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The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it was aware
of reports of a failed Iranian attempt to launch a satellite into
space last month and it called on Tehran to halt activities that
violate U.N. resolutions. "I've seen the reports, and it failed,
correct?" State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told a
news briefing, his first since the start of the year.
In the frigid air of a Tehran
winter, a mother of two stands in a long line of shoppers waiting for
the chance to buy discounted meat at a store supported by Iran's
government. "Yesterday, after nearly two hours in the line, the
shopkeeper said: 'It is finished, try another day,'" Zahra
Akrami said recently. "And now I am here again." Her
struggle represents the economic paradox that faces Iran as it marks
the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution.
Iran's oil customers should not
expect new U.S. waivers in May, the U.S. Special Representative for
Iran, Brian Hook, said this week, urging buyers to stop importing
Iranian oil. "What we have announced is the policy to get to
zero imports of Iranian crude as quickly as possible. We are not
looking to grant any future waivers or exceptions to our sanctions
regime, whether it is oil or anything else," Hook told Japanese
public broadcaster NHK while on a visit to Japan.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Despite howls of protest by the Left, the foreign-policy
establishment, and European leaders, and contrary to misleading
assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies, it is now clear that
President Trump's decision last May to withdraw the United States
from the controversial 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA) was
the right call and is a huge policy success.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iraq will not be part of the sanctions regime against
Iran, Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi stressed on Wednesday. Abdul
Mahdi made the comment during a meeting with the head of Iran's
Central Bank, Abdul Naser Hemmati, Governor of the Central Bank of
Iraq Ali al-Allaq and the accompanying delegations. The Iraqi people
have "suffered from embargo and realize the damage that peoples
incur from its consequences," according to a statement from the
PM's office.
Iran's state-run electricity
firm Tavanir on Friday signed a deal to extend exports of 1,200
megawatts to neighbouring Iraq, state news agency IRNA
reported. The two countries also signed initial accords in
Tehran on power production, exports and technology transfers, IRNA
said. "Debts have been scheduled and repayments have
started," Iranian electricity minister Reza Ardakanian was
quoted as saying at the signing ceremony.
MISSILE PROGRAM
The United States has
vowed to remain "relentless" in pressuring Iran to
deter its missile programme after the Islamic Republic unveiled a new
ballistic weapon days after testing a cruise missile.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) revealed a
new ballistic missile with a range of 1,000km, their official news
agency Sepah News reported late on Thursday, a development that
Tehran maintains is part of its defence capability.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards inaugurated a
surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 km (621
miles), the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Thursday,
ignoring demands Western demands that Tehran halt its missile
program. Fars published pictures of an underground missile
factory called "underground city", saying the
"Dezful" missile was a version of the Zolfaghar missile
that has a 700 km range and a 450 kg (992 lb) warhead.
Satellite images revealed on
Thursday a second failed attempt by Iran to launch a satellite into
orbit, despite US and European warnings that its space program helps
the country develop ballistic missiles. Iranian Chief of Staff
Mohammad Bagheri said that his country would "not fear
threats" aimed at forcing it to negotiate its defense and
missile capabilities.
On the same day Donald Trump
called out Iran in his State of the Union address as a major target
of his administration, Tehran test-fired a satellite rocket in
defiance of US warnings not to do so. Satellite images released on
Thursday by the firm DigitalGlobe suggested Iran sought to
launch a satellite into orbit on Tuesday as part of its space
programme.
U.S. IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTATIONS
Iranians will chant "Death
to America" as long as Washington continues its hostile
policies, but the slogan is directed at President Donald Trump and
U.S. leaders, not the American nation, Iran's supreme leader said on
Friday. "As long as America continues its wickedness, the Iranian
nation will not abandon 'Death to America'," Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei told a gathering of Iranian Air Force officers marking the
40th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution, according to his
official website.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said
Thursday that Iranian authorities arrested, jailed and sometimes
executed 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the
first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The organization
revealed its count that included regime opponents, Baha'is and other
religious minorities and at least 860 journalists.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran released a quirky animated
video showing one of its new submarines sinking a US Navy
aircraft-carrier strike group in a funny, cartoonish way. But
the threat that Iran's submarines pose to US aircraft carriers is no
joke, and it's unlikely the US takes it as a joke. The video
opens with a shot of a Navy aircraft-carrier strike group transiting
the Persian Gulf to the guitar solo in Queen's "We Will Rock
You."
Iran's intelligence minister
Mahmoud Alavi said on Thursday that at the onset of the 40th
anniversary of the 1979 revolution several "sabotage plots"
were discovered and "neutralized". In a meeting with ethnic
Arab community leaders in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, Alavi
said, "Until now many teams that tried hard to challenge the
security of the country, especially at the threshold of the
[revolution] anniversary, were unmasked and their members have been
arrested".
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani
set off a media firestorm by announcing that Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei has called for "structural reforms," leading
to speculation about the future of the government. During a trip to
Qom Feb. 6, Larijani said, "The Supreme Leader instructed
that within the next four months there will be structural
reforms, which can possibly lead to budget reforms." He added,
"After the work of the budget in parliament is
finished, this discussion can be pursued."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
With the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey slated to
attend a new round of Syria peace talks within the Astana
framework on Feb. 14, the relationship between Tehran and Moscow
- two main allies of the Syrian government in its eight years of
fighting against rebel and terrorist groups - is facing
a new durability test, mostly due to the Israeli factor. On Jan.
21, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes against
alleged Iranian targets in Syria.
Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammed Javad Zarif is expected to pay a two-day visit to Lebanon
later this week to meet with senior officials, as well as Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah. The trip comes in wake of Nasrallah's recent
announcement that Tehran was ready to offer Lebanon arms and funds.
He did not disclose further details about the proposal. A diplomatic
source said that Zarif would discuss with officials a proposal to
provide the Lebanese army with an Iranian air defense system, which
according to Nasrallah would make the military "the strongest in
the region."
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei said Friday that Europe "cannot be trusted", a
week after the EU launched a trade mechanism to bypass US sanctions
on Tehran. "These days there's talk of the Europeans and their
proposals. My advice is that they shouldn't be trusted, just like the
Americans," he said at a meeting with air force officials, his
website reported. "I'm not saying we shouldn't have relations
with them. This is about trust," he added.
MISCELLANEOUS
We view Iran as a state with an
ideology; but it is more accurately seen as an ideology with a state.
The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was of vast consequence not only
to Iran and its people, but also to the broader Middle East, to Sunni
Islam as well as Shia, and to the development of extremism around the
world. It continues to exert an often misunderstood and
underestimated influence today. The leaders of the new Islamic
republic took their beliefs extremely seriously. They quickly
transformed the new state into a theocracy in which dissent was
crushed, and exported a Shia version of Islamism to wherever it could
put down roots.
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