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TOP STORIES
Iran reacted skeptically Tuesday to President Donald
Trump saying that he's willing to negotiate with his Iranian
counterpart "anytime," but top officials did not reject a
sit-down out of hand.
Iran's rial rebounded from a series of record lows on
Tuesday, after President Donald Trump said he would talk to Iran
without preconditions and Iranian officials appeared not to
immediately dismiss the idea.
An English court has cleared the way to consider whether
it will allow the families of some of those killed in the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks on the United States to make a claim on Iranian assets
in Britain. The relatives want the English High Court to enforce a
2012 decision by a U.S. court which found there was evidence to show
that Iran provided "material support and resources to al Qaeda
for acts of terrorism."
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iranian lawmakers have given President Hassan Rouhani
one month to appear before parliament to answer questions on his
government's handling of Iran's economic struggles, state media
reported on Wednesday. It is the first time parliament has summoned
Rouhani, who is under pressure from hardline rivals to change his
cabinet following a deterioration in relations with the United States
and Iran's growing economic difficulties.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
On Friday, my sister publicly disowned me on prime-time
Iranian television. I can't say this comes out of nowhere. Over
the past two decades - as a journalist critical of the regime, as an
outspoken feminist and ultimately a dissident living in exile in
America - the Islamic Republic has tried to intimidate me and my
family, which still lives in the poor village where I was raised in
northern Iran.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iranian politicians reacted to Donald Trump's offer of
talks with the Islamic regime's leaders with suspicion, believing the
US president was attempting to deepen the divide between the people
and the state.
The head of Iran's most powerful military body on
Tuesday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's offer of direct talks
with Iranian leaders, saying Tehran never would allow talks with what
he called the "Great Satan."
Iran reacted skeptically Tuesday to US President Donald
Trump saying that he's willing to negotiate with his Iranian
counterpart "anytime," but a former adviser to the
country's supreme leader said Tehran should not reject a sit-down out
of hand.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo supports President
Donald Trump's statement that he is willing to sit down for talks
with Iranian officials, the State Department said on Tuesday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has discussed conditions
that Iran must fulfill before President Donald Trump will meet with
the Middle Eastern nation, contradicting the president's earlier
statements.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has no intention of
meeting his Iranian counterpart at an international gathering this
weekend in Singapore, even as President Donald Trump says he is
willing to talk with Tehran about its nuclear weapons development program.
President Donald Trump's offer of dialogue with Tehran
belies a hardening of U.S. policy that intensifies economic and
diplomatic pressure but so far stops short of using his military to
more aggressively counter Iran and its proxies. U.S. officials tell
Reuters that the goal of Trump's push is to curb Iranian behavior,
which America, its Gulf allies and Israel say has fueled instability
in the region through Tehran's support for militant groups... But the
U.S. government has not clearly defined its desired end state for its
Iran policy or outlined a face-saving path for Iran's rulers that
would allow them to deescalate steadily mounting tensions between
Washington and Tehran, experts say.
Iran's leaders cannot stand the thought of talking to
the United States and say President Trump cannot be trusted. But
Jamshid Moniri, a 45-year-old building contractor sweating under the
Tehran summer sun, summed up what many ordinary Iranians think. "Of
course we should talk to Trump," he said on Tuesday. "What
is wrong with talks? We'd be nuts not to talk to him."
Our hope is that the president's comments don't
foreshadow another ill-judged attempt at personal diplomacy that ends
up saving a vicious regime's well-deserved demise.
Three men walk into a room: a dictator, an autocrat, and
an ayatollah. A fourth man asks them each for a meeting. The dictator
is desperate, grabs it and bags the benefits. The autocrat smiles and
sits smugly through it. The ayatollah doesn't answer. This will be President
Trump's conundrum with Iran: whatever he does, Iran will play the
long game.
What should we make of President Trump's offer this week
to meet with Iran's leaders without preconditions? Five hundred days
into the chaotic Trump presidency, not much... He is the first
president in American history who cannot define the national interest
untethered to his own personal vanity, political needs and obsession
to dominate every story. This isn't foreign policy; it's a soap
opera. Indeed, without a broader policy toward Iran, which this
administration does not have, there is far less going on here than
meets the eye.
The fact that Trump is even considering the prospect of
a meeting with Iranian officials given [his previous diplomatic]
embarrassments suggests that serious people should take him
literally. Trump's willingness to make concessions to rogue states,
whether he views them as concessions or not, is a real threat to U.S.
interests. The sooner that Trump is disabused of the notion that he
is a competent negotiator, the sooner we can lessen the risks
associated with his proclivity for fraught diplomatic endeavors.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Senior United States government officials told Israel
Tuesday that there is no change in U.S. policy on Iran, despite
recent statements from American President Donald Trump on his
willingness to meet with Iran.
Israel will be participating in Russia's International
Army Games for the second year in a row, sending delegations to the
games, which will also see the participation of teams from Iran and
Syria.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised
Donald Trump for an all-caps tweet in which the US president
threatened his Iranian counterpart with "consequences the likes
of which few throughout history have ever suffered before" if he
ever dared to threaten America again. "Over the years this
regime has been spoiled by the major powers, and it is good to see
that the US is changing this unacceptable equation," Netanyahu
gushed.
While the Russians work to reposition the Syrian regime
as guarantor of Israel's security and Syria's state media celebrate
the final acts of what they have long called a "global
conspiracy" against Syria, Bashar al-Assad still has much to
worry about: His survival was made possible by the support of Russia
and Iran, two countries with agendas and calculations beyond Syria's
borders... As such, Assad is eager to demonstrate his usefulness to
both of his patrons. He will continue to cast himself as one of the
pillars of Iran and Hezbollah's so-called axis of resistance against
Israel and the United States, especially as tensions ratchet up
between Tehran and Washington over a range of issues, including the
nuclear deal, Iran's role in the region, and sanctions.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's parliament announced Wednesday it would hold a
special session to question President Hassan Rouhani about the
plummeting currency and struggling economy.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Yemen's Houthi rebels are still arming themselves with
ballistic missiles and drones that "show characteristics
similar" to Iranian-made weapons, a report by a U.N. panel of
experts has found.
U.N. experts say Iran might be willing to play "a
constructive role" in ending the war in Yemen, though adding in
a new report that Tehran still appears to be arming Yemen's Houthi
Shiite rebels with ballistic missiles and drones.
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