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Iran's president declared on Wednesday that he would
begin to walk away from the restrictions of a 2015 nuclear deal, and
the Trump administration responded with a new round of sanctions
against Tehran, reviving a crisis that had been contained for the
past four years. The escalation of threats caught the United States'
allies in Europe in the crossfire between Washington and Tehran. And
while the announcement by President Hassan Rouhani of Iran did not
terminate the landmark nuclear accord that was negotiated by world
powers, it put it on life support.
Iran threatened Wednesday to enrich its uranium
stockpile closer to weapons-grade levels in 60 days if world powers
fail to negotiate new terms for its 2015 nuclear deal, raising
regional tensions as a U.S. aircraft carrier and bombers headed to
the Middle East to confront Tehran. A televised address by President
Hassan Rouhani, who once pledged that the landmark deal would draw
Iran closer to the West, saw the cleric instead pressure Europe to
shield Tehran from the sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump
withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement exactly a year earlier.
The U.S. decision to surge additional military forces
into the Middle East was based in part on intelligence that the
Iranian regime has told some of its proxy forces and surrogates that
they can now go after American military personnel and assets in
the region, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the
intelligence. The intelligence shows that an Iranian
official discussed activating Iranian-backed groups to target
Americans, but did not mention targeting the militaries of other
nations, the officials said.
UANI IN THE NEWS
One year ago today, President Donald Trump formally
pulled the United States out of the deal that his predecessor had
made with Iran to lift sanctions in exchange for Tehran easing its
nuclear activities. Since then, Trump has introduced some of the most
robust economic sanctions that have ever been placed on Iran and last
month labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist
organization, the first time the U.S. has so designated part of
another country's government. After Trump pulled out of the deal,
which rewarded Iran financially for making narrow and temporary
promises to curtail aspects of its nuclear program, critics of the
president warned that his policies would put the U.S. on a path to
war with Tehran and that the U.S. would be isolated in the world. But
a year on, war hasn't broken out and it's worth looking at what has -
and hasn't - happened for a clear-eyed assessment of the president's
"maximum pressure" strategy.
Jason Brodsky, a policy director at United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI): "I think the pressure really is going
to be on Iran to come to the table. We're already seeing Zarif making
some public overtures, using the Kim Jong-un approach, trying to
decouple the president from his advisors. That's a hinted overture,
testing the president's receptiveness to talk. I think that Iran
is not likely to undertake any action that significantly rocks the
boat because it is playing the long game and it wants to wait out the
Trump administration at least until 2021 to try to see if they can
get a better deal out if a Democrat were to win."
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Europe rejected Iran's 60-day ultimatum and said it
viewed Tehran's threat to abandon some of its commitments under the
2015 nuclear pact with "great concern." In a statement
Thursday, French, German, British foreign ministers and the European
Union foreign policy chief said Europe is determined to preserve the
nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and
plans to pursue steps to maintain some trade between Iran and Europe.
As the divide widens between the United States and Iran
over the 2015 nuclear deal, the European Union finds itself trapped
between them, with no easy or quick way to respond to its dilemma.
President Trump pulled out of the deal, which the European Union
championed and which three key European allies of the United States -
Britain, Germany and France - all continue to support. The United
States has reinstated punishing sanctions intended to disrupt Iranian
oil exports and trade.
French President Emmanuel Macron says the Iran nuclear
deal must be saved and that the accord's signatories should do all
they can to ensure that the Islamic Republic respects it. Macron told
reporters on Thursday that "Iran must remain in this agreement
and we must do everything we can to ensure that it stays in."
Speaking ahead of an EU summit in Romania, Macron lauded the 2015
deal curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions as "a good
agreement."
The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany,
France and Britain on Thursday said they were still committed to the
Iran nuclear deal but would not accept ultimatums after Iran
announced it was scaling back curbs to its nuclear programme.
After Tehran's announcement and threat to take more action that could
violate the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, U.S. President
Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on Iran, targeting revues from
exports of its industrial metals.
