Eye on Iran: Former Iran President Rafsanjani Dies in Blow to Moderates
TOP STORIES
Former Iran President Rafsanjani Dies in Blow to Moderates | Reuters
Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died on Sunday at the age of 82, a big blow to moderates and reformists deprived now of their most influential supporter in the Islamic establishment. He had been described as "a pillar of the Islamic revolution". His pragmatic policies – economic liberalisation, better relations with the West and empowering elected bodies - appealed to many Iranians but were despised by hardliners. Few have wielded such influence in modern Iran but since 2009 Rafsanjani and his family faced political isolation over their support for the opposition movement which lost a disputed election that year to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani headed the Expediency Council, a body which is intended to resolve disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council. He was also a member of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that selects the supreme leader, Iran's most powerful figure. His absence from that debate, whenever it happens, means the chances of a pragmatist emerging as the next supreme leader are reduced. His death ahead of May's presidential elections is a blow to moderate president Hassan Rouhani who allied himself with Rafsanjani to win the 2013 election and went on to resolve Iran's long standoff with the West on the nuclear programme.
U.S. Says Navy Ship Fired Warning Shots at Iranian Vessels | Reuters
A U.S. Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels after they closed in at a high rate of speed near the Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. defense officials told Reuters on Monday. The incident, which occurred Sunday and was first reported by Reuters, comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20. In September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be "shot out of the water." The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the USS Mahan established radio communication with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats but they did not respond to requests to slow down and continued asking the Mahan questions. The Navy destroyer fired warning flares and a U.S. Navy helicopter also dropped a smoke float before the warning shots were fired. The Iranian vessels came within 900 yards (800 meters) of the Mahan, which was escorting two other U.S. military ships, they said.
Diplomats: Iran to get natural uranium batch | AP
Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant, diplomats say, in a move approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact. Two senior diplomats said the transfer recently agreed by the U.S. and five other world powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran foresees delivery of 116 metric tons (nearly 130 tons) of natural uranium. U.N. Security Council approval is needed but a formality, considering five of those powers are permanent Security Council members, they said... Tehran already got a similar amount of natural uranium in 2015 as part of negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal, in a swap for enriched uranium it sent to Russia. But the new shipment will be the first such consignment since the deal came into force a year ago... The natural uranium agreement comes at a sensitive time. With the incoming U.S. administration and many U.S. lawmakers already skeptical of how effective the nuclear deal is in keeping Iran’s nuclear program peaceful over the long term, they might view it as further evidence that Tehran is being given too many concessions... David Albright, whose Institute of Science and International Security often briefs U.S. lawmakers on Iran’s nuclear program, says the shipment could be enriched to enough weapons-grade uranium for more than 10 simple nuclear bombs, “depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon.”
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Top U.S. Senator: Trump Administration Won't Toss Iran Deal | Reuters
The chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that abrupt rejection of the Iran nuclear deal by the incoming Trump administration could create "a crisis" and that he did not expect such an approach. "To tear it up on the front end, in my opinion, is not going to happen. Instead, we will begin to radically enforce it," Senator Bob Corker told reporters on Friday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor... "To me the prudent course of action is to make sure you enforce it, that you hold the UN Security Council accountable," Corker said. "And in the event the agreement falls apart, it's someone else that is causing it to fall apart, not a president coming in on day one and ripping up the agreement."
U.N. Chief Concerned Iran May Have Violated Arms Embargo: Report | Reuters
The United Nations chief expressed concern to the Security Council that Iran may have violated an arms embargo by supplying weapons and missiles to Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, according to a confidential report, seen by Reuters on Sunday. The second bi-annual report, due to be discussed by the 15-member council on Jan. 18, also cites an accusation by France that an arms shipment seized in the northern Indian Ocean in March was from Iran and likely bound for Somalia or Yemen. Most U.N. sanctions were lifted a year ago under a deal Iran made with Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, the United States and the European Union to curb its nuclear program. But Iran is still subject to an arms embargo and other restrictions, which are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. The report was submitted to the Security Council on Dec. 30 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before he was succeeded by Antonio Guterres on Jan. 1. It comes just weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to either scrap the nuclear agreement or seek a better deal, takes office.
