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U.S. seeks to boost case against Iran with U.N. Washington visit

January 26, 2018


FILE PHOTO: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at UN headquarters in New York Thomson Reuters

By Michelle Nichols January 26, 2018 Reuters and Business Insider

Source: U.S. seeks to boost case against Iran with U.N. Washington visit

{Setting the stage for the ‘art of the deal’. – LS}

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States will seek to boost its case for United Nations action against Iran when Security Council envoys visit Washington on Monday to view pieces of weapons that U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley says Tehran gave to Yemen’s Houthi group.

Haley and her 14 council colleagues will also lunch with President Donald Trump, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Friday.

The Trump administration has for months been lobbying for Iran to be held accountable at the United Nations, while at the same time threatening to quit a 2015 deal among world powers to curb Iran’s nuclear program if “disastrous flaws” are not fixed.

The U.N. ambassadors will visit a military hangar at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling near Washington, where Haley, the U.S envoy to the United Nations, last month presented remnants of what the Pentagon said was an Iranian-made ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Nov. 4 at Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, as well as other weapons.

A proxy war is playing out in Yemen between Iran and U.S. ally Saudi Arabia.

Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with such weaponry and described the arms displayed in Washington as “fabricated.”

However, experts reported to the Security Council this month that Iran had violated U.N. sanctions on Yemen because “it failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer” of short-range ballistic missiles and other equipment to the Iran-allied Houthi group.

The independent experts said they had “identified missile remnants, related military equipment and military unmanned aerial vehicles that are of Iranian origin and were introduced into Yemen after the imposition of the targeted arms embargo.”

Haley said last month she was exploring several U.N. options for pressuring Iran to “adjust their behavior”. But she is likely to struggle to convince some Security Council members, like veto powers Russia and China, that U.N. action is needed.

Most sanctions on Iran were lifted at the start of 2016 under the nuclear deal, which is enshrined in a U.N. Security Council resolution. The resolution still subjects Tehran to a U.N. arms embargo and other restrictions that are technically not part of the nuclear deal.

Haley has said the Security Council could strengthen the provisions in that resolution or adopt a new resolution banning Iran from all activities related to ballistic missiles. To pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor, and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia.

Under the current resolution, Iran is “called upon” to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years. Some states argue that the language of the resolution does not make it obligatory.

A separate U.N. resolution on Yemen bans the supply of weapons to Houthi leaders and “those acting on their behalf or at their direction.”

The United States could propose people or entities to be blacklisted by the council’s Yemen sanctions committee, a closed-door move that would need consensus approval by the 15-members.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Haley has not signaled which accountability option she might pursue or when.

Categories: Iran nuclear deal
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New poll shows Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, under ANY circumstances

January 26, 2018

Friday, January 26, 2018 Elder of Ziyon

Source: New poll shows Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, under ANY circumstances

{Something you won’t be seeing on the six o’clock news. – LS}

A joint poll by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC), Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) shows that Palestinians are against any possible solution to the conflict.

Their press release doesn’t say it, but the poll itself does.

A series of options are given to Palestinians:

Mutual recognition of Palestine and Israel as the homelands of their respective peoples. The agreement will mark the end of conflict, Israel will fight terror against Palestinians, and no further claims will be made by either side. 56.9% oppose.

The independent Palestinian state which will be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be demilitarized (no heavy weaponry) 77.4% oppose

A multinational force will be established and deployed in the Palestinian state to ensure the security and safety of both sides. Support or oppose? 60.5% oppose

The Palestinian state will have sovereignty over its air space, its land, and its water resources, but Israel will maintain two early warning stations in the West Bank for 15 years. Support or oppose? 67.2% oppose

The Palestinian state will be established in the entirety of West Bank and the Gaza strip, except for several blocs of settlement which will be annexed to Israel in a territorial exchange. Israel will evacuate all other settlements. 62.7% oppose

The territories Palestinians will receive in exchange will be similar to the size of the settlement blocs that will be annexed to Israel. Support or oppose? 70.6% oppose

East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state and West Jerusalem the capital of the Israel. Support or oppose? 71.6% oppose

In the Old City of Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian quarters and al Haram al Sharif will come under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish quarter and the Wailing Wall will come under Israeli sovereignty. Support or oppose? 71.4% oppose

