Over the weekend, protesters in Iran raged against Iran&#8217;s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by publicly burning his image while other protesters chanted “Shah of Iran, return to Iran!”
According to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/iran-rocked-by-protests-as-images-of-khamenei-set-on-fire-and-banks-burned-go-viral-1.8135607?fbclid=IwAR2DadbH2OdINfV9etR3xpsosnP9BcxslgzKp3s4sKB_NfKGVksFlp-xFWQ">Haaretz</a>, protests ranged across at least a dozen cities after President Hassan Rouhani raised government-set gasoline prices by 50%. NetBlocks, which monitors worldwide internet access, reported on Saturday that it appeared the government had shut down the internet, tweeting: “Confirmed:<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hashtag_click">‪#Iran</a> is now in the midst of a near-total national internet shutdown; realtime network data show connectivity at 7% of ordinary levels after twelve hours of progressive network disconnections as public protests continue <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hashtag_click">‪#IranProtests</a>.”
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Confirmed: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> is now in the midst of a near-total national internet shutdown; realtime network data show connectivity at 7% of ordinary levels after twelve hours of progressive network disconnections as public protests continue <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtests</a> 📉
📰 <a href="https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1">https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1</a> <a href="https://t.co/u6bVsfvOOm">pic.twitter.com/u6bVsfvOOm</a>
&mdash; NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) <a href="https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1195775905907576832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Netblocks updated on Sunday: “Update: It has now been 24 hours since #Iran implemented a near-total shutdown following hours of partial blackouts and widespread protests, The ongoing disruption constitutes a severe violation of the basic rights and liberties of Iranians.”
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Update: It has now been 24 hours since <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> implemented a near-total internet shutdown following hours of partial blackouts amid widespread protests.
The ongoing disruption constitutes a severe violation of the basic rights and liberties of Iranians⏱
📰<a href="https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1">https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1</a> <a href="https://t.co/i7sudrB3I4">pic.twitter.com/i7sudrB3I4</a>
&mdash; NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) <a href="https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1196116024359366656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Other videos showed the outrage that kept percolating:
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a>, Nov 16- Citizens burn the banners of Ali Khamenei to show their hatred of the Islamic government. <a href="https://t.co/ibFRelQLzU">pic.twitter.com/ibFRelQLzU</a>
&mdash; Persian Reuters (@PersianReuters) <a href="https://twitter.com/PersianReuters/status/1195720871069007872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Protests across <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> today over fuel prices hike. This is a building set on fire in Behbahan (SW).Videos coming from across country, inc. Tehran, Shiraz, Damavand, Tabriz, Isfahan
Officials confirmed 1 person killed. Other counts put # between 4 and 9: <a href="https://t.co/JNKTqA5BVH">pic.twitter.com/JNKTqA5BVH</a>
&mdash; Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) <a href="https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1195746042907676673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Protesters of all ages in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> chant: “Shah of Iran, return to Iran!” Protests began as gasoline prices tripled overnight in the oil-rich country without prior notice by the regime, and rapidly escalated into anti-regime demonstrations. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtests</a> <a href="https://t.co/FP1VUsQyek">pic.twitter.com/FP1VUsQyek</a>
&mdash; Reza Behrouz (@RBehrouzDO) <a href="https://twitter.com/RBehrouzDO/status/1195698646118998016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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On Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the U.S. backed the protesters, tweeting:
<blockquote>Iran uses its terrorist proxy Palestinian Islamic Jihad to strike our great ally Israel. Iran does not want peace in the region. It does not want the Palestinian people to prosper. It wants more conflict. Until we address Iran’s threats, the cycle of violence will continue. The way forward is clear: continued pressure until Iran negotiates a comprehensive agreement that includes halting its support to terror groups like PIJ. Nations around the world can no longer claim to want peace in the region yet allow Iran’s threats to go unchallenged.
After 40 years of tyranny, the proud Iranian people are not staying silent about their government’s abuses. We will not stay silent either. I have a message for the people of Iran: The United States Hears You, The United States Supports You. The United States Is With You.</blockquote>
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Iran uses its terrorist proxy Palestinian Islamic Jihad to strike our great ally Israel. Iran does not want peace in the region. It does not want the Palestinian people to prosper. It wants more conflict. Until we address Iran’s threats, the cycle of violence will continue.
&mdash; Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1195702923034079232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The way forward is clear: continued pressure until Iran negotiates a comprehensive agreement that includes halting its support to terror groups like PIJ. Nations around the world can no longer claim to want peace in the region yet allow Iran’s threats to go unchallenged.
&mdash; Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1195703068064661504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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پس از <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%DA%86%D9%87%D9%84_%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#چهل_سال</a> بیداد، مردم پر افتخار ایران درمورد سوء استفاده های حکومتشان ساکت نمی نشینند. ما هم ساکت نخواهیم ماند. من پیامی برای <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%85_%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#مردم_ایران</a> دارم: ایالات متحده صدای شما را می شنود. ایالات متحده از شما حمایت می کند. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%87?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ایالات_متحده</a> با شماست. <a href="https://t.co/kyKEgZ0BGB">pic.twitter.com/kyKEgZ0BGB</a>
&mdash; Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1021209446826094592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In January 2018, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-time-we-will-not-be-silent-on-iran/2018/01/03/d1cfc34e-f0cc-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html">The Washington Post</a>:
<blockquote>Eight-and-a-half years ago, Americans watched the people of Iran rise up to claim their birthright of freedom. In the &#8220;Green Revolution,&#8221; millions of courageous young men and women filled the streets of Tehran and Tabriz, Qazvin and Karaj, and what seemed like every city and village in between. They denounced a fraudulent election, and as the days went on, they began to demand that the unelected ayatollahs end their decades of repression and release their iron-fisted grip on Iran and her people.
Those brave protesters looked to the leader of the free world for support. But as I saw first hand as a member of Congress, the president of the United States stayed silent. In the wake of the demonstrations and the regime&#8217;s brutal attempts to suppress them, President Barack Obama repeatedly failed to express America&#8217;s solidarity with the Iranian protesters. As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I recognized the lack of action for what it was: an abdication of American leadership.</blockquote>
Pence added:
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The last administration&#8217;s refusal to act ultimately emboldened Iran&#8217;s tyrannical rulers to crack down on the dissent. The Green Revolution was ruthlessly put down, and the deadly silence on the streets of Iran matched the deafening silence from the White House. To this day, many Iranians blame the United States for abandoning them in their hour of need.
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Today, the Iranian people are once again rising up to demand freedom and opportunity, and under President Trump, the United States is standing with them. This time, we will not be silent.
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IRAN-POLITICS-PETROL-DEMO

Protests Against Regime Rage Across Iran. Unlike Obama Administration, Trump Administration Supports Them.

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Iran

Since December 2017, a sort of “rolling rebellion” has been occurring across Iran. It is bigger, deeper and stronger than the Green Revolution of 2009 and taking place in great measure outside Tehran, <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2017/01/04/non-persian-iran/">where the population is more diverse</a>. There have been strikes of truckers, bazaar shopkeepers, teachers, farmers, and students. See #WhiteWednesday on Twitter to watch brave Iranian women go into the streets and take off their head coverings. Sometimes they dance. Sometimes their husbands, fathers, and brothers go with them. Sometimes they are arrested and sometimes they go to jail. Unfortunately, it took the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-04/death-of-irans-blue-girl-casts-spotlight-on-iranian-women-and-a-growing-movement-for-equality">suicide of a young woman</a> facing seven years in prison for attending a soccer match to get the attention of the Western press.
In May of this year, <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2019/05/03/the-iranian-mullahs-are-nervous/">widespread upheaval</a> convulsed the country and thousands were arrested. This weekend, news of increasing protest in Iran comes from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — an organization with a mixed record of acceptance by the U.S. government, but with indisputable reach inside the country. According to NCRI’s Washington office, at least 65 cities have seen violent demonstrations, with people killed and injured by authorities. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Mojahedineng/videos">Videos, presumably from cell phones</a>, show that pictures of the Ayatollah Khameini have been set on fire and demonstrators are chanting “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to Rouhani.” You can follow <a href="https://twitter.com/AlirezaNader">@AlirezaNader</a> for more.
As Iran spreads its tentacles abroad and builds its illegal nuclear capability, it is clear that the regime cannot fund domestic priorities and international revolution on the same budget — especially as that budget contracts.
Imperial overreach was the ruin of the Roman Empire, the Byzantines, Egyptians, Ottomans, Nazis, and Soviets. Could it be catching up with Iran? Wait, you say, Iran isn’t an empire. Not in the traditional sense. But it was always the belief of the hegemonic mullahs that instability across large regions, managed with a relatively small group of well-trained Iranian professionals and a lot of proxy fighters, would create a world in which Shiite supremacism held sway.
And it was working.
The Shiite Crescent — from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean — was a “lid” over Iran’s Sunni enemies Saudi Arabia and Jordan, plus Israel. It was also a wedge between Sunni Turkey and the Sunni countries below — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf states. Most of the proxy soldiers were Iraqi militias, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Pakistanis and Afghans brought to Syria under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The result was millions of Sunni Syrian refugees in the Middle East and Europe.
Sunni Hamas and Shiite Palestinian Islamic Jihad were both recipients of Iranian funds, weapons, and training to harass Israel.
There is also an underside Crescent, which is less well understood. It encircles the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf of Aden with a base in Yemen and a Houthi proxy at the bottom of the Red Sea, threatening the Bab el Mandeb Straits and the exit of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. And the American base in Djibouti.
And Africa. Iran incubated Sunni jihadists in the poor, corrupt, and vulnerable states of the second tier — Sudan, Chad, Niger, and Mali. The result was waves of migrants headed north. The North African countries — Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria — were all in the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue group that helped control safety and security in the sea until the Obama administration toppled the Libyan government in 2011. Libya, no longer a member of the Dialogue, has become a hole in the dam through which hundreds of thousands of African migrants reached Europe.
But has the empire reached too far?
American-led sanctions have been an enormous financial blow to the mullahs, but sanctions are misunderstood. Not a mechanism for toppling a government, they are a means of forcing a government to make choices — between, revolution and agriculture, between weapons and water and sewer systems, between Palestinian jihadists and schools, and so forth. That is what Iran faced in 2011 and that is what led to the Iran/P5+1 negotiations. The fact that President Obama collapsed and paid off the mullahs allowed them to avoid those very choices and set back the operation by years and millions of deaths in the Middle East and Africa.
The restoration of sanctions means Iran has less to pay off its proxies — as well as less for its own people. European businesses, and even China, are leaving Iran and taking their money. Iran tried to compensate by stealing Iraqi oil.
And that’s where empire begins to break down.
There are explicitly anti-Iranian <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bryen-missing-the-point-of-the-latest-middle-east-protests">riots in Lebanon and Iraq</a>. Hezbollah fighters have announced they will <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/1112/Inside-Hezbollah-How-Lebanon-protests-are-breaking-fear-barrier">refuse to return to Syria</a> for Iran. Iraqis have <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2019/10/29/missing-the-point-of-the-latest-middle-east-protests/">attacked Iranian bases and depots</a>. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/HeshmatAlavi">@HeshmatAlavi</a> for the latest Iraqi moves and Iranian counter-moves. But most of the mainstream press isn’t there.
But the biggest changes may be coming in Iran itself.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is senior director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a>. Portions of this article appeared in the Jewish Policy Center magazine, inFOCUS Quarterly.

