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TOP STORIES
The Trump administration is pressuring
Iraq to stop buying energy from its neighbor and sole foreign
supplier, Iran, in what has become a major point of conflict between
Washington and Baghdad. Iraqi leaders, fearing that a further
shortfall in power would lead to mass protests and political
instability in their electricity-starved country, are pushing back on
the demand, which is rooted in President Trump's sanctions against
Iran.
President Hassan Rouhani and
other Iranian leaders Monday used mass celebrations of the 1979
revolution to lash out against the U.S. and reaffirm Tehran's
pledge to continue developing ballistic-missile systems that
Washington says threatens the region's security. In the face
of intensifying pressure from the U.S. and its allies to curb
Tehran's military capabilities, Mr. Rouhani told hundreds of
thousands of people gathered in Tehran's Freedom Square that Iran
would "continue to pursue our path and our military power."
President Trump on Monday
tweeted a message in Persian slamming Iran's leadership on the 40th
anniversary of the Iranian revolution. "40 years of corruption.
40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has
produced only #40YearsofFailure. The long-suffering Iranian people
deserve a much brighter future," reads the tweet, which the
president also sent out in English.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
A senior Iranian official said
over the weekend that the Islamic Republic has the chemical and
technical know-how to produce a nuclear weapon, according to Farsi
language remarks independently translated for the Washington
Free Beacon. Ahmad Khatami, a senior member of Iran's Assembly of
Experts, which enjoys close ties with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
claimed in recent comments that having a nuclear missile "is
vital for Iran to confront the U.S. and its
allies," according to Farsi language comments made
over the weekend.
On Sunday, Iran announced it was
"ready" to make the jump to reaching 190,000 separative
work units for enriching uranium. Currently, Tehran has some 5,000
centrifuges available to enrich uranium, down from around 19,000
before the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Does this announcement, combined
with recent threats to enrich uranium from a 3.67% level to around a
20% level, mean the Iran deal is over and the West and Israel must
finally decide between a military option or letting Tehran possess a
nuclear bomb?
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Oil prices rose on Tuesday amid
OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela,
although analysts expect surging U.S. output and concerns over
economic growth to keep markets in check. U.S. West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $52.69 per barrel at
0751 GMT, up 28 cents, or 0.5 percent, from their last close.
Given how Iran's economy
has fared in the 40 years since the Islamic Revolution, it's
reasonable for Iranians to wonder whether they might be more
prosperous had the revolution never taken place. Iran's average
annual growth in gross domestic product for the years 1961-78 was
8.86 percent, or more than three times higher than the 2.44-percent
average for 1980-2017.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
During the revolution
anniversary rallies and marches in Iran on Monday, a group of
seminarians turned an event into an anti-Rouhani, anti-government,
anti-nuclear-agreement and anti-FATF protest. The seminarians in the
Shiite holy city of Qom were holding placards blaming President
Hassan Rouhani and his administration of rising prices, corruption
and agreeing to the 2015 nuclear deal, which they labeled as treason.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Braving a drenching rain,
Iranians came out in droves on Monday to march up Revolution Street
to the capital's Freedom Monument, including families pushing
strollers decorated with balloons in the red, white and green of the
country's flag, clerics, teenagers and others, for a huge
state-backed rally commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Islamic
revolution. While such rallies are organized every year on Feb. 11,
this year's seemed larger, despite the uninviting weather.
Vice President Mike Pence is
expected to send a strong message to Iran and discuss the rising
tension in Venezuela as he travels to Europe this week for two
conferences focused on the Middle East and international
relations. At a conference hosted by the U.S. and Poland in
Warsaw, which seeks to address instability in the region, Pence will
give the keynote remarks. His speech at the Ministerial to Promote a
Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East is expected to send a
strong message to Iran, according to a senior White House official.
Iran's president has insisted
"enemy" plots against the country will fail and called
President Donald Trump an "idiot" as vast crowds
marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution. Hundreds of thousands
of Iranians, including soldiers, students, clerics and chador-clad
women holding small children, marched through the capital in freezing
rain on Monday to mark the anniversary.
Iran's Islamic revolution four
decades ago inflicted "failure and broken promises" on the
country, President Donald Trump's chief foreign policy advisor said
Monday. "It's been 40 yrs of failure. Now it's up to the Iranian
regime to change its behavior, & ultimately up to the Iranian people
to determine the direction of their country," national security
advisor John Bolton tweeted on the anniversary of the upheaval.
