Iran Digest Week of May 12- May 19
/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
U.S. proposed conducting joint military planning with Israel on Iran
The Biden administration proposed to Israel a few weeks ago the idea of engaging in joint military planning concerning Iran, three U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios.
Why it matters: U.S. officials say the proposal is unprecedented and could significantly upgrade U.S.-Israeli military cooperation.
Yes, but: Israeli officials have so far treated the proposal with suspicion, fearing it is an attempt to “tie Israel's hands” from taking action against Iran — especially its nuclear facilities — if the U.S. objects.
(Axios)
Economy
Iran, Pakistan Open Border Marketplace, Power Transmission Line
Leaders of Iran and Pakistan jointly inaugurated a marketplace and a power transmission line along their shared border Thursday in a significant move aimed at boosting regional trade and energy cooperation.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif addressed a ceremony in a live broadcast from the Iranian side of the more than the 900-kilometer border between the two countries.
Raisi said the project had set the stage for Tehran and Islamabad to expand their economic and energy exchanges.
(VOA)
How Iran will profit from Shell’s Iraqi gas project
An Iranian company is the biggest beneficiary of a power plant poised to supply a Shell-backed gas project in Iraq, showing the pervasive presence of Tehran’s business interests in its neighbour and putting the UK group at odds with the west’s shifting geopolitical priorities in the Middle East.
Basrah Gas Company, which is 44 per cent-owned by the London-listed energy major, will become a major consumer of power from Rumaila Independent Power Plant in southern Iraq when the gas company’s new facility starts operations in June.
The Rumaila plant is owned by Jordan-based Shamara Holding but was built by Tehran-based Mapna Group, which is entitled to 78 per cent of the revenue from electricity sales, according to documents seen by the Financial Times and three people involved in the contracts.
Environment
Environmental Issues Crucial in Iran Energy Projects: President
In remarks at a meeting of the Supreme Council of Energy, held in Tehran on Tuesday, Raisi emphasized that the concerns expressed by the Department of Environment about a number of power plant and oil refinery projects across the country must be taken into consideration.
The president also assigned the secretariat of the Supreme Council of Energy to set up a task force to address environmental concerns about the development of power plant and refinery projects within 15 days.
The process of economic progress and development must conform with the environmental regulations, he stated.
Inside Iran
Iran hangs 3 protesters in Isfahan as executions soar
Iran executed three men arrested during last year’s anti-regime protests on Friday. The country’s judiciary announced the move despite pleas from relatives and rights groups.
Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were put to death in the central city of Isfahan after they were convicted of killing a police officer and two Basij militiamen during a shooting attack at a demonstration held in the city last year, according to the judiciary’s website.
Authorities did not reveal how the executions were carried out.
Regional Politics
Share Water, Iran’s President Warns Taliban Amid Rising Tension
Iran's president has warned the Taliban to share water from the Hirmand River in the latest episode of a long-running dispute.
Flowing 700 miles, the river – also known as Helmand – enters Iran's Hamoun wetlands in the Sistan-Baluchestan province after originating in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Kabul. Lake Hamoun used to be one of the world's largest wetlands, straddling 4,000 square kilometres (1,600 square miles) between Iran and Afghanistan.
The river constitutes more than 40% of Afghanistan’s surface water, according to water experts, and runs about 1,125km (700 miles) southwest from the Hindu Kush mountains into Iran. The River, which both Afghanistan and Iran depend on for agriculture and drinking water, has been their biggest source of tension for years.
Israel Reveals Iran’s Secret Underground Drone Base
A secret underground drone base of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has been uncovered by an Israeli security think tank.
The location in the southwest of Iran was revealed Monday by Alma center, a non-profit research organization which focuses on the security challenges on Israel's northern borders.
The UAV base is carved into the Zagros mountains near Shiraz, Fars province, according to a video released by Alma. The location is about 10km from Shiraz airbase, which also houses the air force's SU-24 jets of the 72nd tactical fighter squadron.
Global Relations
US announces criminal cases involving flow of technology, information to Russia, China and Iran
The Justice Department announced a series of criminal cases Tuesday tracing the illegal flow of sensitive technology, including Apple’s software code for self-driving cars and materials used for missiles, to foreign adversaries like Russia, China and Iran.
Some of the alleged trade secret theft highlighted by the department dates back several years, but U.S. officials are drawing attention to the collection of cases now to highlight a task force created in February to disrupt the transfer of goods to foreign countries.
“We are committed to doing all we can to prevent these advanced tools from falling into the hands of adversaries who wield them in a way that threatens not only our nation’s security but democratic values everywhere,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who heads the Justice Department’s national security division.
(AP News)
Analysis
The Arab League thinks readmitting Syria will push out Iran. They’re wrong.
By: David Daoud
Readmitting Syria to the Arab League is a strategic mistake. On paper, the logic behind such a move appears sound. For the better part of the last decade, most of the Arab world hoped that Syria’s uprising would dislodge Bashar al-Assad’s regime. As the dust has begun to settle on that conflict, it is apparent that those hopes were misplaced. In short, Assad won.
The most obvious objection to readmitting the Assad regime into the so-called Arab fold—and the halls of the Arab League—is a moral one. Assad’s crimes over the past decade set him apart from other living Middle Eastern autocrats. They demand that he remain a pariah—not be slowly renormalized as a legitimate international actor. After all, Assad emerged victorious in the Syrian Civil War by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his people, wounding and torturing scores of others, and displacing millions more. His blood-bought victory has visited immeasurable pain upon the Syrian people and the effects of this could last for decades.
However, reality and history rarely allow for statecraft to be so morally neat. In formulating his concept of raison d’état, Cardinal de Richelieu, France’s chief minister from 1624-1642, declared that “Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter. The state has no immortality, its salvation is now or never.” In other words, states receive neither credit nor reward in this life nor the next for making the morally correct choice. They are only rewarded for doing what is necessary.
America and Iran are already at war – over oil tankers
By: Abgela Barnes
Two oil tankers recently seized by Iran are just the latest sign of building tension with the US as the two countries engage in a tit-for-tat tanker war with vessels and cargoes of oil used as hostages to gain negotiating advantage.
More such incidents will likely follow as the two nations are deadlocked over the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Aggressive moves at sea have replaced talks at the table, with the US seeking to impose sanctions on Iranian oil exports and Iran aiming to counterbalance US-ordered seizures.
In the latest Iranian moves, the US Navy says the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Advantage Sweet was seized on 27 April by the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy while transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman. The Sweet was, tellingly, en route for Houston. Just days later on 3 May the Panama-flagged oil tanker Niovi was seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
(Read More Here)
