Articles

By: David Hurst – 14th May 2020

Tehran ordered Shia factions to back prime minister in return for Washington ‘looking the other way’ over release of assets targeted by sanctions

The nomination of Mustafa al-Kadhimi as Iraqi prime minister was the result of a horse trade between the US and Iran in which Tehran agreed to back the former intelligence chief in return for an unfreezing of some of its assets targeted by sanctions, senior Iraqi political sources have told Middle East Eye.

The US policy of exerting “maximum pressure” on Iran will not change, but the US agreed to de-escalate militarily in the Gulf and to “look the other way” if a third-party country in Europe released some of the Iranian money frozen when sanctions were applied, the Iraqi sources said.

As recently as 4 March, Kadhimi’s candidacy for the premiership was called a “declaration of war on the Iraqi people” by the top commander of the pro-Iranian Kataib Hezbollah militia, Abu Ali al-Askari.

Askari accused Kadhimi of involvement in the US drone strikes in January which killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and influential militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a charge explicitly denied by Iraq’s Intelligence Service (INIS).

Other Shia militia and political leaders also vociferously opposed Kadhimi’s nomination and yet last week his new government was installed with majority support in Iraq’s parliament.

Kataib Hezbollah continued to threaten Kadhimi personally but other Shia political factions influenced by Iran allowed his nomination to go ahead.

Iraqi sources say that a behind-the-scenes deal between Washington and Tehran explains the sudden U-turn, with Iran agreeing to lean on the Shia factions it influences in return for some relief from economically crippling US sanctions with the unfreezing of some assets in Europe.

Iraqi sources declined to say where Iranian assets would be unfrozen, but pointed to a decision last month by a court in Luxembourg to block a US request to transfer $1.6bn in Iranian assets to victims of the 9/11 attacks in a case dating back to 2012.

The Iranian assets are held by a Luxembourg-based clearing house, Clearstream, owned by Deutsche Boerse. The court decision was hailed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who said the country had won a legal victory over the assets that had long been frozen in Luxembourg at Washington’s request.

“The Americans managed to get their man, and the Iranians to get their money,” said one source with knowledge of the secret deal.

“The economic hardship that Iranians have faced, and all the difficulties they faced after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, has hit them hard. There were negotiations. The deal ended with the Iranians accepting this guy [Kadhimi] and they told their allies to vote for him.”

Easing of Gulf tensions
Kadhimi was asked in April to form the government after failed attempts to first install Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and then Adnan al-Zurfi as prime minister, following the resignation of Adel Abdul Mahdi last November over the killing of protesters by Iraqi security forces.

In March, a senior source in Tehran told MEE that the US had agreed to grant waivers allowing some countries to release Iranian assets without facing punitive measures to help Iran to buy medical supplies to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

“The efforts of some countries have led to the release of some of the Iranian central bank’s money,” he said.

“Those countries will receive a sanctions waiver [for releasing Iran’s frozen assets], this has been granted and we are following this issue.”

He added: “The unfreezing of Iranian central bank money will decrease pressure regarding the lack of foreign exchange for importing medication and life necessities.”

The Iranian source denied then that an official deal had been struck between Tehran and Washington. The report was also denied by the US State Department.

The Iraqi sources said that a precedent for the current agreement was set when Nouri al-Maliki was backed for a second term as prime minister by both Washington and Tehran, after nine months of political conflict following the victory of the al-Iraqqiya bloc in 2010 elections.

The sources said that the US’s withdrawal of Patriot missiles from Saudi Arabia last week and a lowering of military tensions in the Gulf was part of the deal with Tehran.

“As a consequence of this, to reduce the tension in the Gulf, there was a pullout of the Patriots. More importantly, the US agreed to give a green light to allow for Europe to release some of the frozen assets for the Iranians. The US will not object to the release of some of the frozen assets. They will look the other way,” the source said.

Track record
Kadhimi has a track record of working with US intelligence services, which dates back to his association with Ahmed Chalabi, the late Iraqi politician who provided US President George W. Bush with false reports about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A former journalist and editor with Al Monitor news website, whose real name is Mustafa Abd al-Latif, Kadhimi became head of intelligence services under the premiership of Haider al-Abadi.

In 2018, he attended a meeting in Washington with Mike Pompeo, who was then head of the CIA, and Khalid bin Ali al-Humaidan, the head of Saudi intelligence, to discuss measures to support the candidacy of Abadi and counter Iranian backed candidates. That effort failed.

MEE phoned Kadhimi’s office repeatedly for comment on this story but our calls went unanswered.

The possibility of a deal between the US and Iran over Kadhimi has been commented on in the Arab media.

The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper said in an editorial that the Iraqi parliament’s approval for the new government was important, but that it was an Iranian-American deal which was the “decisive matter that opens the way for the parliamentarians’ agreement, and then the regional and world agreement”.

In The Arab newspaper, also published in London, Ibrahim al-Zubaidi wrote: ”As you saw and you see, [political currents] agreed to pass it in parliament, as if nothing had happened, only when the last orders and instructions were issued from the [Iranian] embassy in Baghdad, or from the embassy of Uncle Donald Trump. Theatrics you would not have believed.”

Kadhimi’s nomination has been publicly welcomed in both Washington and Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would “be with the government with all our might to help it progress and establish stability”, according to a statement on the Iranian foreign affairs ministry website.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month announced details of a proposed strategic dialogue with the Iraqi government that is set to take place in June. Pompeo said that “all strategic issues” would be on the agenda at the talks.

Officials in Washington and Tehran played down reports of a deal over Iraq.

A State Department spokesperson dismissed the reports as “absurd”.

“We respect Iraq’s sovereignty and have consistently advocated for Iran to do so as well and end its interference in their internal matters,” the spokesperson told MEE.

The Iranian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment but an Iranian official approached by MEE said he had not heard of any deal, and described it as “unlikely”.

Significantly, the first call Kadhimi got after his nomination was from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who asked the new Iraqi prime minister to restart mediation with Iran, the sources said.

Although bin Salman will consider Kadhimi closer to him than any other candidates, the restart of a dialogue between Washington and Tehran is not strategically good news for Saudi Arabia. Secret negotiations by Oman to release an American prisoner in Iran ended up with the nuclear deal between Iran and the US under Barack Obama.

Along with the unilateral withdrawal of US-operated Patriot missiles, the crown prince is coming under fresh US pressure to end the three-year blockade on Qatar. To this end, the emir of Kuwait sent a minister to Qatar to reopen mediation efforts.

“While Trump will claim credit for his maximum pressure policies on Iran, the fact is US policy in the Gulf, the Saudi campaign in Yemen which it can no longer afford, and the pressures on Iran – all three powers are in trouble. And this is something for the Saudis to consider: the collapse of a US-based strategy to push back on Iran. Trump will not mind negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran, just as long as it has got his name on it,” said one Iraqi official.

This may lead to negotiations resulting in further agreements between Washington and Tehran, the Iraqi official added.

28th March 2020

Although he was exonerated, Dr Sirous Asgari remains locked up and tells the Guardian ‘inhumane’ jail is denying detainees masks and hand sanitizer

An n Iranian scientist who was exonerated in a US sanctions trial but remains jailed by immigration authorities said the conditions in detention were filthy and overcrowded – and officials were doing little to prevent a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

Dr Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor, was acquitted in November on federal charges of stealing trade secrets related to his academic work with a university in Ohio. Although the US government lost its case on all charges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has kept him indefinitely detained since the trial. Now he’s speaking out about the “inhumane” treatment that could cost him his life.

Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19.

