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TOP STORIES
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran has
seized a foreign oil tanker, Iranian news media reported on Thursday,
days after a United Arab Emirates vessel disappeared, raising the
stakes in the running conflict that has pitted Iran against some of its
regional neighbors and the United States. Several state news
organizations in Iran reported the seizure of the tanker, based on a
statement from the Revolutionary Guards, which claimed that the ship
was smuggling one million liters of oil. The Iranian state news
agency Al Alam reported that the Revolutionary Guards seized the ship
on Sunday.
The head of the United Nations' atomic agency is
preparing to step down early, potentially kicking off a fight for
control of the agency that has oversight of Iran's nuclear program,
diplomats said. Director General Yukiya Amano is in contact with
members of the board of governors regarding his future plans, the
International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday. He is expected to
announce his resignation early next week, two diplomats said,
although it could be months before he leaves.
The Trump administration is reinforcing its
controversial military relationship with Saudi Arabia by
preparing to send hundreds of troops to the country amid increasing
tensions with Iran. Five-hundred troops are expected to go to the
Prince Sultan Air Base, located in a desert area east of the Saudi
capital of Riyadh, according to US two defense officials. A small
number of troops and support personnel are already on site with
initial preparations being made for a Patriot missile defense battery
as well as runway and airfield improvements, the officials
said.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
A compromise deal remains the best way to prevent Iran
acquiring a nuclear weapon, British Prime Minister Theresa May said
on Wednesday. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran
earlier this month violated the 2015 accord, and Iran's supreme
leader on Tuesday said Tehran would keep removing restraints on its
nuclear activity in the deal. In her last major speech before
stepping down next week, May said the nuclear deal must be protected
"whatever its challenges".
Fresh twists and confusion once again shroud US-Iran
tensions; this time, the tension is rooted
in misinterpretation. "For the first time, the Iranians
have said they're prepared to negotiate on their missile
program," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a
Cabinet meeting July 16, expressing hope that a deal could be struck
with Tehran to keep it away from a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. "shot itself in the foot" by pulling
out of the nuclear accord with Iran, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
said, offering a grim outlook for the chance of opening talks with
President Donald Trump. Zarif, in an interview Wednesday with
Bloomberg Television, also accused European countries that are part
of the agreement of failing to carry out their own commitments under
the 2015 deal and after the U.S. withdrawal. He said promises to
allow Iran to sell oil and repatriate money have failed to
materialize.
The Trump administration's withdrawal from the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action-the nuclear deal with Iran-and its
renewal of sanctions, the rise of Iran's provocations in the Gulf,
and Iran's enrichment of uranium have together reignited the debate
over how best to meet the multiple threats posed by Iran. Once again,
the proponents of using military force against Iran are squaring off
against the advocates of diplomacy.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
As Iran weighs the merits of talks with the U.S. and
tensions remain high in the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic's
leadership is preparing for a second Donald Trump term and mindful of
how two key countries fared in high-stakes negotiations with him: Mexico
and North Korea. "There is a better than 50 percent chance that
he might still be in office, so we will need to deal with him for
another six years," Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif said
Wednesday in a television interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief
John Micklethwait.
Iran is capable of shutting the Strait of Hormuz -- a
crucial choke-point for oil flows -- but doesn't want to do it, the
country's foreign minister said. "We certainly have the ability
to do it, but we certainly don't want to do it because the Strait of
Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are our lifeline," Mohammad Javad
Zarif said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New
York. "It has to be secured. We play a big role in securing it,
but it has to be secure for everybody."
Iranians feeling the squeeze from U.S. sanctions
targeting the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are increasingly
turning to such digital currencies as Bitcoin to make money,
prompting alarm in and out of the country. In Iran, some government
officials worry that the energy-hungry process of "mining"
Bitcoin is abusing Iran's system of subsidized electricity; in the
United States, some observers have warned that cryptocurrencies could
be used to bypass the Trump administration's sanctions targeting Iran
over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
US sanctions on Iran are "deliberately
targeting innocent civilians" and amount to economic terrorism,
its foreign minister said. Mohammad Javad Zarif made the comments on
Wednesday at the United Nations in New York City. Earlier
he said Iran needed ballistic missiles to protect itself from
US-backed foreign invaders - an arsenal the United States argues
must be curtailed.