Iran wants to bring its nuclear deal with world powers
"back on track" after the U.S. unilateral withdrawal, the
spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on Thursday,
a day after Tehran said it was scaling back curbs to its nuclear
programme. "Our goal is to strengthen the JCPOA (the
acronym for the nuclear agreement) and bring it back on track,"
Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite expressed
concern on Thursday with Iran's declaration that it was scaling back
curbs to its nuclear programme, saying the European Union should seek
ways to prevent that. "It is disturbing and I think we
need to look what Europe can do, if anything, because if Iran
withdraws totally we are again at square one as we were a few years
ago," Grybauskaite told reporters arriving for an EU
summit.
Iran could be playing with fire as it threatens to ditch
its commitments to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, officially known as
the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), in the face of
crippling U.S. sanctions. If Europe does not step in to protect Iran
from those sanctions, salvaging trade with its oil and banking
sectors in violation of U.S. rules, Tehran says it will return to
higher levels of uranium enrichment, which would potentially pave the
way for bomb-making capabilities.
The unraveling of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is now
accelerating with Iran's announcement Wednesday that it will
stop complying with some parts of the agreement. The stage is set for
a confrontation between an unabashedly bellicose United States and an
equally defiant Iran. It may all be, as some analysts have suggested,
a "game of chicken," but this sort of "game" also
can result in a head-on collision.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered new
sanctions on Iran, this time targeting the Islamic Republic's export
revenues from its industrial metals sector, and vowed to keep
squeezing Tehran unless it "fundamentally alters" its
policies. The announcement was made on the anniversary of
Trump's unilateral withdrawal of the United States from a 2015
landmark deal between Tehran and world powers to curb its nuclear
program in exchange for easing some sanctions and hours after Tehran
said it would no longer fully comply with the accord.
The Trump administration on Wednesday imposed fresh
sanctions targeting Tehran as both countries escalate their rhetoric
over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The White House announced sanctions on
the steel, iron, aluminum and copper sectors of the country hours
after Iran said it would stop complying with certain parts of the
Obama-era nuclear agreement. President Trump's executive order
imposing new sanctions on Tehran also came on the one-year
anniversary of his announcement that he would withdraw the U.S. from
the nuclear deal.
China opposes unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran,
and curbs on its oil will only worsen volatility in global energy
markets, the commerce ministry said on Thursday. President
Donald Trump on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on Iran, targeting revenue
from its exports of industrial metals, in Washington's latest salvo
over a 2015 international accord reining in the Islamic Republic's
nuclear program.
The United States will not grant any more waivers to any
countries that would allow them to buy Iranian oil without facing
U.S. sanctions, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday. Brian
Hook, Iran Special Envoy, also said in a briefing the global oil
market had already factored in Iranian oil exports falling to zero
under the Trump administration's economic pressure campaign against
Tehran.
Work on setting up a special purpose vehicle for
business with Iran is taking longer than expected, a German
government spokesman said on Wednesday. "Currently, the
last steps need to be taken for this corporation to be able to
operate - that includes Iran making the necessary preparations on its
side," spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news
conference.
U.S. President Donald Trump's ambassador to Germany
warned companies that they could be barred from the U.S. if they do
business with Iran, the latest volley from a diplomat who's made a
habit of irritating his hosts in Berlin. Ambassador Richard Grenell
also told Bild newspaper that Russia can't be trusted and accused
Moscow of using chemical weapons in the U.K., shooting down a
Ukrainian passenger jet and interfering in elections across
Europe.
Saudi Arabia plans to meet all requests for oil
purchases it has received for June, notably from countries that had
to stop buying Iranian crude because of recent U.S. sanctions. The
world's biggest oil exporter has received moderate requests from
customers for shipments next month, including from former buyers of
Iran's oil, according to a Persian Gulf person familiar with Saudi plans,
who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
MISSILE PROGRAM
China bears significant blame for Iran's success in
developing a dangerous new array of ballistic missiles, a top White
House adviser said the same day the administration imposed
significant new sanctions on the Middle Eastern regime. Tim
Morrison, the National Security Council's senior director for weapons
of mass destruction, asked allies to join the United States in
rebuking Beijing for protecting an arms dealer who has made Iran's
weapons programs possible.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
As the Trump administration doubles down on
the contention that Tehran is cooperating with
Al Qaeda, another former Iranian commander has reportedly come
forward with allegations about an Iran-Al Qaeda link. Said Qasemi, a
now-retired spokesperson for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), told Al Arabiya that IRGC deployed undercover
soldiers to Bosnia-Herzegovina during its conflict in the 1990s under
the pretense that they were members of Tehran's state-endorsed
Red Crescent.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cancelled a
visit to Greenland to return to Washington amid an escalation of
tensions with Iran. Pompeo had been due to wrap up a trip to Europe
on Thursday with a stop in Greenland aimed at promoting the Trump
administration's Arctic policies. Those policies were criticized
earlier this week for not containing the words "climate change"
when Pompeo attended an Arctic Council meeting in Finland.
