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TOP STORIES
The European Union's plan for a special-payments channel
to keep business flowing with Iran was met with skepticism by
sanctions experts, who said it was unlikely to work.
Taking the gavel of the Security Council at the United
Nations on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump devoted the bulk of
his remarks on the theme of nonproliferation to criticism of
Iran.
With the bloody battle for northwestern Syria underway,
the media is focused again on chemical weapons. However important,
the larger moral and strategic issue is the murderous Bashar Assad
regime's drive to reconquer all of Syria, backed by Russia and Iran.
This will mean an expansion of Iranian influence and increased risk
of a significant Israeli-Iranian war and regional destabilization.
UANI IN THE NEWS
President Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, and National
Security Advisor Bolton delivered a series of widely-covered speeches
which served to underscore the administration's commitment to its
tough Iran policy and warned Iran's commercial partners than even
tougher sanctions are on the horizon. Some commentators
continue to describe the U.S. as isolated on Iran, but this is not
entirely correct. Israel and most regional Sunni states
publicly and enthusiastically support the administration's positions,
the few regional outsiders (e.g., Iraq, Lebanon, and Qatar) generally
being countries which either rely on Tehran's economic support or
endure political architectures dominated by well-armed Iranian proxies. Although
a number of countries voiced their support for the Iran deal, no
state argued that the U.S. concerns over Iran's actions were invalid.
Speaking alongside US National Security Adviser John
Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Saudi Arabia's Foreign
Minister Adel al-Jubeir called for the overthrow of the Iranian
government, saying the Islamic Republic was unlikely to change on its
own volition. "Unless the pressure internally is extremely
intense, I don't believe they will open up," al-Jubeir said at
the United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) conference in New York City,
which was attended by states that opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with
Iran.
he administration sent several senior officials to a
conference organised by anti-Tehran activists, United Against a
Nuclear Iran (UANI), to denounce the Iranian government.
On Tuesday, Trump's national security adviser John
Bolton warned Tehran of "hell to pay" if it threatens the
US or its allies. "If you cross us, our allies, or our partners;
if you harm our citizens, if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive;
yes, there will indeed be hell to pay," he said, speaking at a
gathering hosted by the group United Against a Nuclear Iran, held on
the margins of the General Assembly. "Let my message today be clear:
we are watching, and we will come after you."
EU's SPV plan has outraged the US officials. Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo told a gathering of the so-called "United
Against Nuclear Iran" in New York that he was "deeply
disappointed" that the remaining countries in the nuclear deal
plan to set up a special payment system with Iran to bypass US
sanctions. He also condemned the plan as "one of the most
counterproductive measures imaginable."
Iran's foreign ministry has dismissed the anti-Iran
remarks made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a meeting called
"United Against Nuclear Iran Summit", saying that
Washington is getting more and more isolated day by day as a result
of its bullying behavior.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security
Adviser John Bolton served as the administration's attack dogs on the
issue. While Iran met with the remaining parties of the JCPOA at U.N.
headquarters Monday, both men spoke Tuesday off-campus at not a
U.N.-sponsored event, but a summit organized by the political group
United Against a Nuclear Iran.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
U.S. President Donald Trump said "Iran has to come
back and they have to talk" if it wants to avoid a new round of
economic sanctions. Speaking to reporters in New York Wednesday, the
president defended his decision to withdraw from the 2015 six-nation
agreement for Tehran to give up its nuclear program in exchange for
the removal of crippling economic sanctions.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
President Trump is urging countries to join the U.S. in
reimposing sanctions on Iran. Rachel Martin talks with Brian Hook,
the U.S. special representative for Iran.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica
Mogherini, said on Wednesday a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle
(SPV) under consideration to facilitate trade with Iran could be in
place "before November."
Iran's Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
said that India is committed to continuing economic cooperation and
the import of oil from Iran, video news agency ANI, a Reuters
affiliate, reported on Thursday.
The Trump administration is not considering a release
from the U.S. emergency oil stockpile to offset the impact of looming
Iran sanctions, and will instead rely on big global producers to keep
the market stable, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Wednesday.
A proposed plan by the European Union, Russia and China
to sidestep U.S. sanctions on Iran by using an alternative payment
system won't give its oil buyers a free pass to handle Iranian crude.
Legal sanctions experts and oil traders said the creation of a
special purpose vehicle and payments channel to keep trade open with
Iran, unveiled this week by EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica
Mogherini, would still leave traders buying or selling crude from the
Islamic Republic vulnerable to punitive actions by the U.S. Treasury
Department.
