Eye on Iran: Iran’s OPEC Win Lacks Substance Without Deals With Big Oil
TOP STORIES
Iran’s OPEC Win Lacks Substance Without Deals With Big Oil | Bloomberg News
Few countries have benefited from the oil market’s 2016 recovery like Iran. Since sanctions on its economy were eased in January, the Persian Gulf producer has doubled exports as prices rallied and won approval from OPEC last month to pump even more while other members cut. The key to continued growth will be attracting foreign investment to the energy industry. “Iran is definitely better off than they started the year,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “Further expansion plans for production have reached a plateau. They need foreign investment.” ... While the country has reached several preliminary agreements with international companies, it has yet to sign any concrete deals to boost crude production since Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh outlined more than 50 potential projects at a Tehran conference in November of last year.
Iran’s New Basij Militia Commander More Militaristic Than His Predecessor | International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI)
The appointment of ultra-conservative hardliner Gholam-Hossein Gheibparvar as the new commander of Iran’s Basij, a volunteer militia under the authority of the Revolutionary Guards, has raised fears of increased intimidation and repression of anyone deemed guilty of political dissent. Brigadier General Gheibparvar believes, in contrast to the Constitution, that the Revolutionary Guards holds the authority to interfere in all aspects of life in the Islamic Republic to protect the revolution. His track record of iron-fist policies significantly contributed to his rise in Iran’s military apparatus. His predecessor, Mohammad Reza Naghdi—who was put on the U.S. sanctions list in 2011 for “being responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses in Iran since the June 2009 disputed presidential election”—was similarly appointed as Basij commander in 2009 because of his reputation as the ruthless head of Tehran’ police intelligence unit in the 1990s.
IMF expects 6.6% economic growth for Iran | Press TV (Iran)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it expects Iran’s economic growth to reach as high as 6.6 percent for the Persian calendar year that started in March 2016. The IMF announced in a statement that higher oil production and exports would be particularly instrumental in boosting Iran’s economic growth that was in recession last year. “Higher oil production and exports, after implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) should allow real GDP growth to rebound to 6.6 percent in 2016/17,” the Fund added in its statement. “Growth is projected to ease to 3.5 percent in 2017/18 as oil production normalizes and non-oil sector growth remains modest.” On Saturday, Iran’s Finance Minister Ali Tayyebniya said Iran’s average economic growth for the current Calendar year had already exceeded expectations and reached above 5 percent.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM
Iran will reduce its heavy water exports | AP
Iran’s atomic agency says it will begin exporting less heavy water because of an oversupply in the international market. State TV quotes agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying on Tuesday that Iran will export some 20 tons of the material annually from now on. That’s much less that the 70 tons of heavy water that the country exported to the United States, Russia and Oman since last year’s nuclear agreement went into effect in January. A recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Iran had exceeded its heavy water limit by 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) over the 130 metric tons allowed.
Spokesman: Iran to Inject Gas into Advanced Home-Made IR8 Centrifuges Soon | Fars News Agency (Iran)
Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi announced that the country would inject gas into its latest generation of centrifuge machines, IR8, in the next few weeks. "The IR8 tests have ended and they will enter the stage of gas injection in the next few weeks," Kamalvandi told reporters in a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. The gas injection into the IR8 will be carried out under a paragraph of the nuclear deal that allow research activities on the eighth generation of Iran's centrifuge machines, known as the IR8... Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi had announced in August 2015 the country's plans to produce the necessary fuel for 5 to 6 nuclear reactors using its IR8 centrifuges in the next 15 years.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran Economy Grew 7.4% in H1 | Financial Tribune (Iran)
The Central Bank of Iran, in its latest report on the country's economic growth, said the gross domestic product during the first half of the current fiscal year (started March 20) grew 7.4% compared with last year's corresponding period. According to the CBI report, most of the growth came from the oil sector.
