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WashPost: "An elderly U.S. citizen
whose son was arrested in Iran last fall has also been detained in
Tehran, his family said Wednesday. Baquer Namazi, 80, was arrested
Monday evening and apparently taken to Tehran's Evin prison, according
to a Facebook posting by his wife, Effie. Their son, Siamak, an Iranian
American businessman based in Dubai, has been held by Iranian security
authorities since October. It is not clear what crime he is accused of
committing, and no charges in his case have been announced. In an open
Facebook message to friends and relatives, Effie Namazi wrote that
neither she nor a family lawyer has been able to get more information
about the circumstances behind her husband's arrest. 'Now both my
innocent son Siamak and my Baquer are in prison for no reason,' she
wrote. 'This is a nightmare I can't describe.' The Iranian lawyer,
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabei, told the Associated Press on Thursday that
he does not believe the elder Namazi will face 'political charges,' and
is being held 'for some investigation only.' 'It is unlikely that he
will be charged,' the lawyer told AP. Baquer Namazi has a heart ailment
and other conditions requiring medication, his wife wrote. She
described herself as 'extremely concerned and worried sick' about his
health. Her husband was a prominent official during the rule of the
shah, who was toppled in the Islamic revolution of 1979. Namazi, a
former governor of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, was allowed to
leave Iran with his family in 1983 and immigrate to the United States.
He subsequently moved permanently back to Iran. Most recently, Namazi
was the head of Hamyaran, a group of Iranian nongovernmental
organizations. His son worked for Crescent Petroleum in the United Arab
Emirates... 'I pray to God that my Siamak and Baquer return home to me
and that they are released,' Effie Namazi wrote. 'Please keep them in
your prayers.'" http://t.uani.com/1S3BWsk
Reuters: "Iran's top leader warned
voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting
centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative
hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years
to come. In remarks reflecting an abiding mistrust of Rouhani's
rapprochement with the West, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said
he was confident Iranians would vote in favor of keeping Iran's
anti-Western stance on Friday in the first elections since last year's
nuclear accord with world powers. Rouhani's allies, who hope the deal
will hasten Iran's opening up to the world after years of sanctions,
have come under increasing pressure in the election campaign from
hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers including the
United States and Britain... Rouhani on Wednesday denied accusations
from hardliners that the candidates close to him were affiliated with
Western powers, calling it an insult to the intelligence of Iranians.
In remarks on his official website, Khamenei was quoted as saying he
was certain the United States had concocted a plot after the nuclear
deal to 'infiltrate' the Islamic Republic. 'When I talked about a U.S.
infiltration plot, it made some people in the country frustrated,' said
the Shi'ite clerical leader, who has final say on all major state
policy in Iran... 'They complain (about) why we talk about infiltration
all the time ... But this is a real plot. Sometimes even the
infiltrators don't know they are a part of it,' he said. 'One of the
enemy's ruses is to portray a false dichotomy between a pro-government
and anti-government parliament,' Khamenei was quoted as saying by state
news agency IRNA. 'The nation does not want a pro- or anti-government
parliament, but rather a strong and faithful parliament that is aware
of its duties and is not intimidated by the United States,' he said...
potential detente with the West has alarmed hardliners, who have seen a
flood of European trade and investment delegations arrive in Tehran to
discuss possible deals in the wake of the nuclear agreement. Since
then, hardline security officials have arrested dozens of artists,
journalists and businessmen, including Iranians holding joint U.S. or
British citizenship, as part of a crackdown on 'Western
infiltration.'" http://t.uani.com/1mXL6tm
AFP: "Israel on Thursday denounced
an Iranian decision to give thousands of dollars to relatives of
Palestinians killed during Israeli-Palestinian violence that has soared
in recent months. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said
Wednesday that Tehran would offer $7,000 to the families of each
Palestinian killed in what he called the 'Jerusalem intifada'. Iran
will also give $30,000 to Palestinian families whose homes have been
destroyed by Israel because a member is accused of carrying out an anti-Israeli
attack, he told a news conference in Beirut. According to Iran's
official news agency IRNA, representatives of the Palestinian militant
movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Lebanese Shiite militia
Hezbollah, met with Fathali in Beirut. The money pledged is in addition
to the monthly aid paid since 1987 by an Iranian institution to
families of Palestinians killed in the violence, he said. 'This shows
that Iran, even after the nuclear agreement (with world powers), is
continuing to aid terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism, Hezbollah
terrorism and its assistance to Hamas,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said on Thursday before meeting his Bulgarian counterpart
Boyko Borisov in Jerusalem. 'This is something that the nations of the
world must confront and condemn and assist Israel -- and other
countries, of course -- in repelling,' he added. Israel's ambassador to
the United Nations, Danny Danon, has written to UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon urging condemnation of the Iranian initiative, Israel
public radio reported." http://t.uani.com/1Qgx3HM
Nuclear
Program & Agreement
Ars
Technica:
"Just weeks after North Korea successfully launched a satellite
into orbit, Iran is preparing an attempt to match that effort-and
rocket ahead in the development of its own ICBM technology in the
process. Images obtained by Melissa Hanham, Catherine Dill, and Dr
Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk from Apollo Mapping and Airbus
Defense and Space show that the Imam Khomeni Space Center near Semnan,
Iran, is actively preparing for a launch. The Iranian government has
issued a NOTAM (notice to airmen) warning them away from the area from
March 1 to March 2. The Khomeni Space Center is near Semnan, Iran-about
200 kilometers east of Tehran. The launch vehicle being stacked there,
called the Simorgh, is designed to put a 100 kilogram payload (220
pounds) into a low-earth orbit of 500 kilometers (310 miles, or roughly
270 nautical miles). The satellite, which was unveiled in February, is
called the Friendship Testing Satellite. It's essentially a giant
'cubesat' carrying a number of experiments. And like the North Korean
Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 satellite launched in February, the Friendship Testing
Satellite is roughly the mass of a nuclear warhead. That's a
significant step forward from Iran's first orbital effort-a much
smaller (27 kilogram, or 59 pound) satellite using a previous two-stage
rocket, the Seman, in February of 2009. And the Simorg has a first
stage that closely resembles the first stage of the Taepodong-2 rocket
used by North Korea in its successful launch. The Simorg has raised
concerns about Iran's potential development of an intercontinental
ballistic missile. 'There are differences,' wrote Lewis, who is
director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies. 'But the Simorgh demonstrates two essential technologies
for an ICBM-clustered engines and staging. That said, the Simorgh
itself is not an ICBM. What the US intelligence community says is: This
technology could be used for an ICBM-class vehicle.'" http://t.uani.com/1TB0Fnu
Sanctions
Enforcement
AP: "Secretary of State John
Kerry told lawmakers Wednesday that slapping Iran with additional
sanctions right now would not be helpful. In testimony before a Senate
panel, Kerry advised waiting to see how the landmark nuclear deal
proceeds before making a decision on imposing additional measures to
punish Tehran for belligerent behavior. Lawmakers are considering
legislation that would address Iran's ballistic missile tests, human
rights violations and a reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act,
which expires at the end of the year. Republicans are especially
incensed over Iran's detention of U.S. sailors in January. But Kerry
counseled a go-slow approach. 'I don't think there's a need to rush
here,' he told members of the Senate appropriations state and foreign
operations subcommittee. 'I'd like to see how the implementation goes
so we can do whatever we're doing advised by that process.' Director of
National Intelligence James R. Clapper told lawmakers during testimony
earlier this month that since 2010 Iran has fired about 140 missiles in
violation of a U.N. resolution. About half of the launches occurred
during negotiations over the nuclear deal. The two most recent firings
took place last fall, according to Clapper, who said Iranian officials
were sending a message 'that they are still going to continue to
develop what is already a very robust missile force.' The Obama
administration imposed new sanctions against 11 individuals and
entities involved in Iran's ballistic missile program a day after the
nuclear deal went into effect. But Republicans derided the new
sanctions as weak and have urged a more forceful response. 'I have a
list a mile long,' said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the subcommittee's
chairman." http://t.uani.com/1QgcChD
Free
Beacon: "The
Obama administration has announced that it will not enforce new counter-terrorism
measures passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress
because they could harm Iranian business interests, according to new
instructions issued by the Department of Homeland Security. The
administration's decision to waive portions of a new counter-terrorism
law aimed at preventing terrorism-linked individuals from traveling to
the United States comes on the heels of a lobbying effort by pro-Iran
organizations and other Arab advocacy groups, including the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Congress last year tightened
restrictions on the Visa Waiver Program, which facilitates travel
between the United States and 38 other partner countries, to ensure
that individuals from Iran and other countries with a terrorist footprint
do not enter the United States without first obtaining a visa... 'The
administration has the authority to waive' the counter-terrorism
measures and will ensure they do not 'interfere with legitimate
business interests of Iran,' Kerry wrote to Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif. 'Such waivers will be granted only on a case-by-case basis
in the near future,' DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
announced this week. 'Categories of travelers who may be eligible for a
waiver include individuals who traveled to these countries on behalf of
international organizations, regional organizations, and sub-national
governments on official duty; on behalf of humanitarian
non-governmental organizations on official duty; or as a journalist for
reporting purposes.' Additionally, 'individuals who traveled to Iran
(only after July 14, 2015) or Iraq for legitimate business-related
purposes may be eligible for a waiver,' according to DHS." http://t.uani.com/1mZG937
Sanctions
Relief
Reuters: "Bank Muscat, Oman's largest
lender by market value, is opening a representative office in Iran, the
bank said on Thursday, underlining rapid growth in business ties
between the countries after the lifting of sanctions on Tehran. The
announcement appears to make Bank Muscat one of the first foreign
financial firms to establish a presence in Iran since the international
sanctions, imposed over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme, were
removed in January. A brief statement by Bank Muscat did not say when
the process of opening the office would be completed, or give any
further details. Oman is keen to strengthen ties in order to obtain
natural gas supplies for its industry and diversify its economy beyond
oil. In late January, an Omani sovereign wealth fund signed an
understanding with Iran's biggest auto maker, Iran Khodro Industrial
Group, to study a proposal for a $200 million auto plant in Oman."
