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TOP STORIES
Iran is trying to keep Europe on its side as questions
mount about the future of its nuclear deal with Western powers and
suspected Israeli airstrikes on its bases in Syria.
Israel said on Tuesday it does not seek war with Iran
and suggested U.S. President Donald Trump backed Israel's latest
attempt to kill the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by disclosing purported
evidence of past Iranian nuclear arms work.
A senior Iranian official said Tuesday the Islamic
Republic will respond "at the appropriate time and place"
to a purported Israeli missile strike that killed several Iranian
troops in Syria.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Lieberman: To me, it looked like a very significant
intelligence coup by the Israeli intelligence community. And I was
struck that our new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he had
seen some of the intelligence when he was in Israel and he thought it
was real.
Here we are again, being asked to disappear from view
before a May 12th election in Iraq. The move to shut down ground
operations command in Iraq ahead of an election is more than
symbolic. It means something to the Iraqis, more to the Iranians, and
a great deal to the U.S. because it will result in a loss of
situational awareness. Our eyes and ears on the ground will now be
behind high walls and could lead to security backslide in areas
cleared of ISIS.
In its coverage of the Syrian civil war, the media has
ignored a key factor that fuels the ongoing tragedy. We know a lot
about the war crimes committed by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad,
and we also know that Iran and Russia are the key enablers of the
Assad regime. However, few analysts have bothered to ask: who has
been enabling the enablers? The answer contains the dirty secret of
Syria.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said he
did not know whether U.S. President Donald Trump would stick to the
2015 Iran nuclear deal that many in the West see as the best hope of
preventing Tehran from getting a nuclear bomb.
China's foreign ministry on Wednesday reiterated that
all sides should continue to uphold the Iran nuclear agreement, and
that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said many
times Iran is in compliance with the deal.
Agents of Israel's spy agency Mossad smuggled hundreds
of kilograms of paper and digital files on Iran's clandestine nuclear
weapons program out of the Islamic Republic with Iranian agents
"on their tails," Hadashot television news reported Tuesday
night, based on briefings by Israeli officials.
Iran's fragile economic recovery is in jeopardy with
President Donald Trump widely expected to scrap an
internationally-brokered nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions against
the regime.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday
that while she would prefer the United States remained part of the
Iran nuclear deal, it won't be "the end of the world" if
President Trump decides to pull out.
A trove of documents unveiled by Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu at a televised press conference yesterday appears
to add little to what was already known about Iran's former covert
nuclear weapons program. But Tehran's leaders have at least two
reasons to want to deny their authenticity.
Iran's government will need to accelerate economic
reforms, including plans to overhaul its banking system, should
President Donald Trump decide to quit the 2015 nuclear accord with
the Islamic Republic, according to a senior International Monetary
Fund official.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a
treasure trove of secrets on Monday about Iran's hidden nuclear
activities. But it would be a waste of this extraordinary
intelligence to use it as a pretext for American withdrawal from the
Iran nuclear deal. Much better to use it as a pressure tool to
squeeze Tehran.
Tehran's mendacity harbors practical implications for
enforcement of the 2015 nuclear deal. By refusing to come clean on
its past nuclear work, the clerical regime prevents nuclear
inspectors from establishing a baseline for verification, potentially
enabling Tehran to conceal illicit nuclear activities. At the very
least, Iran's caginess suggests that it retains the ability and
intent to resume its nuclear program at a time of its choosing.
[I]f the president pulls America from the deal and
simply lists its flaws, even longtime critics of the accord (myself
included) should withhold their applause... [W]ithdrawing from the
agreement is an act, not a strategy. And an Iran strategy is what we
need.
Monday's news is that Iran didn't honor its end of the
bargain and neither need the United States now. Punitive sanctions
combined with a credible threat of military force should follow.
Many articles will dissect Iran's diplomatic duplicity.
Some pundits may even examine a religious angle, arguing that
Iranians can justify telling lies for a higher purpose. Its opponents
will call for tossing out the JCPOA; others will urge its repair. Few
will attempt to scrutinize the technical details that formed the
basis of Netanyahu's case. That's a pity; it's challenging to
comprehend, but not impossible. What Netanyahu revealed suggests that
Iran was much closer to a deliverable nuclear weapon than many
experts - even those, including me, who previously were skeptical of
its denials - may have imagined before the JCPOA was signed.
SYRIA, ISRAEL & IRAN
An Israeli airstrike on the western Syrian city of Hama
on Sunday killed two dozen Iranian soldiers and targeted arms
recently delivered from Iran, said three U.S. officials, and is the
latest sign that Israel and Iran are moving closer to open warfare.
Isolated in the barren sands of central Syria and
measuring five miles across in some areas is the country's largest
airbase... Today, the base is the focus of an emerging, potentially
catastrophic war, fought not between the Syrian regime and its
domestic foes, but two of the region's most formidable enemies:
Israel and Iran. T-4 is where Iran has established a military
foothold in its Arab ally.
ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran's crude exporters had a banner April, with
shipments soaring to a record right before the possible re-imposition
of U.S. sanctions on their oil sales.
Iran is ready to participate in a gas swap between
Pakistan and Turkmenistan, but a long-planned pipeline to transport
gas from Turkmenistan to India is unlikely to become operational,
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Hundreds of Iranians have defied a ban on protests to
mark International Labor Day, with police detaining at least six
people.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Morocco will sever diplomatic ties with Iran over
Tehran's support for the Polisario Front, a Western Sahara
independence movement, the Moroccan foreign minister said on Tuesday.
The prominent NGO Stop the Bomb slammed German President
Frank-Walter Steinmeier for welcoming a delegation of Iranian
regime-affiliated extremists to the Bellevue Palace in Berlin on
Monday.
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