Iran among fastest growing economies | Iran Daily
Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced that the gross domestic product grew 7.4 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year (started March 20) compared to the figure for the same period last year. CBI figures further indicated that Iran's economy recorded a 9.2-percent growth in the second quarter of this fiscal year. This was the highest economic growth in the last 15 years and among the top in four decades... In the auto sector, car-manufacturers increased production by 30 percent in the first half of the year, which constituted one percent of the 7.4-percent economic growth. Auto makers may account for up to two percent of the country's GDP growth by the end of the current fiscal year... Meanwhile, the high economic growth has raised a question. "Why do the people not feel the impacts of the 7.4-percent economic growth on their lives?"
Germans sign power MoU with Iran | Mehr News Agency (Iran)
Iran and Germany’s Medio Energy company have inked an MoU worth about 104 million dollars over construction of two wind and solar power plants in the south of Iran. Khuzestan Regional Electricity Company of Iran and Germany’s Medio Energy Invest GmbH & Co. KG have sealed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with an aggregate total value of approximately 104 million dollars in order to build two solar and wind power stations in southern Iranian cities of Shushtar and Bandar-e Mahshahr. Mahmoud Dashtbozorg, Managing Director of Khuzestan Regional Electricity Company, expounded on details of the two agreements with Germans saying “the cooperation agreement with Medio Energy company has been signed in line with development of renewable energy technologies as well as investment attraction.” “The deal covers construction and implementation of a 20-megawwat solar power house in Shushtar through direct investment worth 24 million euros in addition to building and operation of a wind power plant in Bandar-e Mahshahr with a capacity of 50 megawatts and value of 80 million euros,” he added.
Total to Install Pressure Booster Station at South Pars Phase 11: Iran’s Oil Minister | Tasnim News Agency (Iran)
Iran’s oil minister said Total will equip Phase 11 of the country’s South Pars gas field with a pressure booster station to regularly pomp 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day for nearly 20 years as part of a deal between Tehran and the French energy giant. Speaking to Tasnim on Monday, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said, “Total will accept the responsibility to install a pressure booster station in Phase 11 to fix its output at 2 billion cubic feet per day for 15 to 20 years”. Earlier, Iran and Total signed an agreement over the development of South Pars Phase 11. The deal involves a consortium led by Total, which also includes the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Iran's Petropars.
Germany's VW Keen on Building NGVs in Iran | Fars News Agency (Iran)
German auto giant, Volkswagen, has signaled keenness to ground up natural gas vehicles (NGV) in Iran, an official said. Director of the CNG project of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company Ali Mehrabi has told a press conference on Sunday that foreign companies, including Germany's Volkswagen have welcomed projects to manufacture NGV parts in Iran. "In order to manufacture and sell car parts in Iran, foreign companies must build factories inside the country," he said.
Sukhoi signs basic plane sales deal with Iran | Press TV (Iran)
Russia’s media say the country’s aviation giant Sukhoi has signed a basic agreement with Iran to sell its Superjet 100 planes. Interfax news agency announced in a report that the agreement – which has been signed with an unnamed Iranian company – enables both sides to study the projected sales. The news agency quoted an anonymous Russia aviation official as confirming the development. The official added, however, that the agreement was still not binding. Hossein Alaei, the head of Iran’s Aseman Airlines, had earlier said his company was negotiating with Sukhoi as well as several other leading global plane makers to renovate its fleet. Alaei added that Sukhoi had carried out trial flights of its Superjet 100 last week in Tehran – what he said had been carried out at the invitation of Aseman Airlines.
Poland's PKN says buys 1 mln oil barrels from Iran | Reuters
Poland's biggest oil refiner PKN Orlen said on Wednesday it bought 1 million barrels of Iranian Light oil from National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). The state-run PKN, which mostly refines Russian oil, said that the Iranian oil will be delivered to Naftoport in Gdansk in January and then transported to PKN's refinery in Plock. "The processing of the feedstock most recently delivered from Iran will be a basis for further plans regarding supplies from that direction," PKN said in a statement.
