WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran was holding 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their two small boats that drifted into Iranian waters after experiencing mechanical problems. Iran accused the sailors of trespassing but American officials said Tehran has assured them that the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly.
The sailors, nine men and one woman, were being held overnight at an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf, and were expected to be transferred to a U.S. ship in the region on Wednesday morning local time. Officials said they believe the U.S. had spoken to one of the crew, and all 10 were fine and uninjured.
Bahrain announced Monday that it was severing diplomatic ties with Iran, citing Tehran’s “blatant and dangerous interference” in Bahrain and other Arab countries.
The United Arab Emirates said it was “downgrading” its diplomatic relations with Iran. The UAE recalled its ambassador in Tehran and said it would also reduce the number of diplomats stationed in Iran, according to state news agency WAM. A government statement said the UAE “has taken this exceptional step in light of Iran’s ongoing interference in internal (Gulf Cooperation Council) and Arab affairs that has recently reached unprecedented levels.”
The diplomatic row spread to Africa, where Sudan — a majority Sunni Muslim country — expelled the Iranian ambassador and the entire Iranian diplomatic mission in the country. Sudan also recalled its ambassador from Iran.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said Sunday that his country is severing ties with Iran. Iranian diplomats in Saudi Arabia have 48 hours to leave the country, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters.
The two countries have long been at odds, but Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr Saturday kicked off a new round of sparring between them that analysts say could mark a dangerous shift in an already volatile region.
“I think you’re going to see a period of very harsh rhetoric, and the cutting of diplomatic ties comes at a very bad time. … This is Saudi Arabia saying, ‘The gloves are off,’ ” said Bobby Ghosh, a CNN global affairs analyst and managing editor of Quartz.
I’m sure everything’s fine. They’re a trustworthy bunch of fellas, right? Let’s go ahead and give them nukes.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States is reviewing and seeking to confirm reports that Iran launched a ballistic missile last month in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Tuesday.
“The U.S. is conducting a serious review of the reported incident,” Power told reporters after a meeting of the Security Council on unrelated issues.
She added that if Washington confirmed the reports that Iran tested a medium-range ballistic missile on Nov. 21 in violation of U.N. resolutions, the United States would bring the issue to the 15-nation council and seek appropriate action.
A Western diplomatic source said last week on condition of anonymity that the test of a Ghadr-110, a spinoff of the Shahab-3 missile, was held near Chabahar, a port city near Iran’s border with Pakistan. He said it was a liquid-fueled missile with a 1,900 km (1,180 mile) range and was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
All ballistic missile tests by Iran are banned under a 2010 Security Council resolution that remains valid until a nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is implemented.
Moscow (AFP) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday eased restrictions on Russian companies working on Iranian enrichment sites as he travelled to Tehran for his first visit since 2007.
A decree Putin signed on Monday enables Russian firms to help modify centrifuges at the Fordo enrichment site and help Tehran redesign its Arak heavy water reactor.
Russian companies can now also carry out activities linked to Iranian exports of enriched uranium of more than 300 kilograms in exchange for the supplies of natural uranium to Iran, the Kremlin decree said.
(CNN)Iran has successfully test fired a new long-range surface-to-surface missile, state-run IRNA reported on Sunday.
The Emad (Pillar) missile, designed and built by Iranian experts, is the country’s first long-range missile that can be precision guided until it reaches its target, said Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, Iran’s defense minister.
“To follow our defense programs, we don’t ask permission from anyone,” he said, according to IRNA.
The new rocket was “capable of scrutinizing the targets and destroying them completely,” IRNA reported.
Anthony Cordesman, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in October last year that the Emad was a variant of Iran’s existing Shahab-3 long-range missile, “but with a maneuvering reentry vehicle to improve system accuracy and complicate missile defense.”
The liquid-propelled rocket had a range of 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) and was accurate to within 500 meters (547 yards) of the target.
The rocket could carry a 750 kg (1,653 pound) payload, and was scheduled for deployment some time after 2016, he wrote.
One might get the impression that Putin spun world opinion with anti-IS rhetoric in order to prop up a brutal Syrian tyrant.
Beirut (AFP) – Syrian rebels who oppose both the regime and the Islamic State group have been hit hardest by Russian air strikes, showing Moscow’s determination to defend President Bashar al-Assad against all enemies, analysts say.
More than four years into Syria’s devastating war, Russian warplanes began air strikes there on Wednesday, saying they were targeting IS jihadists and “other terrorist groups”.
But Western officials said they had indications the Kremlin was concentrating its attacks on anti-Assad factions instead of jihadists.
Experts and a key monitoring group say that Moscow’s targets show it intends to strike all opposition groups opposed to Damascus — jihadist or otherwise — in an effort to save Assad.
