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TOP STORIES
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Donald Trump's
warning to Iran to stop its missile tests, saying the new U.S.
president had shown the "real face" of American corruption.
In his first speech since Trump's inauguration, Iran's supreme leader
called on Iranians to respond to Trump's "threats" on Feb.
10, the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Trump had
tried but failed to frighten Iranians, Khamenei said. "We are
thankful to (Trump) for making our life easy as he showed the real face
of America," Khamenei told a meeting of military commanders in
Tehran, according to his website.. In remarks published on Tuesday,
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would not
agree to renegotiate its nuclear agreement. "I believe Trump will
push for renegotiation. But Iran and European countries will not
accept that," Mohammad Javad Zarif told Ettelaat newspaper.
"We will have difficult days ahead." ... "No enemy can
paralyze the Iranian nation," Khamenei said. "(Trump) says
'you should be afraid of me'. No! The Iranian people will respond to
his words on Feb. 10 and will show their stance against such
threats."
US President Donald Trump charged on Sunday that Iran
"lost respect" for the US in the wake of the 2015 nuclear
deal signed between Tehran and the US-led P5+1 world powers, and that
it now feels "emboldened" by the agreement to act
confrontationally on the world stage. In a Fox News interview with
Bill O'Reilly hours before the Super Bowl, Trump said the nuclear
agreement that saw Tehran curb its atomic program in exchange for the
lifting of punishing sanctions was "the worst deal I've ever
seen negotiated; it was a deal that never should have been
negotiated." Stopping short of saying what precisely he would do
with the deal, the president said Tehran "lost respect [for the
US] because they didn't think anyone would be stupid as to make a
deal like that," and that Iran was now "emboldened" by
the agreement, citing a number of incidents last year in the Persian
Gulf where US ships were surrounded and otherwise harassed by Iranian
military boats. "We gave them $1.7 billion in cash which is
unheard of... and we have nothing to show for it," said Trump in
reference to the revelation last September that the Obama administration
had authorized the transferusing non-US currency, to settle a
decades-old arbitration claim between the US and Iran.
Boeing's agreement to sell 80 passenger jets to Iran
may not be directly impacted by new U.S. sanctions on Tehran but the
deal still could unravel, according to analysts... "The Trump
administration is absolutely determined to ratchet up tensions and
the Iranians will of course, being hardliners there, want to do the
same," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at
Virginia-based industry consultancy Teal Group. In December, Boeing
announced an agreement for Iran Air, the country's flag carrier, to
buy 50 of its narrow-body 737 passenger jets and 30 of the wide-body
777 aircraft. The aircraft manufacturer valued at the deal at $16.6
billon, based on list prices for the planes. Industry observers
suggest Tehran could pull out of the Boeing deal if tensions continue
to worsen... Analysts say financing airplanes to Iran remains risky
business too. That is partly due to Iran not being a signatory
country to the Cape Town Treaty, which provides legal remedies for
default in financing agreements as well as the repossession of
capital goods such as aircraft.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday
urged Western leaders to follow U.S. President Donald Trump in
imposing fresh sanctions against Iran. Speaking in London, where he
met with his U.K. counterpart, Theresa May, Mr. Netanyahu said responsible
countries should follow the U.S.'s lead to counter alleged Iranian
aggression. "Iran seeks to annihilate Israel. It says so openly.
It seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it
threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation
after provocation," Mr. Netanyahu said. "That's why I
welcome President Trump's insistence of new sanctions against Iran. I
think other nations should follow soon, certainly responsible
nations." ... A spokeswoman for Mrs. May said after the two
leaders met that the British prime minister "was clear that the
nuclear deal is vital and must be properly enforced and policed,
while recognizing concerns about Iran's pattern of destabilizing
activity in the region."