Iranian flag on conference table

BRYEN: Has The Iranian Empire Overreached?

Foreign Policy

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

Iraq

Israel

Lebanon

Middle East

Nuclear Weapons

Radical Islam

Saudi Arabia

Iran is now in the &#8220;midst of a near-total national internet shutdown,&#8221; according to NetBlocks, an international non-profit that monitors cybersecurity and cyber-threats worldwide, including threats that come from powerful governments.
The dropoff in connectivity began Saturday night, as Iran&#8217;s government cracked down on political unrest stemming from fuel shortages &#8212; unrest that has now spread to more than 100 cities across the country. NetBlocks tweeted a visual representation of how swiftly Iranian leaders were able to &#8220;shut off&#8221; any connection to the larger web, ostensibly to curtail protesters&#8217; ability to organize over social media, text message, and email.
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Confirmed: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> is now in the midst of a near-total national internet shutdown; realtime network data show connectivity at 7% of ordinary levels after twelve hours of progressive network disconnections as public protests continue <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtests</a> 📉
📰 <a href="https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1">https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1</a> <a href="https://t.co/u6bVsfvOOm">pic.twitter.com/u6bVsfvOOm</a>
&mdash; NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) <a href="https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1195775905907576832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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“Internet is completely shut-down and I can’t communicate [with] anyone,”  one defense analyst, posting videos and photos of the unrest from inside the country, said on social media late Saturday,<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/17/iran-shuts-down-countrys-internet-in-the-wake-of-fuel-protests/"> according to TechCrunch</a>. “People just can call abroad (just certain countries) using telephone which is being monitored.”
Some messages are leaking through, it seems, but the outage is clearly strategic. Iran&#8217;s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei was able to tweet out a message condemning Israel for its &#8220;occupation&#8221;of Palestine Sunday morning and denying that criticism of Jews is inherently anti-Semitic.
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We are with the people and for the independence of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Palestine?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Palestine</a>; we are not <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/antiSemitic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#antiSemitic</a>. The Jews live completely safely in our own country, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a>. <a href="https://t.co/U6UsvFVEEm">pic.twitter.com/U6UsvFVEEm</a>
&mdash; Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1195298676123537409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The protests, which turned violent over the weekend, began late last week after the Iranian government announced that it would be raising fuel prices 50%, <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Irans-Top-Leader-Warns-Thugs-as-Protests-Reach-100-Cities-565063592.html">the Associated Press reports</a>. Iran is trying to make up the financial losses it has suffered since the United States re-instituted strict sanctions, limiting Iran&#8217;s access to the global fuel market.
The sanctions have crippled Iran&#8217;s already weak economy, and protesters complain that they &#8220;have seen their savings evaporate amid scarce jobs and the collapse of the national currency.&#8221;
&#8220;Cheap gasoline is practically considered a birthright in Iran, home to the world’s fourth-largest crude oil reserves despite decades of economic woes since its 1979 Islamic Revolution,&#8221; according to The Associate Press. &#8220;Gasoline in the country remains among the cheapest in the world, with the new prices jumping 50% to a minimum of 15,000 rials per liter. That’s 13 cents a liter, or about 50 cents a gallon. A gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. costs $2.60 by comparison.&#8221;
Over the weekend, the protests grew increasingly as they spread from just a handful of cities to nearly 100 and the government began its expected crackdown. Fires raged, and clashes between demonstrators and Iranian security forces erupted Saturday as the government moved to quell the unrest. At least three people have died, according to Iran&#8217;s state-run media, but those numbers are unreliable. Tens of thousands of people are said to be taking part in the demonstrations, according to individuals <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/17/middleeast/iran-protests-gas-prices-intl/index.html">reporting from on the scene</a>.
Iran&#8217;s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazil announced Saturday that security forces, including Iran&#8217;s notoriously harsh Revolutionary Guard, will continue to &#8220;take action&#8221; against protesters accused of &#8220;vandalism,&#8221; per CNN.
In a last-ditch effort to quell unrest, the Ayatollah announced his support for the gas price hike and tried to convince Iranians that the demonstrations were being fomented by outside sources, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-gasoline-protests-khamenei/irans-khamenei-backs-fuel-price-hike-blames-sabotage-for-unrest-idUSKBN1XR064">according to Reuters</a>.
“Some people are no doubt worried by this decision, but sabotage and arson is done by hooligans, not our people,” the &#8220;Supreme Leader&#8221; said in a televised address. “The counter-revolution and Iran’s enemies have always supported sabotage and breaches of security and continue to do so. Unfortunately some problems were caused, a number of people lost their lives and some centers were destroyed.”

IRAN

Iran&#8217;s Leaders Shut Down The Internet As Fuel Protests Spread To 100 Cities

Over the past few weeks, frustrated and fed-up demonstrators have taken to the streets of Lebanon and Iraq to voice grievances against their respective governments. The perception of Iranian infiltration and influence certainly continue to impact this political shake-up in both countries.
These protests have toppled two governments in just three days. Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s prime minister, announced his resignation last week. Iraq’s President, Barham Sailh, stated that prime minister Abdul Mahdi had also agreed to resign from office once a successor is decided upon.
In both Iraq and Lebanon, political factions are divided by religions and sects. These government systems are designed to limit sectarian conflict by ensuring a share of power to different communities. However, in both regions, prominent Shia parties are conjoined with Iran. Since protesters are demanding an end to their governments’ power-sharing system, Tehran is in trouble.
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/04/iraq-lebanons-protesters-may-achieve-what-trumps-maximum-pressure-could-not/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/04/iraq-lebanons-protesters-may-achieve-what-trumps-maximum-pressure-could-not/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH9507ho6UnPJsWU4Gv7Qe-ocbJlg">announced</a> via Twitter on Thursday that “the [protesters] have justifiable demands, but they should know their demands can only be fulfilled within the legal structure and framework of their country. When the legal structure is disrupted in a country, no action can be carried out.”
This statement, riddled with irony, completely discounts the revolution which birthed the government Khamenei currently leads. The ayatollah also verified how deeply entrenched Hezbollah has become in Lebanon’s political fabric.
Hezbollah is certainly the Islamic Republic of Iran’s most successful export. For over two decades, Tehran has played the role of puppetmaster in Beirut, attempting to counter the influence of its enemies: The U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah’s critical influence in the region was demonstrated both during the 2006 war with Israel and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s (IRGC) intervention in the Syrian conflict.
Although Hezbollah’s military wing, the IRGC, was rightfully designated as a terror organization in April by President Trump, the organization’s military and political wings work in tandem to export the regime’s disturbing agenda. In 2017, the U.S. State Department <a href="https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/hezbollah/hezbollah/hezbollah-a-recognized-terrorist-organization/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/hezbollah/hezbollah/hezbollah-a-recognized-terrorist-organization/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGWt-R1FsqMA7l37ceRCAYaIBtJ2w">designated</a> over 250 operatives and 150 companies with Hezbollah ties. Last year, the details of Project Cassandra <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEhFjIOWb4twZvOTRcDKDBzkixi9w">exposed</a> the sophistication and breadth of Hezbollah’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise.
Since Tehran heavily invests in Hezbollah’s role globally, these protests do not bode well for the regime.  Iranian leadership clearly grasps the magnitude of these demonstrations, since its officials have attempted to paint them as manifestations of foreign meddling. Supreme Leader Khamenei has accused “U.S. and Western intelligence services, with the financial backing of evil countries,” of orchestrating these protests.
In Iraq, anti-Iran sentiment has monopolized the demonstrations. Last week in Baghdad, protesters were pictured torching an Iranian flag. Protestors on Sunday <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-iran.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-iran.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFyzwXtfOkhPZHY3VWwKlswwqEo3A">threw</a> gasoline bombs at the Iranian consulate in Karbala. The former head of the Iraqi National Archives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-iran.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-iran.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFyzwXtfOkhPZHY3VWwKlswwqEo3A">explained</a> that “the revolution is not anti-American; it is anti-Iran, it is anti-religion, [and] anti-political religion, not religion as such.” Pro-Iranian paramilitary forces have violently intervened in recent demonstrations. Since October 1st, the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-protests-police-shoot-baghdad-green-zone-death-toll-a9197476.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-protests-police-shoot-baghdad-green-zone-death-toll-a9197476.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1573659006406000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEkI-WP8Umw4Hp79ckXqn2VApOcww">reports</a> that 301 protesters have been killed, and thousands more injured.
As Tehran continues to dismiss these protests as inauthentic and foreign-led, demonstrators will only gain more momentum. While Iran grapples with the economic consequences of President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, it may not be able to ultimately survive the onslaught of these dual protests.
 
Maya Carlin is an M.A. candidate in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security at IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government in Israel. She is also the Associate Producer at the Center for Security Policy, located in Washington D.C.

Middle East map

CARLIN: Is Iran Losing The Middle East?

Iran has publicly revealed for the first time that it has an active legal case involving former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing inside Iran in 2007 under suspicious circumstances.
In a filing to the United Nations, Iran wrote: “According to the last statement of Tehran’s Justice Department, Mr. Robert Alan Levinson has an ongoing case in the Public Prosecution and Revolutionary Court of Tehran.”
&#8220;Mr. Levinson was last seen alive about eight years ago, in a hostage video pleading for help and in photographs wearing a Guantánamo-style jumpsuit,&#8221; The Associated Press <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/world/middleeast/iran-robert-levinson.html">reported</a>. &#8220;The images did not disclose who was holding him, though the video has a Pashtun wedding song popular in Afghanistan playing in the background.&#8221;
It was not clear how long the case had been open or the events that started it.
The news came after the Trump administration announced on Monday — which was the anniversary of when Iranian terrorists stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the Iranian regime took over 50 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days — that it was offering a $20 million reward for information leading to Levinson&#8217;s safe recovery.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo <a href="https://www.state.gov/on-the-40th-anniversary-of-the-u-s-embassy-takeover-in-tehran/">said</a> in a statement:
<blockquote>The Trump Administration has made clear that the regime in Iran must release all missing and wrongfully detained Americans, including Robert Levinson, Xiyue Wang, Siamak Namazi, and others.  We will not rest until they are reunited with their families.
Additionally, today the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program is advertising a new reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the safe location, recovery, and return of Robert Levinson, who was taken hostage in Iran with the involvement of the Iranian regime.  Mr. Levinson is the longest-held hostage in U.S. history.</blockquote>
The $20 million reward offered by the Trump administration is in addition to a $5 million reward being offered by the FBI.
Iran&#8217;s filing at the U.N. came in response to a 2016 complaint that the Levinson family filed with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Involuntary Disappearances.
The family was told at the time not to expect a response from Iran.
Iran&#8217;s response to the family comes as the Islamic regime is being crushed by U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program, which Iran has illegally restarted in defiance of an agreement they signed.
&#8220;Mr. Levinson disappeared from Kish Island, off the coast of Iran, on March 9, 2007. For years, United States officials would only say that Mr. Levinson, a meticulous F.B.I. investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip,&#8221; The AP added. &#8220;In December 2013, The A.P. revealed that Levinson had in fact been on a mission for C.I.A. analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Mr. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the C.I.A. in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.&#8221;
The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/08/ray-light-mysterious-case-an-american-missing-iran/">reported</a> that after the U.S. government &#8220;showed little evidence of working to free Levinson&#8221; under former President Barack Obama, the Levinson family believes that President Donald Trump has made the case a top priority
“We’re encouraged. This administration is engaged and completely committed to bringing my dad home,” the family told The Post. “They’ve taken it as a personal mission. I think they care passionately about bringing my dad and other Americans home.”