The only provision they supported was “right of return”:

Palestinian refugees will have the right of return to their homeland whereby the Palestinian state will settle all refugees wishing to live in it. Israel will allow the return of about 100,000 Palestinians as part of a of family unification program. All other refugees will be compensated. Support or oppose? 52.4% supported

For the majority that opposed a package deal of “demilitarization of the Palestinian state, equal territorial exchange, the family unification in Israel of 100,000 Palestinian refugees, East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine and West Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and the end of the conflict,” they were asked if any further sweetening of the deal would change their minds:

If in addition to the above items of the permanent settlement package, Israel agreed to accept the Arab peace initiative and in return all Arab countries supported this peace treaty? Support or oppose? 69.9% oppose.

The agreement states that the state of Palestine will have a democratic political system based on rule of law, periodic elections, free press, strong parliament, independent judiciary and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities as well as strong anti-corruption measures. 58.6% oppose.

The agreement includes formal guarantees by the US, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who will create a joint commission to ensure proper implementation on both sides. 68.1% oppose.

The agreement states that Palestinians, including refugees, are allowed, if they wish, to live as permanent residents inside Israel while maintaining their Palestinian citizenship, as long as they are law abiding 70.4% oppose

The agreement allows the current Palestinian National Security Force to become an army with light weapons but without heavy weapons 80.8% oppose

The agreement states that Israel recognizes the Nakba and the suffering of refugees, and provides compensation to refugees? 58.1% oppose

Also, when given a choice of options (status quo, armed resistance, unarmed resistance, peace treaty) a plurality of Palestinians preferred armed resistance over peace, 38% to 26%.

The only thing that Palestinians agree on is that they do not want peace.

The poll didn’t ask the obvious question, because the people behind it don’t want the world to know the answer, but the real question should have been: Do you hope to see Israel destroyed and replaced by Palestine?

Other questions that would illuminate how Palestinians feel might include “would you support an Iranian nuclear attack against Tel Aviv, even if it would kill thousands of Arabs in Jaffa?”

These polls dance around the real feelings of the Palestinians because the answers would far more explicitly show that they have no desire for a real, permanent peace with Israel. Yet one only has to look at these (unpublicized) results from the poll to see that this is exactly what they feel.

Don’t expect the media to notice, though.

Categories: "Palestinians"
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The Unrepentant Terrorist

January 26, 2018

by Patrick Dunleavy IPT News January 26, 2018

Source: The Unrepentant Terrorist

{Maybe they should find a way to send them to Gitmo. – LS}

“My judge is a kaffir, my lawyer is a kaffir, my prose[c]utor is a kaffir, and my jury are all kaffirs…”

With those words, convicted Islamic terrorist Ahmad Khan Rahimi revealed both his disdain for the American criminal justice system and his lack of remorse for the evil acts he committed. Rahimi, better known as the Chelsea Bomber, was convicted in federal court on a number of charges including using weapons of mass destruction. Rahimi set off a series of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the New York/New Jersey area in September 2016 which wounded as many as 30 people. He also was involved in a shootout with police before being captured.

Rahimi has claimed to be a holy warrior following the path of a jihadist. He sits in a cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan awaiting a Feb. 13 sentencing hearing where he could face life in prison. According to the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum, Rahimi not only lacks remorse, but has made light of the terrorist attacks. He even boasted of his notoriety, telling his friends and family, “I don’t need to watch the news because I am the news.”

The memorandum goes on to describe him as someone who “was committed to waging his holy war against Americans years before he carried out his attack. Even today, he appears to remain steadfast in that commitment and has shown no remorse.”

His current confinement has not slowed him down. Quite the opposite. The U.S. Attorney’s office recently discovered that Rahimi was radicalizing other inmates in MCC. He shared sermons by the late American-born al-Qaida ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki with his fellow Muslim inmates during Jummah services, along with copies of al-Qaida’s Inspire magazine and other jihadist literature which contained instructions for making IEDs. This egregious breakdown in security procedures by BOP staff not only encourages jailed jihadists, but it is the antithesis of the FBI Correctional Intelligence Initiative’s stated goal to “detect, deter, and disrupt efforts by terrorist and extremist groups to radicalize or recruit within all federal, state, territorial, tribal and local prison populations.”