Iran: U.S. Surrendered More Than $10 Billion in Gold, Cash, Assets | Washington Free Beacon
The Obama administration has paid Iran more than $10 billion in gold, cash, and other assets since 2013, according to Iranian officials, who disclosed that the White House has been intentionally deflating the total amount paid to the Islamic Republic. Senior Iranian officials late last week confirmed reports that the total amount of money paid to Iran over the past four years is in excess of $10 billion, a figure that runs counter to official estimates provided by the White House. The latest disclosure by Iran, which comports with previous claims about the Obama administration obfuscating details about its cash transfers to Iran—including a $1.7 billion cash payment included in a ransom to free Americans—sheds further light on the White House’s back room dealings to bolster Iran’s economy and preserve the Iran nuclear agreement.
MILITARY MATTERS
Iran to Expand Military Spending, Develop Missiles | Reuters
Iranian lawmakers approved plans on Monday to expand military spending to five percent of the budget, including developing the country's long-range missile program which U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to halt. The vote is a boost to Iran's military establishment – the regular army, the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and defense ministry - which was allocated almost 2 percent of the 2015-16 budget. But it could put the Islamic Republic on a collision course with the incoming Trump administration, and fuel criticism from other Western states which say Tehran's recent ballistic missile tests are inconsistent with a U.N. resolution on Iran... Tasnim news agency said 173 lawmakers voted in favor of an article in Iran's five-year development plan that "requires government to increase Iran's defense capabilities as a regional power and preserve the country's national security and interests by allocating at least five percent of annual budget" to military affairs.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
As a General, Mattis Urged Action against Iran. As a Defense Secretary, He May Be a Voice of Caution. | The Washington Post
Soon after Mattis was tapped to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East in August 2010, Obama asked the general to spell out his top priorities. Mattis replied that he had three: “Number one Iran. Number two Iran. Number three Iran,” said a senior U.S. official who was present. The general’s singular focus unnerved some civilian leaders, who thought he should pay attention to a broader range of threats. His style and Marine swagger often struck the wrong chord in a White House that was focused on diplomacy and that was notably short of top officials with military experience. Mattis and his aides relentlessly drilled the U.S. military’s war plan for Iran. During one planning session, which focused on the war’s aftermath and included senior officials from Washington, Mattis repeatedly joked that Iran’s navy would be at “the bottom of the ocean,” participants said.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Obama Admin Stonewalled Lawmakers On Billions in Cash and Gold to Iran | The Weekly Standard
The Obama administration misled top lawmakers about the transfer of billions of dollars in assets to Iran, according to sources in and out of Congress who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, and a range of questions remain about the mechanics of the payments. The United States gave certain banks permission to transfer roughly $700 million monthly in unfrozen funds to Iran as part of the negotiations that produced the nuclear deal. Iran eventually received more than $10 billion in cash and gold through such transfers—highly liquid forms of payment that critics have said could be used to finance Iranian terrorist entities. A congressional GOP aide told TWS that the administration misled lawmakers about such details of the transfers. "We discussed the $700 million monthly payments [made] during the interim agreement. The State Department official never mentioned cash or gold," the aide told TWS. "This was deceptive. ... They had every opportunity to say these payments were being made in cash and gold, and they did not do so." The administration has not provided a full account of the transfers, according to the aide.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran Capitalizes on OPEC Oil Cut to Sell Millions of Barrels | Reuters
Iran has sold more than 13 million barrels of oil that it had long held on tankers at sea, capitalizing on an OPEC output cut deal from which it is exempted to regain market share and court new buyers, according to industry sources and data. In the past three months, Tehran has sold almost half the oil it had held in floating storage, which had tied up many of its tankers as it struggled to offload stocks in an oversupplied global market. The amount of Iranian oil held at sea has dropped to 16.4 million barrels, from 29.6 million barrels at the beginning of October, according to Thomson Reuters Oil Flows data. Before that sharp drop, the level had barely changed in 2016; it was 29.7 million barrels at the start of last year, the data showed. Unsold oil is now tying up about 12 to 14 Iranian tankers, out of its fleet of about 60 vessels, compared with around 30 in the summer, according to two tanker-tracking sources.