Robert Levinson

Iran Acknowledges That FBI Agent Gone Missing Since 2007 Involved In Ongoing Court Case

United Nations

Iran&#8217;s President Hassan Rouhani announced Tuesday that the country will break, yet again, with the 2015 anti-nuclear proliferation deal it inked with the Obama Administration, and begin injecting uranium gas into 1,400 centrifuges &#8212; the first step to refining uranium for nuclear weapons.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-will-start-pumping-uranium-gas-into-previously-empty-centrifuges-rouhani">Fox News reports</a> that Rouhani did not say where the centrifuges are located or whether those centrifuges have been in operation before Tuesday. It is believed they are part of Iran&#8217;s Fordo nuclear energy complex, and that the centrifuges won&#8217;t be used to provide power, as Iran has repeatedly claimed.
&#8220;His remarks,&#8221; Fox News says, were &#8220;carried live on Iranian state television &#8230; a day after Tehran&#8217;s nuclear program chief said the country had doubled the number of advanced IR-6 centrifuges in operation.&#8221;
&#8220;Iran&#8217;s mission to the IAEA said, in a letter afterwards, that they would use UF6, or uranium hexafluoride, allowing the facility to produce enriched uranium, which can fuel nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons,&#8221; <a href="https://abc13.com/iran-announces-most-provocative-step-yet-since-us-withdrawal-from-nuclear-deal/5673646/">ABC News added</a>.
Iran plans to flip the switch on injecting uranium gas into the centrifuges on Wednesday, giving Europen nations, who remain part of the 2015 deal, just over 24 hours to come up with a way to prevent the change. Iran suggested that European nations try to reason with the United States and force the Trump Administration to drop sanctions on Iranian oil, which the country says is choking off its economy.
&#8220;We know their sensitivity with regard to Fordo. With regard to these centrifuges, we know,&#8221; Rouhani said, implying that the situation could be remedied.
The European countries involved have not yet put foward a plan in response to Iran&#8217;s ransom threat. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations&#8217; nuclear weapons watchdog, hasn&#8217;t weighed in. The last time the IAEA made any statement on Iran, it told the international community that Iran was complying with the 2015 agreement, though that determination remains in question.
President Donald Trump abandoned the Obama Administration&#8217;s Iran nuclear deal late last year, dropping the United States&#8217; involvement in keeping Iran from refining uranium and obtaining nuclear weapons. The 2015 plan saw Iran promise to halt its uranium enrichment program and call off its pursuit of more nuclear weapons in return for the United States and the EU terminating sanctions.
The deal was in trouble before it was inked, though, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/iran-nuclear-deal-flawed/559595/">according to the Atlantic</a>, which called the deal &#8220;strategically and morally absurd&#8221; and lamented the Obama Administration&#8217;s &#8220;wishful thinking,&#8221; particularly its clearly mistaken belief that Iran&#8217;s government had somehow westernized since the Carter Administration and that its mullahs were seeking nuclear technology simply to improve the country&#8217;s electric grid.
The deal allowed Iran to continue to develop advanced centrifuges, on the promise that they would use that infrastructure for good, not nuclear proliferation, for a maximum of ten years (Iran was free, according to the provisions of the deal, to drop their compliance as early as 2025. At that point, the Defense Department estimated back in 2015, Iran could have a nuclear weapon in less than 18 months.
President Donald Trump got straight to that point in his speech announcing an end to the Iran deal last year, calling it &#8220;a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made” and &#8220;defective at its core.”

Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani

Iran Announces Major Break With Nuclear Deal, Will Inject Uranium Into 1,400 Centrifuges

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will soon introduce new legislation that aims to dismantle the remaining portions of the Iran nuclear deal by revoking the nuclear sanctions waivers that the Trump administration approved last week. Those sanctions waivers allow Iran to work on the country&#8217;s nuclear weapons program while talks continue between Tehran and Washington, D.C.
The Washington Free Beacon&#8217;s Adam Kredo <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-admin-again-gives-iran-green-light-to-conduct-sensitive-nuclear-work/">reported</a> last week that the sanctions waivers &#8220;permit the Islamic Republic to engage in sensitive nuclear work, including at a clandestine military location that has housed the country’s weapons program&#8221; and allow &#8220;China and Russia to continue performing work at Iranian nuclear facilities, some of which have drawn concerns from the international community for potentially helping Iran gain the know-how to build a functional nuclear weapon.&#8221;
In a new <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/rep-cheney-to-introduce-legislation-mandating-full-dismantling-of-iran-nuclear-deal/">report</a> by Kredo on Monday, Cheney told the Free Beacon that the waivers have legitimized Iran&#8217;s illicit nuclear weapons program.
&#8220;These &#8216;civil nuclear&#8217; waivers legitimize Iran&#8217;s illicit nuclear infrastructure and help sustain President Obama&#8217;s disastrous nuclear deal,&#8221; Cheney said. &#8220;Congress is determined to support President Donald Trump&#8217;s rightful exit from that deal and his successful maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.&#8221;
Cheney continued, &#8220;That is why I will soon be introducing legislation that revokes these exceptions and ensures that the nuclear deal is totally and completely dismantled.&#8221;
The Trump administration&#8217;s shift in policy toward Iran has caused concerned among Trump&#8217;s top allies in Washington, as it is a break from his promised &#8220;maximum pressure&#8221; campaign against the Iran, which is the world&#8217;s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed their frustration with the administration last week over the decision to give Iran its latest waivers.
In a joint statement, the senators <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=4740">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>This is disappointing and another lost opportunity to tear up the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal once and for all. President Trump should immediately order his administration to stop issuing civil nuclear waivers. These waivers allow Iran to build up its nuclear program, including at their Fordow nuclear bunker, which they dug out of the side of a mountain to build nuclear weapons. Iran is now openly violating the nuclear deal and stockpiling dangerous nuclear material. There is no justification for letting them continue to build up their program. We intend to work with our Congressional colleagues to advance legislation to reverse this misguided decision.</blockquote>
U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement last week that the decision would &#8220;help preserve oversight of Iran’s civil nuclear program, reduce proliferation risks, constrain Iran’s ability to shorten its &#8216;breakout time&#8217; to a nuclear weapon, and prevent the regime from reconstituting sites for proliferation-sensitive purposes.&#8221;
Kredo further noted that Iran announced today it is moving forward with installing key components that will allow it to quickly enrich uranium — which is a violation of the nuclear deal.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran&#8217;s Atomic Energy Organization, reportedly told Iranian state media, &#8220;We have installed 15 new-generation centrifuges in the past two months which is a very big achievement.&#8221;
Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated this week that Iran &#8220;must not engage in negotiations&#8221; in order to &#8220;prevent and block America from entering [Iran] again.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: We must Not Engage in Negotiations with America in Order to Prevent It from Entering Iran Again <a href="https://t.co/0MXlge3ma9">pic.twitter.com/0MXlge3ma9</a>
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1191316220672385024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2019</a></blockquote>

Liz Cheney

Republicans To Introduce Legislation To Dismantle Entire Iran Nuclear Deal

An Iranian beauty queen who used an image of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former Shah of Iran, as well as the flag of the former Iranian monarchy <a href="https://twitter.com/Bahar__Bahari/status/1188881002656976896">during a competition</a> has been stuck in Manila&#8217;s international airport for two weeks, desperate to gain asylum out of fear that she will be killed if she is sent back to Iran.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Beauty queen ⁦<a href="https://twitter.com/Bahar__Bahari?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Bahar__Bahari</a>⁩ says she will be killed if she is deported to Iran <a href="https://t.co/gtDz6K4XMa">https://t.co/gtDz6K4XMa</a>
&mdash; Nazanin Boniadi (@NazaninBoniadi) <a href="https://twitter.com/NazaninBoniadi/status/1189061442017714176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/28/asia/iran-beauty-contestant-philippines-asylum-intl-hnk/index.html">CNN</a> reports that Bahareh Zare Bahari, who competed in the recent Miss Intercontinental pageant in Manila and arrived back from Dubai roughly two weeks ago, was targeted by Interpol to be arrested because of a red notice, as claimed by the Philippines Immigration Department. But the Department would not reveal which country requested the notice, which Bahari suspects came from Iran.
Human Rights Watch deputy director Phil Robertson noted &#8220;there have been repeated incidents where rights repressing states in the Middle East have abused the (Interpol) process to try to force the return of dissidents overseas,” adding that Human Rights Watch was worried about the &#8220;mysterious&#8221; notice, &#8220;especially since under Interpol rules a red notice is null and void if the person named in the notice is found to be a refugee fleeing from the state that issued it.&#8221;
Bahari said an immigration official told her Iran requested a notice in 2018. She added, “I have been living here since 2014 and I&#8217;ve not gone back to Iran. I explained to them many times, how can I have a criminal case in Iran when I&#8217;ve been living here?&#8221;
Bahari suspects that she is being targeted for her actions at the beauty pageant, saying they were “to try and be the voice of my people,” as well as her actions as a teacher in Iran. She stated she wanted Iranian girls to know &#8220;they are not things, they are not toys, they are human and they have same right as boys.&#8221;
Philippines immigration authorities claim Bahari was accused of assault and battery in Dagupan, but would not confirm if that was the reason for the red notice. Bahari called the assault and battery allegations &#8220;a big lie&#8221; and created in order to force her to return to Iran.
Earlier this month, Reza Pahlavi told The National that the Iranian people will not support Tehran&#8217;s confrontational stance toward the U.S. and the Middle East, saying:
<blockquote>This regime wants war, especially now that they are weakened and are cornered. They will use any excuse to start a war to maintain their power. The regime will not achieve their objective if the people of Iran stand up and refuse to participate. My compatriots in the armed forces must realize that the regime is using them, not to defend our country as a military should, but to defend the regime and its wealth and its power. Therefore, the impetus is on the people to deny the regime the support it seeks in this manufactured conflict.</blockquote>
He continued, &#8220;This regime wants war, the people do not. The people of Iran want to remove this oppressive regime and rebuild our country as a peaceful, secular democracy. They feel the pressure from my compatriots who are building the movement to overthrow them and reestablish a secular democracy. In order to counter the force of freedom, they want to create distraction and wage war.&#8221;
&nbsp;

Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport

Iranian Beauty Queen Begs For Asylum In Philippines Fearing Her Death If Returned To Iran

