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TOP STORIES
Iranians bade farewell to Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani on Tuesday, with the sprawling state funeral veering
slightly off script when groups of mourners started shouting
opposition slogans. The authorities were forced to raise the volume
on the loudspeakers playing lamentation songs after some in the
crowds took up cries of "Oh, Hussein, Mir Hussein," a
reference to a former presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi,
who has been under house arrest since 2011. Some of the chants were
aimed at Russia, Iran's ally in the Syrian conflict. Video clips on
social media showed mourners shouting "Death to Russia" and
"the Russian Embassy is the den of espionage," as they
passed the embassy's complex in the heart of Tehran. People also
called for the release of hunger strikers in Iranian prisons.
Before the sudden death of Rafsanjani at the age of 82
on Sunday, Mr Rouhani would have counted on the elder statesman as
one of his key allies and campaigners in his political battle against
hardliners. Now, more than any other politician, Mr Rouhani will be
feeling the loss of a man who was a giant of Iranian politics from
the time he helped found the Islamic republic four decades ago. And
the ripple effects could be felt way beyond the elections, analysts
say. "It is not only the people who are scared about Iran's
future in the absence of Rafsanjani. You can see this fear in the
highest echelons of the political hierarchy," said
Mohammad-Sadegh Javadi-Hesar, a reformist politician. "We have
lost this massive capital for which there is no substitute." ...
Rafsanjani was also considered as someone who could have helped
influence the decision of the Assembly of Experts - a clerical body
tasked with selecting the next supreme leader - to keep Iran on a
more moderate path. Pro-reformers now fear hardliners could try to
exploit the absence of Rafsanjani's influence to drag Iran into
another period of radical foreign policies and political suppression
at home. "This death has created a tsunami by which many
political and social equations will change," Mr Javadi-Hesar
said.
U.S., European and Iranian officials meet Tuesday in
Vienna, a last opportunity for the Obama administration to bolster
the Iranian nuclear agreement along with its partners before
President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The officials are meeting
under the aegis of the so-called Joint Commission, comprised of
representatives of Iran and the six world powers who negotiated the
July 2015 nuclear deal. The commission oversees the implementation of
the accord and arbitrates disputes among the signatories. In recent
months, the Commission has approved decisions to exempt some Iranian
nuclear material from the country's stockpile limits and sought to
shore up the agreement with measures to ensure Iran doesn't breach
the terms of the nuclear accord by exceeding caps on material such as
uranium and heavy water... Among the issues set for discussion
Tuesday are Iranian complaints about the decision last month by U.S.
Congress to extend nonnuclear U.S. sanctions on Tehran, according to
diplomats. The meeting may also address the decision by the six
powers to allow Iran to import large amounts of natural uranium. On
Monday, Western diplomats confirmed that the U.S. had backed a
request by Russia to export more than 100 tons of natural uranium to
Iran. A second export request by Kazakhstan is pending, they said.
Despite reservations in some European capitals, the decision to
approve the Russian uranium export request was supported by the U.S.