“Moscow has entered Syria to hit not just Daesh, but all groups it regards as terrorists, including those supported by the Gulf monarchies and Turkey,” said Syria specialist Fabrice Balanche, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
So Russia is propping up Assad in Syria while selling billions of dollars of technology to Iran, Assad’s ally. Nice gig if you can get it.
Now this is humorous. Democratic national Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz apparently had to sit through a Yom Kippur sermon by her own rabbi tearing into members of Congress who supported President Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal.
Wow. Good for this rabbi. I wonder how many rabbis spoke out against this. Most of my fellow Jews, and the rabbis who lead them, are ardently liberal, pacifist, etc., particularly among the Reform denomination, which is the largest.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Iran has signed contracts worth $21 billion to buy satellite equipment and aircraft from Russia, Manouchehr Manteghi, the managing director of Iran Aviation Industries Organization, said in an interview with Russian agency Sputnik on Saturday.
Manteghi said the contracts had been signed at the MAKS-2015 air show in Russia last month.
Russia has stepped up its military involvement in Syria in recent weeks, with U.S. officials accusing Moscow of sending combat aircraft, tanks and other equipment to help the Syrian army.
Russia’s sudden military build-up this month in support of Assad and a refugee crisis that has spilled over from the region into Europe have lent new urgency to attempts to resolve the Syria conflict.
The new U.S. tack on Syria could bring together Russia, Saudi Arabia and countries such as Turkey and Qatar, which support Syrian opposition groups.
U.S.-Russian relations have slumped to a post-Cold War low over the Ukraine crisis, though the two sides shares concerns about the threat posed by Islamic State, while disagreeing on the approach.
(CNN)Iraq says it has reached a deal to share intelligence with Russia, Iran and Syria in the fight against ISIS militants.
The announcement on Saturday from the Iraqi military cited “the increasing concern from Russia about thousands of Russian terrorists committing criminal acts within ISIS.”
The news comes amid U.S. concerns about Russia’s recent military buildup in Syria and would appear to confirm American suspicions of some kind of cooperation between Baghdad and Moscow.
So the Russians and Iranians are supporting the tyrannical Assad regime and forcing a massive humanitarian crisis. And our response is to give Iran nukes. Got it.
Washington (CNN)America’s top diplomat called his Russian counterpart Wednesday to warn that Moscow’s military buildup of troops in Syria could escalate the bloody conflict there that has engulfed the region for more than four years.
The U.S. has been watching Russia’s movement of military personnel with concern for several days, though the Foreign Ministry only confirmed the buildup Wednesday.
There are “Russian military experts in Syria who are instructing (the Syrians) on the use of the military systems being delivered” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close Moscow ally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Russia “has long been supplying arms and military equipment to Syria in accordance with bilateral contracts,” she said.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is opposed to a landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers, a prominent hard-liner claimed Saturday.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the daily newspaper Kayhan and a representative of Khamenei, made the comments in an editorial Saturday. It marked the first time someone publicly has claimed where Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, stands on the deal.
[…]
Another prominent hard-liner and Khamenei representative, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, recently criticized the deal, saying it “crossed the red lines” set by Khamenei. He said the ayatollah said outsiders should never be allowed access to Iran’s security apparatus, but the deal violated that by allowing inspection of military sites.
That cautionary example is, of course, North Korea. The United States went down this road with the “Hermit Kingdom” in 1994, with the negotiation of the so-called Agreed Framework. Under its terms, North Korea was supposed to dismantle its nuclear facilities — then capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium — and receive, in return, help building less advanced reactors for peaceful purposes, as well as shipments of heavy fuel oil to offset energy shortages. But in 2002, U.S. intelligence discovered that the North was cheating — buying materials apparently intended for uranium enrichment. After years of contentious negotiations, North Korea finally fessed up in 2010.
Over the past decade, North Korea has carried out three nuclear tests and now has about 10 bombs. Within five years it could have another 10, according to the U.S.-Korea Institute at my university. The North also has a robust missile program, with a fleet of short- and medium-range missiles, and claims it could mount a nuclear warhead on one. The head of the U.S. Northern Command has publicly agreed. Since the 1990s, North Korea has been working on a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM); given its successful launch of a space satellite with a large, three-stage rocket in 2012, it appears just short of that goal.
In the wake of the Iran agreement, North Korea is now coming under U.S. and international pressure to return to the bargaining table, which it abandoned in 2008 after years of what were called “six-party talks” (the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea). But the North’s ambassadors in China and Russia slammed the door on a renewal just last week.
Why is North Korea so adamantly against talks, and what are the prospects for changing that? The primary motive is simple: regime survival. Long squeezed by international sanctions and regarded as the globe’s most repressive political system, North Korea revolves around a cult of personality centered on the Kim dynasty. The leadership has long seen nuclear weapons as the key to survival, often citing Libya as its own cautionary example. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi surrendered his nuclear program in 2004 and was killed in 2011, as his regime collapsed during Libya’s violent version of the so-called Arab Spring.