In a phone call from the Alexandria Staging Facility (ASF), he said he believed the only safe option would be to shut down the facility due to the deplorable conditions. ASF is a 400-bed site where people are supposed to be detained for no more than 72 hours, typically a final stop before they are deported. But with Covid-19 travel restrictions and flight cancellations, Ice has been holding people for days on end in cramped bunkbeds alongside new arrivals who may have been exposed to the virus.

Asgari arrived at ASF on 10 March and has been seeking to voluntarily “self deport” to Iran. Ice has refused to let him fly home or be temporarily released with his family in the US. He alleged:

Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas. Asgari and a few other detainees have devised a schedule to try to clean surfaces themselves with the minimal soap available.
Detainees lack access to masks. For two weeks, ASF also refused to let Asgari wear his own protective mask, which he brought with him to the facility, and it has refused to supply one, despite his history of serious respiratory problems.
Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench. Because the facility is supposed to be temporary, there is no laundry available and detainees are stuck with the clothes they were wearing upon arrival, sometimes after long journeys.
There are no physical distancing guidelines at the facility. It appears no procedures or practices have changed in response to Covid-19 since Asgari’s arrival, even as Louisiana state and federal officials have urged people to isolate.
“The way Ice looks at these people is not like they are human beings, but are objects to get rid of,” said Asgari, a professor at the Sharif University of Technology, a public university in Tehran. “The way that they have been treating us is absolutely terrifying. I don’t think many people in the US know what is happening inside this black box.”

The situation is particularly worrying for Asgari, who is at risk of getting pneumonia if an infection like Covid-19 reaches his lungs. Given the conditions at ASF and treatment of detainees, if he were to get coronavirus there, “I don’t think I would survive,” he said.

Advocates said Asgari’s case was especially troubling given that there was no legal justification or logic to his continued detention. He arrived in the US in 2017 with his wife and with valid passports and visas but upon arrival discovered he was being prosecuted by the US government for alleged violations of sanctions law.

Asgari, a father of three, has deep ties to the US. He completed his materials engineering PhD at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, and two of his children live in the US. But the FBI surveilled him and ultimately he was charged with fraud and trade secret theft relating to his work with a university in Ohio.

During a long trial, Asgari won his case and was acquitted in November 2019, with a judge ruling the government’s evidence was insufficient. But because the US had revoked his original visa, he was then taken into Ice custody and has remained imprisoned since. He has asked Ice to let him buy his own ticket back to Iran, but he has not been able to go before an immigration judge and has not been granted bond to at least wait in the US with his daughter.

“It is so egregious. He didn’t do anything wrong,” said Mehrnoush Yazdanyar, an attorney and sanctions law expert who is helping Asgari’s family and facilitated the Guardian’s interview behind bars. “This is someone who is being unlawfully detained. Now if he gets corona, his chances of survival are slim to none.”

The stakes of his case escalated dramatically after he was taken to ASF on 10 March, just as the coronavirus was officially declared a global pandemic. The professor said the conditions at the facility were unbearable for long-term stays. New detainees are brought in at all hours, meaning it’s impossible to get sleep in his pod, where there can be up to 100 people in bunk beds in a single room. He puts toilet paper in his ears but has struggled to get any rest and now has a sleep disorder.

Asgari said there was not enough food. There is only one hot meal at 5pm and two smaller meals at breakfast and lunch, and no way to purchase any other food. There are six showers for his pod, and people have a hard time getting clean and can’t access clean clothes.

In other detention centers and jails, detainees often have official paid jobs and shifts cleaning the facilities. But at ASF, Asgari said, there was no system in place: “They say cleaning is everybody’s responsibility … They do sanitization once in a while.”

He said he had been trying to encourage others to help him clean on a schedule, and that sometimes they have Clorox in the bathroom, but that other times they have had to just use the foam soap from the showers.

One of his biggest concerns, however, is that so many people continue to be brought in and mixed with the detainees already there, violating the most basic standards of social distancing. “They are downplaying it in this facility, that it is safe … But the circulation of people under this coronavirus outbreak is absolutely nonsense … Coronavirus is a viral bomb waiting to blow up here.”

For reasons that are unclear, Ice transferred Asgari from ASF on Monday, took him out of state, then brought him back to the Louisiana facility two days later. When he returned, ASF finally let him use his own mask for the first time, Yazdanyar said.

An Ice spokesman did not respond to specific questions about Asgari’s case or allegations but said in an email that no one in custody in Louisiana had tested positive for Covid-19 and that detainees were “provided appropriate soap and cleaning supplies”.

He said Ice was conducting testing at Ice facilities and providing personal protective equipment in accordance with US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, and that all individuals were screened upon arrival.

Asgari said he was doing his best to help fellow detainees when he could: “I’m trying to comfort others.”

If Ice officials were forced to spend a few nights trying to sleep at the facility, “they would understand what an inhumane situation they have created,” he added.

ASF must close to save lives, he said: “Instead of shutting down, they are doing business as usual … The process is overruling human rights ”

Asgari said he struggled to comprehend the fact that he remained incarcerated months after his trial ended. “I am deeply hurt by the way I have been treated after I have been exonerated. Ice does not care about justice. Ice does not care about the constitution.”

Sirous Asgari
Sirous Asgari (born 7 August 1960) is an Iranian materials scientist and academician known for his research in lithium ion batteries, phase transformation and diffusion in solid materials. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Sharif University of Technology[1], Iran.

Asgari was born in Masjed Soleyman, Iran. He is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Iran. He received his Ph.D. in materials Science and Engineering (1997) at Drexel University. Prior to moving to the US, he obtained a MSc in Materials Science and Engineering from the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Tehran in 1992. He then returned to Iran and became a Professor, Department of Engineering and Material Science, Sharif University of Technology where he taught Structure of Materials, Electronic Properties of Materials, Phase Transformations, Physical Metallurgy, Materials characterization Techniques, Diffusion in Solids and Advanced Materials.[2] He is known for being an instructor with high impact teaching skills and his compendium for the course Physical Properties of Materials was said to be the best in the field among the material science students in Iran.[3] While working at Sharif University, he kept in touch with American scientists and in 2011, 2012 and 2013 he visited American academic institutions. He was arrested in 2013 by the FBI on trade secret stealing charges among others.

Publication[edit] Agari published tens of scholary articles within materials science and engineering field in peer-reviewed journals cited plus thousand times by the technical community.[4] A book he authored later became known as a standard text within the field. To gain control over the performance of novel energy conversion systems, Asgari extensively researched on heat treatment of materials in quest for tailored properties specifically for crystalline structures. in 1997 he suggested a novel strain hardening regime during large strain compression of low stacking fault energy Face-centered cubic alloys. Asgari together with colleagues formulated this hardening regime by microstructural evolution of the crystals and showed that such regime could lead to the formation of deformation twins, an observation that is instrumental in heat treatment of cubic center alloys.[5]

Legal case in the US[edit] While working at the Case Western Reserve University in 2013 on a project paid for by the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research, to create and produce anti-corrosive stainless steel through a heating process, Prof. Asgari was charged with stealing trade secrets, employment and visa fraud and arrested by the FBI.[6] He was then tried [7] at a Federal Court where he was acquitted from all charges.[8]

The Associated Press reported on 4 April 2018 [9] that an FBI agent misled a magistrate judge to obtain a search warrant in a trade secrets case according to the federal judge. Sirous Asgari’s emails cannot be used at trial because FBI agent Timothy Boggs “knowingly or recklessly made material omissions” in obtaining a search warrant for them in 2013, U.S. District Judge James Gwin ruled. However, later an appeals court (6th U.S. Circuit) [10] ruled that the FBI agent did not significantly omit important information and was not misleading the legal system.[11]

