Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a gathering of the Basij, an all-volunteer force under the Revolutionary Guard, in Tehran, October 4, 2018. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said Iranians would not budge or change their stance following the new US sanctions targeting him and his associates.
The top Iranian cleric’s website on Wednesday quoted Khamenei as calling Donald Trump’s administration “the most sinister” US government.
Khamenei was also quoted as saying that “the most hated figures of such an administration accuse and insult the Iranian nation.”
“[The] Iranian nation will not budge and will not withdraw because of the insults,” he said.
Khamenei made the remarks as Tehran and Washington were in the midst of an escalating war of words following Iran shooting down a US drone last week.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 22, 2019, before boarding Marine One for the trip to Camp David in Maryland. (AP/Susan Walsh)
US President Donald Trump on Monday enacted the new sanctions against Khamenei and others. US officials also said they plan sanctions against Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The sanctions followed Iran’s downing last week of a US surveillance drone, worth over $100 million, over the Strait of Hormuz, sharply escalating the crisis.
Trump said he pulled back from retaliatory strikes on Iran at the last minute, rejecting Tehran’s claim that the aircraft was in its airspace.
But pressure mounted this week with Trump announcing sanctions on Khamenei and other top officials.
The new measures are the latest against Tehran since Trump pulled out of a landmark nuclear accord between Iran and world powers.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks in a ceremony at Imam Khomeini International Airport, south of the capital Tehran on June 18, 2019. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sought to rein in soaring tensions between the two countries, telling his French counterpart that Iran was not seeking war with the US.
“Iran has no interest to increase tension in the region and it never seeks war with any country, including (the) US,” the president told Emmanuel Macron, according to state news agency IRNA.
Rouhani blamed the United States for regional tensions and said if Washington had stuck to the deal “we would have witnessed positive developments in the region.”
Iran announced in May it would suspend two of its pledges under the 2015 deal, giving the agreement’s remaining supporters two months to help it circumvent US sanctions.
On Tuesday Tehran’s top security official, Ali Shamkhani, said Iran would “forcefully” reduce further commitments from July 7.
F-35 fighter jets from Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom take part in an aerial exercise over the Mediterranean Sea on June 25, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)
F-35 fighter jets from Israel, the United States and United Kingdom conducted training flights over the Mediterranean Sea Tuesday in the Israeli aircraft’s first-ever international exercise, the military said.
This marked a significant show of military cooperation between the three countries.
The Israel Defense Forces received the fifth-generation stealth fighter from the United States’ Lockheed Martin defense contractor in late 2016 and declared it operational roughly a year later. In 2018, the Israeli Air Force revealed it had used the F-35 operationally — including at least once over Lebanon — making it the first military in the world to do so.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom said its F-35 fighter jets had also conducted their first missions, flying sorties over Iraq and Syria as part of the fight against the Islamic State terror group.
The joint drill, which included dogfights between the F-35 fighter jets, was dubbed “Tri-Lightning,” a reference to the aircraft’s official designation, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
“The first international air exercise involving Israeli F-35 planes alongside foreign F-35 planes was held yesterday. The exercise was held over the Mediterranean Sea and simulated survival scenarios and defense against varying threats from advanced aircraft, including the F-35 plane,” the IDF said in a statement.
The Israeli Air Force said it planned to hold additional international exercises with the stealth fighter jets in the future in order to “advance its capabilities.”
F-35 fighter jets from Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom take part in an aerial exercise over the Mediterranean Sea on June 25, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)
As one of the world’s leading air forces, the IAF regularly leads and participates in international exercises, including its flagship biennial Blue Flag drill.
Israel was also invited to take part in the British Royal Air Force’s Cobra Warrior exercise planned for September 2019.
“International cooperation between Israel, the US and Britain strengthens our joint interests and our new, exclusive capabilities in the Middle East,” said IAF Chief of Air Staff Brig. Gen. Amnon Ein-Dar.
Last week, the air force held a large multi-day exercise simulating combat action on multiple fronts, the army said Tuesday, with F-35s taking part for the first time.
That drill included night and day missions by fighter jets, helicopters, cargo planes, drones, air defense units and ground support forces. It simulated simultaneous fighting in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon, and included scenarios involving an enemy armed with advanced technology, such as the Russian S-300 and S-400 missile defense systems; a home front under massive missile attacks; and challenges such as damaged runways and disabled IAF communications centers.
