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TOP STORIES
The European Union failed to agree new sanctions against
Iran on Monday amid Italy's opposition and fears that punishing
Tehran for its missile program and regional role would not stop U.S.
President Donald Trump from abandoning a separate nuclear deal... "It
may be that the nuclear agreement is dead in the water anyway, so why
risk emboldening the radicals in Iran and undermining our chances to
win contracts there," said one diplomat from the skeptical camp.
Iran's central bank has announced a ban on the sale of
foreign currencies at exchange bureaus.
Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary forces have laid siege
to an American air base northwest of Baghdad to pressure the US
military not to use Iraqi airspace for any attacks against the Bashar
al-Assad regime in Syria, Iranian and Lebanese media outlets
reported. Iran's Tasnim News Agency, a mouthpiece of the
Revolutionary Guards, quoted the Arabic-language al-Diyar newspaper
as saying that the militia forces encircling the American base were
equipped with heavy weapons, including ground-to-ground and
anti-aircraft missiles and tanks.
UANI IN THE NEWS
UANI Veterans Advisory Council member Robert Bartlett
discusses the chemical attack launched by the Assad regime against
civilians in Syria and what should be the appropriate response from
the United States.
NUCLEAR DEAL
The European Union has strongly defended the landmark
2015 nuclear deal with Iran and declined to impose new sanctions
despite Tehran's actions in Syria. EU foreign affairs chief Federica
Mogherini said that "this was not foreseen to be a decision
today," adding that further consideration on how to deal with
Iran's role in the Syrian conflict "will happen in the coming
days or weeks.
European Union diplomats said there is growing support
for imposing new sanctions on Iran as they seek to persuade President
Donald Trump to stick by the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six
world powers. No formal decision was taken during a meeting of EU
foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, and some countries aren't
convinced that adding sanctions will convince Mr. Trump, diplomats
said.
President Trump still seems intent on withdrawing from
the deal, but his calculus could change given the lack of diplomatic
consensus in Europe and the chemical weapons showdown in Syria.
NUCLEAR & MISSILE PROGRAMS
Iran's growing missile arsenal has become the focal
point of international diplomacy in the wake of the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action and corollary UN Security Council
Resolution 2231... In the excerpted article from Javan Online,
General Hossein Salami, deputy Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
commander, suggests that while Israel has developed anti-missile
defenses, Iran's strategy is simply to overwhelm Israel's system with
the sheer number of rockets. Salami's comments hint at Iran's
development of an asymmetric doctrine similar to the Iranian Navy's
utilization of speed boat swarming attacks in the Persian Gulf after
Operation Praying Mantis in 1988. Iran appears to be embracing a
corollary swarming attack with mass-produced UAVs and missiles, a
tactic it could use to try to overwhelm the Saudi and Israeli anti-missile
defenses or those of U.S. forces in the region.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
While [Secretary of State-designate Mike] Pompeo was
laying out his views [to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee], Brent prices topped $72 a barrel amid reports that there
had been an unsuccessful drone strike on Saudi Aramco's Jizan
refinery in southwest Saudi Arabia. The foiled drone attack by Yemeni
Houthi rebels was unnerving for two oil-related reasons. Firstly, it
was yet another indication that the proxy war between Saudi Arabia
and Iran in the region was both escalating and continuing to target
oil related facilities. Secondly, and perhaps even more disturbingly,
it was a sign that "asymmetric warfare" posed a greater
threat to oil than could have been previously understood.
Trump needs to ask himself one very simple question on
May 12: Does the Iran deal stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons
forever? If the answer is no, then he must walk away.
SYRIA, RUSSIA, HEZBOLLAH, IRAQ,
ISRAEL & IRAN
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has
outlined three goals of the Trump administration in Syria: a ban on
the use of chemical weapons, a full defeat of ISIS, and preventing
Iran from "taking over the area"... Haley denied the
existence of any fixed date for the return of U.S. troops from Syria,
insisting, "we haven't said that we're going to bring them home
in six months. What we are saying is at some point we want to see our
military come home."
A representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned
today that Iran will respond to the latest Israeli air raids in Syria
and stressed that the country will further empower its proxies to
confront the United States and its allies across the world.
The deputy leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah terror group
said Monday that Iran will retaliate for a strike against one of its
military bases in Syria reportedly carried out by Israel.
With the Islamic State in retreat and anti-regime rebels
losing ground, Iranian-backed armed groups in Syria are turning the
focus of their militancy to U.S. troops on the ground.
The leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia group has
warned that his forces are ready to fight American troops in Syria,
Arab media reported.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top advisor to Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei on foreign affairs, said today that American forces lack the
resolve to stay in Syria for the long haul, the Iranian media
reported. He described Syria as a critical pillar of the "axis
of resistance" which he said begins in Tehran and stretches to
Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Palestine... Velayati emphasized that
Iranian-led forces will continue to confront US and its allies on the
ground, and claimed that Russia will respond to any American attacks
on Syria from the air.
According to a readout of a phone call between Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin,
Rouhani called the strike a "violation of international
law" that would lead to instability in the region. Rouhani said
the strikes show that the United States has a "direct"
relationship with terrorists in the region. "When the Americans
felt that the terrorists were losing in the important region of
eastern Ghouta, they decided to act," Rouhani said... Rouhani
also told Putin, "America and its allies' strikes on Syria show
that we are facing new problems and issues in fighting against
terrorism, and we must have more cooperation and consultations."