Should we be surprised that a terrorist continues down the path of death and destruction even when faced with life in prison? Is this some new unprecedented phenomena? Not when we consider this warning from another convicted terrorist spoken 25 years ago: “If the devil leaders of New York think placing me in [prison] will end the war, they are wrong; this is only the beginning.” Those are the words of El Sayyid Nosair as he was being taken from New York to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ maximum security facility in Florence, Colo. to serve a life sentence for his part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a conspiracy to destroy additional landmarks. He committed those crimes while he was an inmate in Attica state prison. Was he deterred, remorseful? Not a chance.

A terrorist is not rendered harmless while in prison. He will act if he can. If he can’t, he will influence. The jailed terrorist often provides a vehicle for others to be radicalized.

What, then, should prosecutors seek in addition to the life sentence they recommend for Rahimi? Clearly special administrative measures must be put in place to restrict the time Rahimi is allowed out of his cell to interact with other inmates. Restrictions should also control who visits him, and whom he is allowed to communicate with on the telephone. In light of the case against Lynne Stewart, the attorney for “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman who was convicted of facilitating “a communications network that enabled a convicted and imprisoned terrorist, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to perpetuate his position as the spiritual leader of his terrorist organization, the Islamic Group,” these restrictions should also include Rahimi’s legal counsel. These conditions are neither cruel and unusual punishment nor torture. These are effective methods used by prison administrators to prevent future criminal acts by incarcerated terrorists.

When we consider the fact that there is currently no effective de-radicalization prison program for Islamic terrorists in either the United States or the European Union, the outlook for Rahimi’s rehabilitation while incarcerated does not look promising. We therefore urge U.S. District Judge Richard Berman to attach the most stringent conditions of confinement allowed under law to Rahimi’s sentence. Prisons are not designed to be enjoyable and they certainly shouldn’t become playgrounds for undeterred terrorists to ply their trade.

Categories: Fighting Islamist terrorists
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Column One: Pence and Pew, present and future

January 26, 2018

Source: Column One: Pence and Pew, present and future – Opinion – Jerusalem Post

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK
 JANUARY 25, 2018 21:47
Israel’s efforts to explain itself will not crack through the closed intellectual circle of identity politics and partisanship.
Column One: Pence and Pew, present and future

 US Vice President Mike Pence touches the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City. (photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

Vice President Mike Pence gave an epic speech at the Knesset this week. His was the most powerful embrace of Zionism and the Jewish people any foreign leader has ever presented. Pence’s fluency in Jewish history, and his comprehension of the centrality of the both the Bible and the Land of Israel in the vast flow of that history in far-flung-exile communities across time and space was spellbinding. He touched the hearts of his audience, causing knots in the throats of most of the people sitting in the Knesset on Monday afternoon.

Pence’s speech was rendered poignant and the friendship he bore became tinged with urgency with the publication, the very next day, of the latest Pew Center survey on American views of Israel.

Speaking in the name of the American people he represents, Pence said on Monday: “The friendship between our people has never been deeper.”

And when it comes to the Republican voters who elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence a year and two months ago, Pence is certainly correct. But the Pew data showed that on Israel, as on so many other issues, the cleavage between Republicans and Democrats is vast and unbridgeable.

Most of the coverage of the Pew survey focused reasonably on its main finding. The good news is that overall American support for Israel over the Palestinians remains more or less constant, and overwhelming. Forty-six percent of Americans support Israel over the Palestinians while a mere 16% of Americans support the Palestinians against Israel. The numbers haven’t changed much since polling began in 1978.

But then the news becomes more fraught. The disparity between Republican support for Israel and Democratic support for Israel has never been greater. Whereas 79% of Republicans support Israel over the Palestinians, only 27% of Democrats do. Moreover, the further one goes to the Left among Democratic voters, the more anti-Israel the respondents become. Liberal Democrats are now nearly twice as likely to support the Palestinians over Israel as they are to support Israel over the Palestinians. Thirty-five percent of liberal Democrats support the Palestinians against Israel. A mere 19% support Israel more than the Palestinians.