Elecomp 2016: Iran Tech Show Holds Promise | Financial Tribune (Iran)
Talks were underway at Iran’s Elecomp for cooperating with Germany’s CeBIT, the global event for digital business held every year in Hannover. “CeBit and Elecomp are two events of similar nature and features representing a large spectrum of technologies and IT services, and there are grounds for mutual cooperation,” said Martina Lübon, the executive director of CeBIT. “We decided to take the first step in that direction by setting up our booth at Elecomp 2016 and registered Iran's National ICT Guild Organization at CeBit 2017 to update one another on the events as well as provide an opportunity for industrialists and players in the field to get familiar with the abilities and potentials in both countries,” she added.
SYRIA CONFLICT
IRGC Qods Force chief spotted in Aleppo | The Long War Journal
On Friday, photos emerged of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, in conquered eastern Aleppo, Syria. Another photo showed him by the Citadel of Aleppo. It was not immediately clear when the photos were taken.
Will the US take action against Qassem Soleimani’s Aleppo visit? | Al Arabiya
The US State Department said on Monday that top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani’s visit to Syria’s besieged city of Aleppo this week violated UN Security Council resolutions regarding the nuclear deal, but said the US would not lay out steps to address the behavior. “We do intend to consult with our partners on the security council about how to address our concerns with this,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing. “We’ve long said that Iran needs to choose whether it’s going to play a positive role in helping peacefully resolve conflicts, such as in Syria, or whether it will choose to prolong them. And you’re absolutely right, his travel was a violation. “He’s one of the designated individuals. No exemption to the travel ban was sought, and so it does constitute a violation of UNSCR 2231. As I said, we will – we fully anticipate bringing this up inside the council.”
IRAQ CRISIS
Iran’s supreme leader dubs Iraq’s PMU as ‘national treasure’ | Al Arabiya
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Sunday praised the mainly Shiite government-sanctioned Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) as a “national treasure,” his official website said... Khamenei went on to describe PMU as an “asset for the present and the future that should be supported.” In late November, the Iraqi parliament gave PMU its legal status, making it a “back-up and reserve” force for the military and police and empower them to “deter” security and terror threats facing the country. Khamenei made his remarks during a meeting with the head of the Shiite Iraqi Islamic Supreme Council Ammar al-Hakim... A number of PMU officials also ratified the allegiance of the militias to Tehran, including Hamid al-Jaziri when he said “the popular Mobilization leaders were raised in the arms of the Iranian regime,” the Iranian Press agency Mizan quoted him as saying. Jaziri also added that PMU considers itself a “state under the jurisdiction of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist [Khamenei], and does not recognize borders.”
TERRORISM
The Travels of Mrs. Murray’s Toyota Unveil Terror-Finance Network | The Wall Street Journal
Annie Murray had no idea how her champagne-colored 2009 Toyota Land Cruiser made its way from her hometown of Columbus, Ga., to a dirt parking lot in West Africa. She drove that car to church every week until circumstance, bad luck and the repo man took it away last winter. Her Toyota landed in Benin—at a car lot U.S. officials have alleged was a front for a global money-laundering network benefiting Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group backed by Iran. The Land Cruiser had traveled more than 5,700 miles along a well-worn U.S.-Benin trade route that federal agents thought they had cleaned up five years ago in a terror-finance case. The U.S. alleged at the time that hundreds of millions of dollars from overseas car sales were mixed with profits from Latin American drug cartels and deposited at a Lebanese bank that cooperated in the money laundering. Hezbollah took a cut for handling the deal, and some money returned to U.S. car dealers to buy more vehicles, according to federal investigators and a 2011 lawsuit filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in New York.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi: Rouhani Directly Responsible for All Intelligence Ministry Abuses | International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI)
In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi held President Hassan Rouhani directly responsible for “every Intelligence Ministry violation” and criticized his failure to uphold the Constitution. “I warn Mr. Rouhani and hold him responsible for the unlawful actions taking place in the Intelligence Ministry because the ministry is part of his cabinet,” said Ebadi on December 10, 2016, Human Rights Day. “Mr. Rouhani should at least say he has no authority over the Intelligence Ministry,” added Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. “But he hasn’t said it and until he clearly does, he’s responsible for every Intelligence Ministry violation, including the imprisonment of people based on false and biased Intelligence Ministry reports.” The Intelligence Ministry is directly involved in imposing illegal and arbitrary restrictions on the activities of independent and non-governmental organizations, activists and dissidents. In addition to directing and aiding hundreds of cases of arbitrary arrests every year and laying false charges against the defendants, the ministry also illegally interferes with judicial processes.
