Iran Digest Week of November 24th - December 2nd
/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
World Cup 2022: A brief history of US-Iran relations
An Arabic saying goes, “Politics has never touched anything that it did not spoil.”
But it has been nearly impossible to keep politics out of football ahead of a critical showdown between Iran and the United States at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday.
With qualification to the knockout stage on the line for both teams, fans and organisers are hoping for an amicable game at Al Thumama Stadium to show the uniting power of the beautiful game.
Nuclear Accord
Biden’s Iran Envoy: Sanctions Are ‘Not the Answer’
When U.S. President Joe Biden was on the campaign trail two years ago, he promised that the United States would reenter the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018. Nearly two years into Biden’s term, however, talks to reenter the deal have failed. Instead, Iran has enriched more uranium than ever before and elected a hard-line new president, Ebrahim Raisi, who is less likely to engage in constructive dialogue with the West.
Meanwhile, Iran has expanded its support of Russia’s war in Ukraine, providing Moscow with drones that have been used to target and kill civilians. Tehran has continued these policies even as it has confronted its most significant national protests in more than a decade.
As the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley is tasked with executing Washington’s entire Iran policy, from its continuing sanctions on Tehran to attempts to reenter the JCPOA. I spoke with Malley as part of FP Live, the magazine’s forum for live journalism. What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.
(Foreign Policy)
Women of Iran
Protesters Claim Mass Sexual Abuse in Iranian Prisons by Regime: Report
Women in Iran detained for protesting against the ruling regime are suffering sexual violence carried out by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) intelligence agency, it has been reported.
One woman from the city of Bukan in west Azerbaijan province had told her fellow prison detainees she had been raped while being interrogated by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) intelligence agency, the outlet IranWire reported.
The 22-year-old was transferred to a hospital because of her mental and physical condition but upon release, committed suicide, according to the outlet.
(Newsweek)
Economy
Venezuelan oil exports flow using false documents, ships linked to Iran
When the supertanker Young Yong sailed to the Chinese port of Qingdao in September last year, it had quality certificates for its cargo stating it was transporting Malaysian crude oil, according to the documents reviewed by Reuters.
But satellite images and photos show the Chinese-owned ship had loaded the oil four months earlier in Venezuela, an OPEC nation in South America under U.S. oil sanctions.
The Young Yong is one of three vessels identified by Reuters that were chartered by little-known companies to export Venezuelan oil and used false documents to conceal its origin, according to shipping documents and 11 sources with knowledge of the trade.
(Reuters)
Inside Iran
World Cup 2022: Man killed in Iran celebrating football team's loss - report
A man is reported to have been killed by security forces in northern Iran, as anti-government protesters publicly celebrated the national football team's elimination from the World Cup.
Activists said Mehran Samak was shot in the head after he honked his car's horn in Bandar Anzali on Tuesday night.
Videos from other cities showed crowds cheering and dancing in the streets.
Many Iranians refused to support their football team in Qatar, seeing it as a representation of the Islamic Republic.
(BBC)
Iran acknowledges more than 300 are dead from unrest from nationwide protests
An Iranian general on Monday acknowledged that more than 300 people have been killed in the unrest surrounding nationwide protests, giving the first official word on casualties in two months.
That estimate is considerably lower than the toll reported by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a U.S.-based group that has been closely tracking the protests since they erupted after the Sept. 16 death of a young woman being held by the country's morality police.
The activist group says 451 protesters and 60 security forces have been killed since the start of the unrest and that more than 18,000 people have been detained.
(NPR)
Iran’s Judiciary Tries Damage Control Over Major Hacking Leak
Despite repeated denials by IRGC's Fras news agency about a recent hack of its data servers, Iran's judiciary has started an investigation into damaging leaks.
Prosecutor General of Tehran Ali Alghasi-Mehr said on Wednesday that the probe into the cyberattack against Fars news, a cultural propaganda machine with close links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, is because a significant database of personal information of journalists and employees has been leaked.
However, it seems that the investigation has been launched because the authorities are not sure what has been hacked and what database has been breached.
A new word has been coined to refer to the large amount of data leaked from the hack: Farsgate.
(Iran International)
Regional Politics
New Iraqi Prime Minister Tells Iran's Supreme Leader that Baghdad Will Stop Attacks Against It
Iraq's new prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, met Iran's top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during his first important trip abroad since being named to head the government by the Iraqi parliament.
Sudani told journalists in Tehran after meeting Khamenei, that Iraq would not allow any attacks on its neighbor from inside its territory and that its security forces are being deployed along the two countries' common border.
He said that his government is committed to enforcing the Iraqi constitution and preventing any groups or parties from damaging Iran's security and that Iraq's national security advisor will meet with his Iranian counterpart to coordinate operations on the ground.
(VOA)
Iran Is Filling Armenia’s Power Vacuum
The town of Kapan, a sleepy mining community nestled in the mountains of southeastern Armenia, is an unlikely hub for international diplomacy. But in October, Armenian officials gathered in its central square to cut the ribbon on a brand-new consulate—and welcome the delegation arriving from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Just two miles away from the site of Tehran's newest international mission is the boarder with Azerbaijan. The surrounding Armenian region of Syunik - of which Kapan is the capital - is at the heart of the growing dispute between Yerevan and and Baku, which fought a brief but bloody war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2020. Now, Tehran is wading into the dispute, throwing political and military support behind Yerevan.
Analysis
By: Ellie Geranmayeh
Last month, the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran said that nuclear talks with Tehran were unlikely to continue anytime soon. “If these negotiations are not happening, it’s because of Iran’s position and everything that has happened since [September],” said Robert Malley, citing Iran’s crackdown on protests, its transfer of drones to Russia and its continuing imprisonment of American citizens.
His comments, which echoed a widespread unease with Iran in the West, are understandable. And yet none of the issues he cited changes the grim reality that Iran is now just days away from having enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb — and that the international community is doing nothing to stop it. Unless that changes, the world is headed inexorably for a new nuclear crisis. A revised diplomatic track still represents the most effective pathway forward.
(Read More Here)