Last month, 16 US senators wrote to the Trump
administration urging maximum enforcement of US sanctions targeting
SWIFT if Iranian banks aren't disconnected in November. They reject
any "compromise" in which Iranian banks stay connected to
SWIFT. Unless he wants a sanctions policy weaker than his
predecessor's, Trump should too.
U.S. and Iranian leaders traded insults in public at the
U.N. General Assembly this week, but that's a minor skirmish compared
to the coming battle between the two adversaries. The U.S. government
is about to launch its toughest sanctions yet to tighten the noose
around the neck of the Tehran regime - a bold but risky gambit that
places America opposite its oldest allies.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
The Islamic State jihadist group on Wednesday threatened
to carry out new attacks in Iran, days after it claimed a deadly
shooting at a military parade in the country's southwest. Iran is
"flimsier than a spider's web, and with God's help, what comes
will be worse and more bitter", the group said in a statement on
the Telegram messaging app.
Sajid Javid is to buttress his tough stance against
Islamist extremism by proscribing the Iran-backed terror group
Hezbollah in full, the JC can reveal. The Home Secretary will use his
speech at next week's Conservative Party annual conference to
announce the move, which has long been called for by the Jewish
community and others concerned with terrorism.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The families of people detained in Iran on false charges
joined forces for the first time on Wednesday to call on world
leaders meeting in New York to help bring their relatives home.
Britain's prime minister has raised the case of a
detained British-Iranian charity worker with the Iranian president.
One of the most under reported foreign policy stories
today is the fact the Americans are held hostage by terrorist
networks and pariah states throughout the Middle East.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday his
country doesn't want a war with the United States and believes
America will "sooner or later" support the Iran nuclear
agreement again following the Trump administration's
withdrawal.
The United States "abused" the United Nations
Security Council and is "further isolated," Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a Twitter post Wednesday.
President Donald Trump's remarks on Iran to the UN
Security Council on Wednesday were, in many ways, predictable: He
accused the Iranian regime of exporting "violence, terror, and
turmoil," and made the case for why the Islamic Republic should
never obtain nuclear weapons. And then he said something that wasn't
so predictable.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
An attack on a military parade in Iran is a blow to the
image of its Revolutionary Guards, but the elite force could yet turn
the bloodshed to its advantage, using public sympathy to bolster
itself at the expense of President Hassan Rouhani.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
It is clear whom President Donald Trump blames for the
Middle East's problems. Iran's "corrupt dictatorship", he
told the UN General Assembly on September 25th, "sows chaos,
death and disruption" in the region. It used the economic
benefits of its deal with America and other world powers, which
curbed Iran's nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, to
raise military spending and support terrorism, he claimed.
After a strike on a military parade, nationalist
sentiment is on the rise-and not a moment too soon for a government
that was facing deepening discontent.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council has said Israel will be sorry if it continues to attack
Syria's army and its allies.
As Washington looks at ways to ramp up its pressure on
Iran throughout the Middle East, political sources are worried about
the possibility of Lebanon suffering as a result of collateral damage
if it doesn't find a way to rein in Hezbollah's activities in the
region.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that
Iran would stay in Syria for as long as the Assad regime wanted it
there, but said Tehran was not seeking conflict with the United
States in the Middle East.
With the bloody battle for northwestern Syria underway,
the media is focused again on chemical weapons. However important,
the larger moral and strategic issue is the murderous Bashar Assad
regime's drive to reconquer all of Syria, backed by Russia and Iran.
This will mean an expansion of Iranian influence and increased risk
of a significant Israeli-Iranian war and regional destabilization.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Kuwait's Foreign Minister has asked the United Nations
Security Council on Wednesday to take actions to stop Houthi militias
from threatening international borders. Kuwait said that the Houthi
militias use of Iranian missiles targeting Saudi territories and
international waters was a threat that needed to stop.
"Iran has no role in the Arab world other than to
get out," Al-Jubeir said in a forum of the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York, a think-tank, repeating previous statements by
Saudi Arabia and its allies that Iran is trying to dominate the
Mideast region. He said Iran spent the last four decades trying to
entrench itself in the Arab world through proxy militias such as the
Hezbollah of Lebanon, but Saudi Arabia and its allies "will work
on pushing them back and I have no doubt that in the end we will
succeed."
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