An Israeli Air Force F-35 is seen during an air force exercise, June 2019. (IDF Spokesperson)
The IAF has acknowledged receiving from the US-based Lockheed Martin defense contractor at least 14 F-35 fighter jets of the 50 that have been ordered. These are scheduled to be delivered in installments of twos and threes through 2024.
The fifth-generation F-35 has been lauded as a “game-changer” by the military, not only for its offensive and stealth capabilities, but for its ability to connect its systems with other aircraft and form an information-sharing network.
Detractors, however, balked at the high price tag for the aircraft: approximately $100 million apiece (Lockheed Martin says the cost is expected to go down as more countries purchase the F-35).
“We can turn this region from a victim of past conflicts into a model for commerce and advancement,” White House senior adviser Jared Kushner says at US-led economic conference in Bahrain. “My direct message to the Palestinians is that despite what those who have let you down in the past have told you, President Trump and America has not given up on you.”
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks at the “Peace to Prosperity” conference in Manama, Bahrain, Tuesday | Photo: Reuters
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, appealed Tuesday for the Palestinians to consider a $50 billion economic support plan, even though they already rejected the proposal because it does not include a political resolution to the long-running conflict with the Israelis.
Kushner, speaking at a conference in Bahrain, defended the proposal as the foundation of any eventual peace plan. Meanwhile, Palestinians protested the plan in the streets of the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere.
The president’s son-in-law sought to defend his long-anticipated plan at the start of a two-day workshop aimed at building support for a program to combine private investment and support from regional governments to transform economically challenged Palestinian communities.
“One who is more hopeful and sees an opportunity for his or her family will put energy into pursuing opportunity, instead of blaming others for their current misfortune,” Kushner said. “That is why agreeing on an economic pathway forward is a necessary precondition to what has previously been an unsolvable political situation.”
“My direct message to the Palestinians is that despite what those who have let you down in the past have told you, President Trump and America has not given up on you,” Kushner said. “This workshop is for you, and if this is executed correctly, it will lead to a better future for the Palestinian people: a future of dignity, prosperity and opportunity.”
He continued: “What we have developed is the most comprehensive economic plan ever created specifically for the Palestinians and the broader Middle East… We can turn this region from a victim of past conflicts into a model for commerce and advancement throughout the world.
“To be clear, economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people are not possible without an enduring and fair political solution to the conflict … one that guarantees Israel’s security and respects the dignity of the Palestinian people… “However, today is not about the political issues. We will get to those at the right time,” he said.
Kushner’s audience in the tiny Gulf kingdom did not include any official Palestinian delegation. Israel, which will have to sign off on many of the proposal’s projects, did not send any government officials, either. Those who heard Kushner in person were Arab finance ministers, the heads of international financial organizations and global business executives and investors.
While the representation was broad, many countries’ delegations were not headed by cabinet ministers, an indication of their uncertainty about the proposal’s viability.
The Palestinians have rejected the proposal – which aims in 10 years to create a million new jobs, slash unemployment and improve living standards in the West Bank, Gaza and across the Middle East – because it does not include a horizon for granting independence. US officials say the political portion of the plan addressing such thorny issues may not be released until fall.
Kushner acknowledged that a political solution is crucial to the success of the economic proposal. He said it was more important to first set out what is economically possible.
“Agreeing on an economic pathway forward is a necessary precondition to resolving what has been a previously unsolvable political situation,” he said.
Trump boiled it down to even simpler terms: “We have to get economic support because the Palestinians don’t have money, and we have to help the Palestinians with some money,” he told reporters at the White House.
But, without proposals on borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, the Palestinians say the economic plan is meaningless. To express their rejection, Palestinians in Gaza called a general strike on Tuesday to protest the meeting, with demonstrators in the West Bank burning effigies of Trump and featuring a donkey pasted over with images of Gulf royals.
“Palestine is not for sale!” protesters chanted. “From Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, we are not tempted by your millions!”
Besides opposition from the intended beneficiaries of the proposal, the plan has been criticized by former diplomats, aid workers and others involved in past peacemaking efforts for being unrealistic and lacking any clear description of who will pay for it.
Trump, Kushner and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin argue that a new approach is needed precisely because previous efforts have fallen short. They note that the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will attend and speak at the event, as will the head of FIFA, the international soccer federation, and the managers of numerous large investment funds.
The Palestinians wrote to FIFA chief Gianni Infantino on Tuesday urging him to reconsider his participation.
“How can the president of the highest governing body of football, and the most outspoken person on the importance of separating politics from sports, agree to participate in a political workshop whose objective is to determine the future of Palestine in the absence of Palestinians?” the letter said.
Enthusiasm has also been tempered by the Trump administration’s refusal to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the “two-state solution” that has long been viewed internationally as the only viable path to lasting peace.
Even the Arab delegations attending the meeting in Bahrain have couched their participation with reaffirmations of support for an eventual Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia, one of the few Arab countries to send its foreign minister to the event, said it remained committed to that end with a state based on the border that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.
Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab nations to have signed peace deals with Israel, are sending only midlevel representatives to Bahrain and said they would not abandon demands for a Palestinian state.
At a ceremony hosted by Israel’s president to mark 40 years of Egyptian-Israeli peace on Tuesday, Egypt’s ambassador to Israel, Khaled Azmi, said his country’s “vision was, and still is, based on full nation-statehood and security for everyone in the region.”
Bahrain, which has close ties to the Saudis, has been criticized for hosting the conference and sharply limited the number of journalists allowed to cover it. It has defended its decision by saying its only objective is to support the “brotherly Palestinian people.”
Although Bahrain has cracked down on dissent, Bahraini opposition voices protested the meeting on social media, particularly on Twitter, where Arabic hashtags about the workshop were trending under banners “Down with Bahrain conference” and “Down with the Deal of Shame.”
In this April 9, 2018 file photo, released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani listens to explanations on new nuclear achievements at a ceremony to mark “National Nuclear Day,” in Tehran, Iran. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As Iran prepares to surpass limits set by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, each step it takes narrows the time the country’s leaders would need to have enough highly enriched uranium for an atomic bomb — if they chose to build one.
The United Nations says Iran has so far respected the deal’s terms. But by Thursday, Iran says it will have over 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of low-enriched uranium in its possession, which would mean it had broken out of the atomic accord.
European countries that are still a part of the nuclear accord face a July 7 deadline imposed by Tehran to offer a better deal and long-promised relief from US sanctions, or Iran will also begin enriching its uranium closer to weapons-grade levels.
Breaking the stockpile limit by itself doesn’t radically change the one year experts say Iran would need to have enough material for a bomb. Coupled with increasing enrichment, however, it begins to close that window and hamper any diplomatic efforts at saving the accord.
“I worry about the snowball effect,” said Corey Hinderstein, a vice president at the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative who once led the US Energy Department’s Iran task force. “Iran now takes a step which puts Europe and the other members of the deal in an even-tougher position.”
Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran agreed to have less than 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to a maximum of 3.67 percent. Previously, Iran enriched as high as 20%, which is a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade levels. It also held up to 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of the higher-enriched uranium.
Iran’s uranium conversion facility near Isfahan, which reprocesses uranium ore concentrate into uranium hexafluoride gas, which is then taken to Natanz and fed into the centrifuges for enrichment, March 30, 2005. (AP/Vahid Salemi)
Experts who spoke to The Associated Press described the enrichment and stockpile limits in the deal as a sort of sliding scale. Balancing both elements keeps Iran a year away from having enough material for a nuclear weapon, something Iran denies it seeks despite Western concerns about its program.
At the time of the deal — which was signed by Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain — experts believed Iran needed anywhere from several weeks to three months to have enough material for a bomb.
However, the stockpile limit isn’t an immediate worry from a nonproliferation standpoint, experts say.
“Going over the limit doesn’t immediately signify that Iran has enough material that could — if further enriched and processed — be used in a nuclear weapon,” said Tom Plant, the director of proliferation and nuclear policy at London’s Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.
“It does mean that it builds up reserves of material that could in the future support a more rapid push to the higher levels of enrichment that are suitable for weapons use,” Plant said.
The danger comes July 7, if Iran begins enriching uranium to higher levels.
“If Iran begins stockpiling uranium enriched to higher levels, the breakout timeline would decrease more quickly,” said Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
US President Donald Trump signs with US Vice President Mike Pence(R) and US Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin at the White House on June 24, 2019, ‘hard-hitting sanctions’ on Iran’s supreme leader. (MANDEL NGAN / AFP)
Both Davenport and Ian Stewart, a professor at King’s College London who runs its anti-proliferation studies program called Project Alpha, worry about miscalculations from Iran, the US or the West amid the brinkmanship.