The FBI accused Asgari of being connected to the Iranian government due to a paper published by a PhD student at the same university but in a different campus. The judge, however, believed that “Connecting Asgari to the Iranian government because of this paper would be akin to connecting a chemistry professor at the Ohio State University’s Columbus campus to the American government because an astronomy graduate student at Ohio State’s Mansfield campus once did commercial telescope research that NASA could conceivably use”. The Federal judge, Mr. Gwin, also wrote that “mere employment as a professor at a state and privately supported university does not create probable cause”, and that Asgari’s November 2012 visa application also stated his visit was, at least in part, for business reasons.[9]

Detention in the US[edit] Although the US government lost its case charges (trade secret stealing and visa fraud), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has kept him indefinitely detained since the trial. Talking to Guardian, he expressed an imminent fear for his life due to the spread of COVID-19 virus and no precautionary measures at ICE detention facility in Louisiana.[12] In March 2020 ProPublica reported [13] that in a 10-Day span, ICE flew Asgari across the country nine times. He was allegedly shuttled from Louisiana to Texas, New Jersey and back on chartered flights full of migrants. Iran urged US to release Asgari after the Guardian coverage.[14][15]. On a supplementary coverage, Guardian reported on 4 April 2020 that Asgari and other detainees at the Winn correctional center in Louisiana expressed that ICE has isolated 44 of them together after they were possibly exposed to COVID-19. [16]

COVID-19 contraction[edit] On 28 April 2020, Guardian reported that Prof. Asgari eventually contracted COVID-19 after pleading for release. ICE told Asgari’s lawyers he would only be released to a hospital if he was struggling to breathe.[17]

Gov’t spokesman says Tehran keen on swap talks because of fears coronavirus could put lives of prisoners in US at risk.

Tehran is ready for a full prisoner exchange with the United States, according to a spokesman for the Iranian government.

“We are prepared to discuss this issue without any preconditions but the Americans have not responded yet,” Ali Rabiei was quoted as saying by the Khabar Online news website on Sunday.

“We hope that as the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease threatens the lives of Iranian citizens in the US prisons, the US government eventually will prefer lives to politics.”

Rabiei said Tehran considers Washington responsible for the health of the Iranian prisoners, adding “it seems the US has more readiness to bring the situation to an end”.

Rabiei did not elaborate but Iranian media in recent months said there are several Iranians in US custody, including Sirous Asgari, a 60-year-old university professor.

A senior US official, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “There has been no offer and no offer of direct talks.”

Last week, US officials said they were making progress in efforts to secure the release of Michael White, a detained Navy veteran in Iran. But they were also pushing back on Iranian suggestions that a swap was in the works.

‘Dire state’
Hillary Mann Leverett, CEO of the think-tank Stratega and a former US diplomat, noted the Iranian professor imprisoned in the US has been infected with the virus.

“No mechanism has been made for him to have medical furlough. He’s really in a dire state. He’s been acquitted and there’s no reason why the United States needs to hold him,” she told Al Jazeera.

White has been released from prison on medical furlough but has not been authorised to leave Iran, she said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is the most important thing happening here. But I will say there are more and more indications here in Washington that maybe there is some warming in the relationship,” said Mann Leverett, noting the US decision to remove Patriot missiles from Saudi Arabia, and tweets from Iran’s supreme leader suggesting “negotiation is a good thing to do”.

“So there’s some speculation here that there’s more going on behind the scenes. But I’ve seen no actual evidence of that,” she said.

The US has more coronavirus infections and deaths of any country in the world, with at least one detainee held in immigration custody dying last week. Iran, meanwhile, has the deadliest recorded outbreak in the Middle East and has so far temporarily freed about 85,000 people from jail in emergency measures.

Rare cooperation

In a rare act of cooperation, the two countries swapped prisoners in late 2019 – US graduate student Xiyue Wang, detained for three years on spying charges, and imprisoned Iranian stem-cell researcher Massoud Soleimani, accused of violating sanctions.

The exchange in December last year was facilitated by the Swiss government.

“There is no need for a third country to mediate between Iran and America for the prisoner exchange,” Rabiei said on Sunday, according to Khabar Online.

US-Iran tensions have escalated since 2018 when US President Donald Trump exited a landmark nuclear deal negotiated between Tehran and world powers.

Since then, Washington has stepped up economic sanctions on Tehran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing Iranian officials to return to the negotiating table to discuss a new agreement that also encompasses the country’s ballistic missiles programme.

The punishing financial measures have crippled Iran’s economy, triggering nationwide protests in November last year, but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has ruled out new talks with Washington until Trump lifts the sanctions.

by Amanda Morris, Northwestern University

After studying global data from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, researchers have discovered a strong correlation between severe vitamin D deficiency and mortality rates.
Led by Northwestern University, the research team conducted a statistical analysis of data from hospitals and clinics across China, France, Germany, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States.

The researchers noted that patients from countries with high COVID-19 mortality rates, such as Italy, Spain and the UK, had lower levels of vitamin D compared to patients in countries that were not as severely affected.

This does not mean that everyone—especially those without a known deficiency—needs to start hoarding supplements, the researchers caution.

“While I think it is important for people to know that vitamin D deficiency might play a role in mortality, we don’t need to push vitamin D on everybody,” said Northwestern’s Vadim Backman, who led the research. “This needs further study, and I hope our work will stimulate interest in this area. The data also may illuminate the mechanism of mortality, which, if proven, could lead to new therapeutic targets.”

The research is available on medRxiv, a preprint server for health sciences.

Backman is the Walter Dill Scott Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. Ali Daneshkhah, a postdoctoral research associate in Backman’s laboratory, is the paper’s first author.

Backman and his team were inspired to examine vitamin D levels after noticing unexplained differences in COVID-19 mortality rates from country to country. Some people hypothesized that differences in healthcare quality, age distributions in population, testing rates or different strains of the coronavirus might be responsible. But Backman remained skeptical.

“None of these factors appears to play a significant role,” Backman said. “The healthcare system in northern Italy is one of the best in the world. Differences in mortality exist even if one looks across the same age group. And, while the restrictions on testing do indeed vary, the disparities in mortality still exist even when we looked at countries or populations for which similar testing rates apply.

“Instead, we saw a significant correlation with vitamin D deficiency,” he said.

By analyzing publicly available patient data from around the globe, Backman and his team discovered a strong correlation between vitamin D levels and cytokine storm—a hyperinflammatory condition caused by an overactive immune system—as well as a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and mortality.

“Cytokine storm can severely damage lungs and lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome and death in patients,” Daneshkhah said. “This is what seems to kill a majority of COVID-19 patients, not the destruction of the lungs by the virus itself. It is the complications from the misdirected fire from the immune system.”

This is exactly where Backman believes vitamin D plays a major role. Not only does vitamin D enhance our innate immune systems, it also prevents our immune systems from becoming dangerously overactive. This means that having healthy levels of vitamin D could protect patients against severe complications, including death, from COVID-19.

“Our analysis shows that it might be as high as cutting the mortality rate in half,” Backman said. “It will not prevent a patient from contracting the virus, but it may reduce complications and prevent death in those who are infected.”

Backman said this correlation might help explain the many mysteries surrounding COVID-19, such as why children are less likely to die. Children do not yet have a fully developed acquired immune system, which is the immune system’s second line of defense and more likely to overreact.

“Children primarily rely on their innate immune system,” Backman said. “This may explain why their mortality rate is lower.”