Conservative and moderate Democrats still support Israel far more than they support the Palestinians with 35% of moderate and conservative Democrats supporting Israel over the Palestinians, and 17% supporting the Palestinians more than Israel. But the level of support for Israel among this demographic has dropped precipitously in the last year and a half. In the previous survey, which took place in April 2016, support for Israel was 53%, or 19 points higher.

In other words, the last year and a half has seen a precipitous drop in Democratic support for Israel even as Republican support for Israel has grown ever higher.

For Israel’s leaders, as distressing as these numbers are, they don’t give an indication of how Israel should relate to the vast disparities in US support for Israel as they plot policies for the future.

The survey does provide that answer though. The last question in the survey asked respondents about the viability of the so-called two-state solution.

They were asked, “Can a way be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully or not?”

The answers were notable. While among the general population, faith in the two-state solution runs 49% to 39%, that support is indirectly proportionate to respondents’ support for Israel. The more they support Israel, the less they believe in the two-state solution.

Americans who support the Palestinians more than they support Israel, believe in the viability of the two-state solution runs 64% to 28%. Americans who support Israel more than the Palestinians view the two-state solution as nonviable by a margin of 40% to 51%.

On the face of things, this seems like an anomaly. For a generation, three successive administrations have insisted not only that the two-state solution is the only path to peace and security for Israel and the Palestinians. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all insisted that Israel’s very survival as a Jewish state is contingent on it surrendering land it has held for 50 years to the PLO. Americans have been told that the only way to truly care about Israel is to support the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

And here we see that the US public has reached the opposite conclusions. Americans who oppose Israel support the establishment of a Palestinian state along the lines set out by Clinton, Bush and Obama. Americans who support Israel view such a prospect as impossible.

What explains this disparity? Two data points in the survey point to a reasonable explanation.

According to the survey, the greatest leap in Republican support for Israel occurred since 2001. In the past 17 years, Republican support for Israel leaped from 50% to 79%.

On the Democratic side, an opposite trend occurred. Since 2001, Democratic support for Israel has dropped from 38% to 27%.

Two events occurred in 2001 that set the parties on disparate paths: the September 11 attacks and the disputed results of the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and Bush.

The September 11 attacks caused Republican voters to study the Middle East, including Israel, more closely than they ever had before. And the more familiar they became with Islamism, jihad and the other pathologies of the Arab world, the more supportive of Israel they became. The fact that the Palestinians rejected peace at the Camp David summit in July 2000 and that by the time the September 11 attacks occurred they were engaged in the largest terrorist onslaught against Israel in history, reinforced the sense among Republicans that Israel is the US’s closest ally in the war on Islamic terrorism.

On the other hand, the Democrats’ rejection of the legitimacy of the 2000 election results set the party on a course of radicalization. The best indication of the Democrats’ radicalization on Israel came with the precipitous downfall of senator Joseph Lieberman.

Lieberman was a liberal hawk, an ardent supporter of Israel and a proud Jew. In 2000 his positions had sufficient traction among Democratic voters to cause Gore to select him as his running mate in the presidential election.

Just six years later, a transformed Democratic party rejected Lieberman when he ran for reelection to his senate seat in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. His challenger, Ned Lamont, defeated Lieberman after running a campaign laced with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Lieberman’s longtime ally, then-senator from New York Hillary Clinton, who was looking forward to the 2008 presidential race, refused to support him.

Today Democratic presidential hopefuls like New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have discarded their previous support for Israel to satisfy their party’s increasingly radical, anti-Israel base.

The Democrats’ move to the Left has caused them to ascribe increasingly to identity politics as the basis for policy-making. Identity politics dictate a pecking order of victims. The greater a group’s status as victim, the more the Democrats support it. In this taxonomy, Israel has been determined to be an oppressor, and the Palestinians are defined as the victims.

The problem with identity politics, at least insofar as Israel is concerned, is that there is no basis in fact for the determination that Israel is the bad guy and the Palestinians are the good guys. To the contrary. As the steep rise in Republican support over the past 17 years demonstrates, the more you know, the greater the likelihood that you will support Israel.

Rather than being a fact-based conclusion, the determination that Israel is bad and the Palestinians are good is an ideological dictate. And this presents Israel with an intractable problem as far as Democrats are concerned.