I ask again… what did America get out of this deal with Iran?
Supreme leader “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated Iran’s position on the resistance movements and its allies, and Hezbollah occupies a special place among them,” Nasrallah added.
“The United States remains the ‘Great Satan’, both before and after the nuclear accord” reached last week after tough negotiations between Iran and permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.
[…]
The party, which the United States classifies as a terrorist organisation, is also fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against rebels in Syria, itself an ally of Iran.
On Friday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem also said the nuclear deal would not affect Iranian support for the Damascus government.
Iran “has ideological relations with its allies that prevail over political interests”, Nasrallah said.
“We say this loud and clear: we receive material and financial support from the Islamic republic, and we are proud of that fact.”
Oh, wait… no he doesn’t. He still hates us and hopes to kill us.
Ayatollah Khamenei told supporters on Saturday that U.S. policies in the region were “180 degrees” opposed to Iran’s, at a speech in a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
“Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change,” Khamenei said.
(CNN)Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed Saturday that a newly negotiated deal on his country’s nuclear program would not alter Iran’s policies toward the United States.
In a televised address marking the start of Eid al-Fitr, the festival that follows the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Khamenei said the agreement signed Tuesday on the nuclear issue would not affect Iran’s stance on other regional or bilateral matters.
“Our policies toward the arrogant government of the United States will not be changed at all,” he said.
Khamenei said the negotiations with the United States and other world powers on Tehran’s nuclear program were an exception because they served Iran’s national interest.
Iran signed the deal because it served their national interest, which is, presumably, getting more money to fund their terror activities and acquiescence from the West to build a nuclear weapon in 10 years. What national interest of the United States was served?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “historic mistake” that would provide Iran with “hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe”.
The easing of restrictions on financial transactions which are part of the international embargo will give Iran extra economic muscle.
That will mean more funds – and more guns – for the proxy armies it funds around the Middle East, like the Shia militias of Iraq, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese military force which is helping to prop up Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
That is likely to reinforce Iran’s view of itself as the champion and defender of Shia communities wherever they are found and to push the Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf – led by the Saudis – into responding in kind.
The conflicts raging around the Middle East in places like Iraq and Syria can be viewed as part of a growing confrontation between followers of the two main traditions in the Islamic world – Sunni and Shia.
Giving Iran access to more money and more weapons may well serve to intensify that confrontation.
U.S. and other world powers gave themselves seven more days to seal the deal with Iran on limiting its nuclear program as President Obama reiterated Tuesday he would walk away from a bad agreement.
I’m sure the guy who exchanged 5 terrorists for one deserter knows how to spot a bad deal.
Tehran (AFP) – US President Barack Obama recently sent a private message to Iran’s leadership via Iraq’s prime minister, an Iranian newspaper reported Monday on the eve of a deadline for a nuclear deal.
Hamshahri, Iran’s highest-circulation daily, citing a lawmaker, said “one of the leaders of a neighbouring country” took the message from Obama to officials in Tehran.
The subject discussed was the nuclear talks between Iran and world powers led by the United States it said, without giving further details on its content.
Iran is a totalitarian regime. Given that, this story does not get published in their largest newspaper without official sanction. So, assuming the story is true, it means that the leaders of Iran are intentionally taunting the U.S. and thumping their chests for their regional allies and enemies that the President of the United States is begging them for a deal through back channels. Iranian leaders are showing the world that they have Obama wrapped around their little finger.
Obama is belittling our nation in a desperate attempt to secure a foreign policy legacy for himself – even at the expense of a nuclear Middle East.
Washington (CNN)A U.S.-flagged ship was recently intercepted by an Iran Revolutionary Guard naval patrol, the U.S. Navy revealed to CNN Tuesday.
The incident occurred on Friday when four Iranian naval vessels surrounded the U.S.-flagged Maersk Kensington in the Strait of Hormuz.
The episode came ahead of an encounter Tuesday in which Iran Revolutionary Guard patrol boats fired shots at a commercial cargo ship and then intercepted the vessel, the Marshall Islands-flagged M/V Maersk Tigris, which was also crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
A senior U.S. military official told CNN that “the Iranians encircled the Kensington and followed the ship on its course for a period of time before withdrawing and breaking away.” After that, the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet issued a notice to mariners about the incident.
ADEN (Reuters) – Houthi fighters, backed by supporters of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh entered the provincial capital of the mainly Sunni Shabwa province in eastern Yemen on Thursday, residents said, despite intense Saudi-led air strikes against the group.
And Iran is insisting on an immediate influx of cash if they sign onto the deal with the West. Gee… I wonder what they will use that cash for.
ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran will only sign a final nuclear accord with six world powers if all sanctions imposed over its disputed atomic work are lifted on the same day, President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Thursday.
