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TOP STORIES
European plane maker Airbus Group SE followed Boeing
Co. in completing a multibillion-dollar plane deal with Iran's state
air carrier, creating another big test case for how the incoming
Trump administration responds to the West's accelerating economic
opening with the Islamic Republic... Uncertainty has heightened over
the fate of many of these commercial inroads in Iran since the
election of Donald Trump... Mr. Trump hasn't weighed in publicly on
Boeing's contract with Iran, and he and his team haven't detailed
their position on the nuclear deal with Iran since the election. Even
though it is a European company, Airbus is vulnerable to any big
shift in U.S. policy toward Iran. Airbus requires specific U.S.
approval for the sales because its jets include many American parts
and technology that are subject to American export controls. It
received that approval, from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets
Control, earlier this year. The U.S. has other levers that could make
completing the Airbus transaction more difficult-for instance,
forbidding any financing or payments to be routed through
institutions with access to the American banking system... In
announcing its deal earlier this month, Boeing said booking the Iran
Air sales in its official order book was still subject to
"contingencies." That caution is common with deals
involving state-owned airlines. They can include final green lights
from governments and often are linked to potential financing
arrangements, said people familiar with the sales process.
Iran and the major powers with which it reached a
landmark nuclear accord in 2015 have agreed on clarifications that
diplomats say will reduce the amount of enriched uranium that counts
towards a limit set by the deal. The U.N. nuclear watchdog circulated
the clarifications, laid out in eight documents, to its member states
on Friday after receiving them from the office of European Union
foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who coordinates the main
forum for discussions created by the deal, the Joint Commission. The
IAEA has already expressed concern to Iran about its repeated testing
of one of the deal's less strictly defined limits - its stock of
heavy water, a substance used as a moderator in reactors like Iran's
unfinished one at Arak, which has had its core removed to make it
unusable. Diplomats have said Iran has come close to exceeding other
limits under the deal, particularly the 300 kg (661 pound) cap on its
stock of enriched uranium, a breach of which would most likely be far
more damaging than excess heavy water. There was concern during a
visit to Iran this week by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano that Iran was
about to go over that threshold, diplomats said. There is also great
uncertainty about how U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, a vocal
critic of the deal, will handle any future difficulties that arise
with Iran... The 45 pages of often highly technical documents
circulated on Friday specify, among other things, items that do not
count towards Iran's uranium stockpile, such as some unrecoverable
material left in pipes. "All current low-level solid waste
contaminated with low-enriched uranium (LEU) ..., which is deemed
unrecoverable, is not part of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile as
specified in the JCPOA provided that Iran does not build or operate
any facility or part of a facility capable of recovering LEU from
solid waste for 15 years," one typically worded clause said. How
much difference exactly the clarifications will make to the size of
Iran's uranium stockpile is not clear.
Responding to the Lebanese government's pleas for aid
in combating Islamic State and other Syrian terrorist groups, the
U.S. has this year alone provided it with $220 million in military
aid -- including 50 armored personnel carriers and 40 artillery
pieces -- and facilitated its purchase of six Super Tucanos. Congress
is also giving Beirut $150 million to improve border security.ww The
problem is that while Lebanon has the hallmarks of being an
independent and democratic state, the reality is very different. The
Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah controls a large swath of
southern Lebanon, including the entire border with Israel. While
constrained to just 12 seats in the 130-member parliament because of
bizarre quota rules, it is the de facto leader of the minority
coalition. In October, former army chief Michel Aoun was elected
president. Although he is a Maronite Christian, he signed a formal
alliance with Hezbollah a decade ago, and the Shiite terrorist group
was instrumental in his victory. Viewed as a skirmish in the ongoing
proxy war in the Middle East, Aoun's victory was a win for Iran and a
defeat for Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Gulf allies... On Wednesday, a
top Israeli defense official told reporters that some of those
American troop carriers were being used by Hezbollah, which has sent
tens of thousands of fighters to back Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
against U.S.-backed rebels. To illustrate the point, he provided a
photo, taken in November, of a long line of the armored vehicles all
sporting Hezbollah flags. Several such pictures made the rounds of
social media over last weekend...
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Before Donald Trump has even arrived in the White
House, Iran says the United States has already violated the nuclear
deal and threatened to build atomic-powered ships in retaliation. Is
the historic accord at risk? Earlier this month, US lawmakers renewed
a law called the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), extending its provisions
for another decade... So is Iran right about a violation?... Western
analysts disagree, saying Iran is just trying to score political
points. "If it doesn't have any practical impact, who cares
about the legislation? I think the Iranians are just posturing,"
said Dan Newcomb, a sanctions lawyer with Shearman and Sterling in
New York. Moreover, sanctions expert Sam Cutler, of consultancy
Horizon Client Access, said there was "a zero percent
chance" that Iran was not briefed during the nuclear talks that
the Congress would re-introduce ISA. "The Iranians knew this was
going to happen and for them to claim this is a violation now beggars
belief," he said. So if ISA is suspended and the renewal makes
no difference, why is Tehran making such a fuss? The answer lies with
Iran's wider frustration that the nuclear deal has not produced many
of the expected benefits, said Izadi... Top of the list are Iran's
continued banking problems. Although hundreds of European companies
are desperate to resume trading with Iran, major banks are still
refusing to facilitate big transactions. This is because Washington
still has a number of non-nuclear sanctions in place that prevent
anyone doing business with a long list of Iranians it says are linked
to terrorism, human rights abuses and its ballistic missile
programme. The banks would have to sift through each transaction to
make sure none of the money ended up with someone on this list -- a
costly and time-consuming affair when dealing with a country as opaque
as Iran.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Treasury said Thursday it amended transactions
regulations to expand the scope of medical devices and agricultural
commodities authorized for export to Iran. The amendment included new
or expanded authorizations related to an array of administrative
concerns such as training, replacement parts or issues concerning
broken items or product recalls. Treasury also amended a key
definition in the regulations.