http://t.uani.com/21jtJpT
Reuters: "Hellenic Petroleum, Greece's
biggest oil refiner, will receive its first shipment of Iranian crude
oil next month, a company executive said on Thursday. 'It was announced
at a board meeting today that the first shipment will arrive at the end
of March,' the executive told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Hellenic Petroleum was the first European company which agreed last
month to buy crude oil from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)
after sanctions on Iran were lifted. Iran's deputy oil minister
Amir-Hossein Zamaninia has said Hellenic Petroleum would buy 60,000
barrels of crude per day and could increase it to 150,000 bpd." http://t.uani.com/1KNBZH7
Yonhap
(South Korea):
"Iran's Mellat Bank plans to normalize operations of its branch in
Seoul as early as next month following the lifting of sanctions on the
Middle East country, a bank official said Wednesday. Last month, the
U.S. and the European Union removed decades-long economic curbs on
Tehran on the heels of its landmark deal on nuclear armaments with
Washington. Since the opening of the branch in the South Korean capital
in June 2001, Mellat Bank had supported bilateral trade and foreign
exchange transactions, as well as the transfer of wages for Iranians
working in South Korea. Its operations, however, were restricted in
2010 upon the international economic and financial sanctions against
Tehran over its nuclear pursuit, with the bank carrying out limited
won-based transactions. 'We've been working to rebuild the necessary
infrastructure to resume normal operations,' said Kim Tae-gil, the head
of the Seoul branch... 'Discussions are also under way with the U.S. to
establish the substitute settlement system using euro, as we cannot
take U.S. dollars when trading with Iran due to separate sanctions by
Washington, and we expect to reach positive conclusions within next
month,' Kim said. Following the lifting of sanctions, Iran's Persia
International Bank has also been pushing to set up a branch in Seoul
amid hopes for brisk bilateral exchanges. If given the nod, the Persia
Bank, known as one of four major banks in Iran, would be the second
Iranian bank operating in South Korea." http://t.uani.com/1TGTziR
Business
Risk
Reuters: "A threat to add countries
who are slow to combat terrorism financing to a public black list has
proved effective in pushing them into action, a top executive at an
international task force said ahead of G20 talks on the topic opening
Friday. Since the Paris attacks in November, some 50 countries have
responded to a new call by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) for concrete steps to choke the funding of terrorist
organisations, the body's executive secretary, David Lewis, told AFP.
The threat of inclusion on the FATF's black list of governments failing
to comply has been instrumental to get this response, he said in an
interview, as states tried to avoid being named and shamed. 'The
prospect of the FATF taking such action has led to more than 50
countries amending legislation or being in the process of doing so,'
Lewis said. 'So we see countries act very quickly to ensure that they
do not get onto that list.' The FATF's current black list includes
North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria. Iran is also high on the list but
Tehran, which last July signed a deal with western powers ending
economic sanctions, has now signalled its willingness to cooperate,
Lewis said. 'Iran is coming back to the table. They have approached us.
They have shown a willingness to start cooperating with us,' he
said." http://t.uani.com/1Oxev3Q
Terrorism
The
Record: "More
than a dozen American families - including one from Teaneck and another
from West Orange - that lost loved ones in Iran-sponsored terrorist
attacks agreed to accept checks from the federal government 16 years
ago to settle diplomatically sensitive lawsuits against Iran. But the
families had one demand - and American officials agreed to it: Iran
would eventually be forced to pay for this settlement as soon as the
United States could tap a $400 million Iranian account that had been
frozen years before. That promise appears to have been broken. Last
month, without fanfare, U.S. officials returned that money to the
Iranians, effectively saddling American taxpayers with a bill that Iran
was supposed to pay. 'My stomach dropped. My heart sank when I heard
this news,' said Arline Duker of Teaneck, whose daughter Sara was killed
20 years ago Thursday in an Iranian-financed bus bombing in Jerusalem.
The move by the Obama administration to close out the terrorist claims
without holding Iran financially accountable attracted little attention
when American and Iranian diplomats finalized a joint agreement last
month to limit Iran's nuclear program and also complete a swap of
prisoners from each nation. In a footnote to that larger deal, the U.S.
Treasury agreed to send the $400 million in previously frozen assets
back to Tehran, along with $1.3 billion in interest... Interviews with
current and former State and Treasury department officials indicate
that the Obama administration opted to sweep away any old liens that
had been placed on Iranian assets as a way of improving relations with
Tehran. The move, however, has angered many families who were victims
of Iranian terror." http://t.uani.com/1oJMgKX
Times
of Israel:
"Israel's Channel 2 reported Wednesday that Hamas officials met
recently in Tehran with Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Al-Quds Force
of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, and discussed Iranian funding for
the terror group. He said he 'kissed the foreheads' of all those thousands
engaged in anti-Israel activities, the TV report said." http://t.uani.com/1TGUsId
Yemen
Crisis
Reuters: "Yemen's Gulf-backed
government on Wednesday accused the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militia
Hezbollah of training the Houthi rebels and fighting alongside them in
attacks on Saudi Arabia's border, it said in a statement carried by
official media. Yemen's government and its Gulf partners have long
accused Hezbollah's ally Iran of backing the Houthis and seeking to
transform the group into a replica of the Lebanese militia to use as a
proxy against its main regional rival, Saudi Arabia. Its latest
assertion is based on 'many documents and physical evidence' which
Hezbollah would not be able to deny, it said, but that it did not
immediately produce." http://t.uani.com/1QHz5pX
Iran-Saudi
Tensions
AP: "Kuwait and Qatar on
Wednesday became the latest Arab countries to follow in Saudi Arabia's
footsteps by urging their citizens already in Lebanon to leave and
issuing a travel warning for nationals planning to visit there. Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - all member-states of the
tight-knit Gulf Cooperation Council - have called for their citizens to
avoid travel to Lebanon. The Kuwait News Agency, which carried the
travel advisory by Kuwait's Embassy in Lebanon, gave no details on the
nature of the security threat. Qatar's Foreign Ministry issued a
similar advisory later Wednesday, published on state-run news agency.
