TOP STORIES
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30
dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges,
according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, twice as many as
earlier reported by local or international media. The number marks a
sharp rise since 2015, when an international nuclear deal raised
hopes of detente with the West. In the years before that the number
of dual nationals detained at any given time was in single figures.
France's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was
taking accusations by the United States that Iran had violated two
U.N. Security Council resolutions seriously and urged Iran to comply
with all its international commitments... [A ministry spokesman] did
not respond when asked whether Paris supported potential measures at
the Security Council.
Egypt's president said Wednesday that Iran must stop
"meddling" in the Middle East and the security of Arab Gulf
countries must not be threatened, but he underscored that he does not
want war and believes dialogue can resolve the region's crises.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump said that Iran
was violating the "spirit" of its nuclear deal with the
P5+1 powers. Now, it is clear that the Islamic Republic is
disregarding the letter of the accord, but the international
community is ignoring and denying that reality, experts say.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
Last week, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps declared that the country's Supreme Leader had mandated
"cap" on the range of Iran's surface-to-surface ballistic
missile force of 2,000 kilometers. According to U.S. Director of
National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats, the regime can already
"strike targets up to 2,000 kilometers from Iran's
borders," a range sufficient to hit both U.S. military bases in
the region as well as the entire state of Israel. In other words, the
alleged cap on Iran's ballistic missiles locks-in the threat, rather
than rolling it back, while doing nothing to curtail the wide range
of activities Iran is undertaking to improve its missile force. This
includes a concerted but concealed effort to develop an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) capability.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Saad Hariri's unexpected resignation has rattled Tehran.
Many Iranian officials, analysts and media outlets warn that the
Lebanese prime minister's resignation is part of a broader strategy
by the United States and its regional allies - particularly Israel
and Saudi Arabia - to counter the growing influence of Iran and its
proxies in the Middle East.
A fierce nationalism grips an increasingly confident
Iran as its paramilitary chalk up more successes in the Arab world
and the broader region. At the same time, the country is swiftly
modernising, attracting troves of foreign investment despite Donald Trump's
efforts to curb its ambitions. Tehran's highways, bridges, flyovers
and walkways are adorned with the flag and everywhere you find
enormous, black-and-white posters hanging down from the railings.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The Iranian regime's harassment and intimidation of
journalists continues... The Iranian people, like people everywhere,
deserve the chance to learn the truth about their society, their
government, and the world -- truth that dedicated journalists seek to
convey. The threats to Iranian journalists and their families must
stop.
Babak Namazi is making an appeal to the Trump
administration to open a dialogue with Iran to help get his brother
and father out of jail in the country.
The husband of a charity worker jailed in Iran has asked
Boris Johnson to take him to Tehran so he can see his wife for the
first time in 18 months, after a gaffe by the Foreign Secretary
threatened to double her sentence. Mr Johnson has promised to travel
to Tehran to try to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri
on Sunday has sent shockwaves in Tehran. While Iranian leaders and
their regional allies try to appear measured and confident, they fear
that political instability in Lebanon and a potential war between
Israel and Iran's ally Hezbollah - particularly at a time when
Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies are still engaged in the Syrian
war - could adversely impact Tehran's regional ambitions.
Israel is moving to counter Iran and its Lebanese ally
Hezbollah with assertive diplomacy, aligning its policies with
onetime foe Saudi Arabia and signaling a shift in the region's power
politics as the war in neighboring Syria winds down.
SYRIA CONFLICT
Note to President Trump: The new Iran strategy that you
announced just three weeks ago is hanging by a thread. Its fate will
likely be decided in the next few months on the Syria-Iraq border. If
you are serious about countering Iranian aggression, you need to act
soon to block Iran's bid for hegemony across this critical battle
space - ground zero in the region's struggle for strategic primacy.
If you don't - if you stand aside and allow the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) to assert its political, economic and military
dominance over the Middle East's entire northern tier, giving it an
unimpeded land bridge from Tehran to the Mediterranean - your Iran strategy
will be stillborn, embarrassingly consigned to history's ash heap
within a few short months of its unveiling.
The top adviser to Iran's supreme leader said he expects
the Syrian army to soon recapture rebel-held Idlib province, as well
as eastern Syria, an area where U.S.-backed militias hold swathes of
territory.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, AND IRAN
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister urged the international
community to slap fresh sanctions against Iran Thursday, accusing its
arch-regional rival of supporting terrorism.
Instead of viewing Yemen as a poor peripheral country of
little importance, the princes of the House of Saud seem to see it as
a dagger aimed at their heart-MbS's grandfather Ibn Saud supposedly
warned of the threat of Yemen on his death bed. As long as the
regional proxy war with Iran continues, Yemen will remain a key
theater for that war, and a vital piece of MbS' regional ambitions.
On November 4, a Burkan-2H (Volcano) ballistic missile
was launched toward Riyadh by Houthi forces in Yemen and intercepted
by a U.S.-supplied Patriot defense system. Wreckage from the missile
fell on the outskirts of King Khalid International Airport on the
northern edge of the Saudi capital, indicating that it overflew the
densely populated city... This was not the first Houthi missile
attack on the Riyadh area... But the latest strike comes at a
particularly sensitive time due to the U.S. announcement of a new
"pushback" strategy against the Iranian regime and its
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)... [S]tatements from both
sides set the stage for an intensified U.S. effort to expose Iran's
hand in the Houthi missile development program.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran stood his ground on
Wednesday in an escalating regional showdown, defending a Yemeni
rebel missile attack on the Saudi capital that Saudi Arabia has
denounced as an Iranian "act of war."
Saudi Arabia should strengthen ties with Iran rather
than befriend Israel and maintain an alliance with the United States,
according to regime's president.
A string of escalatory moves in the Gulf in recent days suggest the
long-brewing cold war between Saudi Arabia and its regional
arch-rival Iran could soon grow hot.
It's not only struggles for political office or military
dominance that are rocking Saudi Arabia and Lebanon this week. Increasingly,
Saudi officials and their Lebanese allies are banking on the idea
that control over financial levers of power is the key to achieving
their foreign-policy objectives and domestic political ambitions.
A semi-official Iranian news agency says authorities
have ordered a two-day ban on hard-line newspaper Kayhan after it ran
a headline saying Dubai was the "next target" for Yemen's
Houthi rebels.
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