Danske Bank Says in Talks with Iran Central Bank on Financing | Reuters
Denmark's Danske Bank A/S said on Monday it was in talks with the Iranian central bank on arranging credit to clients with business activities in the country. "To a limited extent and within the international framework, we are open to supporting our clients with activities in Iran financially," a Danske Bank spokesman said in an email. "We are in dialogue with Iran's central bank about this, but no deal has been reached at this point," he said. An Iranian central bank official said that the bank had received $7.2 billion in financing from three foreign banks, including Danske Bank, Iran's Financial Tribune daily reported on Sunday.
Iran Takes Ownership of First Passenger Jet under Sanctions Deal | Reuters
Airbus said on Sunday Iran's state airline IranAir had accepted its first new jet, marking a key step in opening up trade under a nuclear sanctions deal between Iran and major powers. The Airbus A321 jetliner has been painted in IranAir livery and is expected to be delivered later this week. "The technical acceptance has been done with formal delivery still to be done," a spokesman for the European planemaker said. Iranian regulators said the aircraft had been placed on the country's aircraft register, indicating IranAir had taken ownership of the aircraft: the first of around 200 Western aircraft ordered since sanctions were lifted. "The registration has been done, and the delivery should be by the end of the week," Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told Reuters by telephone. The 189-seat jet was assembled in Hamburg, Germany. From there, it is expected to be transferred to Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France, for a formal handover on Wednesday. IranAir Chairman Farhad Parvaresh told state news agency IRNA there would be an official ceremony to mark the arrival of the Airbus jetliner in Tehran later this week.
Iran Seeks Investors for 25 Petrochemical Projects | Reuters
Iran is seeking investment to build 25 petrochemical projects, an official at the state-run National Petrochemical Company (NPC) was quoted on Saturday as saying. The NPC is proposing joint or individual investor participation in building the projects, Farnaz Alavi, NPC's director for planning and development, was quoted as saying by the oil ministry's news website SHANA. Providing feedstock for five more projects were also being studied Alavi said, without giving further details. In July, Alavi told SHANA that $32 billion in foreign investment was needed to build 28 petrochemical projects. The projects include factories to produce ammonia and urea, as well as gas-to-olefins (GTO) and gas-to-propylene (GTP) plants.
HUMAN RIGHTS
UN flags risks faced by prisoners on hunger strikes in Iran | AP
A U.N. expert focusing on human rights in Iran is warning about the health risk of prisoners who have been conducting prolonged hunger strikes to protest against their detention. Special rapporteur Asma Jahangir says at least eight prisoners of conscience have been on life-threatening hunger strikes in recent weeks, and called on Iranian leaders to release all people “arbitrarily detained” for exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and expression. Jahangir said in a statement Monday that the eight “are left with no other option but to put their life at risk to contest the legality of their detention.”
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Mourners Pay Respects to Former Iranian Leader Rafsanjani | AP
Mourners from all walks of life in Iran — from the country's president to passers-by on the street — paid their respects on Monday to the late Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani following his death over the weekend at the age of 82. President Hassan Rouhani and his administration visited the mosque in northern Tehran where Rafsanjani's body was brought. Mourners, including Rafsanjani's family members, wept at the sight of his coffin, reaching out to touch it. Newspapers in Iran published front-page photographs of Rafsanjani, who died Sunday after suffering a heart attack, while state television aired archival clips of his comments and speeches. The country is observing three days of mourning, and Rafsanjani's funeral is set for Tuesday. At the start of a parliament session Monday, parliament speaker Ali Larijani paid tribute to the late leader, describing Rafsanjani as "a man for hard days whose name has been always been tied to the revolution and it will always be so."