The move comes days after Saudi Arabia cut $4 billion in aid to
Lebanese security forces in retaliation for Lebanon siding with Iran in
the Sunni kingdom's proxy wars with the Shiite power. Lebanon is home
to the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group. The Saudi decision came
after the Lebanese foreign minister, Gibran Bassil, an ally of Hezbollah,
declined to support Saudi resolutions against Iran during two meetings
of Arab and Muslim foreign ministers. The spat is inflaming tensions in
Lebanon between the pro-Saudi and pro-Hezbollah camp in Lebanon." http://t.uani.com/1UmOxHB
Human
Rights
ICHRI: "The secretary general of the
Teachers Association of Iran, Esmail Abdi, has been sentenced to six
years in prison for 'propaganda against the state' and 'collusion
against national security' by Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of
the Revolutionary Court. The verdict was issued to Abdi's lawyer on
Tuesday, February 14, 2016, a source told the International Campaign
for Human Rights in Iran. 'His lawyer will appeal this decision within
20 days and his family hopes it will be reversed by the Appeals Court,'
the source added. 'Mr. Abdi objected to his sentence and said he's a
teacher and had nothing to do with state secrets. What kind of secrets
are they talking about? What sort of confidential documents could a
teacher have and publish?' a source close to Abdi told the Campaign.
Labor activism in Iran is seen as a national security offense.
Independent labor unions are not allowed to function, strikers are
often fired and risk arrest, and labor leaders are consistently
prosecuted under catchall national security charges and sentenced to
long prison terms. The source added that Abdi's role as secretary
general of the Teachers Association of Iran came under scrutiny after a
May 2015 demonstration by teachers and their supporters in front of
Parliament." http://t.uani.com/1Q43NGa
IHR: "In the months leading to the
Iranian 2016 elections, authorities have cracked down heavily on Iran's
fragile civil society. On Sunday February 21 Branch 54 of Tehran's
Appeals Court reportedly confirmed prison sentences for four civil
rights activists: Arash Sadeghi, 15 years in prison; Golrokh Irayee,
six years in prison; Navid Kamran, one year in prison; and Behnam
Mousivand, one year in prison. Close sources say the court justified
the rulings by citing peaceful activities, such as: posting on
Facebook, participating in a protest gathering of Gonabadi Dervishes,
having contact with human rights activists and groups in addition to
having contact with news media groups and independent journalists
outside Iran. This is the second case file for Arash Sadeghi and Behnam
Mousivand; Sadeghi also has a four-year suspended prison term and
Mousivand a two-year suspended prison term... IHR considers the current
human rights situation in Iran a crisis that requires the attention of
the public, in particular European governments and the United Nations.
'The Iranian judiciary and security insitutions are ruthless in their
repression of Iran's fragile civil society and are attempting to
silence any voice of dissent in Iran. The Eruopean Union and the United
Nations should not be silent to the unlawful behavior of Iranian
authorities,' says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson of Iran Human
Rights." http://t.uani.com/1LHHpyd
IHR: "Iranian vice-president claims
there is a village in the Sistan & Baluchestan province (southern
Iran) where every single man has been executed on drug charges. Talking
to state run news agency Mehr on Tuesday February 23 about the huge
problem of drug usage and offenses in Iran, Shahindokht Molaverdi,
Iranian Vice President for Women & Family Affairs (appointed by
Hassan Rouhani in 2013) said: 'We have a village in Sistan &
Baluchestan where every single man has been executed. Today the
children [of these men] are potential drug traffickers; either because
they will seek revenge for the deaths of their fathers or because they
will need to financially provide for their families, as a result of
lack of support by the government [and since the breadwinners of their
families were the men who were executed].' Every year several hundred
people are hanged in Iran for drug related charges. According to IHR,
majority of people executed in Iran belong to the most marginalized
groups in society, and ethnic regions are the most affected. 'Iranian
authorities have repeatedly admitted that the death penalty has not
solved the problem of drug trafficking, but they still continue to
execute people for drug charges. In 2015 the number of executions in
Iran for drug offenses was the highest in 20 years,' says Mahmood
Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson of Iran Human Rights. IHR once again
calls on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and country
donors to stop providing equipment, funding, and technology to Iran
until the death penalty is no longer issued for drug offenses... The UN
must not continue funding the Iranian authorities' 'killing machine'
under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking." http://t.uani.com/1oJOz0p
ICHRI: "The imprisoned political
journalist Issa Saharkhiz has resumed his hunger strike after being
placed in solitary confinement on February 21, 2016 despite having lost
an alarming amount of weight. He has also not been allowed to meet with
his lawyer, according to his son. 'My father has lost more than 20
kilos (44 lbs.). When my family saw him more than 10 days ago, they
said he did not look well at all, physically. Now they have transferred
him to solitary and we have no news at all [about his health],' Mehdi
Saharkhiz told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Saharkhiz has been charged with 'acting against national security' and
'propaganda against the state' but has not been allowed to meet with
his lawyer nor has Saharkhiz's lawyer been allowed to read the
indictment. 'Why aren't they treating prisoners according to their own
laws? According to the law, those accused of political crimes should be
tried by a jury. The law says the accused should be released from detention
after interrogation until the start of the trial. But none of these
laws are being carried out,' said Mehdi Saharkhiz. 'Why do they expect
others to surrender to the law but they themselves don't do so?'" http://t.uani.com/1Ox7tvY
Domestic
Politics
WSJ: "When hard-line lawmaker
Esmail Kowsari puts callers to his office on hold, they are treated to
an anti-American song popular among his constituents. 'America, death
to your deceit!' the lyrics go. 'The blood of our youth is dripping
from your claw!' Mr. Kowsari and other ultraconservatives are fighting
to define Iran's ties with the West along the lines of the song ahead
of Friday's general election for parliament and the Assembly of
Experts, a clerical body. But the vote also presents an opportunity for
relative moderates led by President Hassan Rouhani to cement political
gains from last year's nuclear deal with world powers. That pact
brought the Islamic Republic relief from sanctions and an opportunity
to reset relations with the U.S. and other countries. 'The priority of
reformists now is the return of peace and rationality,' said Ali
Jamali, a party leader from the main reform-minded bloc. 'The nuclear
deal was a significant event to get the country back on this track.'