Seizing on an Iranian missile test, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new U.S. President Donald Trump are
nearing common ground on a tougher U.S. policy towards Tehran ahead
of their first face-to-face talks at the White House. But people
familiar with the Trump administration's thinking say that its
evolving strategy is likely to be aimed not at
"dismantling" Iran's July 2015 nuclear deal with six world
powers - as presidential candidate Trump sometimes advocated - but
tightening its enforcement and pressuring the Islamic Republic into
renegotiating key provisions. Options, they say, would include wider
scrutiny of Iran's compliance by the U.N. nuclear watchdog (IAEA),
including access to Iranian military sites, and removing
"sunset" terms that allow some curbs on Iranian nuclear
activity to start expiring in 10 years and lift other limits after 15
years... The administration, one source said, is counting on the
Europeans to eventually get on board since their companies might
think twice about closing major deals in Iran for fear new
"secondary" U.S. sanctions would penalize them too.
PROXY WARS
Yemen's Shiite rebels said on Monday they have
"successfully" fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh for the
first time, vowing more attacks on the Saudi capital. There was no
immediate comment from the kingdom but the claim came exactly a week
after Saudi Arabia said a "suicide gunboat" belonging to
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels rammed into one of its frigates in
the Red Sea, killing two crew members... The Houthis said in a
statement carried by the rebel-run SABA news agency that the missile
"targeted" the al-Mazahmiya army base in western Riyadh,
around 1,000 kilometers (650 miles) from Sanaa... On Thursday, the
UAE summoned Iran's top diplomat in Abu Dhabi and handed over a note
protesting the "illegal Iranian supplies of arms to the militias
in Yemen."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
A senior member of the Iranian parliament's National
Security and Foreign Policy Commission and former Islamic Revolution
Guards Corps official warned that the slightest aggression by
Washington against Iran will be responded by razing to the ground the
US military base in Bahrain. "The US army's fifth fleet has
occupied a part of Bahrain, and the enemy's farthest military base is
in the Indian Ocean but these points are all within the range of
Iran's missile systems and they will be razed to the ground if the
enemy makes a mistake," Mojtaba Zonour, a former advisor to the
Iranian Supreme Leader's Representative at the Islamic Revolution
Guards Corps (IRGC), said on Saturday evening.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi
announced that the country will release the list of the American
persons and institutions that have gone under sanction by Tehran for
their assistance to the Takfiri terrorists, in retaliation for
Washington's new embargos against Iran. "We have adopted special
measures against the US administration's unfair and incorrect acts
and we have put certain American institutions and individuals in the
list of sanctions, for their aid to the Takfiris, including the ISIL,
alongside the Zionist regime," Qassemi told reporters in his
weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday. "The measure is in
its final stages and we will release a list of them (the sanctioned
entities) soon," he added.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
House Speaker Paul Ryan said the nuclear agreement
with Iran is probably going to stay in place, despite significant
Republican opposition to the deal. "A lot of that toothpaste is
already out of the tube. I never supported the deal in the first
place. I thought it was a huge mistake, but the multilateral
sanctions are done," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the
Press" in a clip posted Friday. Elaborating further, Ryan said
it would be difficult to bring back the international community to a
point where many countries would isolate Iran. "I don't think
you're going to go back and reconstitute the multilateral sanctions
that were put in place," Ryan said... Ryan said he supported the
Trump administration's approach to Iran so far and that there was
broad support in Congress for further sanctions. He said the US needs
to "rachet up" sanctions where it can in response to Iran's
sponsoring of terrorism and testing ballistic missiles, while also
"rigorously" enforcing the nuclear deal. "I think we
should expend our effort where it can pay off the most," Ryan
said. "What they're doing now makes a lot of sense."
The United States should invest more in missile
defense given missile testing by North Korea and Iran, the chairman
of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee said on
Monday. The comments by Republican Representative Mac Thornberry
followed new U.S. sanctions against Iran after Tehran's recent
ballistic missile tests. Washington is also concerned North Korea may
be preparing to test a new ballistic missile... "If you look at
what's happening around the world, I would mention Iran and North Korea,
the importance of missile defense is increasing," Thornberry
said at a roundtable discussion with reporters.
