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TOP STORIES
Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are pushing a
proposal that calls for President Donald Trump to declare that Tehran
has failed to comply with the agreement and to threaten an
unprecedented economic embargo designed to rattle the regime. The
document, which has been circulating on Capitol Hill and in the White
House, says the president should declare to Congress next month that
the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United
States. Then the president would make clear his readiness to hit Iran
with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to
meet certain conditions over a 90-day period, including opening
military sites to international inspectors.
The Trump administration imposed new sanctions against
11 firms and individuals for allegedly aiding Tehran's ballistic
missile program and helping it to conduct cyberattacks and support
terrorism, the U.S. Treasury said Thursday. The new sanctions come as
the administration is set to waive sanctions related to the 2015
international nuclear agreement. The new sanctions allow Washington
to keep a modicum of economic pressure on Iran despite reluctantly
keeping a landmark 2015 nuclear deal in place for now.
The Trump administration on Thursday extended sanctions
relief to Iran, avoiding imminent action that could implode the
landmark 2015 nuclear deal, even as President Donald Trump and
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Tehran of not respecting the
entire agreement. The extensions of the waivers on nuclear sanctions,
first issued by the Obama administration, were accompanied by new
penalties imposed against 11 Iranian people and companies accused of
supporting Iran's ballistic missile program or involvement in
cyber-attacks against the U.S. financial system.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Coming Attractions
-- N.J. Gov. Chris Christie has been added as a speaker at the UANI
Iran Summit next Tuesday at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. RSVP.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The Islamic Republic of Iran's pursuit of ballistic
missiles and continued support for designated terrorist organizations
violates the spirit of the 2015 nuclear deal, Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson said in London Thursday. Tillerson recalled the preamble of
the agreement, which expected the deal "will positively
contribute to regional and international peace and security,"
and contrasted it with the regime's continued malign activity in the
region. "Iran is clearly in default of these expectations of the
JCPOA," he said.
The United States is "seeking excuses" to tear
up the nuclear deal with Iran by demanding military site inspections,
one of the Islamic republic's top security officials said on
Friday.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
The United States is looking to counter Iranian
influence in the Middle East with a more aggressive approach in
cyberspace. "They operate almost entirely in what we refer to as
the gray zone, that space between normal international competition
and armed conflict," the commander of U.S. Central Command,
General Joseph Votel, said Wednesday in Washington, calling it
"an area ripe for cyberspace operations."
The United States must consider the full threat it says
Iran poses to the Middle East when formulating its new policy toward
Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday,
adding that Iran had breached the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to hold
a first meeting on the Iran nuclear deal with Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif and other parties to the agreement next week at
the United Nations, diplomats said Thursday.
Two months after an Israeli legal rights NGO warned
US-based Boeing that it will place liens on its planes if it followed
through with a since completed deal with Iran, a Chicago federal
court is asking US [President] Donald Trump to decide if Boeing must
disclose details of the controversial transaction.
NORTH KOREA AND IRAN
As North Korea continues its march towards developing a
reliable long-range nuclear missile, US officials are becoming
increasingly vocal about concerns over Pyongyang's ties to another
familiar adversary: Iran. Despite current restrictions in place to monitor
and curtail Iran's nuclear program, several lawmakers and members of
the intelligence community have warned in recent weeks that Tehran
could theoretically purchase technology or knowledge related to
building a nuclear weapon in the future.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The German Federal Court of Justice will rule on whether
three businessmen can face criminal penalties for selling nuclear
technology to Iran, allegedly to be used to develop weapons, prior to
the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers... The
businessmen - Bernd Gehrad L., René L. and Ralf C. - delivered 51
highly specialized valves to Iran between 2010 and 2011. The value of
the valves, including the delivery to a sanctioned Iranian company, amounted
to €1 million.
Russia, Turkey and Iran have agreed to set up
de-escalation zones in Syria for six months, negotiators for the
three nations said in a joint statement Friday after talks in
Kazakhstan. The zones will include, fully or partly, Eastern Ghouta,
the provinces of Idlib, Homs, Latakia, Aleppo and Hama, according to
the statement. The six-month term may be extended in the future.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
In recent weeks, Tehran's foreign exchange and gold
markets have experienced instability as the local currency has
declined in value and the price of gold has risen. The Iranian
currency, Toman has lost around 12% of its value Hadi Ghavami, deputy
chairman of parliament's Budget Commission has said that the
instability has several reasons, but the main culprit is lower oil
prices creating a sudden budget deficit for the government.
Iran's on-off space programme has received a boost after
a recent satellite launch was seen to annoy Washington, with Tehran
dusting off plans for a manned mission, perhaps with Moscow's
assistance. "Ten skilled pilots are currently undergoing
difficult and intensive training so that two of them... can be
selected for the space launch," the head of the science
ministry's aerospace research centre, Fathollah Omi, told the state
broadcaster last week. He said the plan was to put humans into
suborbital space "in less than eight years".
OPINION & ANALYSIS
On August 24th, Qatar announced that it was sending an
Ambassador back to Tehran. This move by Doha sparked a series of
columns in Saudi and Emirati publications that highlighted Qatar's
close relations with the Quartet's (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and
Egypt) mutual opponent, rival, and at times, "fren-enemy" -
the Islamic Republic of Iran. Similar to previous publications during
the feud, most of these stories can be considered hyperbolic
disinformation that reasserts the Quartet's core complaint that Qatar
is making nice with the enemy and thereby undermining the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC). Washington commentators and US officials
also met these reports with concern, given the Trump administration's
efforts to pushback on Iran's regional behavior. While Iran does
present a dangerous problem the GCC must solve, Qatar's relationship
with the Islamic Republic is quite complex.
In this case, the experts are not only wrong on the
facts, but they are also looking at the situation through the wrong
end of the telescope. For all of his faults, Trump's instinctive
desire to end the nuclear deal is more reality-based than the
arguments of his critics. He should stop listening to them and begin
the process of decertifying the nuclear agreement.
So what are the
president's options for October? He can still tear up the deal
entirely, a scenario endorsed by John Bolton and previously promised
by Trump. Another option would be to decertify Iran's compliance with
the deal but not reinstate sanctions, not yet anyway... Obama, it's
abundantly clear, painted his successor-whether it was to be Trump or
Hillary Clinton-into a corner, one colored in the hues of the Islamic
Republic. The question is whether Trump is capable of charting a way
out.
I believe Qatar has a big problem - not knowing what
they want. Unless they make up their mind, they won't stop playing
games and changing their stand so frequently. Saudi Arabia is right
to demand a clear and stated position before we go forward! With Iran
and company, any less is pointless!
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