Backman is careful to note that people should not take excessive doses of vitamin D, which might come with negative side effects. He said the subject needs much more research to know how vitamin D could be used most effectively to protect against COVID-19 complications.

“It is hard to say which dose is most beneficial for COVID-19,” Backman said. “However, it is clear that vitamin D deficiency is harmful, and it can be easily addressed with appropriate supplementation. This might be another key to helping protect vulnerable populations, such as African-American and elderly patients, who have a prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.”

The Islamic Republic could face a devastating second wave of coronavirus infections, but keeping the economy closed down without a safety net would have likely led to unrest and collapse.

BY SAHEB SADEGHI | MAY 5, 2020

As businesses resume their activities in Iran at the behest of President Hassan Rouhani, many experts have criticized the government’s decision and warned of a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak. Some even have accused Rouhani of favoring the economy over the health of the people.

According to the latest official figures, there are more than 95,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Iran, and the death toll has exceeded 6,000.

On April 22, Rouhani described the reopening of businesses as “a necessity for the country.”

To understand the reasons behind Rouhani’s risky and possibly dangerous decision, one needs to look back at the Iranian economy’s condition before the coronavirus outbreak

Iran’s economic growth rate was negative 7 percent. Stagflation had put the economy into a serious crisis.

After the United States’ 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions, Iran’s foreign trade and oil exports declined dramatically—and political tensions with Gulf neighbors spiked as the United States deepened the crisis.

In the meantime, the International Monetary Fund had predicted that Iran’s economy would shrink 9.5 percent last year, and according to the Central Bank of Iran, the annual inflation rate reached 41 percent, the highest level in 25 years. The number of unemployed people had already reached about 3 million before the coronavirus crisis, and some estimates would suggest the number to be even higher.

Then came the coronavirus outbreak. After the government’s decision to shut down businesses, at least half of Iran’s economy, which is dominated by service sector jobs, was seriously affected. The living conditions and welfare of an estimated 7.3 million people became precarious as millions lost their jobs and others had their wages or hours cut.

The shutdown came at a time when many businesses were expecting almost 50 percent of their annual income during the last two months of the Iranian year before Nowruz, the Persian New Year, at the end of March.

Every year during the last Iranian month of Esfand (beginning in February and ending in March) and before the New Year people usually do most of their shopping. Esfand is followed by the first month of the year, Farvardin (March 20-April 19), which is generally a month of holidays and tourism. During Farvardin, many businesses—including restaurants, travel agencies, and hotels—tend to witness a boom, but this year their revenues reportedly fell by more than 90 percent.

Estimates suggest that Iran’s GDP has now decreased by about 15 percent as a result of the disruption to businesses, and that the economy will shrink further compared to last year. Businesses have reduced their activities as well as their workforce, and statistics show that about 36,000 people are applying for unemployment insurance each day.

Although the increase in the unemployment rolls caused by coronavirus outbreak has not been officially announced yet, some estimates indicate that 1 million Iranians have lost their jobs during the crisis, while other figures put the number at 2 million.

Under such circumstances, government support could have eased the pain, but extending a safety net was not an option in Iran. While income support measures were introduced all over the world to deal with the economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak, Rouhani’s government could not afford to assist affected businesses due to a lack of financial resources, largely because U.S. sanctions have denied Iran access to its assets and money held in foreign banks.

The financial assistance amount that Rouhani has so far promised to support affected businesses is 100 trillion tomans ($6.25 billion), most of which is supposed to be paid to businesses in the form of loans. (One toman is equivalent to ten rials. Although the rial is the official currency, Iranians use the toman in everyday life.)

These loans have a three-year repayment term with a 12 percent interest rate. In the event of a second coronavirus outbreak and a bad economic situation, the government will give these loans to businesses; in normal times, bank loans would come with a higher 20 percent interest rate.

According to the Iranian economist Mohammad Hashem Botshekan, this economic package was more like a monetary policy than an economic stimulus; if the government were seriously considering an economic survival package, it would need to give interest-free loans to businesses, and it would provide free economic assistance to the people. Furthermore, the amount spent by the government compared to the volume of Iran’s GDP was insignificant.

After all, the U.S. government’s package accounts for approximately 10 percent of the country’s total GDP, the German and Japanese support packages are equivalent to about 20 percent of their GDPs, while the economic packages of some Persian Gulf countries accounts for about 30 percent of their GDPs. But the offered economic survival package from the Iranian government only equates to 2 percent of the country’s GDP.

Rouhani’s government also announced that it would give a 1 million-toman loan (about $62) to low-income families—an interest-free loan that would be repaid in 24 monthly installments, sparking widespread criticisms. This amount is equivalent to half of the minimum monthly salary of a laborer in Iran and would not do much to help people with their economic hardships.

But the Rouhani government’s revenues have shrunk dramatically. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, demand for oil has declined, pushing prices down. Moreover, another source of revenue for the Iranian government—taxes—has been seriously eroded due to the closure of businesses. Indeed, the government has stopped collecting taxes from some businesses that have been financially damaged as a result of the coronavirus pandemic—but it is the government that will decide which businesses receive a three-month deferment of tax payment.

In the end, Rouhani had only two options: Either he could go on with the shutdown of businesses and government bodies until the virus is brought under control and the medical and health system of the country is restored to normal, or, due to the dire economic situation, he could allow the businesses and government offices to resume their activities.

He opted for the latter and reopened the markets and government offices on April 11, a decision that sparked a great deal of criticism from medical experts as well as some high-ranking government officials such as the head of the judiciary, who criticized the government for prioritizing the economy over the health of the people.

Rouhani ordered almost all economic sectors, including financial markets and shopping centers to fully resume their activities. Some high-risk businesses such as sports clubs, big restaurants, and cinemas are not still allowed to reopen. Even now, several weeks after the decision was implemented, Iranian health officials are still declaring their opposition to it.

Since the reopening of businesses and government bodies, social distancing measures in Iran have not been observed; in a matter of few days, people began to act as if the coronavirus crisis was over and life had returned to normal.

Although the pace of coronavirus-related deaths has decreased recently, more than 1,200 new cases and about 100 deaths from the virus are still being reported each day. According to health officials in some cities, such as Tehran, the number of people infected with the coronavirus is increasing. Many doctors and officials in Iran’s health sector are scared, saying that the government’s decision to lift social distancing restrictions may soon lead to a second wave of infections.

Indeed, a resurgence of the pandemic could have a much more devastating impact. The illness and death of tens of thousands of people in a second wave would force businesses to close once again, and the Iranian health care system would come under immense pressure. Under such circumstances, the government would barely be able to keep the economy alive and stable. The government’s revenues would further shrink, and it would probably not be able to support poor and low-income families. In such a situation, millions of people could lose their jobs and a greater economic recession might put Iran’s economy at risk of collapse.

While Rouhani’s move could lead to a new outbreak with all the devastating consequences it brings, his unpopular decision has, for now, saved the economy from further deterioration and possible protests.

Rouhani’s decision was based on the view that Iran has passed through the first major wave of the coronavirus outbreak and that continuing curbs on economic activity are no longer justifiable. According to this view, an ongoing economic lockdown would have dangerous consequences for the country: The unemployment rate would rise sharply, many businesses would go bankrupt, and social unrest could follow.

While Rouhani is well aware that there is a risk of a second wave, the country cannot keep the lockdown in place for another month or two because the government cannot make up for the losses suffered by businesses, as wealthier governments in Europe and North America have done. That is why he is insisting on bringing the economy and society back to normal as soon as possible.

