WarSclerotic

Demonstrations currently causing unrest in Iran prove that international economic pressure against the Islamic Republic is working, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday.

The U.S. decision to withdraw from the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions is causing “economic upheaval” and undermining public support for the government, the prime minister told  an audience at the Israeli Air Force’s pilot training graduation ceremony in southern Israel.

“Not only has the reimposition of sanctions not united the Iranian public around the regime, the complete opposite is happening,” he said. “Many in Iran understand that the regime of the ayatollahs is wasting precious resources on foreign military subversion instead of investing in civilian needs at home.”

The prime minister has been an outspoken opponent of the nuclear deal and welcomed the U.S. withdrawal in May.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu spoke directly to the Iranian people in a video recording, hailing their “courage in the streets of Iran.”

“Can you imagine what would happen if the Iranian government, instead of wasting your money on Syria and Yemen and unnecessary wars in the Middle East, would start investing it in solving these problems in Iran?” he asked.

In a complex overnight operation early Friday, the Israeli military transported 60 tons of humanitarian aid and supplies to Syrian refugees stranded in tent camps across the border in the Syrian Golan.

Dropping off supplies in four separate locations in an hourslong operation, Israeli troops provided the Syrians 300 tents, 13 tons of food, 15 tons of baby food, three containers of medical supplies and medication and 30 tons of clothing and shoes.

More than 120,000 people in southwestern Syria have been forced to flee since the government launched an offensive to recover the area near the borders with Jordan and Israel, a Syrian war monitor said this week.

The Syrian tent camps house several thousand refugees without access to water, electricity, food or basic amenities. In recent days, an influx of refugees has been recorded at these camps.

A video released by Israel’s military showed soldiers loading aid into trucks on the Israeli-controlled side of the border and the cargo being then carried into vehicles by unidentified people on the Syrian side.

The humanitarian aid provided by Israel is in line with Israel’s existing  “good neighbor” policy pertaining to the conflict in Syria. Israel has been sending aid across the border for several years and has provided medical treatment to thousands of Syrians that reached the frontier with the Israel-controlled Golan.

But the IDF proclaimed that it would not allow Syrian refugees to cross the border and enter Israeli territory.

Tensions on the Golan Heights were running high on Thursday amid concerns in Israel that thousands of Syrian refugees would try to breach the border and seek shelter in the Jewish state.

The IDF said it was closely monitoring the situation as an increasing number of Syrian refugees amassed at the border area.

The refugees were fleeing the fighting between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, supported by Russian airstrikes, and rebel groups in the country’s southwest. Jordan has already said it would not allow any more Syrian refugees to cross its border.

Israel’s primary interest, a senior defense official said, continues to be avoiding involvement in the war in Syria and “therefore, we will not intervene even when Assad tries to seize the areas bordering Israel.”

The army, meanwhile, is preparing for a number of possible scenarios, including the deployment of Iranian forces, Shiite militias and Hezbollah fighters near its border, and increasing “spillover” – when errant mortar rounds fired by the Syrian army at rebel positions land in Israeli territory.

Meanwhile Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot embarked on an unexpected trip to Washington to meet with his American counterpart, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Eizenkot and U.S. defense officials planned to discuss the American-Israeli military partnership and the “significant security challenges in the various arenas in the Middle East,” the IDF said in a statement.

The purpose of the visit, another senior defense official said, was to coordinate military action against the Iranian presence in Syria.

Speaking at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on Thursday at a memorial for soldiers who fell in the Second Lebanon War, President Reuven Rivlin remarked that “Iran continues its subversive actions in the Middle East and arms organizations near our border.”

“The state of Israel will not stand idly by,” he continued. “We will not allow Iran to establish a foothold in Lebanon or Syria and we expect to see focused international pressure to remove Iranian forces from the Fertile Crescent.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a pilot’s training graduation ceremony at Hatzerim airbase in southern Israel, said: “We are constantly cultivating our strength; it costs a lot of money but it’s worth every dollar. Our air force is stronger than ever and we have the best weapons and technologies.”

“The air force displays its might defensively and offensively as an unparalleled strike force in the region and beyond,” he continued. “We are surrounded by threats and the air force has a role in neutralizing them.”

The No. 4 Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, 10-term incumbent Joseph Crowley from New York’s 14th distict, lost his bid for another term on Tuesday to 28-year-old democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The stunning upset is the latest sign that the party’s left-wing insurgency is ascendant in 2018. The pro-Israel Crowley had not faced a challenger from his own party in 14 years.

Ocasio-Cortez, who won 57.5% of the votes in New York’s 14th Congressional District primary, represents a considerable challenge for Israel, after criticizing the Israeli government’s policies and even describing Israel’s killing of violent Gaza border protesters a “massacre.”

Crowley, who was viewed as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi as minority leader of the House of Representatives, only received 42.5% of the votes.

Conceding defeat, Crowley voiced his support for Ocasio-Cortez.

“I look forward to supporting her and all Democrats this November,” Crowley said in his concession remarks. “The Trump administration is a threat to everything we stand for here in Queens and the Bronx, and if we don’t win back the House this November, we will lose the nation we love.”

U.S. President Donald Trump mocked Crowley, who he called “one of my biggest critics,” for losing the primary.

“Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election,” Trump tweeted Tuesday night. “In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!”

Ocasio-Cortez began her political career as an organizer for Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. To defeat Crowley, she ran an energetic, defiant grass roots campaign aimed at the outmoded Democratic establishment, drawing the bulk of her support from the party’s ultra-liberal younger voter base.