Yet the reformists face steep odds. Most change-minded candidates were
barred from running by the Guardian Council, a powerful body
effectively controlled by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
according to the moderate camp... On Wednesday, Mr. Khamenei appeared
to endorse the ultraconservatives. 'The Iranian people want a
parliament that has the cure for people's pain, and a religious,
committed and brave parliament that doesn't fall for the enemy's
tricks, a parliament that puts importance on dignity and independence,'
he said, according to his website... Mr. Kowsari, a parliament member
since 2008, said the president's promises of improvements to living
conditions in return for accepting curbs on Iran's nuclear program
haven't been realized. 'Mr. Rouhani said they would let both the
[uranium enrichment] centrifuges and the wheels of the economy spin,'
he said. 'But practically, we don't see this happening.'" http://t.uani.com/1oCLoHl
Reuters: "The preliminaries to both
contests underlined that elected politicians are ultimately under the
thumb of clerics, Islamic jurists and their opaque institutions, with
the supreme leader at their apex. Even if his hardline allies were to
lose the parliamentary race to their moderate rivals, Khamenei will
continue to hold ultimate authority, while presidents and lawmakers
come and go. 'Let's presume we have a reformist government that has a
majority, I don't think they will make a big difference. The supreme
leader and the Revolutionary Guards set the tone and the limit and
determine the overall direction of the country,' said one Tehran
analyst who requested anonymity. 'We shouldn't have high expectations.
The conservatives have the levers of power. The media, the military,
the intelligence, the actual financial resources are in their hands. It
is a dual system and the other side is still very powerful,' he added.
The last time reformers won the upper hand in parliament, under former
President Mohammad Khatami, the Guardian Council vetoed several laws it
passed as contrary to Islamic principles... The polarization gripping
the country had hit young people, many of whom are voting for the first
time. While some said they would vote for reformists because they seek
change and want to block the hardliners, others planned to vote for
conservatives out of loyalty to Khamenei. Some said they would boycott
because their vote won't make any difference. 'I won't waste my time
and vote as nothing will change because the conservatives have the
power in their hands,' said Area Behfuruz, 18, a first-year student of
dentistry at Tehran University. Sahar, 26, an art student, said: 'I
don't think fundamental change will happen at all. Those running the
country are the same. The few times we had some change, we had the
hardliners blocking them. Even if the reformists gain power now they
will be blocked by the hardliners.' ... 'This is fundamentally a status
quo political system which is not interested in real change,' said the
Tehran analyst. 'Change is very gradual, cosmetic. This election won't
usher a new era for Iran.'" http://t.uani.com/1XOJUGe
AFP: "The field for Iran's parliamentary
election on Friday has narrowed sharply with more than a fifth of the
candidates pulling out, apparently urging voters to back the main
political lists instead. The head of the interior ministry's election
headquarters, Mohammad Hossein Moghimi, said on Thursday that 4,844
hopefuls would contest the 290 seats, meaning 1,385 candidates have
withdrawn. Polls will open at 0430 GMT and are scheduled to close at
1430 GMT but voting could be extended if required, Iranian media quoted
him as saying. His comments followed a state television appearance late
Wednesday by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli who revealed the
fall in numbers. 'It now leaves around 17 people competing for each
parliamentary seat,' Fazli said. 'Ten percent of the total candidates
are women,' he added... For the first time, voting will also take place
on the same day for the 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, a
powerful committee of clerics that will choose Iran's next supreme
leader. Fazli said the number of candidates in that ballot had also
fallen, from 161 to 159." http://t.uani.com/24rlxTz
AFP: "As Iranians vote on Friday
for a new parliament and the clerics who choose the Islamic republic's
supreme leader, many poorer people believe that major change is
unlikely to happen. 'The people have so many problems they can't be
counted,' said Yadollah Sabzi, a small trader in the busy Molavi
district of south Tehran. His is a gesture of stoic defiance more than
anything else, in an area of rundown buildings and small colourful
shops. Overloaded handcarts and rusty cars jam the streets, as women in
long black veils do their shopping. Molavi is in stark contrast with
the visible wealth of north Tehran. There, Maserati and Porsche sports
cars, chic fashion and modern architecture characterise the Western
decadence that the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini railed against. Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, which
lifted sanctions and ended a 13-year crisis that has badly battered the
economy, had raised hopes of better times ahead. But amid much hype
about the diplomacy, expectations are now colliding with the
realisation that improvements cannot come overnight... Nearby,
40-year-old housewife Fatemeh Hodjati, walking with her small daughter
and a friend, was initially reluctant to speak on camera, but relented
when she heard it was not domestic media for broadcast inside Iran.
