|
TOP STORIES
President Trump said on Monday that he was designating a
powerful arm of the Iranian military as a foreign terrorist
organization, the first time that the United States has named part of
another nation's government as that type of official threat. The
designation imposes wide-ranging economic and travel sanctions on the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as well as organizations,
companies and individuals with ties to it.
Iranian lawmakers dressed in paramilitary uniforms
chanted "Death to America" as they convened Tuesday for an
open session of parliament after the White House designated Iran's
Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist organization. President
Hassan Rouhani declared that the force's popularity would only surge
in the wake of the designation, saying guard members would be dearer
"than any other time in the hearts of Iranian nation."
Reports from Iran indicate that in the wake of the U.S.
decision to designate the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps as a foreign
terror organization the Iranian currency took a nosedive at the end
of the trading day on Monday. The rial fell 7.5 percent to 144,000
rials to the dollar. On Sunday, April 7 the Iranian currency was
trading at 134,000 to the dollar. The head of Iran's central bank on
Sunday tried to talk up the rial, anticipating the U.S. announcement,
but it did not help on Monday once Washington designated the IRGC as
a terrorist organization.
UANI IN THE NEWS
...Former senator Joseph Lieberman and ambassador Mark
D. Wallace of the watchdog United Against Nuclear Iran said in a
statement, "UANI applauds the Trump Administration's decision to
designate the IRGC as an FTO. For years, the United States has listed
Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah and the al-Ashtar Brigades as FTOs, but
not the main source of those groups' manpower, materiel and money:
the IRGC." "Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of
terrorism," they added, "and the IRGC is the primary
vehicle through which the regime funds terror organizations and
proxies abroad."
I've known Prime Minister Netanyahu for a long time. I
agree with him a lot of the time, and I sometimes disagree. He's not
a racist ... Everything I know about the prime minister, he's not a
racist, in fact he's quite open and inclusive. He has strong ideas
about Israeli security and what you have to do for Israeli security.
Much of the suspicion surrounding the Revolutionary
Guards stems from the activities of its special forces unit, the
Quds. Although comprising roughly only 10% of the IRGC's manpower,
the Quds play an outsized role through their extensive operations in
the wider Middle East region, often in support of destabilising
non-state militias. Designated a terror group by the US in 2007, the
unit "is Iran's main link to its terrorist proxies, which the
regime uses to boost Iran's global influence", says international
policy organisation the Counter Extremism Project.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Crude prices were already 40% higher from the beginning
of the year when Monday's session began, and added to those gains
after the U.S. announced it was labeling Iran's IRGC as a terrorist
organization. The move escalates the U.S.'s pressure campaign against
Tehran and could mean even tighter restrictions on Iran oil exports.
"The designation definitely sent [oil] to a new level,"
said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures in Chicago.
Indian refiners are holding back from ordering Iranian
oil for loading in May pending clarity on whether Washington will
extend a waiver from U.S. sanctions against the OPEC-member, four
sources said. In November, U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from
the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed broad economic
sanctions. Washington, however, gave a six-month waiver to
eight nations including India, allowing them to import some Iranian
oil until early May.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran recently observed the 40th anniversary of the
Islamic Revolution, but few Iranians beyond the regime's elites
celebrated it. The reason for this lack of enthusiasm among ordinary
Iranians is no mystery. By any reasonable measure, the revolution has
failed to deliver the just and prosperous society that Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini and other revolutionary leaders promised the
Iranian people in 1979.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that the
United States was the real "leader of world terrorism"
after Washington blacklisted Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a
"foreign terrorist organisation". "Who are you to
label revolutionary institutions as terrorists?" Rouhani asked
in a speech broadcast live by state television. Speaking at a
ceremony to mark Iran's national nuclear technology day in Tehran,
Rouhani defended the Revolutionary Guards as a force that has fought
terrorism ever since its creation in 1979.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday defended the
elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as protectors of Iran a day
after the United States labeled the group as a foreign terrorist
organization. U.S. President Donald Trump designated Iran's
Guards a foreign terrorist organization on Monday - an unprecedented
step that will raise tensions in the Middle East.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected
the United States' designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, saying on Tuesday the
Guards had confronted enemies at home and abroad, state TV
reported. U.S. President Donald Trump designated Iran's Guards
a foreign terrorist organization on Monday - an unprecedented step
that will raise tensions in the Middle East.
The Trump Administration said Monday it will designate
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a foreign terrorist
organization. While this will upset those who want to do business
with Iran, it's a welcome recognition of reality. The IRGC is a
branch of the Iranian military with some 125,000 personnel loyal to
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It controls much of the national
economy, including construction, banking and telecommunications, and
it oversees the regime's ballistic-missile program.
For more than 30 years, successive U.S. administrations
have called Iran what it is: a state sponsor of terrorism. Leaders of
its military and intelligence agencies have been sanctioned, while
the terror groups Iran supports have faced military action as well as
sanctions. Until now, however, the main organization responsible for
founding, funding and training many of these groups has not been
placed in the same category as its clients like Hezbollah.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran's Revolutionary Guard, designated a "foreign
terrorist organization" by the Trump administration on Monday,
evolved from a paramilitary, domestic security force with origins in
the 1979 Islamic Revolution to a transnational force that has come to
the aid of Tehran's allies in the Mideast, from Syria and Lebanon to
Iraq. The force answers only to Iran's supreme leader, operates
independently of the regular military and has vast economic interests
across the country.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
The governor of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan,
southwest Iran, says a major dam on the Karkhe river is completely
full, and local residents in several cities and villages have been
ordered to evacuate their homes. Furthermore, according to Gholamreza
Shariati, the volume of water in Iran's biggest and only navigable
river, Karoon, is increasing at an alarming rate of 3200 cubic meters
per second.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
With Syria's eight-year war waning, many foreign
fighters who have fought in support of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad are returning to their home countries. Some of those
fighters are Iranian-backed Afghan refugees. Since 2011, Iran has
sent thousands of undocumented Shi'ite Afghan refugees to Syria to
fight alongside forces of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
United Nations envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths arrived
in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Monday on a mission to persuade the
Iran-backed Houthi militias to accept the truce agreement on Hodeidah
that includes the deployment of forces in its three main ports. The
deal was reached in Sweden in December 2018 and it has yet to be
completely implemented, generating pessimism among the legitimate
government.
Saudi Arabia welcomes the U.S. decision to designate
Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist
organization, Saudi state media said on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia,
led by a Sunni Muslim royal family, has accused Shi'ite Muslim Iran
of interfering in its and other Middle Eastern countries' internal
affairs. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been fighting proxy wars for
years, backing opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
In the summer of 2017, a plane chartered by the United
Nations idled on the tarmac at an airport in the Horn of Africa as
officials waited for final clearance to deliver half a million doses
of cholera vaccine to Yemen. Amid the country's ruinous war, the disease
was spiraling out of control, with thousands of new cases reported
each day.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi visited
Tehran April 6-7, his first official visit to the neighboring
country since assuming office in October 2018. Accompanied by a large
delegation of high-ranking Iraqi officials and representatives of the
private sector, Abdul Mahdi came to Tehran at the formal invitation
of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Apart from meeting with Rouhani,
the Iraqi leader also met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and attended a joint meeting of the Iranian
and Iraqi business sectors at the Iran Chamber of Commerce.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
An Iranian delegation landed in Venezuela on Monday to
discuss launching direct flights between the two countries,
Venezuela's foreign minister said, as Tehran voices support for
President Nicolas Maduro against the opposition backed by most
Western countries.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment