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TOP STORIES
European diplomats say they are increasingly concerned
the Trump administration will stretch out its review of the Iranian
nuclear deal, undermining the agreement by curbing the economic
benefits designed to ensure Iran's compliance. President Donald Trump
has attacked the agreement, reached in 2015, as a "terrible
deal" for the U.S. European officials have remained publicly
upbeat about the U.S. remaining a party to the deal, but diplomats
privately voice serious concerns about where the U.S. review is
headed. They say Washington is providing little feedback, has given
no firm end-date for the review and hasn't made clear who is shaping
the process.
Iraq's U.S.-backed prime minister declared victory over
Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, but Iran is shaping up to be one of
the biggest winners in the struggle with Washington for influence in
Baghdad and across the region. Nouri al-Maliki, a former Iraqi prime
minister supported by Iran, is campaigning to win back his old job in
next year's Iraqi election against Haider al-Abadi, the incumbent
favored by Washington. Mr. Maliki has given much of the credit for
the Mosul victory to an umbrella group of mostly Shiite militias,
many supported by Iran, that he formed in 2014, just before his
ouster as premier. The election could determine whether the country tilts
toward Iran or the U.S.
A growing number of women in Iran are
refusing to wear a hijab while driving, sparking a nationwide debate
about whether a car is a private space where they can dress more
freely. Obligatory wearing of the hijab has been an integral policy
of the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution but it is one the
establishment has had a great deal of difficulty enforcing. Many
Iranian women are already pushing the boundaries, and observers in
Tehran say women who drive with their headscarves resting on their
shoulders are becoming a familiar sight. Clashes between women and
Iran's morality police particularly increase in the summer when
temperatures rise. But even though the police regularly stop these
drivers, fining them or even temporarily seizing their vehicle, such
acts of resistance have continued, infuriating hardliners over a
long-standing policy they have had a great deal of difficulty
enforcing.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Regime change will be necessary before the U.S. and Iran
can have substantially positive relations, according to Secretary of
Defense James Mattis. "Until the Iranian people can get rid of
this theocracy, these guys who think they can tell the people even
which candidates they get a choice of. It's going to be very, very
difficult," Mattis told the Mercer Island High School Islander
in a rare and special interview with high schooler Teddy Fischer.
Improving relations with Iran will be particularly difficult,
according to Mattis. He noted that any potential rapprochement would
be difficult because Iran is not really a democracy. "It's the
supreme leader [who] decides who gets to run in," said Mattis.
"It would be like having the current American president decide
who gets to run in the next campaign, and by the way, when they come
in he stays in the White House and the others just kind of rotate
through."
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
For six months now, the Trump administration has been
required to notify Congress within 48 hours any time Iran conducts a
ballistic missile launch. That requirement will expire at the end of
2019. But even though that's more than two years away, Democrats are
already thinking about extending it for another three years. Reps.
Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., proposed legislation
last week to extend the requirement all the way through 2022. The
bill is a sign that even Democrats are worried, like Trump, about
Iran's ongoing missile testing. Members of both parties say those
tests are a possible violation of the language related to the Iran
nuclear agreement and something that Congress needs to know about as
they happen, something Kihuen made clear when his bill came out.
Iran will see a steep rise in its natural gas output and
exports after last year's easing of Western sanctions, its deputy oil
minister said on Tuesday, adding that recent deals with global firms
show they believe sanctions will not come back. Amir Hossein
Zamaninia, Iran's deputy oil minister for trade and international
affairs, said Iran's gas production would rise to 1 billion cubic
metres a day by the end of the year from the current 800 million
cubic metres (mcm) per day. He said volumes available for export
should reach 365 mcm a day by 2021, which is higher than the exports
of the world's top liquefied natural gas producer Qatar.
France's Total signed a deal earlier this month to help Iran
increase gas output from the giant South Pars gas field, which the
country shares with Qatar.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Israel is planning to establish a Syrian army in the
southern region of Syria on the border with the Golan Heights and
Jordan to stop Iranian expansion, according to informed Israeli
sources. The idea for the "South Syria Army", which will be
affiliated with Israel, is based on a close model of the South
Lebanon Army that Israel founded and supported during the 1970's. The
South Lebanon Army was led by Saad Haddad and later on by Antoine
Lahad. The sources said that the idea is beginning to form in
accordance with the US-Russian agreement to a ceasefire in southern
Syria and prevent Iranian troops, "Hezbollah" and other
regime affiliated militias from controlling the region. Israel
considers Daraa, Suwayda and other areas on the border with the Golan
Heights as political and security interests. Tel Aviv has allies
there, including the Druze "Fursan al-Joulan militia" and
some sides that claim to be part of the Free Syrian Army. These
allies could serve as a foundation for the establishment of the
"South Syrian army".