Russia has signalled its willingness to join an EU
payments channel designed to circumvent US sanctions banning trade
with Iran and has called on Brussels to expand the new mechanism to
cover oil exports. Moscow's involvement in the channel, known as
Instex, would mark a significant step forward in attempts by the EU
and Russia to rescue a 2015 Iran nuclear deal that has been
unravelling since the Trump administration abandoned it last year.
MISSILE PROGRAM
Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that his
country must manufacture missiles for defensive purposes, days
after he appeared to suggest the weapons could be up for
negotiations. In a tweet Wednesday, Javad Zarif said that Iran's
missile program grew out of the 1980-1988 war against Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. "For 8 YEARS, Saddam showered our cities
with missiles & bombs provided by East & West,"
Zarif wrote. "Meanwhile, NO ONE sold Iran any means of
defense. We had no choice but building our own. Now they
complain."
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
Argentina took a step closer to declaring Hezbollah a
terrorist group. The government announced Tuesday that it was
creating "a public registry of persons and entities connected to
acts of terrorism and its financing." While neither Hezbollah
nor any other group or person being considered for blacklisting are
listed, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich indicated that Hezbollah
will be added.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
A Navy veteran from California seized in Iran a year ago
has yet to speak with his mother. A British-Iranian woman held in a
Tehran prison since 2016 has been moved to a hospital psychiatric
unit, incommunicado with her family. A French-Iranian scholar has
been arrested without explanation while visiting Iran, just as France
is exerting diplomacy to help save the nuclear agreement.
A British-Iranian woman detained in Tehran since 2016
has been moved to a hospital psychiatric unit, her family said,
prompting fears for her well-being. The moving of the woman, Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was initially seen as a positive development,
because she had been requesting treatment for months. But her family
said on Wednesday that they had not been able to speak with her for
days. They say she is under the watch of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps, a powerful arm of the Iranian military.
FIFA says Iran's soccer federation supports letting
women attend 2022 World Cup qualifying games of its men's national
team, though government approval is still needed. FIFA is working
with Iranian authorities to overcome a ban on women entering stadiums
for men's games since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Some women were
allowed to watch the Asian Champions League final in Tehran last
November when FIFA President Gianni Infantino also attended.
A group calling itself "students and seminary
scholars of the world of Islam" held a protest in front of the
Nigerian embassy on Wednesday afternoon in Tehran. Carrying banners,
they demanded the release of a Nigerian Shi'ite cleric, Sheik Ibrahim
Yaqoub El Zakzaky who has been in custody since December 2015. Zakzaky,
who carries the title of Ayatollah is an outspoken leading Shi'ite
cleric in Nigeria. He is the founder and head of the Islamic Movement
of Nigeria (IMN).
Iran confirmed Tuesday that it arrested Fariba Adelkhah,
a prominent French-Iranian academic, but refused to provide details
on her situation. "This person was detained recently ... but due
to the nature of the case, this is not the proper time to give any
information about it," said Gholamhossein Esmaili, a
spokesman for Iran's judiciary. "More transparent information
will be provided as the case progresses."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The House on Wednesday passed a bipartisan measure
freeing up access to over a billion dollars in Iranian funds for the
families of over 200 U.S. Marines killed during an Iran-backed terror
attack in 1983. The Our Obligation to Recognize American Heroes
(OORAH) Act passed in a 397 to 31 vote Wednesday evening as an
amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act. On October 23, 1983,
two suicide bombers with the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah
detonated two truck bombs, one at the Marine base in Beirut, Lebanon,
killing 241 American soldiers as well as French military personnel
and several civilians.
