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TOP STORIES
US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani have traded hostile warnings, amid rising tensions between
the two countries. Mr Trump tweeted Iran would "suffer
consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever
suffered before" if it threatened the US. Mr Rouhani earlier
said that war with Iran would be "the mother of all wars".
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 21
backed President Hassan Rohani's suggestion that Iran may block oil
exports from the Persian Gulf if its own exports are stopped.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a
rhetorical assault on Iran's leaders on Sunday, comparing them to a
"mafia" and promising unspecified backing for Iranians
unhappy with their government. Pompeo, in a California speech to a
largely Iranian-American audience, dismissed Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who negotiated a nuclear
deal with the United States and five other countries, as "merely
polished front men for the ayatollahs' international con
artistry."
UANI IN THE NEWS
In 2011, when the U.S. military
withdrew from Iraq, "Iran's pieces don't fit the game
board," said Norman Roule, who until September was the national
intelligence manager for Iran and is currently a senior adviser to
United Against Nuclear Iran. "With the collapse of Assad [in the
wake of the Arab Spring], the Yemen imbroglio and of course the U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq, suddenly Iran's pieces do fit."
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran was the second-biggest oil supplier to Indian state
refiners between April and June, India's oil minister said on Monday,
replacing Saudi Arabia as companies took advantage of steeper
discounts offered by Tehran.
With little more than two weeks to go until the first
set of fresh US sanctions is imposed on Iran, officials in Tehran and
the capitals of its major trading partners are struggling to find
ways to protect the commercial ties that have built up over the past
few years.
Congressional aides say legislators are abandoning an
effort to crack down on Chinese telecom giant ZTE, deferring to a
White House deal to save the company despite accusations that it
violated U.S. sanctions and sold sensitive technology to Iran and North
Korea.
How much oil from Iran will be disrupted because of U.S.
sanctions? American officials have gone back and forth on this, but
many of the people who decide how much Iranian oil will be knocked
offline are located in India and China.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is very worried about
Sakhi Righi, an Iranian blogger who has been held for the past nine
years and who has been on hunger strike for 26 days in protest
against his prison conditions and the prison administration's refusal
to grant him a parole.
Iranian authorities have increased their crackdown on
student protesters with prison terms and restrictions on their
peaceful activities, Human Rights Watch said today.
A group of labor representatives from around Iran
gathered during the country's 2018 national Social Security Day, July
16, in front of the Health Ministry in Tehran to protest what they
describe as the erosion of workers' health and other benefits.
A landmark bill to expand the legal definition of
violence against women remains stalled amid objections from the
Iranian judiciary.
In the video op-ed above, the British-Iranian actress
Nazanin Boniadi stands in solidarity with the Iranian teenager Maedeh
Hojabri. Iranian security agents arrested Ms. Hojabri in May for
posting videos of herself dancing on Instagram, where she has tens of
thousands of followers.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday cautioned
U.S. President Donald Trump about pursuing hostile policies against
Tehran, saying "war with Iran is the mother of all wars",
but did not rule out peace between the two countries.
The Trump administration has launched an offensive of
speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help
pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant
groups, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.
Speaking on Sunday before a partially Iranian American
audience at the Reagan Foundation in southern California, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran's leaders of stealing the country's
resources to spread revolution abroad and oppress Iran's 80 million
people.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Iran's
ruling elite and its religious leaders for using their positions to
"line their pockets" with riches while the average person
"cries out for jobs, reform, and opportunity."
The United States steadily continues to tighten the
screws on Iran, prompting an upswing in Iranian rhetoric implying that
closing the Strait of Hormuz is on the table as a military option in
response to U.S. actions. While Iran's naval capabilities are
ill-equipped for a total closure, these threats from high places may
reflect a less drastic but still dangerous escalation in the Strait.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Israeli jets reportedly carried out a strike Sunday on a
missile production facility in northwest Syria that observers say was
supervised by Iranians. In the past, the site was allegedly used to
produce and store chemical weapons.
Al Mayadeen news channel reported Sunday that Hezbollah
and Iran's Revolutionary Guards' members were killed in an Israeli
air strike against Syrian targets.