In Lebanon and in Iraq, millennials have taken to the streets to protest their respective governments. It stands to reason — in both countries, services are minimal, jobs are non-existent, and the best way to make a living is to leave. Garbage piles up in the streets of Beirut and forest fires have decimated the country. In Iraq, corruption is endemic. But in both countries, there is more afoot.
The demonstrators, representing a variety of religious and ethnic groups in countries that have been wracked by sectarian fighting, are in agreement that the presence of Iran and its proxies in their homelands has deformed politics and economics alike.
Young people want Iran out.
Association with the Islamic Republic means that assets are taken and used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not by the civilian government, and it means religious and ethnic tensions are stoked to ensure that a unified public cannot impede Iran’s regional ambitions. Iran wants Iraq for the oil and also for the passageway through Sunni territory to Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean Sea. It helped create the instability of ISIS in Iraq by “offering” to help contain the threat via Shiite militias commanded by Iranian officers. Those Shiite militias remain in the largely Sunni western part of Iraq and in the Kurdish areas.
The story in Lebanon goes back farther — to the early days of the Islamic Republic. Iran created Hezbollah and had its hand in the 1982 Marine barracks bombing that killed 244 Americans. It fostered and enlarged Hezbollah and planted an arsenal of rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon (in violation of U.N. Resolution 1701) and missile factories closer to Beirut. Lebanese civilians live between the Iranian/Hezbollah arsenal and potential Israeli retaliation if that arsenal is used.
Permanent revolution, permanent warfare, permanent upheaval — stoked by an outside force — makes it impossible to create the workable, modern, growing economy millennials demand; particularly in Lebanon, where there is a well-educated generation that crosses sectarian divides.
Hezbollah, leading the Lebanese government, has long insisted that it “serves the people.” Most European countries still won’t label the totality of Hezbollah a terror organization because, they said, it provided services to the poor. Today, Hezbollah not only is not delivering, it stands <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/iran-losing-middle-east-iraq-lebanon-protests-bad-governance/">against the protesters</a> to shore up its own power and the people know it. Protests are in Hezbollah territory in the south: Nabatiyeh, Bint Jbeil, and Tyre. Hezbollah leader <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/lebanons-hezbollah-under-rare-street-pressure-114903448.html">Hassan Nasrallah has been directly criticized</a>. The Lebanese government announced it will <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/lebanese-president-aoun-invites-protesters-111023175.html">meet with protesters</a> and has suggested a government reshuffle is possible, but lately, black-shirted <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/lebanese-protesters-call-for-elections-clash-with-hezbollah-supporters-1.8026588">Nasrallah supporters</a> have been trying to break up demonstrations.
Protesters are flying the rarely seen flag of Lebanon rather than sectarian or party flags. One protester told another not to tell journalists his ethnic/religious identity, lest it be interpreted as the cause of the protest.
In Iraq, protesters have gathered in Basra — the Shiite south of Iraq — as well as in Baghdad. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqi-protests-broaden-violent-crackdown-spirals/2019/10/06/ded1113a-e6eb-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html">Internet was suspended </a>early in the uprising, leaving much of the reporting in the hands of Twitter and calls abroad. Entifadh Qanbar, a U.S. citizen of Iraqi origin, and president of the Future Foundation, keeps track of the growing number of demonstrations in the capital at <a href="https://twitter.com/eqanbar">@eqanbar</a>. He notes the prevalence of millennials in the overnight demonstrations and, as an aside, that Iraqis (43%) more than people in the UAE (42%), Morocco (41%), or Saudi Arabia (23%), favor establishing relations with Israel.
<a href="https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/280756/iraq-at-least-three-dead-in-nasiriyah-amid-ongoing-nationwide-protests-october-25-update-24">Private security firm Gardaworld</a> has been running a crisis update from its people in Iraq. Its report on October 25th included:
<blockquote>At least three people were killed and 40 others wounded in Nasiriyah (Dhi Qar province), when the Asas’ig Ahl al-Haq militia reportedly opened fire into a crowd of protesters attempting to break into the Shiite militia grou’’s local offices. Police sources stated that 18 additional protesters were wounded attempting to break into the militia grou’s local offices in Amarah (Maysan province). Protesters in Nasiriyah also set fire to local Dhi Qar province government buildings. Similar protests have been reported in Samaswah (Multhanna province) and in Najaf, Wasit, and Basra provinces.</blockquote>
All in the Shiite south. This fits with an earlier report that Iraqis had attacked an <a href="https://twitter.com/eqanbar/status/1183599956017463297?s=12">Iranian arms depot</a> at Al Madaein southwest of Baghdad. To Qanbar, it signals a great <a href="https://twitter.com/eqanbar/status/1180944198981341184?s=12">split in the Shiite world</a> — 20 million Iraqis are Shiite.
In Baghdad, Reuters reports that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-protests-iran-snipers-exclusive/exclusive-iran-backed-militias-deployed-snipers-in-iraq-protests-sources-idUSKBN1WW0B1">Iran-backed snipers</a> are stationed on rooftops, killing protesters. While the Iraqi government acknowledges that some 100 protesters have been killed, Qanbar believes the number to be <a href="https://twitter.com/eqanbar/status/1181568030435921921?s=12">closer to 500.</a> Whatever the number, the Iraqi government announced it would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-generals-court.html?module=inline">prosecute more than a dozen military and police commanders</a>.
“This must stop,” said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqi-protests-broaden-violent-crackdown-spirals/2019/10/06/ded1113a-e6eb-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html">Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert</a>, the top U.N. official in Iraq, calling for those behind the violence to be held responsible. If she means the demonstrators — or even the Iraqi government — then she is working the back end of the problem.
Iran is responsible and the people know it.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is senior director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a> in Washington, D.C.

BRYEN: Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests

Islamic State (ISIS)

As former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani finds himself <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465168-giuliani-associates-who-aided-ukraine-investigation-arrested-on">squarely engulfed</a> in the Ukraine scandal and impeachment inquiry surrounding President Donald Trump, one piece of the puzzle simply does not seem to fit.
If anything is a given about contemporary Republican Party foreign policy, it is a hawkish stance on Iran. That unified front is led by a president who pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal and continues to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/world/middleeast/trump-sanctions-iran.html">impose new sanctions against Tehran</a>. Giuliani, too, talks tough towards the Iranians — most recently <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/giuliani-says-i-am-for-regime-change-in-iran/30182912.html">backing regime change and declaring “down with the tyrants in Iran”</a> when he spoke at a rally outside U.N. headquarters in September.
Yet Giuliani was on the cusp of making a paid appearance at the Armenian-hosted conference of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), a gathering held October 1st–2nd amid the <a href="https://en.mehrnews.com/news/150676/Iran-to-join-Eurasian-Economic-Union-EAEU-from-October">formalization of Iran’s future membership</a> in that Russian-led trade alliance that consists of five former Soviet republics. Although Giuliani <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-set-to-make-paid-appearance-next-week-at-kremlin-backed-conference/2019/09/27/a15ab242-e133-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html?outputType=amp">ultimately cancelled his 2019 EAEU appearance</a>, he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-headlines-conference-promoting-russia-organized-2018-10">attended the same conference last year</a> and is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/democratic-senators-renew-questions-about-rudy-giuliani-s-apparent-work-n1058686">coming under rising scrutiny</a> for his <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-rudy-giuliani-mystery-trips-to-russia-armenia-and-ukraine?utm_content=bufferf7573&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">mysterious overseas travel — including to Armenia</a>.
Created to counter the influence of the European Union, the EAEU’s anti-Western approach is particularly apparent through its embrace of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. After the Moscow-based EAEU <a href="https://eurasianet.org/armenia-hopes-to-benefit-from-new-iran-eurasian-union-free-trade-deal">reached a free trade deal with the Iranians last year</a>, EAEU member Armenia this past April signed a <a href="http://www.iran-daily.com/News/251511.html">memorandum of understanding on customs cooperation</a> with Iran in which the two countries agreed to exchange information on the value of goods and vehicles transported through their shared border. In other words, commerce between Tehran and Yerevan flows without restrictions.
On a broader strategic level, both the free trade and customs deals were envisioned as pillars of a bridge linking Iran, the EAEU, and the EU. The final pillar will be cemented on October 27th, when Iran formally joins the EAEU and gains the ability to have its goods “exported to [Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia] with almost zero tariffs,” according to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Simultaneously, Iran is prepared to increase the natural gas its supplies to Armenia, Rouhani <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/amp/iranian-president-again-offers-closer-ties-to-armenia/30193900.html?__twitter_impression=true">said at the EAEU conference</a>.
It should come as no surprise that the rapid growth of EAEU-Iran ties is spearheaded by Armenia, the only EAEU member which shares a border with Iran. Armenia is also the only EAEU state which maintains a “Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement” with the EU, meaning that the warm economic ties between Tehran and Yerevan could have a domino effect throughout Europe.
Further, Armenia has a long and ongoing history of offering Iran an escape route from international sanctions. Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-sanctions-armenia/exclusive-iran-looks-to-armenia-to-skirt-bank-sanctions-idUSBRE87K05420120821">has reported</a> that Armenian banks help the Iranian regime “obfuscate payments to and from foreign clients and deceive Western intelligence agencies trying to prevent it from expanding its nuclear and missile programs.” In August, the U.S. <a href="https://mirrorspectator.com/2019/08/15/us-sanctions-two-armenian-firms/">levied sanctions</a> on two Armenian companies over their business ties with Iran. And upon meeting with Rouhani at the EAEU gathering, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan affirmed that despite U.S. sanctions, Armenia’s “relations with Iran must be beyond geopolitical influences.”
All of which brings us to the recent EAEU conference, where Giuliani was set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime adviser to Russian President Vladimiar Putin who has been subjected to U.S. sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Giuliani had been the only American scheduled to speak at the gathering.
How did this former Republican presidential candidate make his way onto an anti-Western conference’s agenda this year, while actually attending the same summit last year? <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-rudy-giuliani-mystery-trips-to-russia-armenia-and-ukraine?utm_content=bufferf7573&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">According to ProPublica</a>, Giuliani’s 2018 EAEU appearance was funded by Ara Abramyan, chair of the Union of Russian Armenians and president of the World Armenian Congress.
Abramyan also sits on the advisory board of TriGlobal Strategic Ventures, which has been organizing trips to Russia and Ukraine since 2004 for the ex-mayor’s Giuliani Partners, and has been described by The New York Times as “a company that provides image consulting to Russian oligarchs and clients with deep Kremlin ties.”
Before he cancelled his 2019 EAEU appearance, Giuliani had quipped in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-set-to-make-paid-appearance-next-week-at-kremlin-backed-conference/2019/09/27/a15ab242-e133-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html?outputType=amp">comments to The Washington Post</a> that he would “try to not knowingly talk to a Russian until this is all over.” Yet it is no laughing matter. By opening the door to free trade, the EAEU has set in motion a slippery slope that may lead Iranian businesses directly to the EU. It is a nightmare scenario in which anti-West meets West, and shockingly, one of its enablers is a high-profile Republican who is presumably aligned with his peers when it comes to cracking down on Iranian aggression.
That is why despite his eventual pullout from the EAEU conference, the question remains: Why would Giuliani even consider attending?
&nbsp;
<a href="http://jessebogner.com/">Jesse Bogner</a> is an author and journalist. His memoir and social critique, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Egotist-Memoir-Jesse-Bogner-ebook/dp/B0174UNI66/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452620828&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=the+egotist">The Egotist</a>, has been translated into five languages. His work has been featured in The Daily Caller, MSN, and The Huffington Post.