The Pentagon will re-evaluate a plan to grow the US fleet to 355
ships, a move that experts worry could diminish the
service's presence as Iran poses a renewed challenge to Middle East
waterways through proxy groups. Speaking at the Pentagon earlier this
month, the Navy's top officer said that the decision, which will be
paired with the US administration's new budget, was made to align the
maritime service's mission with the Defense Department's new strategy
that focuses on China and Russia.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran celebrated the 40th
anniversary of the Islamic Revolution Monday in typical fashion, with
speeches from government officials, marches, anti-American slogans,
protests and also an element of the absurd. As is customary, President Hassan
Rouhani delivered a speech at Tehran's Azadi Square for
the anniversary, which took place on the 22nd day of the month
of Bahman in the Iranian calendar.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Forty years since the Islamic
Revolution toppled Iran's monarchy, the country has little to
celebrate. The theocracy has endured, but it has failed
miserably to live up to the enormous potential of Iran's resources,
human as well as petrochemical. There's been little political
progress: Voters elect a president and parliament every four years,
but real power still rests with a clerical clique led by Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Hassan Rouhani struck
a defiant tone as millions of Iranians gathered in cities across the
country to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution
despite growing public angst over the country's direction. Mr Rouhani
said Iran would continue to build missiles and seek to influence
regional affairs - policies that have riled US president Donald Trump
- as the country's leaders organised a show of support for their
theocratic rule on the streets.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI)
released its 9-month economic performance report on February 10,
which shows an unprecedented budget deficit. The statistics are based
on Iran's fiscal year, which started March 21, 2018. CBI says the
Iranian government had projected 244 trillion rials ($5.8 billion,
based on official USD rate: $1/42,000 rials) budget deficit for the
first nine months of year (March 21-December 22), but the actual deficit
value is 451 trillion rials ($10.73 billion).
It was late in the afternoon on
a cold winter day. Light snow had covered Tehran the night before,
and I was spending the day in the production office of a small film
unit of the Basij paramilitary militia. I was researching cultural
producers in the Islamic Republic's military and
paramilitary organizations, and the young men who worked in this film
unit had agreed to talk to me on the condition of anonymity.
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
on Monday laid historical claims to a number of Arabian Gulf
countries without naming them. In a speech marking the 40th
anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran, Rouhani said:
"47 years ago, which is seven years before the Islamic Revolution
during the reign of the traitor Pahlavi regime, an important part of
southern Iran separated, and we have read that geographically it was
a part of Iran, and its 14th province. That was done by
Pahlavi."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who arrived
in Lebanon on Sunday met Hassan Nasrallah the leader of the militant
group Hezbollah. In recent days, Hezbollah has been pushing the idea
of Lebanon officially accepting Iranian military assistance, which
Zarif earlier said Iran would be looking forward to.
Admiral Craig S. Faller, Commander of U.S. Southern
Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
February 7, 2019 that "Iran has deepened its anti-U.S. Spanish
language media coverage and has exported its state support for
terrorism into our hemisphere." This statement came on the heels
of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement on FOX the previous
day. Pompeo stated, "Hezbollah has active cells - the Iranians
are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South
America."
A senior Revolutionary Guards
commander said on Monday that Iran would demolish cities in Israel to
the ground if the United States attacked the Islamic
Republic. "The United States does not have the courage to
shoot a single bullet at us despite all its defensive and military
assets. But if they attack us, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the
ground," Yadollah Javani, the Guards' deputy head for political
affairs was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
Lebanon said Monday it will not
take part in a Middle East conference in Poland this week that is
widely seen as an effort to isolate Iran. Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil
made the announcement during a joint press conference with his
Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is on a two-day visit
to the Mediterranean country. The two-day Warsaw conference begins
Wednesday and will be co-hosted by the U.S. Some 80 countries have
been invited, including Israel.
Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif offered Lebanon on Monday an open-ended proposal
for receiving economic, health and security support from Tehran,
asserting that no international law prevents the two sides from
cooperating. "We will always support the people and extend
a helping hand in all frameworks possible, and we are ready to
respond to the Lebanese government's request to cooperate with it in
any vital area it deems appropriate," the Iranian minister said
in a joint press conference held Monday with his Lebanese counterpart
Jebran Bassil.
The leader of the Hezbollah
terror group said Tehran had assisted it in facing off against
"Zionist aggression," during a meeting with Iran Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday in Lebanon. Zarif pledged
continued support for Hezbollah, which has repeatedly threatened
to use its large missile arsenal to target Israel, during the meeting
with leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, the Hezbollah-affiliated
Al-Manar TV reported.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Iran is funding militias
throughout the Middle East while turning its own people into paupers,
Saudi Arabian Prince Turki Al-Faisal told CNBC Tuesday. "I've
described Iran in the past, and I think the description still fits,
the leadership in Iran has developed into a paper tiger with steel
claws," he told CNBC Tuesday.
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