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TOP STORIES
In an unexpected reversal, President Barack Obama
declined to sign a renewal of sanctions against Iran but let it
become law anyway, in an apparent bid to alleviate Tehran's concerns
that the U.S. is backsliding on the nuclear deal. Although the White
House had said that Obama was expected to sign the 10-year-renewal,
the midnight deadline came and went Thursday with no approval from
the president. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama
had decided to let it become law without his signature. "The
administration has, and continues to use, all of the necessary
authorities to waive the relevant sanctions" lifted as part of
the nuclear deal, Earnest said in a statement... Though Obama's move
doesn't prevent the sanctions renewal from entering force, it marked
a symbolic attempt by the president to demonstrate disapproval for
lawmakers' actions. The White House has argued that the renewal is
unnecessary because the administration retains other authorities to
punish Iran, if necessary, and has expressed concern that the renewal
may undermine the nuclear deal.
Iran has played a pivotal role in Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad's campaign to crush rebel resistance in Aleppo and is
now close to establishing a "Shi'ite crescent" of regional
influence stretching from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean Sea.
Revolutionary Guards commanders and senior clerics in Tehran have
this week praised Iran's defeat of "Wahhabi terrorists" in
Syria and the country they characterize as the rebels' patron, Sunni
Muslim regional rival Saudi Arabia... For the first time, Tehran
could exert authority over a vast sweep of the Middle East extending
through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon - an arc of influence that Sunni
Arab powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been warning about for
years... Establishing such a "Shi'ite crescent" would give
Tehran immense political clout in the region as it vies with
arch-rival Riyadh and allow it to protect Shi'ite communities in
these countries. It would also present a military threat to Israel,
through Syria and Lebanon, which Iranian officials regard as a
deterrent to any Israeli aggression towards Iran.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani phoned his Syrian
counterpart Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday to congratulate him on the
impending defeat of rebel forces in the battleground city of Aleppo,
his website said. "The victory in Aleppo... constitutes a great
victory for the Syrian people against terrorists and those who
support them," Rouhani told Assad... "The coalition between
Iran, Russia, Syria and (Tehran-backed Lebanese militant group)
Hezbollah led to the liberation of Aleppo and will next liberate
Mosul (in Iraq)," said Yahya Safavi, top foreign policy adviser
to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Safavi, a former
head of the Revolutionary Guards, said a clear message was being sent
to the incoming US president, Donald Trump, who has vowed to take a
tougher line with Iran. "The new American president must accept
the reality that Iran is the leading power in the region," the Guards'
Sepahnews website quoted him as saying.
BUSINESS RISK
Iran's Revolutionary Guard faces a new enemy: the
gradual opening of the country's economy after the nuclear deal with
world powers. Though better known for its hard-line fervor as an
elite force created to defend Iran's cleric-led system, the Guard
holds vast business interests both public and hidden across the
Islamic Republic. In times of international sanctions, the
organization won massive no-bid government contracts and expanded its
influence. But comments made by one Guard general about a new ship deal
worth $650 million betray the worry felt in the organization over
potential competition, analysts say. It also offers a possible
secondary motive for its detention of dual nationals on purported
espionage charges and its confrontations with the West: keeping its
share of Iran's market of 80 million people. "They are worried
about competition internally," said Alireza Nader, an analyst at
the RAND Corporation who long has studied the Guard. "They want
to make sure for any given deal, they get a part of it."
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran has finalised a deal with European planemaker
Airbus for seven aircraft, Labour Minister Ali Rabii was quoted as
saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) on Thursday.
"The deal has been finalised with Airbus to buy seven planes.
The delivery of the planes will start in May," Rabii said. A
delegation from Airbus was in Tehran on Monday for talks to finalize
a deal to sell around 100 planes, Iranian media reported... An
Iranian official told Reuters in November that flag carrier IranAir had
reached a deal with a foreign leasing company to finance 17 jets from
Airbus. The head of IranAir said on Tuesday that Airbus had agreed to
arrange financing for 17 planes, adding that IranAir was aiming to
obtain the first five by March 2017.
