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TOP STORIES
Vice President Mike Pence in
remarks delivered to the Conservative Political Action Conference on
March 1 in Maryland called the Islamic Republic of Iran "the
leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world". Speaking about
President Donald Trump's efforts to make the United States safe, the
vice president called Iran's nuclear program "the greatest
threat to peace and security in the Middle East" and argued that
by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement Trump has confronted
that danger.
Iran criticized Britain for its
decision to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying on
Saturday it ignored both the will of a large portion of the Lebanese
people and the Tehran-backed group's role in fighting Islamic
State. Britain said on Monday it planned to ban all wings of
Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist organization by Washington,
due to its destabilizing influence in the Middle East, having
previously proscribed its external security unit and its military
wing.
A new report from the Syrian
Republican Guard revealed this week that several of the casualties
from the Israeli attack this month on the Al-Quneitra Governorate
were, in fact, Iranian soldiers. According to the Syrian Republican
Guard, five of the recovered corpses from the Israeli attack on the
military garrison in western Al-Quneitra were found to be the remains
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel that were
positioned near the border of the occupied Golan Heights.
NUCLEAR DEAL & PROGRAM
The head of the U.N. nuclear
watchdog says Iran is complying with the 2015 deal with major world
powers aimed at preventing the country from building nuclear weapons.
Yukiya Amano made his assessment in a regular update to the
International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, confirming a
confidential report distributed to member states last month. He said
Monday that "Iran is implementing its nuclear-related
commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,"
referencing the official name of the 2015 deal.
Iran's supreme leader has
cautioned the country's government not to pin its hopes on Europe as
Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers founders under U.S. pressure.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's website quoted him on Monday as saying the
landmark 2015 nuclear deal "could not fix our economic problems."
Khamenei's comments come as the U.N. nuclear watchdog was expected to
again announce that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal, which
saw it limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of
economic sanctions.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iran is merging four military-linked banks and another
financial institution with the country's oldest bank to boost
efficiency and help stabilize the sector, the central bank said on
Saturday, as the economy reels under U.S. sanctions. Many Iranian
banks are under pressure because of years of poor management and
economic difficulties, caused by decades of international sanctions
and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions last year.
Iran is combining six local
banks as President Hassan Rouhani looks to curb the military's role
in the economy and bolster the country's financial industry.
State-run Bank Sepah will take over five lenders linked
with the security forces -- Ansar Bank, Ghavamin Bank, Hekmat
Iranian Bank, Mehr Eqtesad and the Kowsar financial credit
institution.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei advised the government last July not to rely on European
efforts to protect Tehran against U.S. sanctions, months after
Washington withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed
penalties. The release of Khamenei's speech nine months after his
meeting with the cabinet, showed while President Hassan Rouhani was
trying to save the nuclear deal with European powers, who remained
committed despite the U.S. exit, Khamenei was not optimistic about
the efforts.
MISSILE PROGRAM
The Islamic Republic of Iran
does not need any countries' permission to develop missiles and to
defend the country, said Secretary of the Supreme National Security
Council Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani. "Regarding the range,
destruction power, accuracy, and quick preparation which are the four
main topics of our missile development, we do not consult and obtain
permission from anybody," he told reporters Sunday on the
sideline of an event in Tehran, adding, "our defense' needs
determine what we do."
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The Iranian Judiciary's High
Council for Human Rights has lambasted the United Nations' special
rapporteur for human rights in Iran for his latest report on the
country. In his latest report submitted to the UN Human Rights
Council on February 27, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of
Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman voiced concern over human rights
violations in Iran, in particular the way the death penalty is
implemented.
The Islamic Republic of Iran's
judiciary charged a female equality activist with violating its
national security because she sought to "normalize same-sex
relations" in a country that imposes capital punishment for
homosexuality. The Iranian lesbian and transgender network group,
6rang, wrote on its website in late February that Rezvaneh
"Mohammadi's charges include 'collusion against national
security by normalising same-sex relations.'