Israel cannot reason Democrats out of an anti-Israel position that they weren’t reasoned into. Israel has no ability whatsoever to convince the Democrats to rethink their animosity, when they never thought about it to begin with. They simply accepted the dictates of their political and ideological camp.

This brings us back to Pence, and the Trump administration’s extraordinary, voter-supported friendship for Israel and what it means for Israel today, as the prospect of an impossibly hostile Democratic administration in as little as three years lurks in the corner.

The most significant “news” that Pence announced in his address was Trump’s determination to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019. This is important because, given the hostility of the Democrats, there is every reason to believe that if a Democratic administration takes power in 2021, Trump’s decision to move the embassy will be canceled if it hasn’t already happened.

Just as this is the time for the US to move its embassy to Israel’s capital, now is also the time for Israel to ditch the failed two-state model before it is too late.

Israel will never have a better opportunity than it has today to convince an American administration to abandon the anti-Israel narrative at the foundation of the two-state formula. That narrative, which asserts that there is no peace because there is no Palestinian state, places the blame for the absence of peace between the Palestinians and Israel on Israel alone.

Today there is an administration that is open to hearing an alternative narrative that portrays Israel properly as the good guy, and the Palestinians as the hopelessly intransigent foe that they have always been.

Now is the time for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government to be speaking this plain truth in one voice. And now is the time for them to decide on, explain and implement a policy based on Israel’s rights and interests that will secure Israel’s strategic viability and position vis-à-vis the Palestinians for years to come. Such a policy, which will involve applying Israeli law over large swaths of Judea and Samaria, is clear, easy to explain and will successfully ensure the civil rights of Jews and Arabs alike for generations.

No, Israel’s efforts to explain itself will not crack through the closed intellectual circle of identity politics and partisanship. But that is why Israel needs to act now so that the new policy is explained and implemented along the same timetable as the US Embassy moves to Jerusalem.

By the time the 2020 US election campaign begin, Israel should have already determined and implemented its new policy. As Pence demonstrated so eloquently at the Knesset this week, Israel has a friend the likes of which it has never seen in the White House today. And if President Trump is not president in January 2021, Israel will face an administration that will make us miss Obama.

Pence and Pew showed us what we have and what awaits us. Now is the time for Israel to act.

http://www.CarolineGlick.com

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US will not chase Palestinians averse to peace, envoy says 

January 26, 2018

Source: US will not chase Palestinians averse to peace, envoy says – Israel Hayom

In speech to Security Council, U.S. U.N. envoy Nikki Haley blasts PA President Abbas for engaging in “outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories” • U.N. Middle East envoy warns UNRWA funding cuts could destabilize an “already precarious situation.”

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

The United States will not “chase after a Palestinian leadership that lacks what is needed to achieve peace,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

Haley criticized a Jan. 14 speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council, in which he accused Europeans of sending their Jews to Israel and U.S. President Donald Trump of stabbing the Palestinians in the back with his recognition of Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel.

In his speech, Abbas said he would only accept a broad, internationally backed panel to broker any peace talks with Israel.

“A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace,” Haley said.

The Palestinians are seething at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition last month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that was criticized around the world and broke with decades of U.S. policy that the city’s status must be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The United States remains deeply committed to helping the Israelis and Palestinians reach a historic peace agreement,” she said. “But we will not chase after a Palestinian leadership that lacks what is needed to achieve peace. To get historic results, we need courageous leaders.”

Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour, who addressed the Security Council ahead of Haley, described similar Israeli accusations that Abbas was “not a man of peace” as “appalling.”

“They are again attempting to distract the international community and evade responsibility for the political deadlock and deplorable situation on the ground by making such false, shameful claims,” he said.

The United States announced this month that it would withhold $65 million of $125 million that it had planned to send to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. states. The U.S. is the largest contributor.

U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council it was vital to maintain support for strengthening Palestinians institutions and services.

He said that “allowing the Palestinian project to backslide at this delicate stage risks further destabilizing an already precarious situation. The recent cuts to UNRWA funding only reinforce these concerns.”

Trump threatened on Thursday to withhold aid to the Palestinians if they did not pursue peace with Israel.