While the country has yet to leave behind last November’s public protests against the substantial increase in the prices of gasoline, fear of reemergence of public protests and riots was evident in a letter sent to Rouhani by 50 economists on April 3. They cautioned him that the economic consequences of the coronavirus crisis could lead to unrest in the second half of the Persian Year 1399, which has just begun, and that the next year, 1400, would be a year of crisis.

Saheb Sadeghi is a columnist and foreign-policy analyst on Iran and the Middle East. Twitter: @sahebsadeghi

By: Fabian Hinz / 24 April 2020

On 22 April, Iran successfully launched its first military satellite, Noor, using the new Qased Space Launch Vehicle (SLV). With the launch of the Qased, Iran has unveiled its parallel space program run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Corps (IRGC) for the first time. While fears about Iran’s previous space launches serving as cover for ICBM development have been vastly overblown, there are strong indications that Iran’s emerging IRGC track does indeed represent a hedging strategy aimed at acquiring long-range ballistic missile technology.

A parallel IRGC space program

The first sign that the launch of the Qased was different from previous Iranian launches lay with the people who pressed the launch button. While traditionally Iranian satellite launches are conducted by the Iranian Space Agency, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, the Qased was launched by the IRGC. This novel institutional setup was also reflected in the launch location. The Qased was the first SLV launched outside the perimeter of Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport, taking off from the IRGC missile development and launch complex in Shahroud instead. However, the IRGC’s role in the Qased was not merely restricted to launch operations. Both the Qased’s second stage motor, as well as the Noor satellite itself, were developed by the IRGC outside of the regular structures of Iran’s missile industry.

The recent launch was not merely a space launch conducted by the IRGC but rather the unveiling of a full-blown IRGC space program. IRGC Aerospace Force commander Amirali Hajizadeh stated that the IRGC’s space program had advanced in quiet for years and as per the IRGC’s modus operandi was only unveiled to the public after a successful test. IRGC Space Commander Jafar-Abadi declared that the IRGC’s space effort was a ‘super project’ which includes SLVs, satellites and ground stations. Open-source research indicates that IRGC has been operating an SLV development effort in parallel to Iran’s official space program since the second half of the 2000s and that the program was focused on more militarily viable solid propellants from its inception. Even though the Guard Corps’s space program suffered a severe setback when an explosion killed its leader and devastated its main research facility, the recent unveiling of the Salman, the launch of the Qased, and continuous ground testing at Shahroud offer ample proof that the program is back on track.

Technological advances in solid propellant technology

Iran’s Qasef SLV is a three-stage rocket, using a Ghadr liquid-fuelled missile as its first stage, a solid propellant Salman motor as its second stage, and an unknown small kick motor as its third stage. There is little novelty in the choice of a Ghadr as the Qased’s first stage: an improved version of the Shahab 3, the liquid-fuel Ghadr is a standard workhorse of the Iranian missile force and has already served as the basis for Iran’s Safir SLV in the past.

The real innovation of the Qased lies in its second stage, the solid-propellant Salman motor. First unveiled in February of this year, the Salman uses a set of sophisticated technologies including solid propellant, a swivelling nozzle for flight control and a light-weight carbon-fibre casing. Small in dimensions and limited in performance, the Salman is merely intended to serve as an upper stage for space launch vehicles. However, in many ways, it serves as a demonstrator for the technologies crucial to the development of modern, long-range missiles including ICBMs.

There are indications that Iran has already managed to scale up its recent advances in solid propellant technology. IRGC-Aerospace Force commander Hajizadeh claimed that the Qased’s use of liquid fuel Ghadr as a first stage was just a cheap interim solution for testing the Salman and that from now on SLVs would use a solid-propellant first stage. Hajizadeh also stressed that the IRGC was aiming for larger satellites in higher orbits, by definition requiring more powerful launchers. Geospatial analysis of the Shahroud site shows Iran might already have been testing larger diameter motors for several years.

The use of solid-propellant technology marks a significant deviation from Iran’s regular space program, which relies on relatively old liquid fuel technology. It was this outdated liquid fuel technology that shed doubt on American claims that Iranian space launches were merely a cover for ICBM development. While Iran’s large liquid fuel Simorgh SLV could, in theory, serve as a basis for ICBM development, it would be too large and immobile to serve as a viable weapons system. A large solid fuel-SLV, however, could be converted into a viable ICBM with relative ease.

The Qased itself is too limited in performance to serve as an ICBM with any reasonable payload. However, if converted to a ballistic missile, it would exceed Iran’s self-imposed 2000km range limit and represent the first step on the technological path towards an Iranian ICBM capability. How quickly Iran can proceed from this starting point depends on both the progress it has already made in large-diameter motor development, as well as the political willingness of Iran’s leaders.

A satellite launch out of the blue

Another significant alteration from previous space activities was the launch itself. Prior Iranian satellite launches used fixed infrastructure and were accompanied by days-long preparatory phases that generated geospatial signatures as well as local news reports and occasional Western intelligence leaks. By contrast, the Qased was launched from a mobile transporter-erector launcher, similar to the ones used for Iranian ballistic missiles, and came with no advance warnings either from Iranian or Western officials.

This kind of “guerilla launch”, mimicking a ballistic missile operation, is especially significant considering the fact that mobility and launch time preparation were the main reasons Iran’s Safir and Simorgh SLVs were considered badly suited for military use. Iranian officials boasted about the mobility of the system and its capability to be launched anywhere, indicating that the modus operandi chosen for the launch was very much a deliberate signal. With the Qased’s first stage being identical to operational Iranian ballistic missiles, and its second stage being solid-fueled, a potential missile system based on the Qased would not have substantially different levels of mobility or launch preparation time from existing Iranian ballistic missiles.

Strategic outlook

All of these features, as well as historical data from before the 2011 explosion, indicate that Iran’s IRGC-led space program will follow a vastly different logic from Iran’s civilian space program. Whereas Iran’s civilian program uses launchers badly suited for conversion to ballistic missiles, the IRGC’s seems intent on developing launcher technology applicable to long-range missile development and more or less subtly signalling these capabilities. Considering the IRGC’s domestic political and financial clout it can also be expected that the program will have far less oversight by Iran’s elected officials than its civilian cousin.

Of course, it is impossible to detangle these new developments from their broader political context. The US withdrawal from the JCPOA as well as the current administration’s maximum pressure campaign have greatly reduced incentives for restraint in missile and SLV development and emboldened hardliners arguing in favour of such programs. In short, the Islamic Republic has little to lose on the international stage anymore, while escalating missile and space launch vehicle development through flight testing offers a rare chance to return pressure vis a vis the United States and regain political leverage.

While Iran could, in theory, abandon its self-imposed 2000km range limit and start a run for an ICBM as North Korea did in 2017, this seems unlikely for the time being. It appears far more probable that Iran will keep travelling down the SLV path and in doing so will follow a step-by-step approach that combines the gradual escalation ladders, common to Iranian security policy, with the gradual development path that has characterised Iranian missile development. Indeed it seems feasible that the IRGC’s space program will evolve along a track not unlike Iran’s nuclear program, as a hedging effort in which gradual technical improvements are used for maximizing political leverage.

As long as there is time to act, Western decisionmakers should not squander valuable political capital on Iran’s relatively benign civilian space program and on unrealistic demands, such as a halt to all testing and development of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Category 1 missiles. Instead, it would be more valuable to aim for a formal or informal understanding that reinforces Iran’s 2000km range cap and limits the use of militarily viable fuel technologies in Tehran’s space programs. However, with the IRGC’s solid-propellant space program out in the open, and US-Iranian relations in continuous free-fall, even such a limited agreement seems like a distant goal these days.

The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN’s aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time.

