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TOP STORIES
Basking in the afterglow of his apparently constructive
meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump said
that he'd soon like a "real deal" with the U.S.' other
long-time enemy Iran.
German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd has stopped one of two
feeder services to Iran and will decide on the remaining one before a
Nov. 4 deadline imposed by the United States, which has reimposed
sanctions on Tehran.
U.S. President Donald Trump's Republican allies in
Congress are moving to block his deal to put Chinese telecom giant
ZTE back in business if it pays $1 billion more in fines for
violating U.S. sanctions against Iran... Democratic and Republican
lawmakers have said they believe ZTE's sales to Iran represent
particularly "dangerous" breaches of U.S. national
security. Legislators said they are planning to block the ZTE deal in
an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, a big defense
policy bill the Senate is due to debate this week.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Smart negotiations with Kim could help to rein in North
Korea's nuclear activities and significantly disrupt Iran's efforts
to improve upon its ballistic missile capabilities.
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran
deal, and to relentlessly pressure the Islamic Republic, has elicited
a predictable response. Critics cite history, particularly a
counterproductive 1953 coup, as a reason to oppose the strategy. But
looking more closely at the past shows that a regime-collapse
containment policy is the best way to effect change.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Tehran had hoped for high profits from deals with Europe
and U.S. companies - but now the regime faces abandonment by them -
and the economic woes have started to create pressures on Tehran. The
decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull his country out of
the Iran nuclear deal has already wreaked widespread economic damage
to Iranians.
The new sanctions regime would give much less leeway for
Iran to act like a rogue state. There is no need to negotiate with
Iran's government directly and wait for it to comply with the U.S.-UN
sanction swap. With bold U.S. leadership and determination to act,
the international community can make that call for Iran and push the
country towards a better, less belligerent future.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
OPEC members are expected to consider increasing oil
production at their June 22 meeting in Vienna, something the United
States reportedly has unofficially requested of some OPEC members.
International media have reported that the United States asked Saudi
Arabia and a number of other OPEC members to cover the deficit that
might occur on the international market due to US President Donald
Trump's decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
NORTH KOREA & IRAN
Iran warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un not to trust
U.S. President Donald Trump who, it said, could cancel their
denuclearization agreement within hours.
SYRIA, RUSSIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has criticized a top
Iranian general for comments he reportedly made recently in which he
praised Iran-backed groups for making gains in last month's
parliamentary elections... Hariri told reporters later Monday that
the comments are "regrettable," adding that interfering in
Lebanon's internal affairs is "not in their (Iran's) interest,
nor those of Lebanon or the region."
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
In May 2016, the Reformist Hope faction participated in
its first intra-parliamentary vote, for speaker, a few months after
its overwhelming victory in legislative elections. Mohammad Reza
Aref, head of the List of Hope, a coalition of Reformists and
moderates supporting President Hassan Rouhani, lost his bid for the
speakership. Instead, Ali Larijani, the conservative who had long
held the post, was re-elected with 173 votes to Aref's 103.
CHINA & IRAN
China and Iran have agreed to strengthen strategic
cooperation during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to China,
possibly paving the way for steady crude flows between the two
countries. The meeting with China's president Xi Jinping took place
on Sunday on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
summit in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, and comes at a time
when Iran faces reimposition of sanctions by the US, which could
impact its crude oil exports.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
Politicians in the northern German city of Hamburg
rekindled on Monday a call from last year to cancel the city's
contract with an Iranian-regime controlled institution because it
participated in the annual al-Quds Day rally in Berlin, which calls
for the destruction of the Jewish state.
With Iran's belligerence in the Middle East growing
daily, through its interventions in Iraq and Syria, where it has put
in place a land corridor for which to supply its terror proxy
Hezbollah, in a bid to make it easier for its Quds Force to penetrate
the Gulf states, it has to be remembered that past actions can often
reflect on the shape of things to come. Almost 22 years on, from the
1996 June 25 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi
Arabia, in which the role of the Iranian-backed Saudi Hezbollah
al-Hejaz's was highlighted in US and Saudi intelligence reports; with
the US pulling out of the Iran Deal, it could herald an aggressive
Iranian regime planning similar attacks in the near future.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran's efforts to interfere in Iraq's political affairs
appeared again Monday after reports that Qassem Soleimani, the head
of Iran's Quds Force, made attempts to unite Tehran's allies ahead of
the formation of the biggest parliamentary bloc in Iraq which would
be responsible for forming the new government.
Iran's decision to cut the flow of water from Lower Zab
River into northern Iraq has exacerbated water crisis in the
Kurdistan region. According to Arab and Kurdish media, residents of
Qaladze, a city of about 140,000 inhabitants located north of
Sulaymaniyah, staged protest rallies last week condemning the Iranian
decision and calling on government authorities to address the issue.
The battle to determine the composition of the next
Iraqi government has not yet been won, but Iran could secure a
strategic victory in the face of lackluster engagement by the United
States. Senior U.S. foreign policy officials are distracted by the
upcoming summit with North Korea, while those assigned to push back
against Iranian influence are solely focused on re-imposing sanctions
- failing to appreciate the significance of this potential turning
point for Tehran's regional influence.
As Washington mulls sanctions on Asaib Ahl al-Haq and
similar groups, it should mind the volatility of Baghdad's near-term
political situation and the questionable efficacy of 'wing'
distinctions.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The attendance of President Hassan Rouhani at the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China had one
primary goal: to push China and Russia to do what they can to
preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which the U.S. abandoned in
May. Unsurprisingly, as foreign companies increasingly leave Iran
under American pressure, Rouhani's tone at the SCO gathering hinted
at Iranian desperation.
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