BUSINESS RISK
A major airline company currently engaged in business
with Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, stands to receive
billions in tax breaks under a new plan being floated by a large
coalition of Republican lawmakers. A new tax plan spearheaded by
House Republicans includes a provision that would remove government
fees on exports, meaning that Boeing-which is locked in a
multi-billion dollar deal to sell the Islamic Republic planes-could
receive $56.7 billion in tax breaks from the U.S. taxpayer. Boeing is
currently lobbying in favor of the revamped tax plan, along with
other multinational corporations. Congressional sources who spoke to
the Washington Free Beacon about the plan raised concerns about the
benefit it would provide Boeing at a time when Iran continues to
harass U.S. interests in the Middle East and test nuclear-capable
weaponry.
A report by a leading Iranian newspaper says the
country has at least $18 billion still blocked in China in what
appears to be a result of complications related to previous sales of
oil to Beijing during the years of sanctions. The report by the
Persian-language newspaper Sharq said the amount had been announced
by Ali Kardor, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil
Company (NIOC). It added that the amount had been accumulated in
China after the government of Iran's former president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) sealed a contract with Beijing in 2008 by
means of which the money for oil that Iran sold to the country would
be used as "bail" for exports of Chinese products to the
Islamic Republic. The scheme apparently was devised after the sanctions
made it impossible for Iran to transfer the money for the oil it sold
to other countries to its own accounts.
Oman and Iran have agreed to change the route of a
planned undersea gas export pipeline, to avoid waters controlled by
the United Arab Emirates, Iran's oil minister said on Tuesday after
meeting his Omani counterpart in Tehran. The planned pipeline would
connect Iran's vast gas reserves with Omani consumers as well as with
liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Oman that could re-export the
gas. In 2013 the two countries signed an agreement to supply gas to
Oman through the new pipeline in a deal valued at $60 billion over 25
years. After international sanctions on Tehran were lifted in January
2016 the two countries renewed efforts to implement the project but
it has also been delayed by disagreements over price and U.S.
pressure on Muscat to find other suppliers... The representatives
from Shell, Total and Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) also attended the
meeting in Tehran, Zanganeh said, and offered their proposals.
EXTREMISM
A senior Iranian government official on Saturday
warned Tehran would swiftly retaliate against Israel if the US
launched a military strike against Iran. Mojtaba Zonour, a member of
Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and a former
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps official, boasted an Iranian missile
could hit Tel Aviv in under seven minutes, the semi-official Fars
News Agency reported. Zonour said Tehran would strike the Israeli
coastal city and "raze to the ground" a US military base in
Bahrain "if the enemy makes a mistake." "And only
seven minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel
Aviv," he added.
HUMAN RIGHTS
A scientist who worked for a Belgian university has
been sentenced to death in Iran on suspicion of espionage. Ahmadreza
Djalali, an Iranian national and professor of disaster medicine at
the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), was arrested in April 2016
while visiting family in the country. He is due to be
executed in two weeks, according to VUB. Dr Djalali's family and
colleagues kept news of the arrest quiet in an attempt to avoid
worsening the situation but have spoken out following the issuance of
the death penalty. The university's rector, Caroline Pauwels, said: "A
scientist performing important humanitarian work, gets sentenced
without public trial and is looking at the death penalty. This is an
outrageous violation of universal human rights, against which we
should react decisively." ... In custody, Dr Djalali conducted
three hunger strikes, according to the petition, which have cost him
his health and 20kg in bodyweight. He was forced to sign a confession
to an unknown offence, the petition said.
The officials of Evin Prison are denying Sabri
Hassanpour, an Iranian-born citizen of the Netherlands and outspoken
critic of the Islamic Republic who has been imprisoned in Iran since
March 2016, open-heart surgery, according to an informed source. The
source told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that prison
officials continue to refuse requests by Hassanpour for
hospitalization outside the prison to receive the surgery, which was
recommended by a doctor. "We don't know what the Dutch government
or embassy have done for him, if anything," said the source.
