Iran Digest Week of September 20- September 27
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
Israel asks U.S. to deter Iran after Hezbollah leader assassination
Israel asked the U.S. to take steps to deter Iran from attacking Israel in response to the Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a top Iranian general, two Israeli and U.S. officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The Israel-Hezbollah conflict was already spiraling into an all-out war that could pull in Iran, and that was before Israel killed Iran's most powerful ally in the region, Nasrallah, and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general.
Iran has been careful to avoid any attack on Israel that could pull it into such a war, but officials in Washington and Jerusalem are worried Friday's strike could push Tehran over the edge.
(Axios)
US charges three Iranians with hacking Trump campaign
US authorities have charged three Iranians with hacking Donald Trump's presidential campaign this year.
Prosecutors say Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi are members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who engaged in a "hack and leak" operation in a "deliberate attempt" to undermine an unnamed presidential campaign.
Last week US officials said Iranian hackers had tried to distribute stolen material from the Trump campaign to individuals linked to Joe Biden's re-election effort.
(BBC)
Health
Iran criticized over medical aid to injured Hezbollah members after pager attacks
Iranians have reacted to the treatment of several Hezbollah members whose eyes were injured in explosions in Lebanon while Iran's security forces blinded hundreds of protesters during the crackdown on 2022 protests.
Several have voiced their discontent over social media to fighters being brought to Iran and Iranian doctors sent to Lebanon to treat Hezbollah operatives in the wake of two targeted attacks this week.
One citizen, in a video sent to Iran International, commented: "The Islamic Republic blinded Iranian protesters and didn't allow them treatment, but treats Hezbollah's wounded in Iran."
Nuclear Program
Iran ready to resume nuclear negotiations immediately: Foreign minister
Iran is ready to start a new round of nuclear negotiations, the country’s foreign minister has said.
In a social media post, FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is ready to open talks on Iran’s nuclear programme this week, should others prove willing. However, the recently appointed moderate acknowledged that heightened regional tensions make reviving the process a challenge.
“If the other parties are ready, we can restart the negotiations during this trip,” Araghchi said. Iran’s top diplomat is due in New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expected to deliver a speech on Tuesday.
Return of barred inspectors to Iran unlikely. IAEA chief says: 'Ship has sailed'
The U.N. nuclear watchdog has been pushing Iran to lift its ban of several uranium-enrichment inspectors from Iranian nuclear sites, but the IAEA chief told Reuters that success seems unlikely.
"Unfortunately this ship has sailed," Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The IAEA has strongly condemned the step taken by Iran a year ago as "unprecedented" and called it a "very serious blow" to its ability to carry out meaningful inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.
(Reuters)
Economy
Iran's currency loses value as Israel hits Hezbollah hard
Iran's currency, the rial, has dropped 3.3% in value since last week, when Israel launched strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, raising concerns about a broader conflict involving the Islamic Republic.
The rial was trading at 612,000 to the US dollar on Saturday, compared with 592,000 on September 20, when Hezbollah began to suffer mass casualties as a result of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies. As Israeli air strikes intensified in Lebanon earlier this week and culminated in the reported killing of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the rial dipped further.
Since 2018, when the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and international banking, the rial has lost 15 times its value. In the past three years alone, it has depreciated by 50%.
Inside Iran
Iran warns Hezbollah leader's death 'will not go unavenged'
Iran’s supreme leader has said the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "will not go unavenged", a day after he was killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced five days of mourning in Iran in response to what he called the "martyrdom of the great Nasrallah", describing him as "a path and a school of thought" that would continue.
Iranian media reported that a Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was also killed in the Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday.
(BBC)
Regional Politics
Hezbollah confirms its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group confirmed on Saturday that its leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day.
A statement said Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” Hezbollah vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”
Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
(PBS)
Global Relations
Iran uses UN meetings to attack Israel, whitewash destabilizing actions
Israel and Iran traded barbs at the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, with each accusing the other of responsibility for the deadly violence in Lebanon and Gaza.
While each side pressed its case in strong language, Iran’s framing distorts what precipitated the Israel-Hamas war and whitewashes Tehran’s decadeslong effort to destroy the state of Israel via proxy forces.
In his speech to the assembly Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed what he called "the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium."
(VOA)
Analysis
Iranian President Pezeshkian Checks the Boxes in New York
By: Barbara Slavin
The return to Iran’s government of veteran diplomats who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal has led to some cautious optimism that Iran’s nuclear program can be dealt with through new talks. However, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is unlikely to be revived and the most likely configuration for discussions will be bilateral – between the U.S. and Iran – rather than multistate.
On August 27, 2024, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the go-ahead to President Masoud Pezeshkian and his cabinet to “interact with the enemy [the United States] in certain situations.” He cautioned “not to place your hopes” in talks while suggesting, in a clear reference to the nuclear program that “a tactical retreat might sometimes be necessary.”
Earlier, new Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a former deputy foreign minister and key negotiator of the JCPOA, said in an interview with a German news outlet that revival of the original deal “is not possible.” He highlighted shifts in the international landscape due to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, which have altered the security perspectives of the European Union, Russia, China and the U.S.
Why the World’s Biggest Powers Can’t Stop a Middle East War
By: Roger Cohen
Over almost a year of war in the Middle East, major powers have proved incapable of stopping or even significantly influencing the fighting, a failure that reflects a turbulent world of decentralized authority that seems likely to endure.
Stop-and-start negotiations between Israel and Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza, pushed by the United States, have repeatedly been described by the Biden administration as on the verge of a breakthrough, only to fail. The current Western-led attempt to avert a full-scale Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon amounts to a scramble to avert disaster. Its chances of success seem deeply uncertain after the Israeli killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, on Friday.
“There’s more capability in more hands in a world where centrifugal forces are far stronger than centralizing ones,” said Richard Haass, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The Middle East is the primary case study of this dangerous fragmentation.”