Fabian Hinz | Research Associate, The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS)

In smoky, members-only cigar lounges and the bars of luxurious Beverly Hills hotels, Babak Broumand rubbed shoulders with organized crime figures and their corrupt associates in law enforcement, according to a 40-page affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Michael Torbic.(Los Angeles Times)
By MATTHEW ORMSETHSTAFF WRITER
APRIL 24, 20204:24 PM
An organized crime figure paid an FBI agent $10,000 a month in exchange for sensitive law enforcement information, according to court documents charging the agent, Babak Broumand, in a conspiracy to bribe a public official.

Broumand was arrested Friday at a market near his home in Lafayette, according to Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI. He retired in January 2019, one month after agents served search warrants at his home and businesses. Broumand worked at the bureau for 20 years, most recently in national security investigations for the FBI’s San Francisco field office. It couldn’t be determined Friday if he’d retained a lawyer.

In smoky, members-only cigar lounges and the bars of luxurious Beverly Hills hotels, Broumand rubbed shoulders with organized crime figures and their corrupt associates in law enforcement, according to a 40-page affidavit signed by FBI special agent Michael Torbic.

In September 2014, at the Grand Havana cigar lounge in Beverly Hills, Broumand met a lawyer who noticed the agent had expensive tastes. Seeing Broumand sporting a gold Rolex and a Gucci belt, the lawyer later told investigators he saw “an opportunity to recruit” the agent, the affidavit said.

The lawyer, who wasn’t named in the affidavit, is described as an associate of Lev Aslan Dermen, a petroleum magnate convicted last month of conspiring to plunder a half-billion dollars in renewable energy credits from the U.S. Treasury. The lawyer is cooperating with investigators in hopes of receiving leniency for his crimes, which include bank fraud, making false statements and bribing two federal agents, according to Torbic’s affidavit.

His relationship with Broumand turned corrupt in 2015, when he talked with the agent about his salary and asked if he was willing to “do something on the side,” the affidavit said. In exchange for $10,000 a month, paid in $100 bills, Broumand queried the lawyer’s name and others in secret law enforcement databases, which can disclose subjects of investigations conducted by the FBI and other agencies, the affidavit said.

In addition to this monthly retainer, the lawyer told investigators he also purchased for Broumand the services of an escort and feted him in Las Vegas, which they flew to by private jet. In all, Broumand accepted bribes and perquisites worth more than $200,000, according to investigators.

“While these are disturbing allegations, we found no evidence to suggest this went beyond an isolated incident,” Paul Delacourt, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in a statement. “The agents who investigated this case did so with professionalism and objectivity.”

The lawyer told investigators he leveraged Broumand’s position as an FBI agent in incidents both trivial and with national security implications.

Pulled over in 2016, he told a Burbank police officer his black Escalade had no license plates because it was a law enforcement vehicle and flashed Broumand’s parking placard. He used the placard to park at a red curb outside his office, he told investigators.

The lawyer also asked Broumand to vet a member of the Qatari royal family, for whom he was planning to purchase a Lamborghini, a Porsche and opioid pain medications, according to the affidavit. The lawyer said he wanted to be sure the royal — unnamed in the affidavit — wasn’t involved in terrorism and terrorist financing. After Broumand reported the royal was “okay,” the lawyer bought the agent a Ducati motorcycle, helmet and accessories for about $36,000, the affidavit said.

Broumand told the lawyer an FBI source was working with a Libyan general, who was trying to launder $1 billion to $2 billion in funds taken from Libya, according to the affidavit. Torbic, the affidavit’s author, said he has reviewed FBI reports showing a source told Broumand that Moammar Kadafi, the late leader of Libya, had directed $2.5 billion to be smuggled out of the country before the Arab Spring.

Broumand wanted to use the lawyer’s private jet for the operation and siphon some money off for themselves, the lawyer told investigators. After the FBI decided against the operation, which it deemed too risky, Broumand told the lawyer they could pull it off themselves with the jet and some armed security, the lawyer told investigators. In the end, the agent decided such a mission was too dangerous, the affidavit said.

In 2015, the lawyer arranged a meeting between Broumand and Dermen at the Ten Pound Bar in the Montage Beverly Hills hotel, the affidavit said. He had previously asked the agent to query Dermen’s name in law enforcement databases.

Dermen, previously named Levon Termendzhyan, has been investigated by an array of law enforcement agencies for decades, but until the guilty verdict last month in his tax fraud case, he had never been convicted of a felony.

The lawyer later told investigators Dermen was “intimidated” that he’d corrupted an FBI agent, because despite Dermen’s history of suborning law enforcement officers, he “did not have a FBI special agent on his payroll.”

Mark Geragos, who has represented Dermen for more than a decade, said federal prosecutors had withheld information in Torbic’s affidavit throughout his client’s two-month trial in the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City.

“It’s clear that the Main Justice lawyers were playing hide the ball,” Geragos said, referring the the Department of Justice, which dispatched attorneys specializing in tax crimes to prosecute Dermen. “All of this was kept from me, and Levon Termendzhyan is going to get a new trial.”

Dermen was close with two law enforcement figures: John Saro Balian, a former Glendale narcotics detective, and Felix Cisneros Jr., a former Homeland Security Investigations agent. Both were convicted of public corruption charges and sentenced to 21 months and 12 months, respectively, in federal prison.

In 2016, Broumand queried an FBI database for Cisneros, who was under investigation at the time for helping Dermen’s business partner travel illegally between the United States and Mexico, the affidavit said.

Broumand told the case agent, Brian Adkins, he’d run into Cisneros at a party at the Grand Havana cigar lounge for the lawyer, who was celebrating his admission to the California bar. He told Adkins he’d queried Cisneros in the database out of a “sixth sense,” but Akins was suspicious.

After this encounter, the affidavit said, Cisneros turned cold toward Santiago Garcia Gutierrez, a business partner of Dermen’s and confidential human source for the FBI, who was secretly recording his conversations with the Homeland Security agent. In subsequent meetings with Garcia Gutierrez, Cisneros used counter-surveillance tactics and made “false exculpatory statements,” as if he knew he was being recorded, the affidavit said.

After the party at the cigar lounge, Broumand told the lawyer he could no longer collect cash payments because he was “in trouble with the FBI,” the affidavit said.

The editor in chief and a social-media administrator of Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency were detained last week over a cartoon deemed insulting to the country’s leadership.

The cartoon, which appeared to mock Iran’s highest authority, was reportedly removed from ILNA’s Telegram channel shortly after being posted.

ILNA’s editor in chief, Masud Heydari, has been released on bail but the news agency’s Telegram administrator Hamid Haghjoo remains in detention. It is not clear if the two have been charged.

Tehran’s Prosecutor Ali Alghasi Mehr said on April 27 that an investigation has been launched into the affair.

“Immediately after the publishing of the insulting image, it was ordered to be removed from the channel,” Alghasi Mehr was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

“The [person in charge] of ILNA and the administrator of the Telegram channel were both arrested on the evening of [April 23],” he added.

ILNA has denied any affiliation with the “disrespectful” cartoon while accusing its opponents of having faked the news agency’s logo and falsely accused it of publishing the cartoon.

The cartoon mocks those promoting fake treatments to ward off the coronavirus, including drinking camel urine and inserting violet oil in the anus, under the guise of Islamic medicine.

It appeared to suggest that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is supportive of such measures, depicting him as a nurse who is calling for silence.

Hard Hit By Coronavirus

Iran has been one of the hardest hit countries in the Middle East by the coronavirus pandemic. It has officially recorded more than 91,000 confirmed cases and just over 5,800 deaths, though critics believe those numbers may be far higher given the lack of transparency and media freedom in the country.

