Tag: Iran

Russia is preparing to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will boost Tehran’s ability to surveil military targets, officials say

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Russia is preparing to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will give Tehran an unprecedented ability to track potential military targets across the Middle East and beyond, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials briefed on details of the arrangement.

The plan would deliver to the Iranians a Russian-made Kanopus-V satellite equipped with a high-resolution camera that would greatly enhance Iran’s spying capabilities, allowing continuous monitoring of facilities ranging from Persian Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases to Iraqi barracks that house U.S. troops, the officials said. The launch could happen within months, they said.

While the Kanopus-V is marketed for civilian use, Iranian military officials have been heavily involved in the acquisition, and leaders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have made multiple trips to Russia since 2018 to help negotiate the terms of the agreement, the officials said. As recently as this spring, Russian experts traveled to Iran to help train ground crews that would operate the satellite from a newly built facility near the northern city of Karaj, the officials said. Continue reading.

Assassination in Iran Could Limit Biden’s Options. Was That the Goal?

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The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist is likely to impede the country’s military ambitions. Its real purpose may have been to prevent the president-elect from resuming diplomacy with Tehran.

WASHINGTON — The assassination of the scientist who led Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon for the past two decades threatens to cripple President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal before he can even begin his diplomacy with Tehran.

And that may well have been a main goal of the operation.

Intelligence officials say there is little doubt that Israel was behind the killing — it had all the hallmarks of a precisely timed operation by Mossad, the country’s spy agency. And the Israelis have done nothing to dispel that view. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long identified Iran as an existential threat, and named the assassinated scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, as national enemy No. 1, capable of building a weapon that could threaten a country of eight million in a single blast. Continue reading.

Prominent Iranian nuclear scientist killed in ambush attack, bringing threats of revenge

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ISTANBUL — One of Iran’s most prominent and well-guarded nuclear scientists was killed Friday in a daytime ambush on a rural road outside Tehran, an attack Iran’s foreign minister blamed on Israel and that sharply raised regional tensions in the closing weeks of the Trump administration.

The scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was seen as a driving force behind Tehran’s disbanded effort to build a nuclear weapon nearly two decades ago. His role in Iran’s current programs — reactors and uranium enrichment — was less direct and analysts said the killing would likely have a limited impact on Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

It also underscored one of the many challenges ahead for the Biden administration as it looks to reset U.S. policies toward Iran after President Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Continue reading.

Scoop: Israeli military prepares for possibility Trump will strike Iran

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The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me.

Why it matters: The Israeli government instructed the IDF to undertake the preparations not because of any intelligence or assessment that Trump will order such a strike, but because senior Israeli officials anticipate “a very sensitive period” ahead of Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

  • The IDF’s preparedness measures relate to possible Iranian retaliation against Israel directly or through Iranian proxies in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli officials said. Continue reading.

Trump demands restoration of ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran

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President Trump has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to go to the United Nations on Thursday in the first step toward reimposing all U.N. sanctions against Iran, using a legal maneuver that most of the Security Council considers dubious.

In announcing Pompeo’s task, Trump said his decision in 2018 to abandon the landmark deal struck with Iran during the Obama administration had made the world safer.

“Two years ago, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, which was a product of the Obama-Biden foreign policy failure, a failure like few people have seen in terms of the amount of money we paid for absolutely nothing in a short-term deal,” Trump said. Continue reading.

Russia is trying to ‘denigrate’ Biden while China prefers ‘unpredictable’ Trump not be reelected, senior U.S. intelligence official says

Washington Post logoRussia is “using a range of measures” to interfere in the 2020 election and has enlisted a pro-Russian lawmaker from Ukraine — who has met with President Trump’s personal lawyer — “to undermine former vice president [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party,” a top U.S. intelligence official said in a statement Friday.

The remarks by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, were some of the most detailed to date about foreign interference in the presidential race and come after earlier criticism from Democratic lawmakers that Evanina had not shared with the public some of the alarming intelligence he gave them in classified briefings.

Evanina also said that the government of China does not want Trump to win reelection in November, seeing the incumbent as “unpredictable.” Evanina described China’s efforts to date as largely rhetorical and aimed at shaping policy and criticizing the Trump administration for actions Beijing sees as harmful to its long-term strategic interests. Continue reading.

Trump’s two main foreign foes plan a major pact

Washington Post logoThe autocratic regimes in Beijing and Tehran are feeling the heat from Washington. The former is locked in a bitter, damaging trade war with the United States; the latter has seen its country’s economy mauled by sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration after it broke from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. But the tariffs and sanctions have yet to yield President Trump the acquiescence from both parties he seeks. And recent developments suggest these two putative American adversaries may be finding greater common cause.

Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged in a parliamentary session that his government is, “with confidence and conviction,” in negotiations with China over a 25-year strategic partnership that could involve about $400 billion in Chinese investment through various sectors of the Iranian economy. An outline of the accord’s details surfaced in an 18-page leaked document online, whose provenance is unclear though it roughly aligns with mooted plans previously announced by the Iranian government. According to the New York Times, a version of the document dated in June that its reporters obtained is a draft of a pending agreement with China. Continue reading “Trump’s two main foreign foes plan a major pact”

China, Iran targeting presidential campaigns with hacking attempts, Google announces

Washington Post logoChinese and Iranian government hackers have targeted the Gmail accounts of staffers working on the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and President Trump, respectively, Google announced Thursday.

There were no signs the accounts were compromised, a Google threat analyst said in a tweet Thursday, and law enforcement was notified.

The disclosure is a fresh reminder that nation states are actively seeking to gain access to presidential campaigns — a practice that has taken place in every presidential election dating back more than a decade. Continue reading.

Senate unable to override Trump veto of Iran war powers

The measure did not make it to Trump’s desk until Tuesday even though it passed the House in March

The Senate was unable to muster the two-thirds vote needed to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a bipartisan resolution rebuking his Iran policy.

The measure to terminate authority for engaging in hostilities against Iran or Iranian government officials championed by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., cleared the Senate in February and House in March. The measure did not make it to Trump’s desk until Tuesday, because the chambers did not send it over amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump’s veto occurred Wednesday and was accompanied by a statement from the president, who called it “insulting” and suggested the resolution was part of a Democratic strategy to divide the GOP in the November election run-up. Continue reading.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan on Trump’s Iran warmongering: ‘What kind of maniac risks such a war in the middle of a global pandemic?’

AlterNet logoThe Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called for an immediate halt to “warmongering during the coronavirus outbreak” as U.S. forces reportedly deployed Patriot missiles to Iraq and President Donald Trump warned—without presenting a shred of evidence—that Tehran is planning a “sneak attack” on American troops in the region.

Warning that heightened U.S. military activity in Iraq could lead to further “instability and disaster” in the Middle East, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the Trump administration should “respect the wishes of the Iraqi people and government and leave the country.” The Pentagon insisted in a statement that the Patriot missiles were mobilized for purely defensive purposes.

As Common Dreams reported, Trump on Wednesday threatened Iran with a “very heavy price” if it attacks “U.S. troops and/or assets” in the region, ignoring pleas from advocacy groups and the United Nations for a global ceasefire and international cooperation against the novel coronavirus, which has devastated the U.S. and Iran and is spreading quickly in Iraq. Continue reading.