“The uncertainty and volatility of the current environment is hardening positions and sharpening the rhetoric on all sides, a situation that plays directly into the hands of extremists and increases the risk of another conflict,” Mladenov warned.

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Iran trying to turn Syria into its Middle East base, Israeli envoy warns

January 26, 2018

Source: Iran trying to turn Syria into its Middle East base, Israeli envoy warns – Israel Hayom

Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon warns the U.N. Security Council that Iran is sparing no effort to turn the war-torn country into “the largest military base in the world” to destabilize the region, threaten Israel and “terrorize the entire free world.”

Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Israel’s U.N. ambassador is accusing Iran of attempting to turn Syria into “the largest military base in the world” to destabilize the region, threaten Israel and “terrorize the entire free world.”

Danny Danon told the Security Council Thursday that classified information he was releasing showed that 82,000 fighters are currently under Iranian authority in Syria.

He said the fighters include 60,000 Syrians, 9,000 members of Hezbollah, 3,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guard members and “10,000 members of violent Shia militias recruited from across the Middle East, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

The figures could not be independently confirmed, but Danon said the Iranians “speak about 100,000 troops under their control in Syria.”

In addition, he said, Iran is investing “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Syria including on land and factories.

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Iran Leader Said Eyeing Ways To Muzzle ‘Mad Dog’ Internet

January 26, 2018

Radio Free Europe January 26, 2018 12:39 GMT

Source: Iran Leader Said Eyeing Ways To Muzzle ‘Mad Dog’ Internet

{Treat your people like dogs and you risk being bit. – LS}

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met recently with “cyberspace experts” to discuss challenges that the Internet poses to Iran’s leadership, the head of the powerful Guardians Council said.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati did not specify when Khamenei’s meeting took place, but many Iranian officials have blamed social media for fomenting unrest that erupted in December and January before curbs on mobile networks and apps and thousands of arrests helped authorities put down street protests in dozens of cities.

In remarks published on January 26 by the hard-line Tasnim news agency, which has links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Jannati went on to describe the Internet as a “pain in the neck” for Iran, whose authorities routinely block news and information websites and social media in addition to foreign television and radio broadcasts.

The Guardians Council that the 91-year-old Jannati chairs has broad powers to interpret the constitution and vet legislation and candidates for office.

Jannati warned vaguely that measures “should be taken” in connection with the threat from cyberspace.

“I’m not saying it has to be fully blocked,” Jannati added, “That’s impossible. But we have to reduce it.”

He cited Chinese and Japanese efforts to rein in access to the Internet, although it was not immediately clear what steps in Japan he was referring to.

Iranian officials in the past have explored options ranging from a system to steer local IP addresses to a domestic Internet — dubbed a “National Data Network” — to routine blocks on messaging apps and other digital tools.

But such tactics have left Iranians relatively savvy in the ways of avoiding web filters.

Provisional Friday Prayers leader in Tehran Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said on January 26 that the recent protests were led by “cyberspace seditionists.”

“Cyberspace as a platform for foreigners is a mad dog,” he said, adding, “If left alone, it will bite again.”

Iran temporarily blocked Telegram and the photo sharing app Instagram in the early days of the protests, which Khamenei blamed on “foreign enemies.”

Hundreds of Iranians are still believed to be in detention over the protests, which were the country’s biggest since millions of people took to the streets after a disputed presidential election in 2009.

The United States on January 12 announced new, targeted sanctions on 14 Iranian individuals and organizations for “serious human rights abuses,” censorship, and nonnuclear weapons issues, a Treasury Department spokesperson said.

Categories: Iranian Oppression
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Iran’s Fast Boats Stop Harassing U.S. Navy, Baffling Military

January 26, 2018


The U.S. says Iran has halted the harassment of U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf by boats like this Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps speedboat, shown in 2012. Photo: Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By Gordon Lubold in Washington and Nancy A. Youssef in Kuwait City Updated Jan. 25, 2018 4:08 p.m. ET The Wall Street Journal

Source: Iran’s Fast Boats Stop Harassing U.S. Navy, Baffling Military

{Are we tired of winning yet? Nope…MAGA – LS}

Tehran halts dangerous encounters in Persian Gulf amid tensions over nuclear deal.