A man who had posted online a video of himself drinking a glass of camel urine was detained last week after the video went viral and many Iranians mocked him on social media.

The New York-based Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Iranian authorities should immediately drop their investigations into Heydari and Haghjoo and let them work freely.

“At a time when prisons are petri dishes for the COVID-19 virus, Iranian authorities should cease locking up journalists for trivial offenses like allegedly sharing a cartoon,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said in an April 27 statement.

“Hamid Haghjoo should be released immediately, and authorities should drop any investigation into him, Masud Heydari, and all other journalists at the Iranian Labor News Agency [ILNA],” he added.

Criticism of Khamenei is a red line in the Islamic republic where the Iranian leader has the last say in all state matters.

Iranian leaders have called on citizens to follow health protocols and social-distancing measures aimed at containing the deadly outbreak that has killed over 5,800 and infected more than 91,000 Iranians, according to official figures. Real numbers are believed to be significantly higher.

Iran ranks 170th on Reporters Without Borders 2020 Press Freedom Index.

A number of journalists and cartoonists have been arrested in past years and charged with security crimes that are often brought against intellectuals and dissidents.

Ali Fathollah-Nejad – Visiting Fellow – Brookings Doha Center
Amin Naeni – Non-Resident Researcher – University of Tehran’s Department of Regional Studies

While President Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran has been building for three years now, the COVID-19 pandemic is making its impact much more acute. The administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been pressing the U.S. to ease or lift sanctions in light of the public health and economic crises affecting a huge number of Iranians. Iranian politicians say that they cannot import medical goods under sanctions; the U.S responds that such goods have been excluded from the sanctions list. Both sides owe solid evidence to prove their respective arguments.

Regardless of the exact details, Tehran has tried to use the present coronavirus crisis to improve its international position. Efforts by the Rouhani administration have focused on breaking the “maximum pressure” campaign, while hardliners continue to reject talks with Washington, hoping that the post-coronavirus era will see a new world order to the benefit of those challenging U.S. power.

“CORONA-DIPLOMACY” BY ROUHANI AND ZARIF

After Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the nuclear deal (officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) in May 2018, Rouhani has come under pressure from his domestic opponents. His approval rating is in decline, according to some of his opponents falling to below 10%. Against this backdrop, he has tried to revive his key campaign promise of ending onerous sanctions.

Toward this end, Rouhani has used a variety of tools to pressure Trump — in many cases via the Europeans — to ease sanctions. More recently, he sent a letter to the leaders of several countries, arguing that lifting sanctions is necessary for the Islamic Republic to effectively fight the coronavirus, while admitting that “sanctions have caused about $200 billion of direct damages to the Iranian economy in less than two years.” In the same vein, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has stepped up his own efforts, fielding the term “medical terrorism” — instead of merely “economic terrorism” — as a label for U.S. sanctions. He has also made phone calls and sent letters to his counterparts around the world, with his ministry engaged in a Twitter storm to increase pressure on the Trump administration. Zarif called on other countries to outright ignore U.S. sanctions, arguing that sanctions compliance is not moral during a pandemic. Russia and China joined Iran’s demand to lift sanctions.

Alongside efforts to get sanctions eased, speculation abounds that Rouhani and Zarif may be seeking to revive the nuclear deal. Abbas Abdi, a reformist political activist and journalist, says: “Rouhani wants to use the coronavirus for resolving the issue surrounding the JCPOA, lifting sanctions, and ultimately for talks with the United States. And because of this, he does not insist on quarantine.” Unlike other heavily affected countries, the Iranian president has opposed quarantine measures (imposing social distancing rules for only a short period), while Iranian physicians have insisted that such steps are necessary to contain the disease. When in mid-March the virus was rapidly spreading throughout the country, Rouhani said that “there is not any quarantine now and neither during the new year holidays,” which started on March 20 for two weeks. A member of the Chamber of Commerce said that the administration uses sanctions as an excuse to deflect responsibility, pointing out: “While other countries devote 10% of their GDP [to] fighting the coronavirus, Iran does not.”

REACTIONS IN WASHINGTON

In spite of high international pressure on Washington to ease sanctions — including from the United Kingdom and human rights organizations — the White House doesn’t seem likely to change course. A State Department spokesperson said the department had “no issues with humanitarian trade so long as it is conducted with strong due diligence measures,” with Secretary Mike Pompeo saying that “the whole world should know that humanitarian assistance into Iran is wide open. It’s not sanctioned.” When asked about Europe’s first-ever use of the INSTEX payment channel — which was designed to sideline U.S. sanctions — to supply Iran with medical goods, Trump shrugged and twice replied: “[It] doesn’t bother me.”

During the Obama administration, Iran resisted sanctions by boosting its nuclear capability (increasing uranium enrichment and the number of centrifuges); ultimately, via the nuclear deal, sanctions were eased. Rouhani has tried to restart this approach vis-à-vis Trump, by reducing Iran’s nuclear commitments, but it has not produced any U.S. concessions so far.

When President Trump decided to withdraw from the nuclear deal in May 2018, Rouhani confidently said that “our people won’t feel problems in their life tomorrow, next week, and over the next years. Now, I am happy that an annoying creature is out of the deal.” But after the U.S. re-imposed sanctions that cut Iran off from the JCPOA’s economic benefits, Rouhani said in September 2019 that he would be open to discussing “small changes, additions, or amendments” to the deal if Washington lifted sanctions. In retrospect, however, these overtures were part of a miscalculation from the Rouhani administration: Renegotiating the deal could have potentially been on the table before May 2018, but not after.

Now, amid the pandemic, the Iranian government’s campaign against Washington’s “maximum pressure” sanctions has yielded important international support, but the Rouhani administration still seems to misread the White House. Instead, Tehran has reverted to stressing its own ability to manage the crisis. On April 13, Zarif tweeted: “Despite US sanctions, Iran has made significant progress in fighting the pandemic,” and Interior Minister Mohammad-Reza Rahmani-Fazli emphasized that “there is no shortage in the country in terms of providing the necessary medical facilities and equipment for coronavirus.

DREAMING OF A POST-CORONAVIRUS “NEW WORLD ORDER”

Hardliners in Iran have routinely rejected any renegotiation with Washington. Kayhan, a major ultraconservative daily, has warned that the coronavirus crisis is not a time for talks. It recalled that when the nuclear deal was reached after long negotiations, the U.S. subsequently withdrew from it. Therefore, the paper maintained, negotiating with the U.S. would be the wrong decision. Vatan Emrooz, another hardliner daily, wrote that Rouhani’s policy has been the root cause of Iran’s economic weakness, lamenting: “The only response that has been given to society in this regard was to recommend passive patience in the hope of another president of the United States after the next election.” In the meantime, Baqer Ghalibaf, Rouhani’s two-time presidential rival who is poised to be the next powerful parliament speaker, has criticized the “inefficient management of the administration” during the COVID-19 crisis, accusing it of “concealment of reality, unprofessional optimism, and failure to use public and operational capacities across the country.”

In another key narrative, Tehran presents the coronavirus as an opportunity toward establishing a new world order. According to administration spokesman Ali Rabeie:

Today, the role of the U.S. in the international system is unilateral with economic, political, and military pressure. But in the post-corona era, we may encounter a multilateral world in which the truth is not based on American discourse. We can create a dialogue between Iran and the world for a system of truth production in the new era.

Javan, a daily close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has similarly written that “in the post-corona era, the shape of the international system has created golden opportunities in favor of the Islamic Republic.” It added: “If we make utmost use of the opportunities, Iran will become one of the main actors in the post-corona world. If the West wants to avoid the path of collapse and isolation, they must reform their relations with the East (China, Russia, and Iran).”