The actions earned Jangravi a
three-year prison sentence. A crowd formed. People shouted at her to
come down. She knew all along that her arrest was imminent, but she
went through with her intentions anyway. "I kept telling myself,
'You can do this, you can do this,'" Jangravi recalled in an
interview, carried by Reuters. "I was feeling a very special
kind of power. It was as if I was not the secondary gender
anymore."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran says it has developed its
own version of the JDAM, the iconic American bomb of the War on
Terror. The JDAM, or Joint Direct Attack Munition, is that rare
example of the U.S. waging war on the cheap. By taking old-fashioned
unguided bombs supposedly rendered obsolete by precision-guided
munitions, and affixing them with bolt-on GPS guidance packages, the
United States created instant smart bombs.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
A new photo of an Iranian
opposition leader and his activist wife who have been held under
house arrest for eight years is spreading on social media in the country.
The Twitter account of the reformist Etemad daily published the image
early on Sunday of Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard,
without a story. The photo was not published in the paper's Sunday
edition.
Iran's arbitration body in its
meeting on March 2 did not make a decision about anti-money
laundering and anti-terror financing bills approved by parliament but
rejected by the Guardian Council. This was the council's last meeting
until after the Iranian New Year on March 21. Its next meeting will
not be held before April. This was the fourth time the Expediency
Discernment Council (EDC) has discussed the bills but failed either
to accept or reject them.
There was no official
announcement, no confirmation or denial, but Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who submitted his resignation last week, is
still on the job as foreign minister. Two days after Zarif's
dramatic statement that he was stepping down "to maintain
the standing of the Foreign Ministry," Iranian media published
smiling pictures of the minister with the visiting prime minister of
Armenia, Nikol Pashinian.
In an analysis pegged to Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's recent resignation and his subsequent
return to his office last week, Iranian analyst Reza Haghighatnejad
presented a profile of President Hassan Rouhani's Chief of Staff
Mahmoud Vaezi, as the man to be blamed for the "lack of
coordination" in the Iranian President's office.
The only way forward for Iran is
a unified push by all political movements for a direct, democratic
referendum on changing the Islamic Republic's ruling system, former
revolutionary Abolfazl Qadyani said from his prison cell. 73-year-old
Qadyani (also spelled as Ghadyani) is a co-founder of the political
group Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution of Iran Organization
(MIRO).
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Four European countries have
asked Iran to amend its positions in four countries: Lebanon, Syria,
Yemen and Iraq, and strengthen its relations with them in accordance
with the Vienna Convention. Tehran must "reconcile with the
international community rather than collide with it", said
European diplomatic reports sent to Beirut. France, Britain, Germany
and Italy, also known as E4, hold regular meetings between their
representatives and Iranian representatives to discuss unacceptable
actions in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
US allies in the Middle East
risk an uprising by their "humiliated citizens" if they
continue to rely on Washington, a top Iranian security official
warned Sunday in comments carried by state media. "(US
President) Trump and even his underlings ridicule and humiliate Saudi
Arabia and the (United Arab) Emirates day and night, saying that
you're nothing without us and cannot last a day without America's
support," said Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National
Security Council.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
More countries are demonstrating
an interest in taking a tougher stance against Hezbollah. The British
government last week joined the likes of the US, Canada, the Arab
League, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Israel in listing the
Lebanon-based organization as a terrorist group. Some of those
world leaders who continue to be hesitant in sanctioning Hezbollah
can argue there is a distinction between Hezbollah's military wing
and the political party.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Yemen's Foreign Minister has called on Iran to abide by
the principles of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and
to stop supporting the Houthi militia, who have been at war with the
Yemeni government since 2014. Khalid Al-Yamani urged the Iranian
regime to stop funding the militia and to stop providing the group
with weapons, in his address to the 46th Ministerial Conference of
the OIC in Abu Dhabi.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
"Since the 1979 revolution,
the Islamic Republic's foreign policy has been defined by an ideology
promoting revolution, designed to transform the Middle East. Under
its Islamist regime, Iran has fought America, Israel, and much of the
Arab world, in opposition to the national interests of Iran and the
Iranian people. The Islamic Republic may be dominant in Iraq, Syria,
and Lebanon, but Iran, itself, has been devastated by decades of policies
that have led to its international isolation, and economic and
ecological collapse."
CYBERWARFARE
Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesperson dismissed allegations about Iran's backing a
cyber-attack against Australian Parliament, describing these claims
as part of enemies' psychological war. Bahram Ghasemi said late
Saturday that Iran and Australia enjoy 'good ties' and that both
sides are eager to expand bilateral relations.
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