The
regime knows this-and so do the Iranian people.
The latest protests in Iran may be largely crushed for
now, but the characteristics of this particular uprising suggest
that, unlike the so-called Green Revolution of 2009 and other
previous waves -- the unrest could continue sporadically for years to
come. Although the rioters -- largely workers and farmers from rural
and religiously conservative villages and towns -- were not part of a
unified or organized movement, they do have shared grievances that
fueled the outrage, and this could be a game changer. Unlike past
uprisings in Iran when demonstrators' outcries concerned lofty goals,
such as democracy and free elections, these protesters' complaints
are practical and urgent, because their lives are far more difficult
than those of Iranians in major cities.
The recent unrest in Iran has confirmed what many
attuned to domestic conditions in the Islamic Republic have long
known: that an explosion was not a matter of if, but of when. The
destructive reach of the Islamic Republic of Iran from Africa to
South America and via Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq is hardly
disputed. Yet this destructive influence serves the hesitance of many
in the West to confront what appears as a strong and threatening
regime. The riots and demonstration may have faded - but not the
realities that created them. And this might provide an important
policy lesson: Islamic regime's power posturing is designed to hide
its true weaknesses.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to
Europe next week, stopping in London and Paris for talks on Iran and
Syria before heading on to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic
Forum and then to Warsaw, the State Department said on Thursday.
BUSINESS RISK
Iran's central bank, Bank Markazi, has filed a suit in
Luxembourg against Deutsche Boerse's Clearstream unit seeking to
recover $4.9 billion in assets plus interest, the German stock
exchange operator said on Thursday. The assets, frozen on suspicion
of terror financing and in part paid to victims, include $1.9 billion
turned over to plaintiffs in the United States following a 2013 court
order as well as $2 billion that is subject to further litigation by
U.S. plaintiffs in the United States and Luxembourg.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Two more Iranians have been identified as having been
killed under torture by authorities in Arak and Sanandaj during the
recent uprising.
A semi-official news agency is reporting that
authorities in Iran have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in a
prison in the country's northeast.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Relations between the U.S. and Turkey have hit a new low
over Washington's support of militias battling the Islamic State,
according to analysts. The government in Ankara views the Kurdish
fighters as terrorists. Experts warn that the crisis is resulting in
Turkey - a longtime American ally with NATO's second-largest standing
army - turning away from the West and toward Russia and Iran.
The Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee urged
Germany's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday to expel Iran's ambassador
because of his country's alleged spying on Israel's embassy and a
Jewish kindergarten.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
Nigeria. Syria. Somalia. And now Iran. In each country,
in different ways, a water crisis has triggered some combination of
civil unrest, mass migration, insurgency or even full-scale
war.
After receiving criticism for unblocking the popular
social media app Telegram, which was closed over the recent protests
that rocked Iran, President Hassan Rouhani is not retreating from his
position. In fact, his administration is reportedly preparing to
spend money to create more digital jobs and attempt to bring Iran up
to date in the cyberworld.
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