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TOP STORIES
President Donald Trump allowed the Iran nuclear deal to
survive through 2017, but the new year will offer him another chance
to blow up the agreement - and critics and supporters alike believe
he may take it. By mid-January, the president will face new legal
deadlines to choose whether to slap U.S. sanctions back on Tehran.
Senior lawmakers and some of Trump's top national security officials
are trying to preserve the agreement. But the deal's backers fear
Trump has grown more willing to reject the counsel of his foreign
policy team, as he did with his recent decision to recognize
Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
An Argentine judge says the prosecutor who was found
dead just days after accusing former President Cristina Fernandez of
covering up Iran's role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community
center was murdered. Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found
with a fatal gunshot wound to his head just hours before he was due
to appear before Congress to detail the allegations against
Fernandez.
Hezbollah and Syrian army forces have
reportedly launched an assault on a besieged Syrian rebels'
stronghold some 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from Israel's border, even
as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel will not
accept Iranian proxies on its frontier.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
[T]he flawed Iran nuclear deal is no longer the focal
point of our policy toward Iran. We are now confronting the totality
of Iranian threats. Part of this strategy entails rebuilding
alliances with our partners in the Middle East, and in November we
helped re-establish diplomatic ties between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We
will continue to work with our allies and with Congress to explore
options for addressing the nuclear deal's many flaws, while building
a like-minded effort to punish Iran for its violations of ballistic
missile commitments and its destabilizing activities in the region.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on
Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump would fail in his hardened
stance towards Iran, saying Tehran was stronger than during the time
of the "more powerful and smarter" Ronald Reagan.
A pair of rogue regimes with a longing for nuclear
weapons promise to dominate Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's second
year atop Foggy Bottom. Tillerson, in following President Trump's
distaste for former President Barack Obama's decision-making, declared
in 2017 an end to the era of "strategic patience" with Iran
and North Korea. As the nation's top diplomat, he has to try to rally
international support for Trump's more aggressive posture... while
maintaining his position in the administration, which has seemed
precarious at times.
In a symbolic pushback to President Donald Trump's
declaration on the status of Jerusalem, Iranian lawmakers on
Wednesday voted to recognize the contested city as the capital of the
Palestinians.
CONGRESS & IRAN
The Obama administration never took the threat of the
Iranian terror network seriously. This administration must not make
the same mistake.
TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM
Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah
and Palestinian Sunni Muslim group Hamas, two influential political
and paramilitary organizations opposed to Israel, have apparently
joined forces in response to President Donald Trump's recent decision
to recognize the contested, holy city of Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel.
A woman still seeking justice for the 2005 murder of her
journalist husband in Iraq is suing the FBI for documents related to
the investigation so she can go after the Iranian government. Lisa
Ramaci is involved in three pending lawsuits against those she says
played a role in her husband Steven Vincent's death in Basra, Iraq...
Vincent, 49, was a freelance journalist who was in Iraq in 2005 when
he wrote an article about Iranian-sponsored radicals. Just a few days
after the article came out, on Aug. 2, Vincent was captured, beaten
and shot dead by local police.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The family of a Swedish-Iranian researcher whose death
sentence for espionage was upheld this week by Iranian authorities
has dismissed the charges against him, saying his purported
confession was "distorted" and that he was not in a
position to gain access to the state secrets he is accused of
divulging.
A second synagogue has been reported vandalized in the southern
Iranian city of Shiraz, with attackers damaging Torah scrolls, prayer
books and ritual objects.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, LEBANON, AND IRAN
UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said on
Wednesday that the Arab world must come together under Saudi-Egyptian
leadership to combat Iranian and Turkish influences in the
region.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
Residents in the Iranian city of Mashhad took to the
streets on Thursday demonstrating against unemployment and poverty.
Protesters raised the slogans "Death to Rouhani, and Death to
the Dictator". Usually the term "dictator" is addressed
to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Protesters also waved banners
denouncing Iran's interference in the Arab region.
After months of verbal clashes in Iran between former
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and judiciary chief Sadegh Amoli
Larijani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given a speech
harshly criticizing Ahmadinejad.
Iranian media are reporting a 5.1-magnitude earthquake
in the southern Kerman province.
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