Prisoner of Conscience Not Allowed Visits From Daughter | Amnesty International
Prisoner of conscience Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, told her husband on 25 November that Revolutionary Guard officials had pressured her to choose between moving her two-year-old daughter, Gabriella Ratcliffe, into Section 2A of Evin Prison with her for up to three days a week or sign a document to say that she does not want “the right to be with her young daughter”. There are no suitable facilities for children inside Evin Prison. In her last phone call with her husband on 2 December, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe said that neither choice is acceptable to her and what she requests from the authorities instead is more regular visits – either a day-long visit or two half-day visits each week – with her daughter. She is currently allowed to have only one hour-long visit per week.
Former Italian Ambassador to Iran Denounces Detention of Iranian-American Dual National and Wife | International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI)
In a public letter the former Italian Ambassador to Iran, Roberto Toscano, condemned the arrest and now three-month detention of dual Iranian-American citizen Karan Vafadari and his wife, Afarin Niasari, whom he called among “the most dignified people I have met during the five years I spent as Italy’s ambassador to Tehran.” Ambassador Toscano, in an open letter shared with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and published here for the first time, wrote that it was “impossible” for him to remain silent after learning of the arrests. The couple, art gallery owners in Tehran and prominent in the Iranian artistic and cultural community, have been held at Evin Prison, without access to counsel, ever since their arrest in July 2016 by agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization—allegedly for “engaging in corruption and depravity” and serving alcohol at their home.
Iran’s Cyber Police Tries to Control Popular Social Media App Telegram with Hacking, Permits | International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI)
A state crackdown on social media ahead of Iran’s 2017 presidential election has resulted in the Cyber Police (FATA) requiring Iranian-owned channels with more than 5,000 followers on the country’s most popular messaging application, Telegram, to seek official permits. Meanwhile, several Iranian-owned Telegram channels have been hacked by state agents, according to an investigation by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. In early December 2016, FATA targeted Telegram channels with 300,000 to 500,000 members that mainly contained posts about entertainment and other non-political issues. The accounts of these channels were hacked just a few days after their administrators were summoned and questioned by FATA. In one case, state hackers accessed a Telegram channel administrator’s Yahoo email account—after hijacking his two-step password verification process on Yahoo—which enabled them to gain access to his Telegram account.