The United States is not seeking a war with Iran but
said it stands ready to respond if Tehran mounts any attack on
America, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told Al
Arabiya on Wednesday. "We are ready to restore diplomatic ties
and welcome the country into the international community but the
regime has got to change its behavior," Hook said.
The chief of U.S. Central Command put Iranian leaders on
notice Wednesday, warning: "If a fight is to be had ... it won't
be a fair fight." Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth
"Frank" McKenzie's warning followed the military's recent
deployment of a carrier strike group and bomber task force to the
Middle East. This deployment, according to the general, sends a clear
message to adversaries and allies alike.
There are two ways to view Wednesday's threats from
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to abandon the 2015 nuclear bargain
with his country. The first is through the lens of Europe's
establishment and President Donald Trump's opposition: Look what
you've done! After a year of maximum pressure, Iran has finally been
pushed to start breaking its commitments to limit its stocks of
enriched uranium. As an EU foreign policy official tweeted, Trump's
Iran policy "has now triggered Rouhani's move towards less for
less."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
The intelligence that Iran or its
proxies were planning something against U.S. interests in
the Middle East reached senior U.S. officials on Friday afternoon,
acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told Congress on Wednesday.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also
said Wednesday that the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln
Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force was intended to
deter Iran "so that there would be no ambiguity about
our preparedness to respond to any threatagainst our people or
our partners in the region."
All the Americans could do was shake their heads as a
Shiite militia flag waved above their base. The troops from the
U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division were still getting used to living
alongside an old enemy. It was the fall of 2016, the start of a U.S.-backed
offensive to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul. Some
Americans who'd come to aid the effort had also fought in the Iraq
War, when the U.S. military suffered hundreds of deaths in battles
with Shiite militia groups.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iranian media say firefighters managed to put out a
blaze that erupted at the historic market in the northwestern city of
Tabriz. Thursday's report by the official IRNA news agency says some
16 people were slightly injured in the fire, which erupted around 9
p.m. on Wednesday at the Bazaar of Tabriz, which dates back 1,000
years. IRNA says it took six hours to extinguish the fire. About 150
of the market's 5,500 shops were damaged.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Dozens of Houthi fighters were killed and others injured
in a large explosion at a weapons and ammunition depot on Wednesday.
The rebel fighters were at the centre of Al Duraihimi city,
south-east of Hodeidah, said Col Wathah Al Dubaish, spokesman for the
pro-government forces. "The operations room of the joint forces
received a call reporting a huge explosion at a weaponry and
ammunition cache affiliated with the Houthis, who have held the
centre of Al Duraihimi city since August 2018," Col Al Dubaish
told the National.
CHINA & IRAN
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone with
Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Wednesday amid tensions with Riyadh's
regional rival Iran after Tehran announced it was scaling back some
commitments under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. China
has had to tread a fine line as it has close energy and business
relations with both countries, in a part of the world where Beijing
has traditionally exerted far less sway than the United States,
Russia, France or Britain.
MISCELLANEOUS
An Air France jet flying from Paris to
Mumbai on Wednesday was diverted to an airport
in Iran after officials say the aircraft suffered a
"malfunction" in the ventilation system. Air France flight
218 departed from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris just after 11:00
a.m. local time. The airline crew decided to land the plane in Shahid
Beheshti International Airport in Esfahan, Iran, around 7:35 p.m.
after being alerted to a malfunction on board.
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