The Iranian military has halted the routine harassment by its armed “fast boats” of U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military said, a turnabout that officials welcomed but were at a loss to explain.

The boats for at least two years would dart toward the U.S. vessels as they passed through the Persian Gulf, risking miscalculation, but haven’t done so for five months, U.S. military officials said.

The officials said they hoped the respite would continue. “I hope it’s because we have messaged our readiness…and that it isn’t tolerable or how professional militaries operate,” Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who heads U.S. Central Command, told reporters traveling with him in the Middle East this week. Iranian officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The fast boats, typically armed with .50 caliber machine guns and rocket launchers, have come within shooting distance of American naval vessels, encounters that grew routine even though each one presents potential dangers to American vessels transiting through international waters.

In some of the more serious incidents, Iranian crews have directed spotlights at ship and aircraft crews, potentially blinding pilots as they conduct operations, according to U.S. military officials. In one case, an Iranian boat pointed a weapon at an American helicopter flying off a Navy vessel, officials said. In the most serious incidents, U.S. vessels have fired warning shots in return.

The Iranian boats are typically crewed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, U.S. military officials have said. The IRGC is Iran’s elite military unit and reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Since January 2016, there has been an average of more than two “unsafe or unprofessional” incidents each month, according to the U.S. military. There have been 50 such incidents in the last two years, officials said.

But in response to a query, U.S. military officials said there have been no such incidents since August 2017.

The apparent shift in Iranian behavior comes as an international nuclear agreement with Tehran is teetering as President Donald Trump threatens to end U.S. sanctions relief provided to Tehran under the deal, signed under President Barack Obama.

Washington’s European allies are discussing ways of heightening sanctions against Iran for actions not directly related to the country’s nuclear program.

Gen. Votel said that the abatement in the Persian Gulf didn’t alone signal a broader “strategic shift” by Iran, noting activities such as Iran’s support of Houthi rebels in Yemen. “I think we have to look at Iran in totality,” Gen. Votel said.

The U.S. has publicly criticized what it says is Iranian backing of the Houthis. Iran also has sent forces to Syria and backs militants operating there on behalf of the Assad regime.

Military officials noted that while Iranian harassment in the Gulf had declined, the country’s forces weren’t idle. Iran has been observed by the U.S. conducting activities that approach but stop short of what would be considered harassment, a U.S. military official explained.

Officials at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, in Manama, Bahrain, were loath to guess the reasons behind it.

“We are not going to speculate on the reason for this recent positive trend in interactions, though we hope it will continue in the future,” said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, in Manama, Bahrain.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said the decrease in harassment is part of a broader pattern by Tehran to refrain from provoking the U.S. and providing fodder for the Trump administration to blame them for regional instability.

“I think they understand the administration’s policy at this stage is to put the spotlight on Iranians and portray them as the source of all evil in the region,” he said. “The Iranians are certainly part of the problem in the region, but they’d like to be portrayed as part of the solution, not just the problem.”

The lull in harassment coincides with an internal directive last summer in which Mr. Vaez said Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council had ordered the IRGC to stand its ground in the region, but not to harass U.S. Navy ships. The council is presided over by President Hassan Rouhani but Mr. Khamenei has the final say.

Capt. Urban said the U.S. Navy hadn’t modified its operations in the region and would continue to operate “wherever international law allows.”

The last incident, in August, occurred when an Iranian drone flew in the vicinity of aircraft conducting night operations on the USS Nimitz.

Capt. Urban expressed concern about Iranians’ use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, to harass American vessels.

“Even with the decreased incidents, we remain concerned with the increased number of Iranian UAVs operating in international airspace at night without navigation lights or an active transponder as would be expected according to international norms,” he said. “We continue to advocate for all maritime forces to conform to international maritime customs, standards and laws.”

The U.S. military currently is participating in a joint exercise called Native Fury with the United Arab Emirates, designed for training in ways to get essential supplies into the Gulf region over land if the Strait of Hormuz was ever blocked, as Iran has threatened to do in the past. Some military experts see Native Fury as a message to Iran.

It is “a demonstration of our resolve,” Gen. Votel said. The Iranians also are conducting a two-day exercise in the Strait of Hormuz.

 

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