Rudy Giuliani

BOGNER: The Curious Case Of Rudy Giuliani, Iran, and Armenia

Armenians

Europe

Impeachment

Ukraine

Vladimir Putin

The recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil is a watershed moment in the Middle East balance of power. It is also an opportunity.
It is yet unclear what exactly happened. A combination of drones and missiles coming directly from Iran or from their associates — the Houth rebels in Yemen — struck at the Khurais oil field and the al-Abqaiq facility, Saudi Arabia’s largest oil processing plant. The strike may have knocked out potentially half of the Saudi oil production, and has already affected global crude oil prices.
Sword Dancing is Not Enough
The danger of the Persian war machine, about which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton have repeatedly warned, is once again rearing its ugly head. No longer content with small attacks against Israel from proxies in Gaza and Southern Lebanon, Iran is now brazenly striking the strategic installations of its most hated foe — Saudi Arabia.
The greatest ire of Iran’s Shiite leaders is not reserved for the Jewish state. Rather, the mullahs crave control of the Arabian peninsula&#8217;s Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in order to prove that their interpretation of Islam has Allah’s mandate. The Sunni House of Saud is thus the Iranian mullahs&#8217; ultimate target.
Indeed, the Saudis know all too well how serious the Iranian threat is — and they understand the brilliant way in which Iran has learned to use proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. Now, with the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula being infiltrated by the Houthis, the Saudis feel the Iranian noose tightening around their necks. And while the Saudis are the world’s third largest military spenders and are pretty good at doing the proverbial sword dance with dignitaries, the truth is that the Kingdom is just not that good at actually fighting.
Filling the American Power Vacuum
For years, the American defense umbrella has been the real protection of the Saudi kingdom. The deal was straightforward: The Saudis provide steady oil and buy expensive military hardware and America provides defense. But now things are changing. America’s shale oil revolution has transformed the U.S. into a leading oil producer and, consequently, Saudi oil reserves are simply less critical to the U.S. than they have been in the past. Coupled with the Trump administration’s &#8220;America First&#8221; mantra and a concomitant disinclination to be the world’s police force, a reality has emerged in which U.S. forces may be less likely to come to Saudi aid.
For the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Emiratis, and denizens of other smaller Sunni states, the Iranian attack on the Saudi oil installations — and the thus-far weak American response — is a harbinger of a horrific and not-so-distant future. If left unchecked, it could mean a historic change in the regional balance of power with the aggressive Shiite movement overshadowing historic Sunni regional domination.
The West, the Sunni Arab states, and Israel cannot allow Iran to fill the regional power vacuum that may be left in America’s wake. The solution to the crisis may be an Israeli defense umbrella.
Israel is the natural candidate to become the regional power broker, peacekeeper, and defense provider for Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states. Israel has the intelligence capability, the firepower, the air force, and even the naval capacity to contain the Iranian regime and help maintain a healthy regional balance.
Instead of the U.S. global policing model, Israel would take its place locally as a regional power that is closely allied with the U.S.
A Change in Arab Thinking
To achieve an Israeli defense umbrella, the Saudis are going to have to swallow their religious and nationalistic pride and accept the Jews as, well, their de facto saviors.
This is not such a stretch, since the House of Saud was able to stomach American (Christian) military defense. Israeli (Jewish) power may therefore not be all that different. Moreover, Israel is a better bet for Saudi defense, considering that it is closer and more nimble in dealing with Iran.
The change in Saudi attitudes toward Israel, furthermore, is already taking place with bloggers and broadcasters making overt comments of acceptance towards the Jewish state.
A Change in Jewish Thinking
Israel has long self-identified as a small, defensive minority in the Middle East. The Jewish state would have to mentally adjust to a more robust and muscular disposition in order for regional realignment to work.
Israel possesses the military might and has already engaged Iran in various ways, including bombings of secret Iranian weapons shipments to Syria. However, the mindset of the big boy on the block — the regional leader, the keeper of the peace — is not yet fully developed in Israel.
The Cost of Israeli Protection
Israel has a self-interest in pushing Iran back. But still, saving the House of Saud is not a foregone conclusion. If Israel is to spread its defense umbrella over the Sunni states, it should demand payment in kind.
The price for Israeli protection? Getting rid of the Palestinian-Arab problem.
The Saudis must commit to ending support for the &#8220;two-state solution,&#8221; which calls for an independent Palestinian-Arab state on Jewish land. Among other alternatives, the Saudis can force their own Jordanian Hashemite family to give back to Palestinians the Jordanian citizenship that was taken away from them in 1988 by Jordan&#8217;s King Abdullah. Under this approach, Palestinians can continue to live in the Israeli territories as Israeli residents, but would exercise their right to vote in the nearby Jordanian kingdom.
And obviously, if the Saudis want Israeli defense, they must dry up all remaining funding for jihadist education throughout the Arab world and abroad.
In the end, an Israeli defense umbrella would allow for steady oil flow, would mitigate the Iranian threat, and would lead to a Middle East that is more stable, more prosperous, and more cooperative. However, the Arabs, the Jews, and the Americans alike would have to break out of calcified notions of the past in order to make room for an advantageous regional realignment of the future.
Yishai Fleisher is the International Spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron.

MBS Saudi Arabia

FLEISHER: The Much-Needed Israeli Defense Umbrella

Palestinians

Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) argued that the United States was the cause of the attack on the Aramco oil facility in Saudi Arabia which the United States has said was launched by Iran. Referring to the tough sanctions placed on Iran by the United States, Gabbard stated, &#8220;This latest attack on Saudi Arabia is a retaliatory attack because of all the sanctions in place that are essentially blocking Iran from selling their oil on the market.”
Gabbard, whose history includes support for the Syrian regime that is allied with Iran, also attacked President Trump, claiming, “He is treating our troops as though we are something that can be pawned off or prostituted off to the highest bidder.”
The exchange prompting Gabbard’s claim that the U.S. caused Iran to launch their attack started with the CNN host asking, “You’re running for president. If you were president right now, how would you deal with Iran?&#8221;
Gabbard answered:
<blockquote>I would see the situation for what it is, which is this latest attack on Saudi Arabia is a retaliatory attack because of all the sanctions in place that are essentially blocking Iran from selling their oil on the market. So by recognizing this is a retaliatory attack, that we cannot continue this cycle of retaliation that can only lead to an all-out inferno of a war, both in Iran and across the region that would be so costly and devastating that would make the war we served in in Iraq look like a picnic in comparison in lost American lives, trillions of taxpayer dollars, exacerbating already a terrible refugee crisis. This is not serving the interests of our people nor is it serving the interests of our national security. As president right now what I would do is re-enter the Iran nuclear agreement, take away those &#8212; those sanctions that have been put in place so that Iran is brought back into an agreement where they are complying. We have inspectors going in — because every single day this doesn’t happen, Iran is moving forward towards developing a nuclear weapon.&#8221;</blockquote>
The CNN host then referred to Gabbard’s remarks on September 16 in which she tweeted at Trump, “Despicable. Offering to place our military assets under the command of a foreign country—Saudi Arabia—is a disgrace and betrayal of my patriotic brothers and sisters in uniform and to our Constitution. We are not your prostitutes. You are not our pimp.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> Despicable. Offering to place our military assets under the command of a foreign country—Saudi Arabia—is a disgrace and betrayal of my patriotic brothers and sisters in uniform and to our Constitution. We are not your prostitutes. You are not our pimp. <a href="https://t.co/Cu1OewEMOC">pic.twitter.com/Cu1OewEMOC</a>
&mdash; Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) <a href="https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1173723701373591552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The CNN host asked,  “Do you regret the “Pence and prostitute language?”
Gabbard boasted:
<blockquote>Not at all. That is exactly what Trump is doing. He is treating our troops as though we are something that can be pawned off or prostituted off to the highest bidder. Our troops deploying now to Saudi Arabia at his direction are not there serving the interests of the American people or our own national security. In  his administration’s own words they are going to protect Saudi Arabia’s oil, Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure protecting them, which undermines the whole reason why we take this oath willing to lay our lives down for our country and he is sending them to protect a country that is allied with our enemy, Al Qaeda.</blockquote>
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Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Visits &#8220;FOX &amp; Friends&#8221;

WATCH: Gabbard Blames United States For Suspected Iranian Attack On Saudi Oil Facility

Tulsi Gabbard

On Sunday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on his way to New York to go to the United Nations, told reporters that not only does he think it is highly probable that Iran was responsible for the September 14 attack on the Aramco Oil in Saudi Arabia, but that he would consider joining the United States if the Trump administration took military action against Iran.
Johnson stated, according to <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7493349/Boris-Johnson-blames-Iran-Saudi-Arabia-oil-drone-attacks-Aramco-oil.html">The Daily Mail</a>:
<blockquote>I can tell you that the UK is attributing responsibility with a very high degree of probability to Iran for the Aramco attacks. We think it very likely indeed that Iran was indeed responsible for using both UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), both drones and cruise missiles. Clearly the difficulty is, how do we organize a global response? What is the way forward? … And we will be working with our American friends and our European friends to construct a response that tries to deescalate tensions in the Gulf region. And clearly if we are asked either by the Saudis or the Americans to have a role then we would consider in what way we could be useful …</blockquote>
Asked if Great Britain might be part of a military action targeting Iran, Johnson replied, &#8220;We will consider in what way we could be useful if asked and depending on what the exact plan is.&#8221;
Meanwhile, retired four-star General Jack Keane appeared twice on <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/?cmpid=org=NAT::ag=owned::mc=referral::src=FNC_web::cmp=article::add=fnc_dailyarticle">Fox Nation&#8217;s</a> “Mario Bartiromo’s Insiders,” asserting that the Trump administration should execute a limited military response to Iran. Last week, Keane <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMOFPQdoeEA">started by noting</a> the United States is utterly convinced Iran launched the September 14 attack, while Saudi Arabia had not committed yet to claiming it was 100% certain Iran was behind the attack.
Keane continued, &#8220;We have multiple sources of information; some of those we share with our allies; some of those we don’t because it actually identifies if we provide the intelligence it identifies the source.&#8221; He surmised the reason Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting the Saudi government is to show them the intelligence the United States has obtained. Keane also chided people who have claimed the Trump administration was only defending Saudi oil. He said. &#8220;It’s not about that; U.S. national interest is a stable world economy. That is fundamentally an interest of the United States. And the Middle East oil flow — the world economy is dependent on the evenness and the stability of that oil flow. That is what this is truly about; the Iranians got it. They want to interrupt that oil flow and destabilize the world economy, create a crisis, and put pressure on the United States to back off the Iranian sanctions. That is what this is all about.&#8221;
During his second appearance, Keane <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/general-keane-military-retaliation-nst-iran-military-response-necessary-to-stop-worldwide-recession">added</a>, &#8220;The administration should do what they&#8217;re currently doing, and that is setting the conditions by going to the U.N., identifying to the international community with declassified evidence that Iranians are the culprits — they are attacking not just Saudi Arabia, they are attacking a world economy to destabilize and push it into recession and every single member of the U.N. has a stake in that and let&#8217;s put that out there so they understand what is truly at risk there and further isolate Iran, politically, diplomatically and economically; I think we can accomplish that.&#8221;
He segued, &#8220;But then, the second thing is to stop them from continuing to hurt the world economy and push it into recession. That will take some limited military response to do just that.&#8221; Keane said that it would be foolish to expect the world to back such a response, noting, &#8220;The will is just not there for that. The United States will have to lead this effort. Why? Because it is in our national interest to protect the world from a global recession and what it would do to our own economy …&#8221;
Keane theorized Iran’s threats to launch an &#8220;all-out war&#8221; against the United States if the United States launches military action were &#8220;fear-mongering.&#8221; He concluded, &#8220;I do worry, Maria, we do have policymakers that I’m very familiar with who are in the Pentagon, and they have this fear: they get paralyzed by their fear of the Iranians’ reaction, and they don’t see through the smokescreen. And here’s what they’ve done in the past and I don’t want them to do it here: They’ve set up options and exaggerate the risk so much so that they steer the decision-maker, in this case the President of the United States, to select an option that isn&#8217;t robust enough to impose cost on the Iranians and therefore stop their behavior.&#8221;