“This highlights the real tension at play in Iran: doing enough to satisfy Iranian hard-liners while also maintaining EU, Chinese and Russian support” for the deal, Stewart said. “There’s a real risk of miscalculating, not least because it’s not clear at which point the EU will have to back away from a non-compliant Iran.”
Davenport says Iran’s moves probably are aimed at gaining leverage in negotiations.
“Even if Iran decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, it would still take months to further enrich and weaponize the uranium,” she said. “It is critical that the United States does not overreact to a stockpile breach and use it as an excuse to further ratchet up tensions in the region.”
A year after US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the US and Iran are already locked in a volatile standoff. Last week, Iran shot down a US military drone, saying it violated Iranian airspace, though Washington said it was above international waters. The US has blamed Iran for mysterious explosions targeting oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran denied any involvement.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Israel has bombed nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria in the past, and reportedly pushed for a similar strike in Iran prior to the 2015 deal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exposes stolen files on Iran’s nuclear program in a press conference in Tel Aviv, on April 30, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Iran, for now, allows UN inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities via in-person checks and surveillance cameras. It also has yet to begin widespread use of advanced centrifuges that would speed its enrichment. Experts fear either of those happening.
Once Iran starts going beyond the terms of the nuclear deal, one fact remains indisputable: the time it needs to have enough material for a possible atomic bomb starts dropping.
“As soon as they go over 300 or above 3.67, that number is starting to count down from one year,” Hinderstein warned. “So if they do both, then it’s just going to steepen that line from one year to wherever they end up.”
The first gettogether of the US, Russian and Israel national security advisers on Tuesday, June 25 in Jerusalem proved a useful forum for the powers to air pressing Mid East concerns even without a breakthrough. John Bolton, Nikolai Patrushev and Meir Ben-Shabbat, who was upstaged by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, also shone interesting light on their boss’s respective policies.
President Donald Trump’s anti-Iran offensive seems to have narrowed down to a single focus, i.e., Iran will never be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb. The 12-point ultimatum for Iran elaborated not long ago by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has faded away. Since Trump’s next steps are unknown, there was not much point in the three security advisers coming to conclusions or even indulging in far-reaching brainstorming.
There was also little point in trying to double-guess Iran’s next moves. Tehran abruptly killed any form of diplomacy with Washington after the imposition of US sanctions on Monday, June 24 against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Even the quiet, discreet dialogue taking place in Baghdad, with Swiss and Iraqi mediation, that was revealed exclusively by DEBKAfile, has been shut down.
All three officials concurred in urging the removal of all foreign troops from Syria as a general proposition, although they were divided – the US and Israel versus Russia – on the Iranian military presence there and other details.
The US national security adviser John Bolton limped into the meeting after President Trump cut him down in an NBC interview: “John Bolton is absolutely a hawk,” he said. “If it was up to him, he’d take on the whole world at one time.” Not long ago, Bolton was Trump’s chief point man with the Kremlin, but this role appears to have faded in recent months. Bolton’s troubles at home helped reduce parts of the tripartite event to a conversation between the Russian and Israeli advisers.
Therefore, the plan was ditched for Bolton and Patrushev, with Netanyahu’s assistance, to produce a joint working script on key Middle East issues for the Trump-Putin sitdown at the Osaka G20 summit later this month.
That the top security officials of the two world powers sat down at the same table in Jerusalem to discuss vital regional issues in partnership with Israel must be chalked up to Netanyahu as an extraordinary feat of diplomacy and an unprecedented boost for Israel’s international prestige.
A little noticed feature of the event was another groundbreaker. It was Moscow’s consent to the Israeli prime minister chairing this high-powered meeting at an East Jerusalem venue, the Orient Hotel. By that gesture, along with other pro-Israeli steps, Putin injected some Russian input into Trump’s recognition of both parts of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Putin was not amiss to the security conference in Jerusalem outshining the US-sponsored economic event on the future of the Palestinians which took place on the same day in Manama, Bahrain.
In a speech opening the meeting, Netanyahu announced that President Putin would be visiting Israel later this year. This news was completely ignored by the local media. It was taken rightly as another vote of support for Netanyahu’s run for re-election in September, just as the Kremlin backed him in the April vote.
History has been made over the last week as UK F-35s have completed their first operational missions over Iraq and Syria 
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