Iran's Rouhani Clashes with Judiciary in Run-Up to Vote | AFP
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has clashed with the country's powerful and conservative judiciary, in a rare public row as tensions rise ahead of this year's presidential election. The moderate Rouhani, who is expected to stand for a second four-year term in the May vote, has targeted the judiciary in a series of public statements over the case of a billionaire businessman on death row for corruption. Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani has hit back with accusations of his own, and on Sunday supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made reference to the dispute. In a speech to thousands of people in the religious city of Qom, Khamenei alluded to "recent arguments" among powerful figures, adding: "This will be resolved with the help of God." ... In his speech on Sunday, Khamenei appeared to urge the two sides to overcome their differences. "The existence of an independent and courageous judiciary must be appreciated by everyone," he said. "What defeats the enemy in its objectives is to have a strong judiciary and a government that is both brave and can plan accurately."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Rafsanjani Was Iran’s Mythical ‘Moderate’ | Sohrab Ahmari in The Wall Street Journal
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was the original Mr. Moderation. Western observers saw the former Iranian president as a sort of Deng Xiaoping in clerical robes: a founder of the Islamic Republic who was destined to transform the country into a normal state. Rafsanjani, they thought, was too corrupt to be an ideologue. Yet Rafsanjani, who died Sunday at 82, consistently defied such hopes. His life and legacy remind us that fanaticism and venality aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s a lesson in the persistence of Western fantasies about the Iranian regime. Born to landed gentry in southeast Iran, Rafsanjani entered seminary at the holy city of Qom. There the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini adopted him as a protégé and revolutionary companion. The totalitarian theocracy that replaced the Peacock Throne after the 1979 revolution was as much Rafsanjani’s creation as Khomeini’s. Khomeini provided the theological underpinnings for his model of absolute clerical rule. But it was Rafsanjani who fleshed out the ideas, as speaker of Parliament in the 1980s and president for much of the ’90s. Rafsanjani delivered the wake-up call to Iranian liberals and leftists, who still dreamt of sharing power with the Islamists. “Until we had our people in place,” he told one such liberal in 1981, “we were ready to tolerate [other] gentlemen on the stage.” But now the regime would brook no faction but those that followed the “Line of the Imam”—Khomeini. A decade of purges, prison rapes and executions followed.
Death of Iran’s Rafsanjani Removes Influential Voice Against Hard-Liners | Thomas Erdbrink in The New York Times
With the death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday, Iran’s political factions knew immediately that any space by reformers to maneuver had just significantly decreased. Change had come, and it did not favor those seeking to turn Iran into a less revolutionary country with more tolerance and outreach to the West — especially the United States. Mr. Rafsanjani, a former president who helped found the Islamic republic, had been the one man too large to be sidelined by conservative hard-liners. Now he was suddenly gone, dead from what state media described as cardiac arrest — and with no one influential enough to fill his shoes. Iran’s long-marginalized reformists and moderates, who would use Mr. Rafsanjani’s regular calls for more personal freedoms and requests to establish better relations with the United States to advance their political agendas, suddenly felt exposed and weakened. Who would now warn publicly against “Islamic fascism,” when the hard-liners sought to influence elections? Who would state openly that there should be a nuclear compromise? Mr. Rafsanjani said things others would not dare to say, all agreed, and his voice had at least created some tolerance for debates. “Hard-liners will be happy, but this is the start of a period of anxiety for many,” said Fazel Meybodi, a cleric from the holy city Qum who supports reforms in Iran. “His death disturbs the fragile balance we had in Iran.” There simply are no replacements for Mr. Rafsanjani, analysts from all factions say... With the demise of his mentor and protector, Iran’s president will find it hard to gather the same level of support he received four years ago with the backing of Mr. Rafsanjani, analysts say. “He was a very powerful figure for Mr. Rouhani to rely upon,” said Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University who is close to Iran’s leaders. “Many worked with him because of that support. The passing of Mr. Rafsanjani complicates the president’s position and makes his re-election less certain.”
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Mon, 01/09/2017 - 15:13