'Prices have gone really high' and it's 'very tough' for the poor ahead
of Nowruz, the Persian New Year beginning on March 20, she said. 'Jobs
have dropped in the last year and there's a lot of unemployment. It's
awful.'" http://t.uani.com/1QHBb9h
AFP: "The Guardian Council, a
constitutional watchdog that vets election candidates, excluded all 16
women seeking one of the assembly's 88 seats, meaning the panel, which
will pick Khamenei's successor when he dies, will remain men only.
Breaking the gender gap would not be unprecedented. The first Assembly
of Experts after the Islamic revolution of 1979 included a woman,
Monireh Gorji. Women make up 50.4 percent of Iran's population,
according to the last census. But despite President Hassan Rouhani's
cabinet having three female ministers, all vice presidents, women still
dramatically lag behind men in high office. Shariatpanahi, a physicist
on Iran's nuclear programme between 1975 and 1987, has studied Islamic
texts closely and says their interpretation, not the actual words, is
to blame. 'I have reached the conclusion that we need to present new
interpretations. If we have this there won't be this much
discrimination imposed on women on religious grounds,' she said... with
more women than men in university, Shariatpanahi says there can be no
educational justification for the shortfall. The campaign is urging
female and male voters to back candidates who do not have an
'anti-women record' in public office or in their careers. 'Our ultimate
goal, over time, is to get 50 percent of parliament's members to be
women,' she said, stressing that age-old traditions must be broken
down. It will be a hard task... Of the 6,229 candidates in Friday's
parliamentary polls, only 586 -- nine percent -- are women... The issue
has resonated strongly in the election campaign, with a gathering of
female reformists, many of them youths, chanting 'Equal Rights for
Women' at a pro-Rouhani gathering last week." http://t.uani.com/1KNG4eB
Guardian: "Apathy is a huge problem,
however. 'I voted for the revolution when I was a young man, and that
was it,' shrugged Hassan, a burly 60 something driver stuck in the
traffic around the capital's Ferdowsi Square. 'Why should I bother
now?' The cynicism is just as strong in the leafy north Tehran suburb
of Jamaran, where Ayatollah Khomeini lived. 'If you are educated you
never vote because you would just make a fool of yourself,' said Negin,
a young dentist smoking shisha with four friends - their loose
headscarves, makeup and fashionable clothes and boots a reminder of
far-reaching social changes of recent years. 'It's easier to live in
Iran without thinking about politics,' sighed Melina, a designer. 'People
opposed to voting think those who do are sheep or donkeys,' said one
still undecided middle-aged voter... Above all, Iranians are
approaching this contest in a realistic mood - and not least because of
the violence elsewhere in the region. 'The simple-minded, idealistic
fantasy of an Iranian-style Arab spring has gone,' argues the veteran
analyst Saeed Barzin, 'Iranians have become more conservative and more
inclined to get involved in elections even though they know they are
not free and fair. That's important after what happened in 2009. This
is based on a social contract where the state says it will provide
security and a chance of economic progress and allow you to choose
between political programmes that are somewhat different. It's fairly
limited on both sides.'" http://t.uani.com/1UmOZFC
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI
Chairman Joseph Lieberman in WashPost: "For more than 50 years,
national security leaders have gathered annually at the Munich Security
Conference, a conclave established during the depths of the Cold War as
a meeting place for the Western allies standing against the communist
threat. I have been privileged to attend almost half of these meetings
- from the era of hope and excitement that followed the Soviet collapse
in the early 1990s through the divisive and difficult wars of the
post-9/11 decade - but none has been as troubling as the one held this
month. That is because the world has never seemed as dangerous and
leaderless as it does now. Only the extremists and bullies act boldly,
and therefore they have seized the initiative. It is a moment in
history that evokes the haunting words of W.B. Yeats: 'The best lack
all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.' The
simple fact is that there is more instability in the world today than
at any time since the end of World War II. The threats come from
emboldened expansionist powers such as Iran, Russia and China, and also
terrorist aggressors such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. In short,
the enemies of freedom are on the march. At the same time, the United
States - which assumed global leadership after World War II to protect
our domestic security, prosperity and freedom - has chosen this moment
to become more passive in the world. The absence of American leadership
has certainly not caused all the instability, but it has encouraged and
exacerbated it. For example, while the threat of violent Islamist
extremism has existed for several decades, the military and political
disengagement of the United States from Iraq after the success of the
surge and our failure to intervene to stop the slaughter in Syria have
conspired to create a vacuum in the heart of the Middle East. This vacuum
has been exploited by the region's most dangerous anti-American forces:
totalitarian Sunni fanatics and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The
result is the creation of a terrorist sanctuary of unprecedented scale
and Iranian domination over multiple Arab capitals. Russian President
Vladimir Putin has also moved to exploit the vacuum, first by seizing
Crimea and moving into eastern Ukraine in 2014. The United States
reacted to that breach of world order with words of outrage and some
sanctions against Moscow, but also by refusing to give Ukrainians the
defensive weapons that might impose a heavier military cost on Russia
for its adventurism. Rather than deterring Russia from further
aggression, our hesitation in Ukraine signaled to the Kremlin that the
United States itself could be deterred when Russia acted boldly and
