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Eye on Iran will
next be published on Monday, July 9. Happy Independence Day!
TOP STORIES
The Trump administration is weighing whether to label a
powerful arm of Iran's military as a terrorist group, part of an
effort to use every possible tool in the box to pressure
Tehran.
The Trump administration will consider requests for
waivers from economic sanctions against Iran on a
"case-by-case" basis, a senior State Department official
said Monday, a step back from threats to insist on zero imports by a
Nov. 4 deadline. Buyers of Iranian crude oil have been hoping for
relief from U.S. sanctions to have more time to reduce purchases.
An Iranian diplomat has been arrested along with two
people suspected of plotting a bomb attack on a meeting of an exiled
Iranian opposition group in France attended by Donald Trump's lawyer
Rudy Giuliani, Belgian authorities said on Monday.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Foreign ministers of Iran and the five world powers
still party to its nuclear accord will meet in Vienna on Friday to
discuss ways of maintaining the deal after the withdrawal of the
United States, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday.
"At the meeting, which will be held at the request of Iran,
foreign ministers of Iran and five world powers will discuss a
proposed European package and measures to protect the
agreement," IRNA said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani goes to Switzerland and
Austria this week with the landmark nuclear accord negotiated in the
two Alpine countries hanging in the balance. The state visits to Bern
on Tuesday and Vienna on Wednesday are likely to be Rouhani's last
before President Donald Trump begins reimposing sanctions on the
Islamic Republic Aug. 6.
The Obama administration granted citizenship to 2,500
Iranians, including family members of government officials, while
negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, a senior cleric and member of
parliament has claimed.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said regional oil
exports may be threatened if the United States tries to pressure its
allies to stop buying Iranian crude oil, his website reported on
Tuesday. He did not elaborate, and his comments could be open to
interpretation. However, they could be seen as a tacit threat to
interfere with the shipping of Iran's neighbors.
The State Department gave an update on its pressure
campaign to isolate Iran just as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is
traveling through Europe to save key provisions of the nuclear deal
that the U.S. left earlier this year. In a briefing at the State
Department, Senior Policy Adviser Brian Hook said Secretary of State
Michael Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have sent teams
of policy experts to explain to governments and the private sector
the risks of working with Iran.
The United States aims to reduce Tehran's oil revenue to
zero in an effort to force the Iranian leadership to change its
behavior in the region and believes there is enough spare global oil
capacity to make up for lower supply from Iran, a senior U.S. State
Department policy adviser said on Monday.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran's southwest region has experienced a shortage of
drinking water in the last few days. Residents of the Khuzestan
province, particularly in the cities of Khorramshahr and Abadan, have
staged protests, with some protests turning violent.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
The United States is not pursuing regime change in Iran,
a top State Department official insisted today, even while he
highlighted recent Iranian protests, the Iranian currency's plunge in
value against the dollar and the Donald Trump administration's urging
of countries around the world to drop their imports of Iranian oil to
zero by November.
SYRIA, RUSSIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
During an upcoming one-on-one meeting, President Donald
Trump is expected to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to
kick Iranian forces out of Syria, national security adviser John
Bolton said Sunday.
Despite a recent report by UK-based Syrian Human Rights
Observatory, saying that Hezbollah and Iranian troops had withdrawn
from the Syrian south, accounts are emerging to the contrary.
Israel's security officials are concerned that Iran
might try to target senior Israeli officials while they are abroad.
An Iranian general has accused Israel of causing climate
change in the revolutionary Shiite Muslim republic by stealing the
water out of clouds passing over the Mediterranean.
Israel is facing a complicated situation on its Syrian
border as Iran keeps reinforcing its presence in the country, the
Syrian army gets closer to Israel and refugees continue to flee the
combat zones.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
In late April, an anonymous but high-ranking official at
the Central Bank of Iran told a pro-regime news agency that, due to
its turbulent relationship with the UAE, Tehran is expanding its
foreign currency relations with Qatar... The US should worry about
the convergence between Iran and Qatar. If the nuclear deal implodes
and sanctions return, their effectiveness will depend on preventing
Tehran from developing illicit pathways to access foreign markets...
The US should warn Qatar about its relations with Tehran and prepare
a detailed plan on how to respond to the Qatari government's actions
in regard to such demands.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
Twitter has blocked two accounts belonging to Hamas and
closed or blocked some 35 Hamas and Hezbollah accounts in Israel. The
action comes about two weeks after Israel's public security and
strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan, sent a letter to the social
media network's CEO and executive chairman saying that Twitter has
been "largely irresponsive to requests by the Israeli
authorities to remove terrorist content and shut down terrorist
accounts.
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