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TOP STORIES
Iran claimed victory after it was spared any of the cuts
in oil production accepted by other OPEC members, including its bitter
regional rival Saudi Arabia, to tackle a global glut. "Iran's oil
victory at OPEC" and "Failure of Riyadh's oil diplomacy"
were among the headlines in Iranian newspapers on Thursday morning, a day
after the 14-member cartel agreed to reduce its output by 1.2 million
barrels per day (bpd). Iran, Libya and Nigeria were exempted from the
cuts, with Tehran even managing to win the right to increase its
production by 90,000 bpd over the next six months. The other members of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed that Iran should
be allowed to return to its 2005 production levels of 3.975 million bpd
-- before international sanctions crippled its industry. Meanwhile, Saudi
Arabia, OPEC's most powerful member, agreed at the Vienna meeting to cut
500,000 bpd from its output.
The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East said Wednesday
he has seen a "bit of an uptick" in bad behavior by Iran since
the nation's nuclear deal was signed in January. Army Gen. Joseph Votel
said the agreement, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits
to its nuclear program, was being "implemented appropriately,"
but that it has not changed Iranian behavior. "I am concerned about
continued malign activities of Iran across the region," Votel,
commander of U.S. Central Command, said at a forum hosted by the Foreign
Policy Initiative. Those included Iran's cyber activities, the use of
surrogate forces, facilitation of lethal aid, buildup of missile and
anti-access capabilities, and unprofessional and aggressive activities in
the Persian Gulf, he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry visited Capitol Hill
ًTuesday evening to caution Senate Democrats against renewing Iran
sanctions and to urge them to prevent the incoming administration from
unraveling his hard-fought nuclear deal. The low-key meeting comes ahead
of a Senate vote later this week to renew for another 10 years sanctions
on Iran's energy, trade, defense and banking sectors that will expire at
the end of this year. The White House has stopped short of saying it will
veto the bill, but has sought to delay a vote. Administration officials
have also made it clear that they think passing it will antagonize the
Iranians without giving the executive branch any powers it doesn't
already have to "snap back" sanctions if Tehran violates the deal...
While that message may resonate with many Senate Democrats, it likely
will not be enough to prevent passage of the Iran Sanctions Act. Last
month, seven Democrats who voted for the deal last year wrote to Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to urge him to schedule a vote on
the bill, arguing that it strengthens the deal by giving the White House
an "unambiguous ability to immediately snap back sanctions in the
coming years."
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will embark
on a three-nation tour of Asia in the coming days. Iranian Foreign
Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Wednesday that a high-ranking
politico-economic delegation will accompany Zarif in his visits to India,
China and Japan. On the first leg of his official tour, the top Iranian
diplomat will visit India to take part and deliver a speech at the Heart
of Asia conference on the situation in Afghanistan, Qassemi said on
Wednesday. The 6th Heart of Asia ministerial conference, scheduled for December
3-4, will discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in
Afghanistan... Zarif will then head to China for a visit at the
invitation of his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to hold talks with senior
officials of the East Asian country and take part in joint business
forums. He will then leave China for Japan, where he is scheduled to sit
down with senior Japanese officials, including Foreign Minister Fumio
Kishida, and attend joint economic seminars. The delegation accompanying
the Iranian foreign minister will include heads of 38 companies
affiliated with the Iran Chamber of Commerce, representatives from 15
knowledge-based companies and eight commercial banks as well as a number
of officials in the industrial, trade and scientific sectors.
Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Jagarian says Russian
Minister of Energy Alexander Novak will travel to Tehran on December 13
to take part in the Iran-Russia Joint Economic Commission session.
Jagarian made the remark after a meeting with Head of Iran Chamber of
Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture Gholam-Hossein Shafeie in
Tehran.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Spanish fast food chain Telepizza plans to open 200
branches in Iran in the next 10 years, with the first due to be ready to
trade by March next year in Teheran... It will be the only western-run
fast food chain to launch in the Muslim country...