decisively. Putin soon extended this lesson to Syria, where he
dispatched his forces last year in order to turn the tide of war in
favor of a weakening Bashar al-Assad. Despite predictions of 'quagmire,'
that is precisely what Russia's intervention has achieved - while
reestablishing Moscow as a force to be reckoned with in yet another
vital region. The U.S. response? To ask for Putin's help in
extinguishing fires that he himself has been feeding. This fits a
broader pattern. In too many places in recent years, the United States
has treated its adversaries as essential partners to be courted, while
dismissing or denigrating its historic allies and partners as
inconveniences or obstacles to peace. But as frustrated as they are
with the United States, our friends also recognize that they are
incapable by themselves of managing the crises that confront them
without the United States. In Munich this month, the United States
ratified its diminished role by reaching an agreement on Syria that
elevates the standing of Russia, pressures the Syrian opposition and
stands little chance of ending the campaign of indiscriminate violence
being waged on behalf of the Assad regime against the long-suffering
Syrian people. Almost no one in Munich thought it would work. At the
end of the conference, I shared these fears about the state of the
world with an Arab diplomat. 'I agree,' he replied, 'and when we return
to Munich next February, it will all be much worse.' The best way to
defy that prediction is for the United States to reassert its historic
leadership role - not by acting alone, but in concert with our
worldwide network of allies and friends, which is yearning for this. In
a conversation with the leader of a European ally, some of us asked
what the United States could do to be most helpful to him and his
country. His answer was direct: 'Elect a president who understands the
importance of American leadership in the world.' That would be in our
national interest and is also wise counsel to American voters as we
decide whom to support in this year's topsy-turvy presidential
election." http://t.uani.com/1LHGk9U
FP: "In a Jan. 9 speech to
commemorate a 1978 uprising in Qom, Iran's religious center, in which
the country's then-royal regime killed protesters opposed to its rule,
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei extolled the event as an example
of Islamic exceptionalism. The deadly incident, known as the 19th of
Dey, its date in the Persian calendar, is widely considered a prelude
to the revolution that one year later established the clerical
theocracy that rules Iran today. Khamenei boasted that the flame of
Iran's revolution, unlike its French and Russian forebears, has never
been extinguished. And he pledged to keep it that way. 'It is very
important that a revolution manages to survive, keep itself alive, and
confront its enemies and defeat them,' he said. 'Our revolution is the
only revolution that has managed to achieve these things, and these
achievements will continue.' The tribute served as a warning that,
regardless of the outcome of the elections this Friday, Iran's path is
unlikely to change. Having warmed up his audience, Khamenei turned his
attention to more recent demonstrations - the street protests, led by
Iran's reformist candidates, against then-President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009, after a ballot widely considered to
have been rigged. Unlike the remembrance of the 19th of Dey, future
history lessons in Iranian schools are unlikely to cast these protests
as glorious if Khamenei gets his way. That election's outcome is the
gaping sore that scars Iranian politics and the low point of Khamenei's
near 27-year tenure as supreme leader. To him, the protests were not a
reaction to the betrayal of the electorate by those intent on securing
Ahmadinejad's re-election, but a U.S.-engineered plot to weaken the
Islamic revolution. The same specter of foreign plots hangs over all
Iranian elections, including the upcoming vote. 'In order to magnify
the losing minority and make them visible, they use a color to
represent them.... Our lot was green,' he said of the movement that
opposed Ahmadinejad's victory. Despite the protests resulting in dozens
of Iranians being killed by their own security forces, the crowd
laughed at Khamenei's remarks about the pro-democracy Green Movement,
according to the official transcript of the speech posted on his
website. This mocking of Iran's reformists and the tragic fate they met
in 2009 presaged what took place a few weeks later, when Khamenei's
allies excluded thousands of reformist candidates from this week's
elections. The only reformist candidates who survived the cull were
those whom most voters had never heard of. Paradoxically, the reformist
list's best-known candidate is Ali Motahari, parliament's most
outspoken member. A lifetime conservative scion of a famous cleric, his
recent realignment with the reformists is testament to the country's
changing political landscape. While the regime wants 2009 to be
forgotten, Motahari has criticized the detention of Green Movement
leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, simultaneously winning
respect from centrists and moderates as well as reformists. The
reformists have also toned down their ideological aims markedly in this
election - a step backward from President Mohammad Khatami's
administration of the early 2000s, when they openly aimed to alter the
Islamic Republic's rigid ideology and pass new laws to tackle gender
inequality and promote personal freedoms. This was due to the crackdown
that followed the 2009 vote: The judiciary locked up so many activists
and shut down so many newspapers that, right now, their goals are far
more modest, including avoiding being outlawed as a political force
entirely. In the present election, they have formed an ad hoc coalition
with political factions supporting the country's moderate president,
Hassan Rouhani, who has tended to seek more gradual change... For the
country's reformists, the contradictions of the orchestrated selection
process and the predominantly octogenarian makeup of Iran's highest
clerical body make a mockery of claims that the polls are democratic.
