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TOP STORIES
Iran wants European powers to present it with measures
by the end of May to compensate it for the United States abandoning
the 2015 nuclear deal, a senior official said on Friday, and Tehran
would decide within weeks whether to quit the accord.
Iran's supreme leader has threatened to pull his country
out of the nuclear deal and resume enriching uranium if European
countries do not promise to buy Iranian oil and to oppose all new US
sanctions against Tehran.
The Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on
nine individuals and firms accused of procuring jet engines and
airplane parts for Iranian airlines previously blacklisted for their
support of U.S.-designated terror groups.
UANI IN THE NEWS
A former senior official of International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) [UANI Advisory Board member Olli Heinonen] believes
that the problem with JCPOA is that it does not call for inspection
of Iran's military facilities. It ignores the possibility of a military
side in Iran's nuclear program, and IAEA as the agency that oversees
Iran's commitments has made the tone of its reports on Iran less
transparent.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Iran continues to comply with the terms of its nuclear
deal with world powers despite the U.S. withdrawal, but could be
faster and more proactive in allowing snap inspections, the U.N.
atomic watchdog policing the accord said on Thursday.
Efforts by world powers to salvage the landmark nuclear
deal with Iran pick up on Friday in Vienna, where officials will meet
for the first time without U.S. diplomats present. Russia, China, the
U.K., France and Germany will discuss the economic incentives Iran needs
to keep caps on its nuclear work in place, according to officials
who'll attend the talks.
Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron have questioned
Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and cancellation
of the US-North Korea summit during a meeting in Russia.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
The chief executive of French oil and gas major Total on
Thursday said he held little hope of receiving a waiver from the
United States to keep investing in a huge Iranian gas project.
French carmaker PSA Group launched its Citroen C3 model
in Iran last week despite Washington's withdrawal from the nuclear
agreement with Tehran, brand chief Linda Jackson said on Thursday.
PSA, the maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, sold 2,000 C3 subcompacts
in one hour on launch day, Jackson said, adding that the group's
strategy in Iran had not changed in the wake of the U.S. decision to
exit the nuclear agreement and reimpose sanctions.
Germany's small-to-medium-sized firms, or Mittelstand,
are scrambling to work out how to maintain business in Iran after a
meeting between Germany's foreign minister and his U.S. counterpart
dashed any hopes of a breakthrough on the nuclear accord.
On Saturday, the E.U. energy chief reassured Iranian
officials that Europe would continue to honor the 2015 Iran nuclear
agreement - despite the U.S. announcement this month that it would
exit the agreement. U.S. policymakers expect U.S. allies in Europe to
cooperate with the U.S. decision to reimpose nonproliferation
sanctions against Iran. But France, Germany, Italy and the United
Kingdom have a long history of profitably exploiting commercial
opportunities created by U.S. sanctions - and undercutting their
success.
As the geopolitical drama between not only Iran and the
U.S., but between the U.S. and its EU allies unfolds over Trump's
decision to pull out of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Iran is vowing
that U.S. sanctions can't touch its oil exports. Of course, there is
one caveat in that claim and that is based on possible EU refusal to
adhere to U.S. stipulations over renewed Iranian sanctions.
While Democratic leaders have criticized President
Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran,
cities in Tennessee, including Brentwood, have quietly and subtly
done their part to keep the economic pressure on. According to state
law, Tennessee and its subsidiaries, which includes city and county
governments, cannot award a contract of any kind worth more than
$1,000 to anyone investing large amounts of money in the energy sector
in Iran.
After the United States' pullout from the nuclear deal,
Russia could fill the gap on the Iranian market and acquire lucrative
orders for new commercial airplanes from Iranian airlines.
MISSILE PROGRAM
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon,
on Thursday accused Iran of violating a Security Council resolution
by conducting in January two previously unreported tests on ballistic
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Europeans
Thursday of having done nothing to counter Iran's program to develop
ballistic missiles.
Iran might have been hiding an Intercontinental
Ballistic Missile testing site in plain view, until a group of
California-based experts figured it out while watching public Iranian
TV and obtained new photos of the area... The Jerusalem Post
communicated directly with members of the team and learned there is
strong evidence that tests are now being carried out at the site near
Shahrud in northeast Iran which could lead to Iran developing the
ability to fire nuclear ICBMs globally.