SYRIA CONFLICT
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia,
Iran, Turkey and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had all agreed that
the Kazakh capital of Astana should be the venue for new Syrian peace
talks. Russia, Iran and Turkey held talks in Moscow on Tuesday after
which they said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal.
Putin has proposed holding the negotiations in Kazakhstan, a close
Russian ally... The next step for Syria would be a nationwide
ceasefire, he said.
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iran's anti-aircraft forces shot down a drone in
central Tehran on Friday as it approached the offices of the
president and the supreme leader, but the unmanned aircraft later
appeared to have been operated by a film crew shooting aerial footage
for a documentary... The commander of Tehran air defence forces said
in August that the capital's airspace was under full control and
"no aircraft can enter it without permission."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
The carnage in Aleppo is a much stronger reminder than
we should have ever needed about the importance of a change in
Western foreign policies. President Obama's attempt to
"reorient" U.S. foreign policy has in practice turned into
the outright abandonment of the U.S. role in the Middle East. And the
people of Aleppo are only some of those who have suffered or might
suffer as a result. Through its withdrawal from Middle Eastern
affairs, the Obama administration has had a devastating impact on
Western interests in the region. But perhaps more importantly, it has
had a devastating effect on the civilian populations of the region,
chiefly those of Syria and Iran... in Iran, the theocratic regime
that came to power after the 1979 Islamic revolution is harvesting
the fruits of a misguided nuclear agreement. The regime has sought to
enrich itself with new Western partnerships, but has by no means
diminished its anti-Western rhetoric or its threats against other
nations in the region. Quite the contrary, that rhetoric and those
threats have increased, and Iran has used its newfound wealth to
deepen its involvement in the affairs of nearby countries, with Syria
being especially prominent among them... The crisis in Iran is far
less obvious to those who aren't closely watching the country. But
those who are understand that public discontent is at an all-time
high, necessitating a persistent crackdown on political and civil
activism, labor rights movements, and so on... There is a need for a
shift not only toward reengaging with the Middle East, but also
toward engaging with the popular sentiment in those countries, often
for the first time. That sentiment isn't difficult to understand. The
people of Iran want to be free of the repressive theocratic
government that jails people for dissent or for being in the same
room as someone of the opposite sex. And of course they also want
their government to cease wasting Iranian resources in supporting the
Assad regime and shedding innocent blood on foreign soil.
As the world recently marked International Human
Rights Day, it should be known that the regime in Iran considers its
deplorable human rights dossier as its main weakness... For years the
international community has been forced to believe in the existence
of "moderates" and "hardliners" in Iran. Those
advocating such a point of view have been calling for support of
"moderates" to improve the human rights situation in this
country. This accord with Iran was presented as the beginning of a
new era which would lead to respect for human rights in Iran and an
end to the mullahs' meddling in the region. That assumption has been
at the heart of Western policy vis-à-vis Iran for decades. However, a
very close look is needed at the record of the last three or so years
during the tenure of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, dubbed as a
"moderate." More have been executed under his watch than
during the entire eight years of firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
reign. Rouhani has never expressed any criticism regarding these
executions and indeed he defends the death sentence as the rule of
God. Religious and ethnic minorities in Iran are suppressed more than
ever before, and Iran has increased its participation in supporting
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, especially massacring innocent people
of Aleppo and other cities. The world has been watching in horror
scenes of women and children victimized to horrendous Iran-backed
bombings and shelling. However, western policymakers have been
completely ignoring these realities. Horrendously, more trade and
business deals have been advocated with the Iranian regime. Let us
not forget that most of Iran's economy is run by the Revolutionary
Guards, not by ordinary Iranian businessmen. Therefore, Western
policy has actually encouraged the mullahs' regime to continue their
domestic crackdown and carry on atrocious crimes in Syria without any
concern of being held accountable... Iran's past and present
atrocities, inside the country and outside its borders, need to be
condemned as crimes against humanity. The West must place firm
conditions on future relations with Iran and take serious actions
against this regime. One good start was the adoption of the Iran
Sanctions Act by the U.S. Congress, sending a strong message to
Tehran that the tides are changing. The West must also demand a
stoppage of the execution of minors, justice for women and respect
for human rights in general. The people of Iran expect it from the
West to stand up for them. U.S. President Barack Obama failed to do
so back in 2009 and the Iranian people have paid the price heavily
ever since.
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