The outcome of the New York race added fuel to the battle between the Democratic Party’s establishment wing, led by longtime House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and a more liberal faction inspired by Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

“This is yet another canary in the coal mine for both November and the years ahead,” said Joshua Henne, a Democratic strategist. “You can look back four years to around now when Eric Cantor was knocked off and what that meant for an ascendant wing on the right. This is a big deal.”

“This is the beginning of a movement,” Ocasio-Cortez declared.

Amid mass protests in Iran over the country’s failing economy, the Trump administration on Wednesday began dismantling the sanctions relief that was granted to the Islamic republic under the 2015 nuclear deal. The move that follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear accord in May.

The Treasury Department announced that it had revoked licenses that allowed U.S.-controlled foreign firms to export commercial aircraft parts to Iran, as well as permitted Americans to trade in Iranian carpets, pistachios and caviar. It said businesses engaged in any such transactions have to wind down those operations by Aug. 6 or face penalties under U.S. sanctions. Another set of licenses covering other types of commerce, including oil purchases, will be revoked in coming weeks, with firms given until Nov. 4 to end those activities.

The step had been expected since Trump pulled the U.S. out of the landmark agreement, under which Iran was given relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program. Trump said the accord, a signature foreign policy achievement for his predecessor, President Barack Obama, was the worst deal ever negotiated by the United States because it gave Iran too much in return for too little and failed to address Iran’s non-nuclear aggression.

The other parties to the deal – the U.K., China, Germany, France and Russia – and the European Union have strongly criticized the U.S. withdrawal, which has left the agreement at risk of collapse. The Trump administration is stepping up efforts to isolate Iran and its faltering economy from international financial and trading systems.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was pushing foreign countries to cut their oil imports from Iran to zero by Nov. 4. Previously, the administration had said only that countries should make a “significant reduction” in their imports of Iranian oil or be subject to separate U.S. sanctions prohibiting all transactions between their central banks and Iran’s central bank.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the administration is now telling European and Asian countries that the U.S. expects their imports to hit zero by the time the grace period ends. Representatives of the State Department and the National Security Council are currently in Europe delivering the message, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The official added that the U.S. was working with other Middle Eastern countries to increase oil production to ensure that the global supply isn’t harmed.

Some close U.S. allies are among the largest importers of Iranian crude oil, including India and South Korea. Japan and Turkey also import significant amounts of Iranian oil, according to statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Agency. The biggest importer of Iranian oil last year was China.

As countrywide protests over a faltering economy and plummeting currency have persisted this week in Iran, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on Wednesday for those who “disrupt economic security” to be brought to justice.

“The atmosphere for the work, life and livelihood of the people must be secure,” he said in a meeting with judiciary officials, according to his official website. “And the judiciary must confront those who disrupt economic security.”

Khamenei’s comments came after videos emerged on social media sites of large protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Demonstrators were reportedly arrested at the scene while Tehran’s chief prosecutor accused the protesters of trying to harm the nation’s economy and threatened them with the death penalty or prison sentences of up to 20 years. He also said the courts would be barred from issuing more lenient sentences.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he had no intention of stepping down, and blamed the demonstrations on “an American and Israeli campaign against Iran.”

In a televised speech, Rouhani vowed not to surrender to the United States.”We will take problems. We will take pressure. But we will not sacrifice our independence,” he said.

“The Iranian people have to stand unified against the American pressure in order to bring the U.S. to its knees,” he said.

In an effort to intensify sanctions against the Iranian regime, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday it was important that India cut its dependence on Iranian oil. She said the United States would work to allow India to use an Iranian port as a corridor to Afghanistan.

After withdrawing in May from an international agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear aspirations, which saw crippling economic sanctions lifted, the U.S. instructed countries to cut all imports of Iranian oil from November and is unlikely to offer any exemptions, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on allies to cut off funding to Iran.

“Sanctions are coming [on Iran] and we’re going forward on that, and with India and the U.S. building strong relationships we hoped that they would lessen their dependence on Iran,” Haley told reporters after her meeting with Modi in New Delhi.

India is one of the largest importers of Iran’s oil.

“There’s a will, a political will, from both sides to figure out how to make this work,” Haley said. “Prime Minister Modi very much understands where we are with Iran, he didn’t question it, he didn’t criticize it, he understood it and he also understands that [India’s] relationship with the U.S. is strong and important and needs to stay that way.”

Haley said the implications of Iran-related sanctions would be discussed when the foreign and defense ministers of India and the U.S. meet shortly. Japan and South Korea, also major buyers of Iranian oil, are in talks with the U.S. government in a bid to avoid the adverse effects of sanctions.

The threat of restored U.S. sanctions has caused the rial to collapse, hurting business by driving up the cost of imports. The rial traded at 78,500 against the dollar in the unofficial market on Wednesday, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com. This compares to around 43,000 at the end of last year.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday commented on the demonstrations in Iran, saying protesters are fed up with the country’s leadership.

“The people of Iran are tired of the corruption, injustice, and incompetence from their leaders,” he said in a statement. “We condemn the government’s same futile tactics of suppression, imprisonment of protestors, and the denial of Iranians’ frustrations.”

“#Iran’s corrupt regime is wasting the country’s resources on [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, Hizbollah [sic], Hamas & Houthis, while Iranians struggle,” Pompeo tweeted. “It should surprise no one #IranProtests continue. People are tired of the corruption, injustice & incompetence of their leaders. The world hears their voice.”