One thing we do know is that - post-summit - Trump now endorses
a deal on Syria that Putin struck the week before with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... Under the deal, Israel (and now the
United States, presumably) will formally endorse the Assad regime's
control over the area and work to implement the 1974 agreement, which
sets the physical borders and provides for U.N. observers to be
deployed in between the Syrians and Israelis. Under the new deal,
Russia agrees to keep Iranian troops and proxy groups 80 kilometers,
or about 50 miles, from Israel's border (if they can), and Putin
promises not to object if Israel strikes Iranian assets in southern
Syria, especially if Iran deploys weapons that threaten Israel, such
as strategic missiles or anti-aircraft systems. Of course, there's
broad skepticism about Russia's ability to force Iran to do anything
in Syria.
Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah's executive
council who was designated as a blacklisted terrorist by Saudi Arabia
in 2017, said that his militias "will not leave southern Syria
or Syria" while speaking at an honorary ceremony on Sunday...
According to local media reports and Hezbollah's media outlet, the
al-Manar channel, Safieddine confirmed that Hezbollah fighters were
heavily involved in the battles of Southern Syria, despite the Assad
regime saying that there were no foreign militias in the area.
Safieddine was placed on Saudi Arabia and the US's terrorist lists a
few weeks ago for his involvement in several terrorist operations,
and for his support of the Assad regime.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told
Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel will continue to target
Iranian military assets in Syria.
With its advanced missile arsenal, Hezbollah is better
prepared than ever to inflict maximum damage.
While Hezbollah knows how to preserve its power in
Lebanon, the Syrian theater is putting the organization in a state of
uncertainty.
OTHER IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
A top Iranian body on Saturday lifted a ban imposed by a
hardline-led council on a politician from the minority Zoroastrian
religion who had been elected to a city council in the central city
of Yazd, the state news agency IRNA reported.
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
It's no secret that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates loathe Iran. What's far more surprising is
that Iran seems to be wearing out its welcome even in the Arab
countries with which it is most closely allied. That, at least, is
the message of both a recent study of Syrian textbooks and a recent
wave of violent protests in Iraq.
The Israelis have bombed an Iranian base in southern
Syria three times, and are ready to do it again. They won't tolerate
"entrenchment and consolidation" so close.
CHINA & IRAN
Chinese President Xi Jinping met leaders of the United
Arab Emirates on Friday to bolster China's economic ties with a key
ally of Saudi Arabia, just as Beijing is emerging as a critical
partner for an increasingly isolated Iran.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
An Iranian-born man with a knife injured 10 people in an
attack aboard a bus in northern Germany before being overpowered by
passengers and arrested by police, the local prosecutor said. The
authorities on July 20 said there was no information on the motive
for the attack on a local bus in the northern city of Luebeck. They
added they had no immediate indication the suspect had any links to
terrorism or had been radicalized.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
I was born just three decades ago, long after the
"The Greatest Generation" endured the darkest chapter in
human history. I can only think their survival and ultimate triumph
over the forces of evil were meant to impart lessons to us all, so
that such horror never befalls the world again. It is encouraging to
hear US President Donald Trump make clear that we will not approach
Iran with the sort of appeasement policies that failed so miserably
to halt Nazi Germany's rise to power, or avert the costliest war ever
waged. Now, we all need to unite on a broader strategy to address the
Iranian regime's destabilizing behavior.
IRAQ, TURKEY & IRAN
Since August 2017, Turkey has said that Tehran and
Ankara would launch a joint campaign against the PKK.
On Monday, July 16, Iraqi protesters in the southern oil
city of Basra burned a poster of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei,
shouting "Iran out!" It was the culmination of a week of
protests targeting Iraqi government and party offices as well as
Iran, as people expressed anger over lack of jobs, electricity, water
and infrastructure in southern Iraq. Now Baghdad has suppressed the
protests with Iranian-backed militias and the U.S.-trained Iraqi
army... The protests offer an opportunity for Washington, after years
of working with Baghdad, to reappraise its policy and stop giving a
"blank check" to Iraq, which has empowered Iranian interests
and harmed U.S. allies on the ground.
CYBERWARFARE
Iranian hackers have laid the groundwork to carry out
extensive cyberattacks on U.S. and European infrastructure and on
private companies, and the U.S. is warning allies, hardening its
defenses and weighing a counterattack, say multiple senior U.S. officials.
MISCELLANEOUS
Nasrin Sheykhi's latest Donald Trump painting was on the
counter, but she was talking about an earlier piece. "I made his
character a wild animal stamped 'Made in Russia,'" she said...
But what makes Ms. Sheykhi unusual is not just her work as a caricaturist.
It is also that she is a Muslim woman from Iran who had never been to
the United States until after the Trump administration's ban on
travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.
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