Iran detains 1200 Internet users in Tehran | Al Arabiya
Tehran’s police chief officer announced the arrest of 1,200 Internet users in the Iranian capital Tehran during a period of eight months on “moral and social charges, embezzlement, fraud, data theft, and prohibited activities on social media and smartphone apps.” Gen. Hussein Sajdi Nia said that 986 men and 298 women were captured during this period after being detected by the anti-cyber-crimes police FATA, according to “Basij Press” of the Basij militias. According to Tehran’s police chief, many of the crimes like data theft occurred through social networking applications such as Tango, Telegram, and Instagram.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran's president to embark on three-leg Asia tour | Press TV (Iran)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is to set off for a tour of three Asian countries to discuss ways of improving mutual relations. Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Rouhani will leave Tehran for Armenia on Wednesday on the first leg of his Asian tour, which will also take him to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Iranian president's deputy chief of staff for communications and information, Parviz Esmaeili, said on Sunday... During his day-long visit to Yerevan, Rouhani plans to hold talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on the expansion of cooperation... He said the Iranian chief executive will then travel to the Kazakh capital, Astana, for a one-day visit. Rouhani is scheduled to meet with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and attend a joint press conference with him while high-ranking delegations of the two countries will also hold a meeting and senior officials will sign documents for further cooperation, he added. On the last leg of his regional tour, Rouhani will head for Bishkek to hold talks with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and senior officials of the country, Esmaeili said.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's growing drug problem: 'No walk of society is immune' | Los Angeles Times
They loiter on pedestrian bridges, puffing on pipes. They squat behind bushes and palm trees in leafy parks to get their fix. Even doctors and nurses are users. Iran’s drug problem has become a national epidemic, health ministry officials and local doctors say, drawing the poor as well as the affluent, the secular as well as the pious, to an assortment of hard drugs including crystal meth, painkillers, synthetic hallucinogens and heroin and opium trafficked from neighboring Afghanistan. “No walk of society is immune. Even the sons of Islamic clerics are patients in our clinics,” said Dr. Hasan Razavi, who runs a small rehabilitation center in western Tehran. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime says Iran has one of the gravest addiction crises in the world. Health ministry officials estimate there are 2.2 million drug addicts in this country of 80 million, 2.75% of the population, but doctors who operate some of the hundreds of government-sanctioned rehab clinics nationwide believe the actual figures are higher.
The remilitarization of Iran's Basij | Al-Monitor
At the Dec. 11 ceremony to introduce Gholamhossein Gheybparvar as the new head of Iran’s paramilitary Basij, Gen. Mohammad Shirazi, the head of military affairs at the Office of the Supreme Leader, recounted that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei realized that a number of “ill-tempered” individuals were angry with Gheybparvar when he visited the southern city of Shiraz. In Shirazi’s telling, rather than being upset, Khamenei saw this as showing Gheybparvar’s “perseverance and [being on the] correct path.” While this story at first glance seems inconsequential, the supreme leader has presented it in Iranian media as a ringing endorsement.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iran’s Western partners risk blood on their hands | UANI Advisory Board Member Giulio Terzi in POLITICO
One of the major questions for policymakers following Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president is what to do about Iran? This is a puzzle not just in Washington but in Europe, too. Since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, European countries have signed hundreds of memoranda of understanding and declarations of intent, and have engaged in negotiations for contracts in practically every field of economic activity: banking, finance, oil and gas, transportation, infrastructure, engineering, even dual-use technologies that could see both civilian and military applications. Italy has led the way. Following former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s example, government ministers have announced dozens of initiatives and programs with their Iranian counterparts. These initiatives involve not only trade but also defense. The Italian Navy, for example, has carried out joint anti-piracy exercises with Iran. The nuclear deal has represented the best opportunity for all those who have vested interests in Iran’s supposedly lucrative market to promote a misleading depiction of the country’s ruling regime. According to this deeply flawed narrative — seemingly taken for granted by most European institutions and member states — President Hassan Rouhani’s Iran has suddenly stopped being a major threat to international and regional stability. The truth could not be more different. Major sectors of the Iranian economy are dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an internationally recognized terrorist organization — as was pointed out at a recent conference on Iran held at the Italian Senate and sponsored by United Against Nuclear Iran. It is difficult to do business in the country without enriching the armed group and its front companies and helping to support its activities, which include kidnapping, politically motivated arrests, terrorism, cyber espionage and cyber terrorism. Iran’s Western partners risk having blood on their hands.
