Monday, May 7, 2018

Eye on Iran: Airplane and Oil Deals at Risk in Trump Pullout of Iran Deal



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From airplanes to oilfields, billions of dollars are on the line for international corporations as President Donald Trump weighs whether to pull America out of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. Regardless of where they are headquartered, virtually all multinational corporations do business or banking in the U.S., meaning any return to pre-deal sanctions could torpedo deals made after the 2015 agreement came into force.


Hezbollah and its political allies won just over half the seats in Lebanon's parliamentary elections, unofficial results showed, boosting an Iranian-backed movement fiercely opposed to Israel and underlining Tehran's growing regional clout.


Well I'm encouraged by what the President has said so far and I hope he does pull out because I give you the perspective of somebody who was in the Senate for 24 years, worked with people in both parties to put sanctions, economic pressure on Iran with a singular goal which was to denuclearize Iran, to stop their nuclear weapons development program.

UANI IN THE NEWS


The May 12 renegotiation deadline for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is just days away. President Donald Trump is still apt to withdraw from the agreement unless world leaders can come together and address its flaws. As this deadline draws near, I can't help but think of how distinctly history has repeated itself. After all, it was just decades ago that officials were calling for reform of a signed agreement with North Korea. Now, with Iran, we have two rogue nations using the threat of nuclear weapons and missile technology to hold the world hostage and threaten international safety.


The Trump administration should use the Israeli revelations as a new source of leverage to "fix" the deal and not simply walk away from it.

NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM


As a looming deadline approaches for the Iran nuclear deal, there may be a plan to prevent the United States from pulling out of the agreement -- essentially a workaround that would help President Trump deliver on a campaign promise of renegotiating the deal... [T]he U.S. and its European allies would create a proposal that addresses Mr. Trump's concerns about the agreement -- ballistic missiles, military site inspections and the sunset clause -- thus allowing Mr. Trump to claim he "fixed" the 2015 international agreement without actually altering a word of the agreement and without Iran's consent. It would be a workaround to help the U.S. and its allies promise to punish Iran for actions that were not included in the 2015 deal. This plan wouldn't include Russia, China and Iran.


On the streets of Tehran, every day seems to bring more worry and fear ahead of President Donald Trump's decision this week on whether to pull America out of the nuclear deal with Iran. Exchange shop windows that once showed rates for Iranian rial to U.S. dollar transactions have gone blank, as black-market rates have skyrocketed to 70,000 rials to the dollar, far higher than the newly government-imposed rate of 42,000 for $1.


President Hassan Rouhani hinted on Monday that Iran could remain in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers even if the United States dropped out but Tehran would fiercely resist U.S. pressure to limit its influence in the Middle East.


Churchill's famous conclusion was that democracy constituted the "worst form of government - except for all those other forms that have been tried." He was not succumbing to pessimism; on the contrary, faced with an array of unappetizing options, there is a deep wisdom in choosing the one with the smallest downside and then fixing its limitations. So it is with the Iran nuclear agreement that President Trump is now reviewing, with May 12 - this Saturday - looming as the next deadline for him to pull out of the deal.
  

The foreign ministers of France and Germany say they will hold on to the nuclear agreement with Iran, regardless of the upcoming U.S. decision on whether to nix the deal.


Israel's prime minister on Sunday stepped up his calls for world powers to end the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as President Donald Trump decides whether to withdraw from the agreement by next week. In a briefing to foreign reporters.
  

John Kerry's bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official... With the Iran deal facing its gravest threat since it was signed in 2015, Kerry has been on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.


Once Trump is out, Washington can get serious about the regime's misbehavior.


Having found so much common ground on the broad principles for an improved Iran strategy, it would be a particular shame if the negotiations still failed. Rather than allowing the disagreement of what at this stage are only details, albeit important ones, over Iran turn into a transatlantic crisis, a renewed resolve to confront Tehran's destructive behavior ought to reinvigorate the European-American partnership.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS


Rudy Giuliani pushed for regime change in Iran on Saturday, saying President Donald Trump is "as committed to regime change as we are.".

CONGRESS & IRAN


Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry said on Fox News Sunday it would be a mistake for Trump to scuttle the nuclear accord reached with Tehran. "I would counsel against it," he said.

SYRIA, ISRAEL & IRAN


An Israeli minister on Monday threatened that the Jewish state could kill Syrian President Bashar Assad if his regime doesn't prevent Iranian forces from launching attacks against Israel from his territory. The warning came amid reports that Tehran is planning a revenge missile strike against Israel.

BUSINESS RISK


Richard Grenell, the newly confirmed US ambassador to Germany, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News on Thursday that German companies should stop trade with the Islamic Republic of Iran because Tehran sponsors terrorism.

SANCTIONS


After more than a year of assessing how effective OPEC and friends have been at keeping a lid on supply, it's fair to ask how much more they can produce. This is really a question about spare production capacity -- and it's an urgent one. President Donald Trump has to decide by May 12 whether to extend waivers on Iranian sanctions, and all the indications are that he won't. The drop in supply could easily exceed a million barrels a day, if the president decides to impose extra-territorial sanctions on anyone doing business with Iran -- would-be buyers could decide that the safest course is to shun the country's oil. 
OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS


Oil futures rose sharply in Asian trading Monday, hitting new 3 1/2-year highs as the U.S. benchmark hovered around $70 a barrel and a deadline to renew waivers of U.S. sanctions on Iran loomed. 

HUMAN RIGHTS


The Iranian authorities must stop their ongoing harassment campaign against Raheleh Rahemipour, a 65-year-old human rights defender, who faces trial for a second time in reprisal for a complaint filed with the UN on the enforced disappearance of her brother and his infant daughter, said Amnesty International today.

RUSSIA & IRAN


Russia will stand by the Iran nuclear deal and develop closer ties with Iran if U.S. President Donald Trump withdraws from the agreement on May 12, a senior Russian official said on Friday. 


Lebanon held on Sunday its first parliamentary elections in nine years, as citizens expressed cautious optimism that the country's rigid, oft-deadlocked sectarian political system could be swayed. Behind the scenes, however, one of the world's leading powers has quietly eyed the small state as a potential ground to project its power in the Middle East and into the Mediterranean. But it won't be easy.


As Israel and Iran increasingly square off against each other amid Syria's multi-dimensional war, it is Russia that finds itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

HEZBOLLAH & LEBANON


In March, an Iran state-affiliated media outlet inappropriately published a speech by Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The speech was a private - candid - address to an Iranian audience in Beirut in the same month. After backlash in Arab media against the speech, including Nasrallah's declaration of loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei above all, the Iranian outlets retracted the article. Hezbollah denied that Nasrallah had delivered the speech. The retraction and denial, however, strongly suggest a cover-up attempt. The speech was meant for internal distribution, thus making it a valuable document. It was likely addressed to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel.


What will the situation of the Lebanese state be if Hezbollah manages to cobble a majority in parliamentary elections?

IRAQ & IRAN


Iran may be working to establish a key strategic foothold at the tip of the 4,800-foot Sinjar Mountain in Iraq that could leave Israel and regional U.S. forces in the crosshairs of potential attacks.

IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS


Teachers went on strike in central Iran's city of Yazd. Steelworkers and hospital staff walked off the job in the southwest city of Ahvaz. Railway employees protested near Tabriz. And a bus drivers union in Tehran battled the private companies that control many city routes.






Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email press@uani.com.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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