administration, according to several Western diplomats... France and
Britain, two signatories of the accord, raised concerns about the
uranium exports during weekslong discussions over the Russian export
request, according to three diplomats.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The news that the US and five other world powers have
approved a Russian shipment of 116 metric tons of natural uranium to
Iran is "only likely to spark a greater backlash" by the
new Congress and President-elect Donald Trump against the July 2015
nuclear agreement, a top official with an anti-deal advocacy group
told The Algemeiner on Monday. "No part of the JCPOA [Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action] obligates the P5+1 to gift the Iranian
regime tons of natural uranium, which can be further enriched to
build bombs," United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) Executive
Director Matan Shamir said. "This is one more reckless
unilateral concession that the Obama administration should forgo,
particularly amid reports that Iran has been close to exhausting its
domestic deposits." According to The Associated Press, the
shipment is meant to "compensate" Iran for 44 metric tons
of heavy water it has exported to Russia since the implementation of
the nuclear deal began. David Albright, head of the Washington,
DC-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank,
was quoted by AP as saying the material could be used to make 10
simple nuclear bombs - "depending on the efficiency of the
enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
In a vivid illustration of the tensions between the
United States and Iran, an American Navy warship fired warning shots
at Iranian boats that were racing toward it near the Strait of
Hormuz, Defense Department officials said on Monday. The episode
occurred Sunday when four Iranian fast boats came within 900 yards of
the U.S.S. Mahan, a guided missile destroyer that was escorting an
amphibious warship with 1,000 Marines on board and a Navy oiler. When
the Iranian boats did not respond to a radio call and flares
signaling them to stop, the American destroyer fired three warning
shots with a .50-caliber machine gun. A Navy helicopter also dropped
smoke grenades. There was no damage to the Iranian vessels, and they
did not return fire. It was the first time the Navy had fired warning
shots at an Iranian boat since Aug. 24... There were 35 close
encounters between American and Iranian vessels in 2016, most of
which occurred during the first half of the year, and 23 encounters
in 2015.
ExxonMobil did business with Iran, Syria and Sudan
through a European subsidiary while President-elect Donald Trump's
nominee for secretary of State was a top executive of the oil giant
and those countries were under U.S. sanctions as state sponsors of
terrorism, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. That
business connection is likely to surface Wednesday at a confirmation
hearing for ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. The sales were conducted in 2003, 2004 and 2005
by Infineum, in which ExxonMobil owned a 50% share, according to SEC
documents unearthed by American Bridge, a Democratic research group.
ExxonMobil told USA TODAY the transactions were legal because
Infineum, a joint venture with Shell Corporation, was based in Europe
and the transactions did not involve any U.S. employees. The filings,
from 2006, show that the company had $53.2 million in sales to Iran,
$600,000 in sales to Sudan and $1.1 million in sales to Syria during
those three years.
TERRORISM
The US State Department listed Ali Da'amoush and
Mustafa Mughniyeh, both members of Hezbollah's senior leadership, as
specially designated global terrorists today. The designation
sanctions individuals who have either carried out terrorist attacks
against the United States or who pose a significant threat of to its
national security. Ali Da'amoush is a Shiite cleric and the head of
Hezbollah's Foreign Relations Department (FRD), which engages in
covert terrorist operations around the world on behalf of the Shiite
organization, including recruiting operatives and intelligence
gathering. He is also an aide to the group's leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, often representing him at functions, rallies and other
public occasions... Mustafa Mughniyeh was born in Jan. 1987 in
Tehran. He is the elder son of Hezbollah's former military commander
Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008, and the
nephew of previous commander Mustafa Badreddine, who was killed in
Syria last May. Mustafa's younger brother, Jihad, was killed in an
Israeli airstrike in Jan. 2015 in the Golan Heights.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The hunger strike, a pressure tactic of
self-starvation used by political protesters around the world, is
forcing Iran's powerful judiciary to reconsider the conditions of at
least one of its inmates after several started fasts that are leading
to widespread support on social media. The exact number of hunger
strikers in Iranian prisons is unclear, but according to human rights
organizations and reports in local media outlets, seven inmates,
sentenced for crimes against the state, have refused to eat for
intervals ranging from several weeks to more than two months...