Peace Corps Memories: Barry Rosen Before the Hostage Crisis | Roland Elliot Brown interviews UANI Advisory Board Member and Iran Hostage Crisis Survivor Barry Rosen for IranWire
With much regret, Rosen said his goodbyes and left Iran in 1969 and moved to Washington, D.C. In the mid 70s he worked as chief of Voice of America’s Central Asian Service. But in late 1978, as revolutionary feeling in Iran was escalating, the US Embassy there sought to hire more Farsi speakers, and Rosen was offered a job there as the embassy’s press attaché... “The big error in my life was going back to Iran in March of that year,” Rosen says. “I should have thought more about my family and my wife and young children, but I somehow thought this would be important and exciting.” In November 1979, student supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini stormed the embassy and took Rosen and 51 of his colleagues hostage for 444 days. “The living conditions were horrible,” he says. “In some places, the cells were in total darkness. I thought that it was pure torture. Sometimes in the middle of the night, they would open up the cells and point automatic weapons at our heads. Those were moments of great terror. I'm terribly angry about how they treated us.” ... Rosen’s captors, he says, looked with greater suspicion on those embassy staff that spoke Farsi. “There was always this idea that I was a member of the CIA or whatever. They accused me of plotting against the regime. They were going to put me on trial.” ... Rosen was released, along with his colleagues, on January 20, 1981. After Donald Trump was elected president on November 8, 2016, IranWire asked Rosen how the Trump presidency would affect US-Iran relations. “I think Trump will want to renegotiate the nuclear agreement and will do it because the spirit of the agreement hasn't held,” Rosen says. “He might even go as far as abrogating the nuclear agreement.” Iran, he says, continues its human rights violations at home and terrorism abroad. He cites the example of Syria. He also points out that he and the 51 other embassy staff held hostage in 1979 have yet to receive compensation for their ordeal. “I'd rather have the money go to us for pain and suffering than go to Iran as sanctions relief,” he says.
What Jeff Sessions as attorney general will mean for the Iran Deal | Aaron Arnold in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
While the attorney general does not have any big role to play directly in terms of the Iran deal, he is, however, responsible for enforcing and prosecuting key legislation that could affect the deal. Suppose, for example, that he decided to prosecute an Iranian for procuring dual-use items that are covered under the deal's procurement channel, but does not first use the dispute resolution mechanism that is in place under the Iran deal. What kind of tension might this cause between Washington and Tehran? In fact, the Obama administration has been quite mindful of these perceptions—deciding to take a hands-off approach to pursuing new indictments that may rock the boat so far as the deal is concerned. The FBI, for example, has several cases that are essentially on hold out of fear of upending the agreement. In other words, the Justice Department’s actions can carry a ripple effect... If Sessions’ Justice Department aggressively pursues violations of non-nuclear sanctions, export controls, or other criminal violations against Iranian entities, Tehran may claim foul. Suppose, for example, that the FBI is free to move forward its cases that have been on hold since the negotiations. If the United States does not first use the dispute resolution mechanism, Tehran may view Washington as acting in bad faith.
Russia’s influence has risen but Iran is the real winner in Aleppo | Martin Chulov in The Guardian
Victory in Aleppo matters enormously for both sides, but when the dust finally settles in Aleppo, it counts for more in Iran. Securing Syria’s second city and industrial heart is much less to do with re-establishing state sovereignty than about asserting its own influence and agenda in the strategic heart of the region. Aleppo is a crossroads in Iran’s project to build a land corridor to the Mediterranean coast. It is also likely to be a new centre of Tehran’s geopolitical projection, which has been on open display elsewhere in the conflict. Iranian officials have directly negotiated with the opposition militia, Ahrar al-Sham, about the fate of the battered opposition-held town of Zabadani, west of Damascus. Iran proposed a swap of the town’s Sunnis, who would be sent to Idlib province, for the residents of Fua and Kefraya, who would in turn be relocated to Zabadani. “The Iranians want no Sunnis between Damascus and the Lebanese border,” said one senior Lebanese official yesterday. “There is a very clear plan to change the sectarian tapestry of the border.” In the Damascus suburb of Darayya, where opposition communities surrendered in August, and accepted being flown to Idlib, 300 Shia families from Iraq have moved in. Further to the west, near the Zainab shrine, Iran has bought substantial numbers of properties, and also sponsored the arrival of Shia families, securing the area as a bridgehead before Zabadani. Securing corridors of influence with Shia communities marks, potentially, Iran’s most assertive moment since the Islamic revolution of 1979, after which Tehran’s proxies have gradually projected its influence, through Hezbollah, through the US invasion of Iraq – which switched political power from Sunnis to Shias – and now through the chaos of Syria.