Iran's central bank will take chairmanship of the Islamic
Financial Services Board (IFSB) for the year 2017, a move that could
help align practices in the country's banking system with peers
across Asia and the Middle East. Shut out of the global system by
sanctions, Iranian banks are eager to resume business with foreign
lenders with deals ranging from funding infrastructure to insuring
foreign trade. Years of isolation have led the country to develop
practices that can contrast with those in other Islamic financial
centres, but a prominent role within the Kuala Lumpur-based IFSB
could help narrow those differences. The IFSB Council said late on
Wednesday it had appointed Iran's central bank governor Valiollah
Seif as chairman effective from Jan. 1, with Bangladesh Bank governor
Fazle Kabir as deputy chairman.
SYRIA CONFLICT
The fall of Aleppo to Syrian government forces backed
by Russia and Iran has heightened alarm in Israel about potential
threats to its borders and a wider reshaping of the region. Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left no doubt on Wednesday about the
depth of Israel's concern about Tehran, whose position and that of
its proxies in Syria has been strengthened by the crushing of rebel
resistance in Aleppo. At a meeting in Astana with Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Netanyahu was asked whether he had a message
for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is scheduled to visit
Kazakhstan next week. "Don't threaten us. We are not a rabbit,
we are a tiger," the Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted Netanyahu
as telling Nazarbayev. "If you threaten us, you endanger
yourself." Asked by Nazarbayev if he seriously believed Iran
wanted to destroy Israel, Netanyahu replied: "Yes, I do."
Hundreds of Turkish and Syrian demonstrators assembled
outside the Iranian consulate in Istanbul to blame Tehran for the
failed start of a cease-fire deal that aimed to stop the bloodbath in
Syria's Aleppo. The demonstrators shouted "Killer Iran, get out
of Syria!" and held up banners that read "Save Aleppo"
on Wednesday night. A cease-fire to evacuate rebels and civilians from
remaining opposition-held neighborhoods of Aleppo unraveled earlier
in the day.
TERRORISM
A Kenyan court has ordered the deportation of two
Iranian men who were accused of plotting an attack on the Israeli
embassy in the capital, Nairobi. A court order issued Wednesday said
an agreement had been reached between prosecutors and the Iranian
embassy leading to the termination of criminal charges and
deportation. The suspects, Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahim and Abdolhosein
Gholi Safaee, had been in custody since Nov. 29, when they were
arrested outside the Israeli embassy with video footage of the
facility. They had been traveling in an Iranian diplomatic car after
visiting a prison where they saw two other Iranians who have been
jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges, according to prosecutors. They
were charged with collecting information to facilitate a terrorist
act. Iranian agents have been suspected in attacks or thwarted
attacks around the globe in recent years, including in Azerbaijan,
Thailand and India. Most of the plots had Israeli targets.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency is reporting
that the country's authorities have detained 120 people in a private
party in a coffee shop in Tehran. The Wednesday report quotes Tehran
prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, as saying "15 bottles of
alcohol were found and 15 people were drunk and the coffee shop was
closed." ... Dolatabadi said the 120 people were arrested on
Tuesday night for attending a mixed-gender party, and that
authorities also arrested two "underground singers."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
It's now more than eight weeks since Senator Ted Cruz
sent a letter to three senior officials of the Obama administration,
detailing his concerns that North Korea and Iran might be working
together on developing nuclear missiles. In particular, Cruz had a
question for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Referring to the period since the Iran nuclear deal took effect on
Jan. 16, Cruz asked: "Has the U.S. intelligence community
observed any possible nuclear collaboration between Iran and North
Korea..."? That's one of the huge questions looming behind the
Iran nuclear deal, officially titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, which President Obama has been urging President-elect Donald
Trump to preserve. It's a question that deserves an immediate answer.
If there has been any such nuclear teamwork between Tehran and rogue,
nuclear-testing Pyongyang, that would be a violation by Iran that
should immediately blow up the Iran deal - which the Obama White
House currently touts on its web site as "The Historic Deal that
Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon."
On the surface, the recent extension of the Iran
Sanctions Act (ISA) offers a rare glimmer of bipartisanship following
17 months of bitter debate over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA). Yet this development is less significant than meets
the eye. The ISA extension preserves the statutory framework for U.S.
laws sanctioning Iran, but it comes in the context of the Obama
administration's repeated failure, over the past year, to apply those
laws in a way that would deter Iran's multiple violations of the
JCPOA and ongoing regional aggression. The legislation will thus
retain only modest value unless the executive branch enforces it as
part of a broader campaign to increase pressure on Tehran.
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