Poker players have a tell. So did the late Iranian
General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam: He liked his buildings painted
aquamarine. Earlier this year, weapons researcher Fabian Hinz was
looking through Iranian media accounts of Moghaddam, who led the
country's rocket program. The general died in an explosion at a test
facility in 2011, but in one picture taken shortly beforehand, Hinz
told Quartz he spotted a box marked for delivery to Shahrud, a town
in northern Iran.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the Trump
administration is not pushing for a regime change in Iran, but to
achieve global consensus on how to get Tehran to "behave like a
normal nation."
[I]t has become imperative that the United States lead
its regional and international allies in a comprehensive effort to
push back on Iran, to prevent it from expanding its influence farther
into the Middle East and stop it from hijacking the transformation of
the region. Pushing back on Iran would be an inherently offensive,
confrontational strategy. So the first step is to recognize where and
how the United States should seek to confront Iran to hurt it and
reduce its influence.
SYRIA, RUSSIA, ISRAEL & IRAN
Syrian state media reported that the U.S.-led coalition
fighting Islamic State struck Syrian army positions in eastern Syria
early on Thursday, but the U.S. military denied knowledge of it... A
military media unit run by Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus,
said the strikes were near T2, an energy installation near the border
with Iraq about 100 km (60 miles) west of the Euphrates.
HUMAN RIGHTS
New U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday
acknowledged the plight of a Princeton University scholar who has
been imprisoned in Iran, saying Xiyue Wang is innocent.
An international media rights group says European powers
seeking to preserve the Iran nuclear deal should use their talks with
Tehran to press for an end to its harassment of journalists.
In a new report, the Committee to Protect Journalists,
an international watchdog group, calls out Iran's president, Hassan
Rouhani, for doing almost nothing to improve the Islamic republic's
abysmal record on free speech. He had pledged to do so during his
campaign, but today, nearly five years into his presidency, he has
failed to deliver. Even so, the news isn't all bad. The realities of
the modern world - widespread Internet penetration, a highly educated
and tech-savvy population that has grown accustomed to interacting
virtually rather than in person, and broad access to broadcasts that
challenge and often directly contradict state media outlets - are all
changing the country in ways that are far beyond Iran's theocratic
leadership's ability to control.
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Iran's widening influence in the Middle East-already
under pressure from the U.S.-also faces growing resistance from
within its close regional allies, Syria and Iraq.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
[T]he war in Yemen will continue as long as Iran is
smuggling missiles into the country, providing a crucial weapon for
the Houthi forces fighting the Saudi-led coalition. Cutting off this
supply of missiles is vital to isolating the Houthis and forcing them
to negotiate.
HEZBOLLAH & LEBANON
A Syrian war-monitoring group says suspected Israeli
strikes hit a military base overnight in central Syria that houses
Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group alongside other factions allied
with the government in Damascus.
Lebanon's president formally asked caretaker premier
Saad Hariri on Thursday to form a new Cabinet after the vast majority
of legislators named him as their choice for the position of prime
minister.
Growing U.S. pressure on Lebanon's Iranian-backed
Hezbollah group, including a new wave of sanctions targeting its top
leadership, may hamper the formation of a new government that
caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri was overwhelmingly chosen to
form on Thursday.
Mike Pompeo used his first official appearance before
Congress as secretary of state to call for a review of US military
assistance for Lebanon following Hezbollah's gains in this month's
elections.
Western states will not put pressure on Lebanese
officials to exclude Hezbollah from any new government but have
warned against granting it any key portfolios.
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri announced Thursday
after he was tasked with forming a new Cabinet that his government
would abide by Lebanon's declared policy of distancing itself from
regional conflicts.
IRAQ & IRAN
A fiery Shiite cleric whose followers once mounted
deadly uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq is emerging as America's
best hope of blunting Iran's expanding influence in Iraq. The victory
of Muqtada al-Sadr's party in recent parliamentary elections took
U.S. officials by surprise and prompted a re-examination of U.S.
policy in the country, where more than 5,000 American military
advisers helped defeat the Islamic State.
Its economic future in question, Tehran is looking to
maintain and increase its influence in Iraq by investing in schemes
and projects linked with loyal paramilitary forces.
The question is, are we seeing the beginning of the end
of U.S. influence in Iraq - a country where America has invested
substantial blood and treasure - or, is there something to be done to
turn around the grim situation? There is, but it will require a
serious, coherent and long-term strategy.
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