The U.S. is tightly limiting travel by Iranian officials
visiting or assigned to the United Nations, sparking concern from the
world body. Representatives to the U.N. from Iran and some other
countries have long had some limitations on their movements. But the
new rules for Iranians - imposed as its foreign minister was
preparing to arrive for U.N. meetings this week - are particularly
strict.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on
Wednesday that tight U.S. travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats
and their families living in New York are "basically
inhuman." The diplomats are subject to the same rules
imposed by the United States on Zarif, who arrived on Sunday amid
heightened tensions between the two countries. They may only
travel between the United Nations, the Iranian U.N. mission, the
Iranian U.N. ambassador's residence and John F. Kennedy
airport.
The increased use of drones by Iran and its allies for
surveillance and attacks across the Middle East is raising alarms in
Washington. The United States believes that Iran-linked militia
in Iraq have recently increased their surveillance of American troops
and bases in the country by using off-the-shelf, commercially
available drones, U.S. officials say.
Iran's foreign minister said the US is waging war
against his country through intensifying economic sanctions that make
civilians "the primary targets," but told CNN that his
country "will never start a war" and that all parties
should work to avoid one. Zarif spoke to CNN's Fareed Zakaria
Wednesday while in New York to attend meetings at the United Nations,
where he described the Trump administration's "maximum
pressure" campaign as "economic terrorism" for the
impact it is having on ordinary Iranians.
Over a round of golf this past weekend, Sen. Rand Paul
asked President Donald Trump's blessing for a sensitive diplomatic
mission. Paul proposed sitting down with Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif to extend a fresh olive branch on the president's behalf,
according to four U.S. officials. The aim: to reduce tensions between
the two countries. Trump signed off on the idea.
As the United States has struggled to build support
among its traditional allies in Europe to combat what it calls Iran's
aggression, it has been forced to look elsewhere for support, such as
Latin America. This week, the Argentinian government plans to
designate the militant group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization,
giving the Trump administration another ally in its push to build an
international coalition to confront Iran. Hezbollah, which is based
in Lebanon, is supported by Iran.
The US State Department's recent designation of Jaish
al-Adl and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as terrorist
organizations calls for a look at the potential international
implications of this sudden move. The Balochistan region of
southwestern Asia includes the province of the same name in Pakistan,
the province of Sistan and Baluchestan in southeast Iran, and part of
southern Afghanistan.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
As U.S. sanctions on Iran extend into a second year,
Iranian citizens are paying the price with skyrocketing costs and
food shortages. Jafar Ghaffari, a cook in Tehran, is one of the many
Iranians struggling to keep up with the rising cost of food. He says
prices have increased by 50% to 100% in the last year. Ghaffari says
his weekly shopping trip, which cost him 7 million rials [$50] just
three months ago, now costs him 14 million rials ($100) a week,
nearly half the average Iranian's salary.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Political sources in Tel Aviv and Washington revealed on
Wednesday that the United States and Israel told Russia, during the
tripartite security meeting in West Jerusalem at the end of June,
that any agreement on the future of Syria should include the
withdrawal of Iranian forces, not only from Syria but also from
Lebanon and Iraq. The summit included US National Security Advisor
John Bolton, Israeli National Security Council Director Meir
Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security
Council.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group said it launched a
drone attack on Jizan airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia early on
Wednesday, part of an escalation of cross-border assaults in the
4-year-old conflict. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in
Yemen said it had intercepted and downed a Houthi drone heading
towards civilian targets in Jizan. Houthi military spokesman Yahya
Saria said the attack disrupted operations at the airport.
CYBERWARFARE
Suspected nation-state hackers from Russia, Iran and
elsewhere have launched nearly 800 cyberattacks against political
organizations over the past year that have been detected by
Microsoft Corp. , with the vast majority of the attempts
targeting groups based in the U.S. Think tanks and nongovernmental
groups that work with candidates or political parties-or on issues
important to their campaigns-have suffered most of the attacks.
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