This dissonance is increasingly hard for a young population to stomach.
(Iran's median age is 30, and around 60 percent of its population of
roughly 80 million is younger than that.) It is, according to Khamenei,
the duty of all citizens to vote. But the underlying meaning of his
pronouncements is that the purpose of doing so is to enshrine the
system's legitimacy, rather than allow people to register disapproval.
'My father says I should vote, but the way I see it there is no point,'
said Mira, a 28-year-old fashion designer in Tehran who believes she
and her peers would only be powerless dupes should they cast a ballot.
She has voted only once in her lifetime - in 2009, in Ahmadinejad's
controversial re-election. 'It doesn't make a difference who we
support,' Mira said. 'We saw that then with the results, and it's no
different now.' Such remarks reflect the fact that those inside Iran
are less optimistic for dramatic reform at home than some foreign
observers, who have been gripped by the prospect of a post-nuclear-deal
domestic shake-up. The vetting process has played its part in dampening
hopes of change. But it remains true that Iran, in the words of Matthew
Trevithick, the American student who was recently released after being
imprisoned by the regime, 'is at war with itself' - and it's not yet
clear who will win the battle in the long term. The wounds that were
opened by the suppression of the 2009 protests show no sign of healing.
At the first rally of the pro-Rouhani Alliance of Reformists and
Government Supporters, which aims to topple hard-line conservatives on
Friday, thousands chanted 'no more house arrest' and 'free the
prisoners.' The chants were a reference to Mousavi, Karroubi and the
countless others deprived of liberty. The thousands who convened in the
sports hall rally also held up a modified version of a poster of the
reform movement's éminence grise, Khatami, from the presidential
campaign that saw him elected in 1997. The original shows his face in
studied concentration, chin resting on hands. But the 2016 version
shows only the hands, due to censorship under a media ban on Khatami's
face being published or his words used. The moderate alliance's logo
fills the blank space." http://t.uani.com/1WLngNy
Natasha
Bertrand in Business Insider: "Saudi Arabia warned its citizens against traveling
to Lebanon on Tuesday after one of its biggest allies, the United Arab
Emirates, banned travel to Lebanon altogether. The move, which followed
the Kingdom's decision last week to halt $4 billion in funding for
Lebanese security forces, shows that the Saudis 'appear to have had
enough,' said Tony Badran, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense
of Democracies specializing in the military and political affairs of
the Levant. 'Saudi Arabia is signaling that they're not going to
bankroll an effective Iranian satrapy that's actively aligned against
them,' Badran told Business Insider on Tuesday. That satrapy is
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant organization sending fighters to Syria
to support Iran-backed Shi'ite militias battling Saudi-backed Sunni
rebel groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad. One of
Hezbollah's staunchest allies is the right-wing Christian Free
Patriotic Movement, headed by Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran earlier this year, after the
Saudi embassy in Tehran was attacked by protestors decrying Riyadh's
decision to execute a prominent Shi'ite cleric. Lebanon has long had a
strong relationship with Saudi Arabia, but Bassil apparently took
Iran's side in the most recent spat between Tehran and Riyadh. Elie
Fawaz, writing for the Lebanese news outlet NOW, notes that the Saudis
have withdrawn aid because of how state institutions are, 'one way or
another, support[ing] Hezbollah's military effort in Syria.' The
Saudis, then, are now 'showing their seriousness about confronting
Iran' and warning Lebanon that they won't underwrite an Iranian vassal,
Badran said. 'The talk is that the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] might
take tough action against Hezbollah's allies, especially the Christian
ones, who support Hezbollah's domination of Lebanon,' Badran said. 'And
some believe that these allies are the weakest link.' The Saudis'
determination to take on Iran and its proxies is clearly growing.
Earlier this month, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in
Yemen told reporters that the Kingdom had made a 'final' decision to
send ground troops into Syria. And last week, Saudi foreign minister
Adel al-Jubeir called for sending surface-to-air missiles to rebel
groups in Syria 'to change the balance of power on the ground.' The
Saudis have since walked back both announcements somewhat. But they
clearly have remained eager to counter Iran's expanding influence in
the region. 'The question now for the Saudis is about how to align that
determination with means and actual steps,' Badran said. 'Obama is a
big hurdle.' The Saudis have shown no signs of abandoning their proxy
war with Iran in Syria, especially since doing so would effectively
guarantee Assad's indefinite hold on power and, by extension, a bridge
to Hezbollah for Iran. Though it has softened its position on Assad's
ouster, the White House has reiterated that it believes the war cannot
end as long as Assad in power. But the Kingdom is still waiting for
reciprocity and readiness from the Obama administration to more
aggressively support anti-Assad rebels, who are rapidly losing ground
to pro-regime forces as Russian airstrikes clear the way for them to
advance in the north. Indeed, as the Saudis continue to balk at the
US's decision to lift nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, Washington has
shown few, if any, signs that it intends to prevent Syria from becoming
a Russian-Iranian sphere of influence.And that may be intentional. 'The
Iranians hold the Obama legacy in their hands,'Aaron David Miller, a
former Middle East negotiator and now the vice president at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, said in a January interview
with Bloomberg View. 'We are constrained and we are acquiescing to a
certain degree to ensure we maintain a functional relationship with the
Iranians.'" http://t.uani.com/1WLnJQ5
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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