IRAQ CRISIS
Officially, the militias form a government-backed popular
fighting force called the Hashid Shaabi, which has been instrumental in
protecting Baghdad and pushing back Islamic State. But the militias have
also created headaches for the government. Many of them have ties to Iran
and have amassed vast military and political influence. Sunni Iraqis and
human rights groups have accused some of them of rights violations,
torture and murder... To promote national unity, Abadi has promised to rein
in the militias. Technically, the Hashid Shaabi reports to the prime
minister through long-time national security advisor Falah Fayyad. Other
Hashid leaders hold official positions. Spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi, for
example, is a lawmaker. As well, Baghdad allocates salaries for about
110,000 Hashid members. But Western diplomats say money for Shi'ite
fighters is regularly dispensed through commanders, giving them de facto
control of the purse strings. And the Hashid routinely presents itself as
loyal to the Iraqi people rather than the state. Fayad's deputy Abu Mahdi
al-Mohandes - many militia members see him as the Hashid's real leader -
is a veteran commander with long-standing ties to Iran... A colonel in
the police command of Tikrit, a Sunni town now adorned with Shi'ite
militia banners and pictures of Iran's Supreme Leader, put it this way:
"We don't have any authority over them (the militias). They are a
state inside a state."
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
State-sponsored hackers have conducted a series of
destructive attacks on Saudi Arabia over the last two weeks, erasing data
and wreaking havoc in the computer banks of the agency running the
country's airports and hitting five additional targets, according to two people
familiar with an investigation into the breach. Saudi Arabia said after
inquiries from Bloomberg News that "several" government
agencies were targeted in attacks that came from outside the kingdom,
according to state media. No further details were provided. Although a
probe by Saudi authorities is still in its early stages, the people said
digital evidence suggests the attacks emanated from Iran. That could
present President-elect Donald Trump with a major national security
challenge as he steps into the Oval Office.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Until recently, Mahmud Sadeghi was an obscure legal expert
whose most conspicuous professional accomplishment was a two-year
advisory stint with Iran's Education Ministry. That changed with the
54-year-old's election to parliament in Iran's tightly controlled
elections in February, as one of 133 relative moderates allied with
reformist President Hassan Rohani to have won seats in the 290-seat
legislature, known as the Majlis... Junior lawmaker Sadeghi, for his
part, has been an irritant to the conservative and hard-line
establishment ever since. He has aired defiant criticism of state
repression and censorship, grabbing the spotlight late this month as the
target of an abortive arrest after he expressed suspicions around the
financial dealings of one of Iran's most powerful political figures,
Judiciary head Sadegh Larijani. (Larijani has rejected the allegations as
"lies.") Sadeghi rebuffed the security officers who arrived at
his home on November 27 by citing parliamentary immunity, but it was
arguably the mobilization of supporters via digital media that set the
incident apart from other such raids in Iran. News spread quickly on
social media, users shared his address, and colleagues and activists
gathered outside his house to prevent his arrest. The officers backed
down, although Tehran's prosecutor has pledged that Sadeghi must turn
himself in or face detention. Sadeghi then vowed via Twitter that
"pressure" would not prevent him and other lawmakers from
"seeking transparency and fighting corruption in all [Iran's state]
institutions.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
So if the president-elect is going to destroy Isil, he
will need to find a way to convince the Sunni states to play a bigger
role in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. It is not
that they fail to see the threat posed by Isil; it is that they see the
Iranian threat in existential terms. For all its claims and
pretensions, Isil is not a state and has no backing of any state. Iran is
a state that seeks to dominate the region and is using Shia militias to
weaken the state structure in the region. The Sunni-led regimes want to
know that the US understands the threat posed by the Iranians. They
feared that President Obama looked at Iran as part of the solution and
not the problem in the area. For all of candidate Trump's tough words on
the Iran nuclear deal, they have not heard much about Iran's
destabilizing activities in the region from him and are hoping that as
President, he will match tough actions with words to counter Iran's
threats in the Middle East. This desire, this hope that Trump will get
the Iranian threat, also could provide the president-elect with real
leverage on America's traditional Middle Eastern partners, including
Turkey. He can tell them that he is prepared to do more to counter
the Iranians and their use of Shia militias but by the same token he
wants to hear from them about what more they will do to fight Isil.