SAUDI-IRAN TENSIONS
Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam news network says hackers
affiliated to the Saudi Arabian regime have broken into its official
Twitter account. Al-Alam said on Monday that the act of online
sabotage had been "a hasty reaction" after the Iranian
network provided extensive coverage of the liberation of the Iraqi
city of Mosul from Takfiri Daesh terrorists. The network said it was
not the first time Saudis were directing outrage at Al-Alam's media
activities by hacking or filtering its channels and websites. This
time, it said, the Saudi-linked hackers engaged in the act of
sabotage after the widespread coverage of the heavy defeat suffered
by the Daesh terrorists in Mosul. Daesh proclaimed Mosul as its
"capital" in Iraq in 2014, when the outfit began a campaign
of terror in the Arab country. The Iraqi army soldiers and allied
volunteer fighters launched a large-scale, multi-front offensive to
liberate Mosul in October 2016.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Three Iranian Christians were sentenced
to a minimum of 10 years in jail at the start of the month, coming as
the latest blow in Iran's crackdown on Christianity. An Iranian judge
sentenced Pastor Victor Bet Tamraz, Amin Afshar Naderi, and Hadi
Asgari each to multiple years in prison for illegal "church
activities," Bos News Life reported Wednesday. Tamraz was
sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegal house church
activities," evangelism, and the printing and distribution of
bibles, according to court documents. Naderi and Asgari, both
converts from Islam, were charged with blasphemy for abandoning
Islam. Naderi, who was sentenced to 15 years, was also charged with
"acting against national security" while Asgari, sentenced
to 10 years, was charged with "organizing and creating house
churches."
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The Principlist camp has for some time sought to project a nonradical
image, trying to move away from past experiences that Iranian society
associates with it. However, these efforts have not always been
successful. Indeed, the radical current within the camp continues to
remain active - to the chagrin of more influential conservative
forces. Most Principlists are actively working to contain radicals
within their camp, but their endeavor isn't being helped by pride
among Reformists riding on the back of consecutive electoral
successes. On June 7, following the terrorist attacks in
Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei encouraged his
supporters to "fire at will" against presumed enemies of
the state. His remarks caused an uproar in Iran's political circles.
Ten days later, on June 17, Hossein Allahkaram, the leader of Ansar-e
Hezbollah, a radical faction of the Principlist movement, said his
group would use Khamenei's "fire at will" order against
women entering sporting arenas. "
Iranian media outlets have revealed an open message sent
by the "Water Foundation" to President Hassan Rowhani
warning of "escalating conflicts in Iranian provinces over water
sharing in the near future" as the country is facing an
unprecedented water crisis. "In the near future, competing for
limited water resources will expand, and conflicts over shares will
spread across the country," the "Iranian Water
Corporation" said in an open statement yesterday to Rowhani,
signed by 110 experts, researchers and scientists in the water field.
The head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the
Iranian parliament, Alaa El-ddin Boroujerdi has confirmed that the
"water crisis" has turned into a security issue and the
parliament established the (Water Security Committee) to track the
repercussions of the crisis.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Total, the French energy major, is returning to Iran.
This week, it announced the first big foreign investment in Iran's
vast but capital-starved oil and gas industry since the nuclear
accord Tehran reached with the US and five other world powers in
2015. Total left Iran in 2006 because of international sanctions
designed to punish the country's atomic ambitions. It is now testing
whether the door is really open - or guarded by the US, which under
Donald Trump is again fiercely hostile to the Islamic Republic. The
lifting of sanctions last year was greeted with euphoria. Iranians
sensed the chance to re-enter world markets. Foreign investors
scented an emerging markets bonanza on a scale last seen when the
Soviet empire collapsed. That optimism has largely been extinguished
- but it flickers on.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces have clashed in Syria with
regime or Iran-supported pro-regime forces on at least a half-dozen
occasions. This has raised concerns that with the impending military
defeat of the Islamic State in Syria and the scramble to fill the resulting
void, the United States may be on a collision course with Syria and
its allies -- Iran, Hezbollah, and perhaps Russia. Escalating
tensions elsewhere in the region between the United States, its
allies, and Iran have compounded these concerns. So while the United
States pursues informal "deconfliction" efforts with
Russia, it needs to pursue parallel efforts to avoid a broader
conflict with pro-regime forces and Iran.
At the end of last month, the U.S. State Department
quietly published a trove of hundreds of documents detailing the
American role in Iran's 1953 coup. In that year, a combined CIA and
British plot deposed democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed
Mossadegh, an act fueled by Cold War geopolitics as well as Western
indignation at Mossadegh's nationalization of Iran's oil assets. The
coup may feel distant to Americans, but it lives long in the
imagination of many in the Middle East. "This is still such an
important, emotional benchmark for Iranians," said Malcolm
Byrne, the director of research of the nongovernmental National
Security Archive at George Washington University, to the Associated
Press. "Many people see it as the day that Iranian politics
turned away from any hope of democracy."
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