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TOP STORIES
North Korea's sudden advancement in developing nuclear
weapons may be due to secret support from Iran, British officials
fear. The Foreign Office is investigating whether "current and
former nuclear states" helped Kim Jong-Un in his drive to mount
nuclear warheads on missiles. Iran is top of the list of countries
suspected of giving some form of assistance, while Russia is also in
the spotlight.
Donald Trump's recently ousted former chief strategist
made a bold declaration this week: Don't count on the president to
certify the Iran nuclear deal come the next October deadline. In his
first televised interview since exiting the administration, Stephen
Bannon said in a 60 Minutes segment aired Sunday that while the
national security establishment is urging Trump to verify Tehran is
abiding by the landmark 2015 pact, his old boss is inclined to do
otherwise.
Iran says it warned off a U.S. Navy warship during a
rescue of a boat in the Gulf of Oman, while American officials say
there was no direct contact. The U.S. Navy said Sunday the incident
happened Wednesday and involved a small vessel some 75 nautical miles
from the USS Tempest, a coastal patrol boat The Navy says another
boat much closer offered assistance, with that vessel communicating
with Iranian naval forces.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
The Czech Parliament's lower house has rejected a
government proposal to annul a 2000 law that bans Czech companies
from supplying equipment for Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. The
proposal rejected Friday took into account a 2015 deal that saw
international sanctions on Iran lifted in exchange for the country
curbing its nuclear activities.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
Erdogan Says
U.S. Targeting Turkey with Iran-Linked Prosecutions | Bloomberg
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized U.S.
prosecutors for bringing charges against a former Turkish minister
accused of laundering money on behalf of Iran, calling it a
politically motivated act against Turkey. Speaking to reporters in
Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan said he had made it clear to the previous
U.S. administration that Turkey wouldn't take part in any sanctions
against neighboring Iran, and that former Economy Minister Zafer
Caglayan was simply executing the policies of his government.
Turkey's economy minister on September 7 dismissed a
case brought by U.S. prosecutors against his predecessor for
allegedly taking bribes and helping Iran violate U.S. sanctions law.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
The once notoriously enigmatic country
of Iran is experiencing a steady but significant boom in Western
tourism despite being hit with hefty monetary sanctions, detaining
several Americans and having its nuclear ambitions and support for
criminalized militias constantly thrown into question by the
international media. Data provided to Fox News by leading travel
intelligence analyst ForwardKeys showed that there has been a five
percent growth in Westerners visiting Iran between September 1, 2016
and September 1, 2017 - and Americans make up 14.5 percent of all
Western arrivals.
EXTREMISM
"Iran is helping the most severe
security threats directed against Israel from armed groups,"
[Chief of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (MID), Major
General Herzi] Halevi noted. "These are serious, but not
existential threats. Iran strives to base itself on our borders in
Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, flooding our borders with its deadly
ideology"
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
President Donald Trump stressed to the emir of Qatar the
importance of unity in fighting terrorism, the White House said on
Friday... They also discussed the continued threat Iran poses to
regional stability, it said.
HUMAN RIGHTS
A prominent Iranian journalist has lost an eye and part
of his face due to a sinus cancer that activists say was left
untreated while he was kept in jail. Alireza Rajaee, a former
political editor of a number of banned Iranian reformist newspapers,
spent four years in prison after being convicted of "acting
against the national security" and "propaganda against the
state" - vague charges used against dozens of journalists in recent
years.
Iranian authorities' move to stop Iranian women from
entering the Tehran stadium where the Sept. 5 soccer match between
Iran and Syria was held has stirred controversy as Syrian women were
let in to enjoy the game. On Sept. 2, when ticket sales began on a
website for the Iran-Syria 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier, a new
choice was available - women as well as men were allowed to buy
tickets. This caused a stir as women in Iran aren't allowed to enter
soccer stadiums to watch games; some officials say that cursing and a
number of other possible "immoral" actions by male fans may
offend women.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Qom became the bedrock of Iran's
theocracy and remains one of the country's holiest places - home to
200,000 religious scholars, a destination for Shiite Muslim pilgrims
and a center of Islamic thought in a country whose political system
is controlled by the clerical establishment. But the city of about 1
million is no longer single-mindedly religious, and its clerics are
not immune to the anxieties bubbling beneath the surface of modern
Iran.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Americans
collectively searched for answers about who was behind the terror
attack and why it occurred. While Osama bin Laden will forever
be known as the mastermind of the tragedy, Iran's role in the
devastating attacks, and its collusion with al-Qaida and other
terrorist organizations more generally, must not be overlooked. An
early 1990s meeting in Sudan between an emissary of Iran and al-Qaida
leader Osama bin Laden, culminated in a decision to put aside
Sunni-Shia divisions in favor of an Iran-al-Qaeda pact to conspire
against the U.S. As a report by the 9/11 Commission would state,
"discussions in Sudan between al-Qaida and Iranian operatives
led to an informal agreement to cooperate in ... actions carried out
primarily against Israel and the United States."
Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, European
allies have worried he will fulfill his campaign promise and pull the
U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump's national security cabinet
has a different idea. U.S. officials tell me that a new strategy on
the agreement is ready for the president's approval. Instead of
blowing it apart, the plan is to make it stronger. The idea can be
summed up as "waive, decertify and fix."
Within the broad spectrum of Iranian power, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is more powerful than the executive
branch. It arguably wields more influence over Iranian policy than
any other body with the exception of the Supreme Leader. Therefore,
what IRGC commanders and recruits think and believe matters. Within
the IRGC, the Qods [Jerusalem] Force is the most elite unit. It is
against this backdrop that the excerpted remarks of Deputy Commander
of the Qods Force Brigadier General Esmail Qaani merit attention.
In a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute,
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Nikki Haley sought to
dismantle the political and intellectual firewall that has, for over
a decade, thwarted the development of a comprehensive U.S. policy
toward Iran. Haley rejected the prevailing notion that Iran's nuclear
activities comprise a special sort of threat that can be addressed in
isolation from Tehran's overall malign behavior. Regrettably,
reactions to Haley address failed to reckon with this point because
they narrowly focus on her assessment of whether Iran is in
compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. Yet this reaction perfectly
demonstrates the importance of Haley's main argument about the need
to broaden our view of the threat from Iran.
The future of the Iran deal is again under question...
[G]iven the extraordinary threat that Iran poses with its
expansionism in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere, as well
as the ongoing administration review of Iran policy, the status of
the JCPOA cannot be sacrosanct.
With the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the
unfreezing of many Iranian assets and the lifting of some sanctions,
Iran has been able to augment its military budget. One of its top
priorities appears to be boosting its missile capabilities. According
to the excerpted article from Kayhan, a newspaper whose editor is
appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and which remains close to
the Office of the Supreme Leader, Iran is moving ahead with its
Sayyad surface-to-air missile line.
Acts of brutality against the Kurdish population in Iran
is a regular occurrence. For instance, just a few days ago (September
4, 2017), soldiers of Iran's dreaded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp
of Iran (IRGC) shot dead two porters in cold blood in the western
city of Baneh. In protest against the killings, demonstrations broke
out in the Kurdish city and a large number of residents gathered
outside the governor's office on Tuesday (September 5) demanding an
end to the ongoing attacks against workers. According to reports by
opposition groups, a number of shops and markets were closed in
support of the protests, even as the regime's security forces clashed
with protesters.
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