The world's attention in Syria is directed to the US-led
attack on Bashar Assad's chemical weapon bases early Saturday, but
Iran still has a major score to settle with Israel over the alleged
IAF strike on an Iranian drone base last Monday-and the IDF is
getting ready.
With the United States joined by the United Kingdom and France in
strikes targeting Syrian chemical weapons-related facilities last
weekend, trust and coordination have been growing between US
President Donald Trump's national security team and those of
once-wary European allies, according to US and European officials.
Iraq criticized President Donald Trump's decision Friday
to target Syrian government facilities suspected to be involved in
the production of chemical weapons, saying such missile strikes
undermined the wider effort to combat terrorism in both neighboring
Arab states.
The Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary organization in Iraq is
smuggling crude from fields around Kirkuk to Iran, an Iraqi MP told
Kurdistan 24, a local news outlet. The Shia organization is backed by
the Iranian government.
Over the last seven years no country has done more,
financially and militarily, to back the Bashar al-Assad regime's mass
murder of Syrians than the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocracy that
claims to rule from a moral high ground... The question is why?
Distilled to its essence, Tehran's steadfast support for Assad is not
driven by the geopolitical or financial interests of the Iranian
nation, nor the religious convictions of the Islamic Republic, but by
a visceral and seemingly inextinguishable hatred for the state of
Israel.
On Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence is set to meet
with regional leaders at the Summit of the Americas, where he should
tell those assembled that it is time to launch a coordinated campaign
against Hezbollah's illicit empire in Latin America... But first, the
White House has to show that it is prepared to take the lead by
designating Hezbollah, a political and militant organization based in
Lebanon, as a Transnational Criminal Organization under U.S. law.
Ali-Akbar Velayati, a foreign affairs advisor to Iran's
Supreme Leader, met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on Thursday,
just one day after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened military
action against Damascus for its latest chemical attacks. The timing
of the meeting attests to the resoluteness of Iranian support to
Assad, which has only intensified over the past seven years of the
Syrian Civil War. As the U.S. contemplates an appropriate military
response, it must not miss an opportunity to contest Iran in the most
important theater to it in the Middle East.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long
warned of the danger posed to Israel not many years hence by Iran's
pursuit of nuclear weapons. As of Friday night, Israelis are
contemplating the danger posed right now by a non-nuclear Iran that
is working to entrench itself in Syria.
The U.S. president had long drawn a red line regarding
the slaughter of civilians with chemical weapons, and, unlike his
predecessor Barack Obama in 2013, he enforced that line. The main
question now concerns the Russian response.
Former top US officials are uncertain whether the Syria
strikes will achieve their intended goal, to deter the Assad regime
from using chemical weapons. But the attacks sent some key additional
messages.
Diane Abbott has been slammed for tweeting a fake
picture of a plane bombing Iran in an attack on Syria strikes. In a
huge gaffe earlier today the [U.K.] Shadow Home Secretary lashed out
at minister Penny Mordaunt for claiming that Parliament should not be
allowed to vote on action in the war-torn country. But she also
tweeted out a Photoshopped image of what an Israeli air bomb attack
on Iran could look like.
Iranian Army Ground Forces commander Brig.-Gen. Kiumars
Heidari has warned that Israel can no longer threaten the Islamic
Republic.
I believe that Israel is strong and secure enough to
adopt a national security strategy based on heightened restraint, so
I have advocated a greater emphasis on defense and diplomacy. Still,
I believe that Israel cannot let Iran establish a permanent military
presence on its border, including air, naval and ground bases. The
change in Israel's strategic circumstances would be severe.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Three Bundestag members from different parties joined
forces with a British-Iranian actress in Berlin on Monday to condemn
the human rights situation in Iran - even as the precarious state of
the Iran nuclear deal, and Tehran's influence in the Syrian crisis,
is weighing heavily on diplomats' minds.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
A Turkish banker convicted in January of aiding an
Iranian sanctions evasion scheme objected to a recommendation to a
judge that he receive a 105-year prison sentence, saying it wasn't
justified.
ECONOMIC NEWS
Citigroup analysts raised their forecast for oil prices
for this year and next due to rising demand and the potential for
supply losses from Venezuela and Iran.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Tehran's firebrand Friday Prayer leader has lambasted
those who compare today's Iran with the period that Shah Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi reigned over the country.
The Iranian media reported today that the country's
security forces have seized a major consignment of explosives during
an operation in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan.
Twelve days ago, on April 1 the Islamic Republic
celebrated its 40th Republic Day. On this day in 1980, over 98
percent of Iranians in a referendum voted in favor of a constitution
that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. However, four
decades on, the envisaged ideal 'Islamic Just Society' has not been
realized. The revolution has not only failed to bring any positive
change in the country but also pushed it to the edge of bankruptcy.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in
Windhoek yesterday to meet with senior Namibian officials and ways to
promote bilateral ties between the two countries, Iranian media
reported... Zarif arrived in Namibia after visiting Senegal, Uruguay
and Brazil as part of a four-nation tour of Africa and South America.
A senior delegation of businessmen from the private sector and trade
and commerce experts from the government are accompanying the foreign
minister. Zarif had pointed out that the main aim of his trip will be
to bolster Iran's economic and commercial ties with the African and
South American nations.
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