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TOP STORIES
Iran, already struggling to attract investors to its
energy industry, may find things tougher still as U.S. President
Donald Trump tries to undermine the nuclear deal that eased sanctions
on OPEC's third-largest crude producer. His efforts won't immediately
curb the flow of some 2.3 million barrels of daily Iranian crude
exports -- more than three times the amount of oil the U.S. has sold
abroad over the past year. For investors, however, the risks could be
higher. Companies such as Total SA, which in July became the first
major Western energy company to sign a production deal with Iran since
the 2015 accord, may face new hurdles in contributing to the Persian
Gulf country's estimated $100 billion need for oil and natural gas
investment.
U.S. President Donald Trump will make an announcement
this week on an "overall Iran strategy," including whether
to decertify the international deal curbing Tehran's nuclear program,
the White House said on Tuesday. .. Trump, who has called the 2015
pact agreed between Iran and six world powers an
"embarrassment," is expected to announce that he will
decertify the deal ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline, a senior
administration official said last week. Trump is also expected
to designate Iran's most powerful security force, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corp, as a terrorist organization as part of a
new Iran strategy. "The president has reached a decision
on an overall Iran strategy and wants to make sure that we have a
broad policy to deal with ... all of the problems of Iran being a bad
actor," Sanders said.
A decision by President Trump to back out of the Iranian
nuclear agreement could derail billions of dollars in Western
investment heading toward Iran and trigger European economic
retaliation against U.S. businesses, analysts say... [T]he
climate of uncertainty surrounding the deal would likely make
companies in Europe, Japan and elsewhere think twice about investing
in Iran for fear of violating reimposed sanctions.
UANI IN THE NEWS
(6:14) "[I]t's in all the P5+1's interests to renegotiate
the problematic provisions..."
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) last week admitted an inconvenient truth. The U.N. watchdog,
said Yukiya Amano, has proven unable to verify Iran's compliance with
Section T of the 2015 nuclear deal, which prohibits activities that
could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device.
This disclosure comes as no surprise to critics of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), who have long noted its failure
to secure full access to key military sites such as Parchin, where
Tehran previously engaged in weaponization efforts. But Amano's
statement also quashes another myth. Contrary to widespread media
reporting, the IAEA has never fully certified Iran's compliance with
the JCPOA.
President Donald Trump is taking considerable heat for
his expected announcement this week that he will
"decertify" the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Critics say he is
heedlessly discarding a deal that has been working, and needlessly
putting America on a collision course with Iran. As it turns out,
Trump is actually not poised to "rip up the deal." By
decertifying it, the president and his advisors are, in fact,
signaling their intent to strengthen it, with the help of Congress,
so that the deal advances U.S. national security interests.
Britain has urged the United States to extend the Iran
nuclear deal, with Prime Minister Theresa May saying it is
"vitally important for regional security." May's office
said she and President Donald Trump spoke late Tuesday and both sides
agreed their teams would remain in contact ahead of Trump's decision
on the pact.
Angry at the options he was presented with last July
when he reluctantly agreed to certify to Congress that Iran was in
compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal (the JCPOA), President Trump
demanded another option for his next certification decision due by
October 15. He didn't get it. Instead, the president's national
security advisers - led by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster
and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- have presented him with two
absurd options to "decertify" the JCPOA but to keep the
United States in this deeply flawed agreement. These options
are so bad that they are best described as "dumb" and
"dumber."
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
Iran is illicitly proliferating nuclear weapon and
ballistic missile related technology? No shock, Sherlock.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
[Iranian President Hassan Rouhani] gave a full-throated
defense of his one-time rivals in the Revolutionary Guards on
Wednesday, as the country's pragmatist and hardline factions rallied
together in the face of threats from Donald Trump.
A spokesman for Iran's armed forces warned U.S.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday against threatening the Islamic
Republic and said Iranian forces would teach the United States
"new lessons."
CONGRESS & IRAN
President Trump should try to negotiate new restrictions
on Iran's "malign behavior" without declaring an
international nuclear deal with the regime at odds with American
interests, according to a Senate Democratic foreign policy leader.
"Call on Congress to join him in a bipartisan way in supporting
the tougher measures we should be taking against Iran," Delaware
Sen. Chris Coons, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told reporters Tuesday. "That would demonstrate genuine
leadership domestically."
"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),
otherwise known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, is not in America's best
interests, and President Trump should not recertify this so-called
'deal'. The JCPOA is not a blueprint for how to prevent Iran from acquiring
a nuclear weapon. It is the pathway for exactly how Iran can acquire
a nuclear weapon. .. If Iran wants to save the JCPOA, the regime will
need to step up to the plate and help turn this into a reasonable
agreement. The verification regime must become adequate and
transparent and many of Iran's other bad activities will need to
cease. If Iran does not want to save the JCPOA then the sanctions
should immediately ramp back up. I am confident that our great
partners abroad recognize the urgency of supporting this necessary
course correction."
SANCTIONS RELIEF
An Italian asset manager has become the first foreign
investment group to buy a stake in an Iranian financial company, amid
threats by US President Donald Trump to withdraw his endorsement of
the nuclear agreement which opened the country to inward investment.
Azimut, a €48bn group headquartered in Milan, is to acquire 20 per
cent of Mofid Entekhab, an Iranian asset manager, for an undisclosed
sum.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
It is, perhaps, the worst kept secret
in Washington that President Donald Trump will later this week
announce that America is about to enter a new era of confrontation
with Iran. The president will herald his new approach by announcing
that he is not prepared to certify that Iran is complying with the
nuclear deal it agreed in 2015 with six world powers, including
Britain and the US, which was supposed to end decades of hostility
over the ayatollahs' obsession with developing nuclear weapons.
IRAQ CRISIS
In the aftermath of the September 25
Kurdish independence referendum, Iran has deployed additional
military forces and equipment to the border with northern Iraq,
deliberately moving them through Iranian Kurdish towns in broad
daylight as a show of force to audiences at home and abroad. The
deployments are in keeping with Tehran's hardline posture leading up
the vote, with the political leadership and military branches
explicitly signaling that the outcome is unacceptable. Iran also
appears to be soliciting Baghdad and Turkey's help in preparing for
potential escalation against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's Judiciary chief Sadegh Larijani delivered a
direct response to statements of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in
a quick return of skirmishes and deep disputes among high-rank
officials in Tehran. "Someone said that the
judiciary body is summoning people due to its unemployment. If
someone has to be unemployed then it is you, who have abandoned the
country affairs four years ago and pursued the nuclear agreement as
if Iran has no other problems and affairs," Larijani stated.
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