Hassanpour's wife is unable to follow up on his case because she
lives in Holland with their child and can't travel to Iran to pursue
his case with the Judiciary without also risking arrest, added the
source... The Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization
arrested Hassanpour, 65, in April 2016 in the southern city of
Khorramshahr while he was visiting his relatives for the Persian new
year, the source told the Campaign.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
The world has been wondering if the Trump
Administration will withdraw from President Obama's nuclear agreement
with Iran, and the answer appears to be no. That makes sense given
the break it would cause with U.S. allies and the opening for Iran to
make more mischief. But it does look as if President Trump may be
willing to do what Mr. Obama refused to do, which is to rigorously
enforce the agreement and push back against Iran's aggression in the
Middle East. That was the message Wednesday when national security
adviser Michael Flynn responded to Tehran's latest ballistic-missile
test by saying the U.S. had put Iran "on notice." Mr. Flynn
cited the missile tests and Iranian arms to the Houthi militia in
Yemen but he offered no details on how the U.S. might respond. Then
on Friday the Treasury Department followed through with a new round
of sanctions on Iran's global procurement network. The new sanctions,
which target 25 individuals and businesses, offer a revealing glimpse
at the scope of Iran's efforts to develop its missile arsenal. Beyond
key Iranian figures, the sanctions hit procurement networks in China,
Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Some provide Iran with ball
bearings, composite fibers and other dual-use technologies; others
funnel cash transfers and launder funds for terrorist groups such as
Hezbollah. An array of front groups and shell companies cover the
tracks... Iran's missile launch is a deliberate effort to test the
seriousness of the new U.S. Administration. Iran may now decide to
test the White House again on how far it is willing to go to enforce
the meaning of "on notice." The more unequivocal the
Administration's response, the sooner Tehran will get the message
that, this time, it faces a U.S. government that means what it says.
In launching the missile, Iran presumably expected the
usual round of sputtering and tut-tutting from Europe and the United
Nations. What Tehran didn't know - but most certainly was seeking to
gauge - was the response from President Trump. Iran's leaders - like North
Korea's Kim Jong Un and, heck, every other leader in the world - have
no idea what to expect from the blustering, often-contradictory
Trump. Neither do most Americans, possibly including top aides. Trump
harshly criticized the Obama nuclear deal but hasn't said much since
taking office about tearing it up... Trump needn't tread lightly for
fear that Iran will abandon the deal. Its leaders won't. The regime
is vulnerable to harsh economic sanctions. Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei grudgingly negotiated a pact with the Great
Satan because of stifling economic sanctions. Curbs of that severity,
now largely lifted, won't be revived in a hurry, or probably at all.
Chicago's Boeing is already selling planes to Tehran, and European
companies are piling back into the country to do business. But Trump
and his Treasury Department still have power to make it hard for Iran
to do business with banks and companies that want to do business with
the U.S. That is, almost everyone. Any hint of a chill from Washington
would spook Western companies. They already see Tehran as a risky
place to hustle business. This is a regime that takes foreign
hostages and extracts ransoms. A new president confronts an old
adversary. Stay tuned. More fireworks guaranteed.
As Team Trump begins just its third full week in
office, confrontation with Iran has clearly moved to the top of that
list of early potential flashpoints. Moreover, this appears to be one
of those intentional standoffs, or at least one that neither side will
shy away from. The upshot is that risky times lie ahead-with Iran,
inside neighboring Iraq, and with American allies in the region...
The big danger is that hard-line elements in Tehran will be empowered
internally by the confrontation, which they will use to vindicate
their argument that the U.S. was never to be trusted in the first
place. That attitude may be particularly acute as the hard-liners
jockey for position in elections coming up this spring. They have
plenty of weapons at their disposal, most notably unleashing
terrorism, sponsoring more attacks on American troops in Iraq and
pressuring the Iraqi government to scale back cooperation with the
U.S. Bottom line: This won't be a short-lived production, but rather
a drama destined for a long run.
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