An Iranian revolutionary court on Sunday sentenced Ahmad
Montazeri to 21 years in prison on a range of national-security charges.
The 60-year-old cleric will serve a mere six years by Iranian justice
standards, owing to his age and his family's special status in Iranian
revolutionary history. But his sentence is a reminder that the regime
remains as brutal as ever, even as it reaps the economic benefits of its
nuclear deal with the West. Mr. Montazeri's crime was to release tapes
that capture his father, the Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri,
denouncing the regime's repression during its first decade in power. The
elder Montazeri, who died in 2009, was one of the regime's founders with
Ayatollah Khomeini. Tapped to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader,
Montazeri grew increasingly disillusioned with the theocracy he had established.
The final break came in 1988 when the regime executed thousands of
leftists and supporters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group.
The MEK had helped Khomeini topple the Shah in 1979. But after the
revolution the new supreme leader set out to consolidate power and
liquidate his erstwhile allies.
Before trashing the Iran deal - the agreement inked last
fall, which limits Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions
relief - the incoming Trump administration should consider how a policy
of soft economic engagement with Tehran could provide Washington with
strategic leverage and increased bargaining power in a post-Iran deal
world. Throughout his campaign, now President-elect Trump attacked the
Iran deal, claiming that "it will go down in history as one of the
worst deals ever negotiated." The future of the deal now seems to be
far less certain, as Trump fills key positions with outspoken critics of
the agreement. Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Trump's recent pick for
CIA director, is well-known for his hardline stance on the deal, recently
noting that it should be "rolled back." To be sure, the deal is
not without its flaws. For one, there is still uncertainty around what
will happen when the agreement expires in ten years, at which point Iran
would be free to resume its enrichment program. Moreover, Iran recently
violated the agreement's cap on heavy water and continued to produce
heavy water for two weeks after the IAEA learned of the violation.
According to David Albright and Andrea Stricker of the Institute for
Science and International Security, "the ongoing secrecy surrounding
the decision-making of the Joint Commission is a serious shortcoming in
the implementation of the JCPOA and raises legitimate questions about the
adequacy of Iran's compliance." Despite these issues, upending the
deal now puts the United States in a precarious position - reducing, not
increasing, economic leverage against Iran. Instead, Trump should see the
next ten years as an opportunity to ensure Iran's commitment to a
peaceful nuclear program while at the same time increasing Washington's
economic leverage over the country.
On November 10, 2016, the Department of Justice announced
a federal case against four Turkish individuals accused of illicitly
facilitating Iranian financial transactions for raw metals via the United
States. The case is being prosecuted by the Southern District of New York
(Manhattan) and indicts four Turkish nationals for efforts to illicitly
facilitate some $100 million in Iranian financial transactions through
the U.S. financial system in violation of the International Economic
Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA). The violations allegedly occurred between 2014
and 2016 and involved five U.S. banks and include conspiracy to defraud
the United States, conspiracy to violate the IEEPA, conspiracy to commit
bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The four indicted
individuals remain at large in Turkey... This case shows that a number of
countries remain problematic for efforts to detect and block illicit
financial transactions. Turkish financial institutions' due diligence
efforts in particular are questionable since they came into possession of
Iranian funds that were later transferred to foreign countries via the
United States. Turkey has been working to implement Financial Action Task
Force (FATF) recommendations since it was found to be a problematic
jurisdiction in 2007. It was judged overall as partially compliant with
the 2007 recommendations in the FATF's most recent 2014 Mutual Evaluation
Report on Turkey. This case also shows that Turkey remains a problem with
respect to poor regulations over trading companies such as those operated
by the four indicted individuals. It must do better at preventing such
illicit activity since it continues to be exploited by Iran. If it has
not done so already, Switzerland needs to take action against the company
that facilitated steel shipments to Iran while knowingly processing
financial transactions that violated U.S. law.
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