Boris Johnson

British P.M. Boris Johnson: If U.S. Attacks Iran, I Might Join In

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Iran&#8217;s attacks on Saudi Arabia last weekend to be &#8220;an act of war&#8221; on Sunday, suggesting that the United States is willing to significantly ramp up its aggression towards Iran.
Pompeo&#8217;s remarks came in response to Iran launching attacks against Saudi oil sites, which knocked out 5% of the global oil supply. Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/iranian-cruise-missiles-drones-saudi-oil">reported</a> that U.S. officials indicated that &#8220;Iranian cruise missiles and drones were both used in the attack on the two Saudi Arabian oil facilities, and that they were fired from inside southwest Iran.&#8221;
Pompeo told CBS News&#8217; &#8220;Face The Nation&#8221; that it was &#8220;a sophisticated attack&#8221; and that &#8220;the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime.&#8221;
&#8220;This was an attack by Iran on the world. This was an act of war,&#8221; Pompeo continued, noting that it was &#8220;the largest attack on the global energy supply I think in all of recorded history.&#8221;
Pompeo told host Margaret Brennan that the U.S. is prepared to respond in a way that &#8220;reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime&#8221; and &#8220;we&#8217;re prepared to do the things we need to do to try to deter Iran from this kind of behavior.&#8221;
In response to the attacks, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/u-s-deploy-military-forces-saudi-arabia-after-drone-attacks-n1057216">said</a> on Friday that the U.S. was deploying troops to region for defensive purposes &#8220;and primarily focused on air and missile defense.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Transcript provided via <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-on-face-the-nation-september-22-2019/">CBS News</a>:
<blockquote>MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to &#8220;Face the Nation&#8221; in New York, where world leaders face a number of critical challenges at the annual United Nations General Assembly. Late Friday, the Pentagon announced the U.S. will deploy additional troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Increasing security in the region after last week&#8217;s attack on oil fields in Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration has placed blame for those attacks squarely on Iran and announced on Friday a new round of sanctions against Iran&#8217;s national bank. President Trump has not ruled out military strikes but it seems he is holding off on them for now. We begin this morning with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who called the oil field attacks, &#8220;an act of war.&#8221; Mr. Secretary, good morning.
SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO: Margaret, it&#8217;s good to be with you again.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You are the only U.S. official who has directly and definitively blamed every single part of these attacks on Iran. Is there any question that the attack was launched from Iran?
SEC. POMPEO: No reasonable person doubts precisely who conducted these strikes. And it is the intelligence community&#8217;s determination that is likely the case that these were launched from Iran. You- you&#8217;ve seen the pictures&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: Likely.
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;that came from the north- that came from the north. It was a sophisticated attack. These weapons systems had ranges that could not have come from the Houthis. It is crazy for anyone to assert that they did. I mean it is literally nuts on its face to make an assertion that this was an attack by the Houthis. This was Iran true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It was launched from Iran?
SEC. POMPEO: This was an attack by Iran on the world. This was an act of war. I&#8217;m here at the U.N.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Because the president hasn&#8217;t&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: The U.N- the U.N.- the U.N.&#8217;s- the U.N.&#8217;s primary&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;been that specific&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;the U.N&#8217;s primary charter&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;and other countries haven&#8217;t either.
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;is to prevent state on state attack&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: And Saudi Arabia hasn&#8217;t either.
SEC. POMPEO: The U.N.&#8217;s primary charter is to protect peace around the world. This was a state on state act of war.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Iran&#8217;s foreign minister as you may have heard has repeatedly denied any part played by Iran in this attack. Will the U.S. release evidence that proves he&#8217;s lying?
SEC. POMPEO: Well, we already have. There- there&#8217;s already ample evidence that demonstrates that he&#8217;s lied. You saw the Saudis showing these were Iranian systems built- built and manufactured inside of Iran.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But they haven&#8217;t&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: We know- we know where&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;given evidence or said it&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;we know where they attacked.
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;was launched from Iran.
SEC. POMPEO: Look, look, don&#8217;t- I don&#8217;t know why anybody listens to the Iranian foreign minister. He has nothing to do with Iranian foreign policy, and he&#8217;s lied for decades and then he resigned. It- it&#8217;s just- it&#8217;s not even worth- it&#8217;s not even worth responding to him. It&#8217;s- it&#8217;s been- it&#8217;s beneath the dignity of anyone in the world to listen to someone who repeatedly makes the claim that the Houthis launched this attack.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Saudi Arabia has shown itself incapable of defending its most&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: No that&#8217;s- that&#8217;s&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;prized&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;that&#8217;s not true.
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;asset and it is America&#8217;s best customer when it comes to buying American made weapons. U.S. intelligence also didn&#8217;t warn of this attack happening. Are you concerned about the stability of the kingdom that they were this vulnerable?
SEC. POMPEO: Yeah, you don&#8217;t have all your facts quite right, but you saw the announcement that the secretary defense made on Friday. We&#8217;re going to continue to reinforce. We&#8217;re looking for a diplomatic resolution to this, unlike the Iranians who apparently&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: What part of the facts is wrong?
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;who are apparently blood&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: Saudi Arabia was not able to defend itself.
SEC. POMPEO: Apparently the Iranians are bloodthirsty and looking for war. President Trump and I, we&#8217;re looking for a diplomatic resolution to this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What does that mean?
SEC. POMPEO: We had a- we had a nation state attack, another nation state the largest attack on the global energy supply I think in all of recorded history. The good news? When I walked in there this morning brent crude was traded at 64 bucks a barrel and the world has responded in a way that has made sure that there&#8217;s ample supply in the system. But make no mistake about it we&#8217;re- we&#8217;re prepared to do the things we need to do to try to deter Iran from this kind of behavior.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What does a diplomatic resolution mean? The attack happened.
SEC. POMPEO: Yeah, so the resolution looks like this: Iran becomes a normal nation. We lay it out, now a year ago in May&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: These are your 12 steps?
SEC. POMPEO: No- no missile strikes. No- no capacity to build out their nuclear weapons program, broadly speaking. Stop the assassination. They&#8217;re- they&#8217;re killing people in Europe. They have an assas- assassination campaign in Europe. This is not a normal nation and we hope- we hope the Iranian people, who we think are demanding that their country stop this kind of behavior, act in a way that causes the Iranian regime&#8217;s behavior to change. That&#8217;s our mission sense. That&#8217;s what President Trump is determined to achieve. First and foremost through diplomatic means.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the president hasn&#8217;t laid those things out publicly as you just did.
SEC. POMPEO: He- he and I fully understand the mission set. I- I- I know it because he&#8217;s told it to me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: If you look at just the things that have happened over the past few months, the U.S. has been very clear that it places blame for the shooting down of that American drone on Iran, the attack on the oil tanker in the UAE on Iran. This attack on Iran. It seems Iran&#8217;s behavior is getting worse not better, based on the Trump administration&#8217;s campaign. You&#8217;ve been very aggressive with these sanctions. Why do you think sanctioning them leads to better behavior?
SEC. POMPEO: Margaret, you- you start the clock at the wrong point. Nineteen-seven&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: I&#8217;m talking about what happened this summer.
SEC. POMPEO: 1979 is the trajectory of the Iranian revolution. 40 years of terror. 40 years- the previous administration chose to arm them, to provide the wealth and resources that have underwritten these very attacks that we&#8217;re seeing today. They were able to build up these missile systems&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you think&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: &#8211;they were able to improve. They were&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;the Trump administration policy is working is what you&#8217;re saying, despite the fact that these attacks are continuing to happen because&#8211;
SEC. POMPEO: It&#8217;s work&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: &#8211;Liz Cheney, Lindsey Graham, Republican allies of the president have said the failure to carry out some kind of obvious retaliation or a military strike looks like weakness.
SEC. POMPEO: Yeah, we&#8217;ve responded in a number of ways. This is not about weakness. This strategy is working. We- we sanctioned the Central Bank on Friday. MARGARET, you have to remember that the sanctions that we&#8217;ve put in- put in place that ultimately will cause the Iranian regime to shrink by between 10 and 15 percent in the year ahead, only went in place in May of this year. They&#8217;re- they&#8217;re five months on. We&#8217;re at the beginning of that sanctions campaign, but I- I don&#8217;t think anyone should mistake President Trump for having the resolve to make sure we get this right and when the moment calls for it I am confident the president will take all appropriate actions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But I- I guess, fundamentally, the question is why do you think sanctions will be preventative and not just punitive? Why do you think making Iran more desperate will get them to act more responsible?
SEC. POMPEO: It&#8217;ll deny them the resources to foment the exact kind of strikes that we have seen over this past summer. It will deny them the money, the wealth, the resources. They&#8217;re operating today in five countries. It&#8217;s expensive. They&#8217;ve already had to make difficult decisions about whether they&#8217;re going to feed their people, provide medicine to their people or they&#8217;re going to launch missiles into Saudi Arabia. I am convinced that the Iranian people see those choices being made. And as time goes on they will continue to see that those conditions worsen and they&#8217;ll demand- they&#8217;ll demand that their leadership not bring their brothers and sisters back home in body bags, but rather use those resources. The- the- the Iranian people are great people. We- we stand with them and I am- I&#8217;m confident they will demand that their leadership behave in a way that reflects the great history of this place.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you considering cyber attacks? Would that be a less obvious, less direct form of retaliation?
SEC. POMPEO: President talked about our use of those previously, but I&#8217;m certainly not going to forecast what we&#8217;ll do as we move forward.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But suffice it to say, building up defensive presence and sanctions are not the limit of what the Trump administration will do?
SEC. POMPEO: Oh goodness, no.</blockquote>