How about a Little Art of the Deal for Iran? | Andrew C. McCarthy in the National Review
It’s the “dumbest” deal he’s ever seen. On the hustings, that was Donald Trump’s constant refrain about President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). And given that he pegs NAFTA as the “worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country,” that must make the JCPOA pretty, pretty dumb. That means it would be dumb not to fix it. The president-elect has a golden opportunity to do just that. He need not rip up the agreement. He just needs to do what he committed to do: Restore constitutional order... For his part, Trump has been ambiguous, perhaps strategically so, on how he intends to handle the Iran deal, variously suggesting that he would tear it up, restructure it, or — in a significant departure from the Obama administration — hold the mullahs to its strict letter. I would propose a different tack: Trump should treat the Iran deal the way it should have been treated all along — as a treaty. Doing so would help President Trump accomplish two critical objectives in one fell swoop. First, without necessarily dismantling any benefits Obama may have secured, Trump would lawfully transfer to himself the power to renegotiate the deal on better terms — the signature skill on which he built his successful White House bid. Second, he would reverse a perilous constitutional setback that purports to create American legal obligations through international proceedings in which powers hostile to the United States — Russia, China, and Iran itself — weigh in, but the American people’s elected representatives are frozen out. It cannot be stressed enough that the Iran deal is not law, at least for the most part (more on that caveat momentarily).
Turkey and Iran’s Dangerous Collision Course | Ali Vaez in The New York Times
Today’s competition between Turkey and Iran is the latest iteration of an old power game: a struggle their progenitors, the Byzantine and Persian empires, started over the control of Mesopotamia — today’s Iraq and Syria. While the rivalry outlived their transformation from empires to nation-states, they have managed to keep the peace between themselves for nearly 200 years. Yet Turkey and Iran are now on a collision course, mostly because of their involvement as the region’s major Sunni and Shiite powers in the deepening sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Their inability to accommodate each other has the potential to undermine or even undo the strong ties they have developed over the past two decades, as their economies became increasingly intertwined. How the two countries choose to deploy their power and whether they can overcome their differences are vitally important to determining the future of the Middle East. Left unchecked, the present dynamics point toward greater bloodshed, growing instability and greater risks of direct — even if inadvertent — military confrontation.
Launch of #FreeToBeHome Political Prisoner Campaign | Amb. Samantha Power in Medium
This holiday season, as families in the United States gather, we are reminded of all the missed holidays, bittersweet birthdays, and family occasions where a mother, brother, friend, or neighbor was missing because a government chose to muzzle their voices and lock them up. So throughout this holiday season, the United States government will be profiling the cases of prisoners unjustly held around the world and the families they leave behind. The stories of these individuals will highlight the broader struggle faced by so many families of political prisoners, who have to commemorate countless family occasions with loved ones behind bars. It is, of course, fitting to launch such a campaign on Human Rights Day, as these prisoners were detained for exercising their universal rights. These prisoners represent thousands of other prisoners unjustly detained around the world... Narges Mohammadi, a prominent human rights defender, had been arrested before for her work against the death penalty and oppression in Iran. But this time, she wasn’t released as she had been before. In May 2015, she was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 16 years in jail. She is critically ill and requires ongoing specialized medical care, which she cannot receive in prison. Her young twin children have been awaiting their mother’s return for Nowruz, the most important holiday for Iranians. Nowruz means a “new day” when all family members get together to celebrate the New Year. Imagining a Nowruz without Narges around the table is unbearable for the family, especially for her children. We call on the Government of Iran to release Narges Mohammadi immediately and reunite her with her family.
uaniadmin
Tue, 12/20/2016 - 15:10