Refusing to eat to protest conditions in prison is illegal in Iran,
but is not uncommon. However, the number of inmates now
simultaneously fasting, in combination with a large social media
campaign, is unusual in the country. It also providing a publicity
platform for those in prison, Iranian analysts say. "The success
is clearly motivating others to join," said Nader Karimi Joni, a
journalist close to the reformist factions in Iran.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The death of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani deprives Iran's reformers of a powerful ally, boosting
anti-Western hardliners before a presidential election which will
determine how open Tehran is to the world. The loss of Rafsanjani's
skills as a factional powerbroker also means rivalries in Iran's
unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule could grow
unchecked, testing the stability of the system. His death on Sunday
heightens concerns for reformers at a time when morale is rising
among hardliners because of Donald Trump's election as U.S.
president. They believe Trump will adopt tough policies hostile to
Iran and that this will undermine reformers' attempts to build bridges
with Washington. "Rafsanjani was a key equilibrating power in
Iran's complex political system," said a senior Iranian official
who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the
matter. "His absence as a counterweight against hardliners could
harm the moderates and the establishment altogether," the
official said by telephone.
One night the week before, bulldozers had rolled in
and dumped piles of dirt and rubble where the market has sat for the
past decade. It was the latest attempt by Tehran authorities to
dismantle informal bazaars across the capital city on the grounds
that they block traffic or lack adequate permits. Jafari and other
vendors who rent stalls - rates are as much as $8 per day for a
50-square-foot patch - dug through the dirt with their hands to
flatten the ground so they could set up their folding tables and
metal clothing racks and resume selling as usual. "We are ready
to struggle up to our last drop of blood," Jafari said. A weekly
bazaar might not seem worthy of such a serious battle. But in a
country with rampant unemployment - the official unemployment rate is
12%, though it is widely believed to be much higher - vendors have
become symbols of the struggle for decent jobs and affordable
commerce.
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Iran said Tuesday it had finally received an official
invitation from Saudi Arabia for its pilgrims to attend this year's
hajj, two weeks after Riyadh announced it. There was no official
Iranian delegation at last year's pilgrimage to the Muslim holy
places after Sunni Saudi Arabia severed relations with Shiite Iran
following the torching of its missions in Tehran and Mashhad by
protesters in January last year. It was the first time in three
decades that Iranian pilgrims had been absent and the culmination of
years of worsening relations over the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
"The Iranian delegation will travel to Saudi Arabia on February
23... and we hope to get tangible results," hajj affairs
representative Ali Ghazi Askar told the Mizan Online news website.
"For the time being, nothing is certain and we will attend the
hajj as long as the situation is prepared for us," he said.
"Undoubtedly, there are problems that must be resolved."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Shortly before his death, Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, Iran's former president and clerical major domo, mused on
the Holocaust. "For instance, it is said that six million Jews
died. Later accounts reveal that although people died, many Jews were
in hiding during those days; 'the dead' are actually still
living." The larger point of the interview was to remind Iranian
officials not to quibble publicly with the fraudulent Western
narrative of the Holocaust, for it only empowers Israel. Such was
Rafsanjani's method and guile: He frequently brandished a moderate
image that concealed the reality of his militancy. Most of the
cleric's obituaries in the Western press lament the death of a
"pragmatist" who in reality was the most consequential
architect of the theocracy's machinery of repression and regional
ambitions. Rafsanjani, not his acolyte-turned-tormentor Ali Khamenei,
enshrined terrorism as an instrument of Iranian statecraft. It was
Rafsanjani who was the driving force behind the development of the
Islamic republic's nuclear program. The tragedy of Rafsanjani was
that as he aged he seemed to appreciate the impossibility of the
Islamic revolution.
Last week Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the principal
architect of the Islamic Republic, died of a heart attack at 82. The
former parliamentary speaker, two-term president, and chairman of
various powerful bodies leaves behind a mixed political legacy. In
his last Friday sermon at Tehran University in 2009, Rafsanjani
sharply criticized the contested presidential election in which his
bête noire, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was re-elected, and emphasized the
need for "respecting the law," "regaining pubic
confidence," "freeing political prisoners," and
securing "freedom of speech in the mass media." Rafsanjani
had little or no regard for those principles before 2009. He was the
dark prince, who through stratagem, ruthlessness, and terror rose to
the apex of power. Only when equally ruthless men dethroned and
marginalized him did he become a proponent of political freedom.
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