Mike Pompeo

Pompeo Hints At What U.S. Response Will Be To Iranian Attacks On Saudi Arabia

On Thursday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show,&#8221; Klavan talks about President Trump&#8217;s response to Iranian agression and Tim Kaine&#8217;s accusation that Trump is lying about Iran. Video and partial transcript below: 
Donald Trump has a tendency, as we all know, to react big. The first thing out of his mouth when this bombing took place in Saudi Arabia is, &#8220;We&#8217;re locked and loaded.&#8221; Then he starts to [think], &#8220;Wait a minute, ehhh I don’t know.&#8221;
He&#8217;s not a war guy. He doesn&#8217;t want to go to war and who can blame him? Who does? &#8230; John Bolton has been talking behind closed doors and saying how dumb Trump is about not standing up to Iran, and if we don&#8217;t stand up to them, they just get worse. There&#8217;s some wisdom to that. But Trump tries to figure this out, and what&#8217;s interesting about Trump, and what gives him such problems, is that he thinks out loud.
He doesn&#8217;t go into his room and stroke his chin and consider — as you&#8217;ve got the microphone in his face, you&#8217;re listening to the guy&#8217;s mind work. So here he is talking about why he appointed O&#8217;Brien.
<blockquote>REPORTER: [Unintelligible].
TRUMP: No, I actually think it&#8217;s a sign of strength. We have the strongest military in the world now, and I think it&#8217;s a great sign of strength. It&#8217;s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey [Graham], ask him, &#8220;How did going into the Middle East, how did that work out? And how did going into Iraq work out?&#8221; So we have a disagreement on that and you know, there&#8217;s plenty of time to do some dastardly things. It&#8217;s very easy to start, and we&#8217;ll see what happens. We&#8217;ll see what happens. I think we have a lot of good capital. If we have to do something, we&#8217;ll do it without hesitation.</blockquote>
&#8230; You know he&#8217;s thinking out loud, which is always kind of unnerving with Trump. He&#8217;s always kind of going back and forth and we hear him going back and forth, and again, that&#8217;s unnerving. It&#8217;s unsettling. But basically what he&#8217;s saying, Mike Pompeo, the secretary state behind the scenes, is trying to build a coalition with the U.N. trying to work with our allies to get some help on this. The Israelis are starting to say, you know, Iran is a real threat to us and we may have to go in and Pompeo is telegraphing, saying out loud that we will support the Israelis, they have a right to defend themselves, we&#8217;re on their team no matter who wins the election over there; no matter who builds the coalition, we&#8217;re going to be with Israel. Trump said we&#8217;re with Israel, not with Netanyahu — we support Israel. He&#8217;s going to stick with that, obviously.
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Big choices. It&#8217;s never cut and dry, it&#8217;s never black and white, you never know when to go in and when not to. We certainly should not be on the ground at war with Iran, but whether we punish them, whether we start to get a little tough with them, is an open question, especially if we can get allies involved on a strike. Again, there&#8217;s absolutely no way we want to be invading Iran — that would be a terrible, stupid thing to do. But still, you know, some targeted airstrikes might not be a bad idea.
But compare all that [with] Democrats. Compare this to Tim Kaine? This guy came within an ounce of being Vice President of the United States of America, all right. Listen to whose fault he thinks it is.
<blockquote>KAINE: They&#8217;re going around saying the attack was unprovoked. The U.S. is provoking Iran. We were in a diplomatic deal with them that allowed them to sell their oil. We pulled out of the deal, the U.S. pulled out, and we&#8217;ve punished their oil economy and so Iran — again, Iran’s not a good actor. You don&#8217;t have to like this, but we are provoking Iran every day with the sanctions and with military action, and they&#8217;re responding. We need to stop the provocation and the United States needs to return to trying to be a diplomatic broker.
INTERVIEWER: Are you suggesting that Iran had to do this attack, when you&#8217;re saying the attack was somehow provoked, do you somehow victim blame for this?
KAINE: No, what I&#8217;m saying is — I have voted for sanctions on Iran in the past and they&#8217;re a bad actor. But when the administration says the attack was unprovoked, that&#8217;s what LBJ said about the Gulf of Tonkin back in Vietnam, and it was a lie. And the administration is lying to the American public by saying this was an unprovoked attack.</blockquote>
The guy reminds me of Alvin the Chipmunk, except without the testicles. I mean, the guy is really, you know, he uses this opportunity to attack the president, who is certainly the one person who is not to blame here. I don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s trying to get across there, that we&#8217;re not supposed to put sanctions on Iran? That we&#8217;re supposed to follow through with Obama&#8217;s plan to give them a path to nuclear weapons? That we&#8217;re just supposed to be resigned to that and let that go and not try to bring them into line by force because they&#8217;re not going to understand it?
Let&#8217;s take a look at the Iranians, for a minute. Let&#8217;s take a look at Iran&#8217;s foreign minister Mohammad Zarif, he was asked — this is a CNN exclusive. He was asked how he would respond to an attack, and just listen. I mean, when you look at this guy — and again remember, Yemen is a proxy war — when you look at this guy, is this the sort of guy that we want to make excuses for?
<blockquote>REPORTER: What would be the consequence of an American or a Saudi military strike on Iran now?
ZARIF: An all-out war.
REPORTER: You make a very serious statement there, sir.
ZARIF: Well, I make a very serious statement about defending our country. I&#8217;m making a very serious statement that we don&#8217;t want war, we don&#8217;t want to engage in a military confrontation. We believe that a military confrontation based on deception is awful. We&#8217;ll have a lot of casualties, but we won&#8217;t blink to defend our territory.
REPORTER: Put yourself in Saudi Arabia&#8217;s shoes. If there was an attack on Iranian sovereign territory, with cruise missiles launched from Saudi Arabia, what would Iran&#8217;s response be?
ZARIF: Well, they&#8217;re making that up. Why do they want to make that up that it was from Iranian territory? The Yemenis have announced responsibility for that, they have provided information about that. They have answered all the Saudi disinformation campaign about the fact that they launched this attack against Saudi Arabia in self-defense.</blockquote>
I always wonder why these guys don’t just burst into flame. You know, just look at that man with his dead eyes saying, &#8220;We will kill everyone and it&#8217;s a lie.&#8221; And we never do anything but we, yes well we fired off, &#8220;Why would they make that up?&#8221; That we fired the rockets from our territory, just because we fired the rockets from our territory?
I mean these guys are like almost like some kind of cartoon villain, and Tim Kaine is blaming Donald Trump, who he just hates, using this for political capital. It really is awful &#8230;
Trump speaks out loud, and thinks out loud, and it is very unnerving to watch him do it — it creates a lot of uncertainty, and it creates a lot of trouble. He&#8217;s actually doing the right thing. You do not want to strike until it&#8217;s absolutely necessary. It’s still an open question whether it&#8217;s absolutely necessary. Obviously, Iran wants us to hit them and wants to draw us into this fight, so I don&#8217;t think that that&#8217;s necessarily the right thing to do. If you do finally decide you gotta pull your gun: Pull [it] and kill him, and get out and walk away.
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-andrew-klavan-show/id1045171376?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show&#8221; on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/andrew-klavan-show">Watch &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show&#8221; on-demand!</a>

Tim Kaine

KLAVAN: Trump Thinks Out Loud, So Tim Kaine Stops Thinking

Conservatism

It is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51924/mike-pence-warns-iran-were-locked-and-loaded-jacob-airey">increasingly likely</a> that Saudi Arabia and Iran, longtime regional foes and proxies for the broader Sunni/Shiite theological divide in the Islamic world, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-iran-rouhani/irans-rouhani-says-aramco-attacks-were-a-reciprocal-response-by-yemen-idUSKBN1W12AE">could be heading for war</a>. Both nations are governed by sharia-based legal regimes, and each has a troubled history when it comes to promoting, financing, and exporting Islamist extremism over the course of the past century. At first glance, one might be inclined to look at this internecine Islamic spat and conclude as Sarah Palin <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/sarah-palin-let-allah-sort-it-out-096128">once did</a>: &#8220;Let Allah sort it out.&#8221;
But cynicism of this magnitude is not actually warranted. The United States has a clear and strategically unmistakable interest in any potential armed conflict that were to escalate between the Saudis and the Iranians. That interest, put simply, is to stand firmly with our <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/10/media-war-saudi-arabia/">Saudi allies</a>.
For decades, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was the preeminent funder and exporter of radical Sunni jihadism. The hardline Wahhabist- and Salafist-inspired brand of Sunni Islam that dominated the Saudi clerisy resulted in tangible detrimental outcomes for the liberal West. The Saudis funded more radical Sunni madrasas the world over than any other Arab nation and were oftentimes the leading miscreants in the Arab world&#8217;s decades-long (technically, still ongoing) <a href="http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/khartoum.asp">diplomatic</a> campaign against the legitimacy of Israel. Concomitantly, the Saudis were long viewed as the leading Arab cheerleaders for Yasser Arafat and his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46068/hammer-yes-united-states-was-right-deny-entry-bds-josh-hammer">inherently jihadist</a> &#8220;Palestinian liberation&#8221; cause. The Kingdom funded and promoted the global <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the 20th-century progenitor of contemporary Sunni jihadism and the over-arching organization for which the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">genocidal death cult</a> of Hamas merely serves as the Palestinian-Arab branch. Many Saudi elites and clerics famously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/evidence-of-financial-links-between-saudi-royal-family-and-al-qaeda">mollycoddled</a> al-Qaeda in the years leading up to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11th-hijackers-fast-facts/index.html">September 11, 2001</a>. And so forth.
That is all undoubtedly very, very, very bad. But it is crucial to recognize that much has changed in the Islamic world over the past decade or two.
Over the past ten to fifteen years, and rapidly accelerating under the recent leadership of the more forward-thinking and realpolitik-inclined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), the Kingdom has taken tremendous steps to diminish the influence of the Wahhabist clerics, to cease the funding and exportation of radical madrasas abroad, and to unequivocally distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood. MBS has even gone so far as to (accurately) <a href="http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/46574/Bin-Salman-Muslim-Brotherhood-incubator-for-terrorists">dub</a> the Brotherhood an &#8220;incubator for all terrorists.&#8221; Jared Kushner and other Trump administration officials, seeing a natural anti-Islamist ally in the crown prince, have <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-mbs-meeting">cultivated and nourished</a> a reinvigorated bilateral relationship. The Saudis have also <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Palestinians-in-bid-to-avert-real-crisis-with-Saudi-Arabia-597538">all but completely forsaken</a> the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48018/hammer-jared-kushner-right-palestinians-do-not-josh-hammer">noxious</a>, anti-Jewish Palestinian-Arab &#8220;liberation&#8221; cause, preferring instead to dramatically warm up to Israel in hitherto unimaginable ways. The Saudis, while still prone to military and strategic crassness, are more so than ever before manifestly allied with the United States on our key geopolitical interests and priorities in the Middle East.
The elephant in the room for much of the Middle East&#8217;s broader realignment is, of course, the so-called &#8220;Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action&#8221; — then-President Barack Obama&#8217;s harrowing nuclear deal capitulation to the mullahs of the world&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">number one state sponsor of jihadism</a>, Iran. Obama, under the cataclysmic &#8220;guidance&#8221; of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html">failed novelist</a> Ben Rhodes, sought to reorient America&#8217;s interests in the Middle East away from Israel and its historic Sunni allies — namely, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt — and toward Iran and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mohamed-morsi-who-brought-the-muslim-brotherhood-to-the-egyptian-presidency">Muslim Brotherhood</a>. In addition to empowering the terrorist, jihad-exporting mullocracy in Tehran, Obama&#8217;s disastrous shift strategic also unshackled the region&#8217;s preeminent funders of the Brotherhood and Hamas: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47456/hammer-al-jazeeras-disgraceful-holocaust-denying-josh-hammer">Qatar</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44954/report-ilhan-omar-met-2017-infamous-islamist-josh-hammer">Turkey</a>. The increasingly public thawing of tensions between the Saudis and the Emiratis — each of whom considers Iran to be something akin to an existential hegemonic threat — and Israel, in addition to the still-ongoing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Qatar_diplomatic_crisis">embargo</a> implemented (primarily) by the Saudis and Emiratis against the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/57690/ensconced-doha-islamists">Brotherhood-funding</a> Qataris, can only be <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2019-08-05/friends-caveats">understood through this broader prism</a>.
Iran, furthermore, is as malevolent and vicious a global actor as ever before. The mullahs still seek nuclear weapons, routinely preach &#8220;death to America&#8221; and &#8220;death to Israel,&#8221; fund Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi rebels, and all sorts of other jihadist outfits the world over, plot <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190109-eu-sanctions-iran-over-assassinations-peoples-mujahedeen-france-bomb-plot">targeted assassinations</a> across Europe and the broader West, and engage in deeply hostile and destructive acts of <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/16/iran-seizes-oil-tanker-allegedly-smuggling-diesel-fuel-to-uae-isna">aggression</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tells-saudi-arabia-oil-attacks-were-launched-from-iran-11568644126">war</a> against regional foes. The Islamic Revolutionary Iranian regime has been in a state of war against the West ever since the ayatollahs&#8217; takeover in 1979, and Iran today remains one of the world&#8217;s two most rogue geopolitical actors, along with North Korea. It is a deeply hostile and repressive theocracy that has never missed an opportunity to fund jihadism against the West. Countering and thwarting Iran, in addition to the Brotherhood, is <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">very much</a> in America&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51661/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">strategic interest</a>.
Fundamentally, the bipartisan Wilsonian foreign policy ruling class must be tempered. There is a role for morality in foreign policy, but that role is minuscule when compared with the foremost goal of a nation narrowly pursuing its own self-interest. Yes, the Saudi regime is sharia-based and is oppressive in many ways. But no, that ultimately should not deter our pursuit and defense of an indispensable strategic alliance. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45699/hammer-america-needs-re-think-its-global-alliances-josh-hammer">wrote</a> in April:
<blockquote>[C]onservatives must articulate a hard-headed foreign policy that, if need be, subordinates amorphous &#8220;values&#8221;-based concerns in favor of much more tangible — and much more legitimate — concerns about prioritizing and maximizing America&#8217;s national security. And in so doing, American foreign policy hands ought not to elevate the interests and clout of unaccountable transnational institutions. &#8230;
America ought to ally with self-sufficient nation-states who care about their sovereignty and share our core national security interests in deterring Russian hegemony, Chinese ambitions, and/or Islamist aggression. &#8230; [I]n the Islamic world, that means focusing more on nations like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates than it does on Islamist-exporting, Muslim Brotherhood-cozy states like Turkey and Qatar.</blockquote>
Americans should not be duped by <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/10/media-war-saudi-arabia/">well-oiled Qatari duplicity</a> or the Iran nuclear deal&#8217;s subversive <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/10/13/iran-deal-supporters-willing-sell-u-s-jihadists/">Obama bro echo chamber</a>. With Saudi-Iranian tensions flaring, America has an unambiguous interest in standing firmly with MBS and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Trump MBS Oval Office.jpg

