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TOP STORIES
Foreign ministers and senior
officials from 60 nations gather in the Polish capital Warsaw on
Wednesday where the United States hopes to ratchet up pressure
against Iran despite concerns among major European countries about
heightened tensions with Tehran. The absence of foreign
ministers from major European powers, Germany and France, highlights
festering tensions with the European Union over U.S. President Donald
Trump's decision last year to withdraw from a 2015 nuclear deal with
Iran and reimpose sanctions.
The Trump administration's
sanctions on Venezuelan crude complicate its effort to bring Iran's
oil exports to zero. To avoid a price spike, Washington will likely
be forced to allow some buyers to continue purchasing oil from
Tehran, experts say. The U.S. administration banned the purchase of
crude from the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro in late
January, just two months after it implemented an embargo on Iran's
oil exports.
The International Court of
Justice will on Wednesday give its decision on a bid by Iran to recover
$2 billion in frozen assets that the United States says must be paid
to victims of attacks blamed on Tehran. The case threatens to cause
further bad blood after a decision in October when the Hague-based
tribunal ordered Washington to lift nuclear-related sanctions on
humanitarian goods for Iran.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
A leading Iranian official has
affirmed that his country will "never" move to develop an
atomic bomb. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a cleric who is a senior member
of Iran's Assembly of Experts, previously had said during a religious
service that the country had the capability to build a nuclear
weapon. He clarified his comments later in an
interview with Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on
Tuesday. "My remarks in the religious ceremony were the same
thing that had repeatedly been said by Iranian authorities,"
Khatami explained.
MISSILE PROGRAM
Hundreds of thousands
of Iranians marched on the streets of Tehran Monday, burning
American flags and taunting the West as it celebrated the Islamic
Revolution's 40th anniversary by vowing to boost its ballistic missiles
in defiance of U.S. efforts to curb its military. Students, clerics
and women dressed in black and carried pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in
an Islamic uprising that still haunts the West.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iran's ministry of economy and
finance is drafting regulation to set up companies for doing barter
trade with foreign partners as a way of circumventing U.S. sanctions.
Mahmoud Lahouti a member of Iran's chamber of commerce board in an
interview with Mehr news agency on Tuesday explained that the barter
system will preclude the use of the international banking system.
When Iran exports oil to a country, the receivable money stays in
that country in local currency.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran's supreme leader says
negotiations with the U.S. "will bring nothing but material and
spiritual harm" - remarks that come ahead of an American-led
meeting on the Mideast in Warsaw. The comments from Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei are part of a seven-page statement that was read out
word-for-word on Iranian state television on Wednesday.
No problem with the United
States can be resolved and negotiations are a loss, Iran's Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday in a statement
published on his official website. "With regard to America,
no problem can be resolved and negotiations with it has nothing but
economic and spiritual loss," he wrote.
Iran's Islamic Revolution four
decades ago has been a complete failure for the country, President
Donald Trump said Monday. In a tweet written on the anniversary of
the upheaval that was also sent out in Farsi, Trump said: "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,"
he added.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohamad
Javad Zarif has reacted to US President Donald Trump's tweet
criticizing Iran's government on the 40th anniversary of the 1979
revolution and calling on Trump to rethink the US policy. Trump had
tweeted late Monday, "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."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran may eventually design an
actual flying jet plane resembling the mockups it passed off as the
real thing-but even, such a plane would likely merely be a testbed
and showpiece. There can be such a thing as posturing too
hard. Iran's aviation industry has accomplishments to boast
about despite operating under heavy sanctions for nearly forty
years.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
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).
This week marks the 40th
anniversary of the Iranian revolution, when the government of Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a Western-backed autocrat, was swept away and
replaced with the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The revolution fundamentally changed the lives of most Iranians and
the politics of the Middle East.
Forty years ago this week, a
broad coalition of Iranian women from across the social and economic
spectrum stood shoulder-to-shoulder with men to rid their country of
its unpopular, dictatorial Shah. According to the standard Western
narrative, the new revolutionary government led by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini emphasized traditional Islamic values,
which required women to give precedence to their roles as mothers and
wives over their desire to become judges, entrepreneurs, and
bosses.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu departed for a conference
in Warsaw Tuesday night. Netanyahu stated that he conference will
focus on ways to counter Iranian "aggression, it's desire to
counqer the Middle East and destroy Israel. What's important is that
many countries are uniting against this aggression."
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday indicated
that his new government would allow terror group Hezbollah to keep
its weapons, which it used in a major war against Israel in 2006 and
have been frequently used since to threaten Israel. Members of Lebanon's
Parliament began discussing the new government's policy statement,
which focuses on improving the country's economic conditions.
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."
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu warned Iran Tuesday that Israeli missiles can travel
"very far", on the eve of a conference in Poland about
peace and security in the Middle East. Speaking during a visit to a
naval base in the northern port of Haifa, Netanyahu said: "The
missiles you see behind me can go very far, against any enemy,
including Iran's proxies in our region" -- an apparent reference
to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu responded on Monday evening to a threat issued by an
Iranian commander, saying that if Iran attacks Tel Aviv, it
"would be the last anniversary of the revolution that they
celebrate." Speaking at a rally earlier Monday celebrating
the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, a senior
Revolutionary Guards commander said that Iran would demolish entire
cities in Israel if the United States attacked the Islamic
Republic.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea
rejected allegations that Iran and the Hezbollah group have claimed
"victory" in Lebanon. In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat,
he said that the confrontation in the region is ongoing. "Some
tactical victories and defeats are achieved," he explained.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
Sergey Ryabkov on Monday criticized the European Union for its
"dual approaches" toward Iran. "The EU must rise above
its dual approaches when they try not to annoy the Americans, and to
do something so that Iran sees real efforts, and to make the right
choice by deciding in favor of real cooperation," RIA Novosti
news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying, Xinhua reported.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Houthi rebels are jeopardising a historic chance to
achieve peace in Yemen, the UAE Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar
Gargash said on Wednesday, reiterating calls for international
pressure on the Iran-backed group. The Stockholm Agreement, brokered
through UN-led peace talks in December, is the only logical solution
to ending Yemen's nearly four-year war, Dr Gargash said on Twitter.
IRAQ & IRAN
The wrecks of vehicles used by
Islamic State militants as car bombs and other metal debris left by
the war in Iraq are now helping fund their Iran-backed enemies,
industry sources say. Shi'ite Muslim paramilitaries that helped
Iraqi forces drive the Sunni IS out of its last strongholds in Iraq
have taken control of the thriving trade in scrap metal retrieved
from the battlefield, according to scrap dealers and others familiar
with the trade.
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