HAMMER: The U.S. Must Side With Saudi Arabia Against Iranian Aggression

Islam

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

mike_pence_heritage_foundation.jpg

Pence Warns Iran: ‘We’re Locked And Loaded’

Mike Pence

Trump Administration

President Trump on Wednesday said he has ordered the Treasury Department to &#8220;substantially increase&#8221; sanctions on Iran after drone attacks on two oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
&#8220;I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!&#8221; Trump wrote on Twitter.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1174305447513186304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
It was not immediately clear exactly what he instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to do. The U.S. has long had punitive sanctions in place against Iran.
Trump&#8217;s move comes after drone strikes on Saturday that severely damaged a crude-processing plant and oil field in Saudi Arabia, which is the largest in the world. The U.S. and the Saudis have accused Iran of perpetrating the attacks.
The drone strikes prompted an immediate spike in crude prices, which experts said could soon raise the price of gas by 20 cents or more in the U.S. After Trump&#8217;s announcement on Wednesday, oil prices fell.
After the attack, Trump said U.S. authorities suspected Iran. &#8220;It&#8217;s certainly looking that way at this point,&#8221; Trump said Monday, although he steered clear of directly blaming Iran.
&#8220;Do I want war? I don&#8217;t want war with anybody,&#8221; Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding: &#8220;We have the strongest military in the world.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t want war with anybody but we are prepared more than anybody &#8230; We have a lot of options but we are not looking at options right now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That was a very large attack and it could be met with an attack many, many times larger very easily by our country, but we are going to find out who definitively did it first,&#8221; he added.
&#8220;We have a lot of options, but I&#8217;m not looking at options right now. We want to find definitively who did this,&#8221; Trump said.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said Monday the attacks were a &#8220;reciprocal response&#8221; to Saudi aggression against Yemen, but claims they came from Yemen, not Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Trump was more aggressive on Sunday when he said the U.S. was &#8220;locked and loaded.&#8221;
&#8220;Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!&#8221; he wrote on Twitter.
<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-he-told-mnuchin-substantially-increase-sanctions-iran-n1055781">NBC News</a> reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration was considering a range of options to retaliate against Iran, &#8220;including a cyberattack or physical strikes, U.S. officials briefed on recent deliberations said. Military leaders presented Trump with multiple possible actions in a national security meeting Monday, but Trump asked for additional choices, people briefed on that meeting said.&#8221;
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also blamed Iran for the attacks. He is currently heading to Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to &#8220;coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region,&#8221; the State Department said in a statement.
&#8220;The Pentagon is preparing a report on who was responsible and intends to make it public within 48 hours, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday,&#8221; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-18/iran-says-it-s-not-looking-for-war-warns-u-s-against-action">Bloomberg News</a> reported. &#8220;The official couldn’t confirm or deny a CBS News report that the U.S. has identified locations in southern Iran from which it believes more than 20 drones and cruise missiles were launched.&#8221;

djt_2

BREAKING: Trump Orders New Sanctions Against Iran After Saudi Oil Attacks

Yemen

On Sunday, after the Saturday attacks on two oil refineries in Saudi Arabia that destroyed 5% of the world’s oil supply, prompting accusations from the U.S. government that the attacks were launched by Iran, a top Iranian general boasted that U.S. sites were in range of Iranian missiles and Iran was ready for a &#8220;full-fledged&#8221; war.
Amirali Hajizadeh, who heads Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace, bragged, &#8220;Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) around Iran are within the range of our missiles,&#8221; adding &#8220;Iran has always been ready for a &#8216;full-fledged&#8217; war,&#8221; as quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency and reported by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-missiles/iran-says-u-s-bases-and-aircraft-carriers-within-range-of-its-missiles-tasnim-idUSKBN1W004A">Reuters</a>.
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7468121/Gas-prices-set-soar-22-cents-gallon-Saudi-oil-fields-burn-following-huge-drone-strike.html">The Daily Mail</a> noted, &#8220;Analysts fear the attacks – which heightened tensions in the region after the US blamed Iran – could push the price of crude oil up by $10 a barrel, which would translate to 22 cents per gallon at the pumps.&#8221; <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-general-says-country-ready-for-full-fledged-war-with-us/">The Times of Israel</a> quoted Andrew Lipow, president of the U.S. consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, saying, &#8220;This is a big deal. Fearing the worst, I expect that the market will open $5 to $10 per barrel up.&#8221;
After the attacks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on Saturday, &#8220;Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.&#8221; The Times of Israel noted, &#8220;The attacks followed weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage.&#8221;
In mid-August, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran/iran-says-top-waterways-wont-be-as-safe-if-its-oil-exports-cut-to-zero-idUSKCN1VB1EM">Reuters</a> reported that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that if Iran’s oil exports were reduced to zero, international waterways would not be as safe as before, threatening, &#8220;World powers know that in the case that oil is completely sanctioned and Iran’s oil exports are brought down to zero, international waterways can’t have the same security as before.&#8221; Reuters noted that Rouhani’s remark &#8220;coincided with a remark by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that Tehran might act &#8216;unpredictably&#8217; in response to &#8216;unpredictable&#8217; U.S. policies under President Donald Trump.&#8221;
In July, according to the <a href="https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2019/07/10/2050933/iranian-commander-warns-us-against-any-wrongdoing-in-regional-waters">Tasnim news agency</a>, Hossein Nejat, a brigadier general in Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards, stated, &#8220;American bases are within the range of our missiles &#8230; Our missiles will destroy their aircraft carriers if they make a mistake. Americans are very well aware of the consequences of a military confrontation with Iran.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-irgc">The Counter Extremism Project</a> has noted:
<blockquote>The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is tasked with preserving the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ideals of the 1979 revolution. The IRGC combines traditional military roles with a relentless focus on supposed domestic enemies. The IRGC is Iran’s primary instrument for exporting the ideology of the Islamic Revolution worldwide. It is rigidly loyal to Iran’s clerical elite. The IRGC is Iran’s main link to its terrorist proxies, which the regime uses to boost Iran’s global influence.</blockquote>

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Iran

Articles tagged with Iran

Protests Against Regime Rage Across Iran. Unlike Obama Administration, Trump Administration Supports Them.

BRYEN: Has The Iranian Empire Overreached?

Iran’s Leaders Shut Down The Internet As Fuel Protests Spread To 100 Cities

CARLIN: Is Iran Losing The Middle East?

Iran Acknowledges That FBI Agent Gone Missing Since 2007 Involved In Ongoing Court Case

Iran Announces Major Break With Nuclear Deal, Will Inject Uranium Into 1,400 Centrifuges

Republicans To Introduce Legislation To Dismantle Entire Iran Nuclear Deal

Iranian Beauty Queen Begs For Asylum In Philippines Fearing Her Death If Returned To Iran

BRYEN: Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests

BOGNER: The Curious Case Of Rudy Giuliani, Iran, and Armenia

FLEISHER: The Much-Needed Israeli Defense Umbrella

WATCH: Gabbard Blames United States For Suspected Iranian Attack On Saudi Oil Facility

British P.M. Boris Johnson: If U.S. Attacks Iran, I Might Join In

Pompeo Hints At What U.S. Response Will Be To Iranian Attacks On Saudi Arabia

Pompeo Hints At What U.S. Response Will Be To Iranian Attacks On Saudi Arabia

KLAVAN: Trump Thinks Out Loud, So Tim Kaine Stops Thinking

HAMMER: The U.S. Must Side With Saudi Arabia Against Iranian Aggression

Pence Warns Iran: ‘We’re Locked And Loaded’

BREAKING: Trump Orders New Sanctions Against Iran After Saudi Oil Attacks

Report: Top Iranian General Boasts: Our Missiles Can Destroy Your Military Sites. We’re Ready For ‘Full-Fledged’ War.