While the Rouhani administration’s “corona-diplomacy” has not translated into an easing of the White House’s “maximum pressure” campaign, hardliners in Tehran have reiterated their opposition to talks with Washington, contenting themselves with what they see as a post-coronavirus era on the horizon where their own geopolitical preferences — i.e. a world order with a declining United States — are being fulfilled

Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad & Alireza Nader – April 17, 2020

In its efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the religious dictatorship in Tehran has been consistently negligent. Yet the regime has been remarkably eager to claim that it deserves immediate relief from sanctions so that it can fight the virus more effectively. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo underscored this contradiction in late March by releasing footage of President Hassan Rouhani telling senior officials in surgical masks that Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had launched a “concerted effort to influence public opinion to say ‘no’ to sanctions” for the purpose of “bringing back our money seized in other countries.” As the State Department noted, the regime only wants cash – it has turned down offers of medical assistance not just from the United States, but from charities like Doctors Without Borders.

This episode points to the indispensable role that propaganda plays in the Islamic Republic’s strategy for defeating the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign. In the four decades since its inception, the regime has invested heavily in building a propaganda machine at home and abroad. Western countries, in particular the U.S., are the target of messages broadcast by multiple government agencies and regime-controlled “non-governmental” institutions. U.S. policymakers and analysts should pay close attention to the regime’s attempts to shape European and American public opinion.

The institutions that conduct Tehran’s influence operations each focuses on a specific task, but there are overlaps between what they do. Chief among these organizations are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the information arms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and a group of religious organizations including the Islamic Development Organization, Al-Mustafa International University, and the Islamic Propaganda Office of Qom Seminary.

** At official exchange rate of $1 = 42000 rial

*** We assumed 15 percent of the 150 million euro from NDF will be allocated to the foreign broadcasting program as the NDF fund has not been allocated to a specific program or budget item of the IRIB.

MFA and its Public Diplomacy Division are a pillar of Tehran’s efforts to influence U.S. public opinion. Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif has built a reputation, however misleading, as a reasonable diplomat whose opinions deserve more serious consideration than the ideological outbursts of the regime’s religious zealots. Educated in the U.S., Zarif has spent decades establishing personal connections with U.S. journalists, policymakers, and business executives in order to influence American public opinion and Washington’s policies.

The Public Diplomacy Division (PDD), headed by ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, plays an important role in disinformation campaigns together with the Iranian Expatriates Division, led by Hossein Jaberi Ansari. They seek to influence millions of Iranian expatriates, the majority of whom reside in Western Europe and North America. Regime officials regularly meet with Iranian expats around the world, in large and small groups. Some of these expats have founded organizations to promote sanctions relief and a more conciliatory approach to Iran. These shared objectives are not grounds for concluding that such organizations coordinate their actions with Tehran, yet the regime clearly places a high value on their efforts. The 2020-2021 budget allocates $105 million dollars for influence operations targeting the diaspora, nearly tripling the previous year’s funding. This remarkable increase amid severe financial pressures on the regime indicates the value of such efforts.

With its monopoly over radio and television broadcasts, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) plays a critical role both at home and abroad. To shape political discourse abroad, IRIB operates television channels in English (PressTV), Spanish (HispanTV), and other key languages. Political leaders such as Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labor Party, and Pablo Iglesias of Spain’s Podemos, have appeared on and/or consulted for IRIB stations. IRIB’s importance to the regime is clear from its budget; despite dire economic conditions, the agency will receive almost $1 billion this year, a significant increase over $488 million a year earlier. The budget also allows the transfer of available additional 150 million euro, almost $165 million, from Iran’s National Development Fund to IRIB. Furthermore, the budget does not include the substantial advertising revenue IRIB generates thanks to its broadcasting monopoly, an amount likely in the hundreds of millions. From its official budget, IRIB allocates almost 16 percent to foreign broadcasting.

The three religious organizations with a central role in projecting influence abroad – the Islamic Development Organization, Al-Mustafa International University, and Islamic Propaganda Office of Qom Seminary – chiefly focus on training Shiite clerics, sending missionaries across the globe, and disseminating Shiite propaganda. Their goal is to create a network of native missionaries in each country who are loyal to Tehran, an effort that has been especially successful in Latin America. In the United States itself, there are clerics sympathetic to Iran who frequently travel to the country. As with expatriate organizations, there is insufficient evidence in the public domain to conclude that these clerics coordinate with Tehran.

Al-Mustafa has trained 50,000 students from 122 nations so far. One teacher and advisor at Al-Mustafa is Mohsen Rabani, who served for decades as Iran’s top intelligence officer in Latin America and is wanted for his role in the 1994 AMIA terror attack in Buenos Aires, which claimed 85 lives. Rabani’s top disciple and graduate of Al-Mustafa, Edgardo Ruben Suhail Assad, has established more than 20 Shiite religious centers in Latin America. Al-Mustafa and the Islamic Development Organization closely coordinate their efforts in sending missionaries abroad.

At the official dollar rate, Al-Mustafa University will receive $80 million in 2020-2021; the Islamic Development Organization will receive $153 million, while the Islamic Propaganda Office of Qom Seminary will receive $36 million – a total of $268 million, down slightly from $292 million the previous fiscal year. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally appointed Ali Abbasi as the director of Al-Mustafa, and Mohammad Qomi as director of the Islamic Development Organization. Khamenei also appoints the board of directors of the Islamic Propaganda Office, which, in turn, appoints its director, currently Ahmad Vaezi. The U.S. Treasury can impose sanctions on all three of them under the terms of a June 2019 Executive Order that directs the designation of all individuals appointed directly by the supreme leader.

Two other organizations that play a role in exerting influence abroad are the IRGC-controlled Fars News and Tasnim News, both of which magnify the voice of anti-American figures through their English language operations. Fars and Tasnim consistently publish interviews with western pundits and analysts who echo Tehran’s propaganda. Also, IRGC-connected media personalities such as Nader Talebzadeh travel around the world and invite guests to conferences in Iran to expand Tehran’s network of influence and fellow travelers. Treasury designated Talebzadeh for facilitating the recruitment assets for the IRGC Quds Force, an indication of the degree to which Iranian media are part of the security establishment.

The readiness of a cash-strapped regime is to spend so much on external propaganda demonstrates just how important these organizations are to Tehran. Washington should actively expose their disinformation campaigns and employ the relevant executive orders to impose sanctions on the entities and individuals that carry out such work. Designating the heads of organizations listed above would be a first step. Tens of millions of Iranians would welcome a measure of accountability for the propaganda outlets complicit in their oppression.

The Public Diplomacy Division (PDD), headed by ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, plays an important role in disinformation campaigns together with the Iranian Expatriates Division, led by Hossein Jaberi Ansari. They seek to influence millions of Iranian expatriates, the majority of whom reside in Western Europe and North America. Regime officials regularly meet with Iranian expats around the world, in large and small groups. Some of these expats have founded organizations to promote sanctions relief and a more conciliatory approach to Iran. These shared objectives are not grounds for concluding that such organizations coordinate their actions with Tehran, yet the regime clearly places a high value on their efforts. The 2020-2021 budget allocates $105 million dollars for influence operations targeting the diaspora, nearly tripling the previous year’s funding. This remarkable increase amid severe financial pressures on the regime indicates the value of such efforts.

With its monopoly over radio and television broadcasts, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) plays a critical role both at home and abroad. To shape political discourse abroad, IRIB operates television channels in English (PressTV), Spanish (HispanTV), and other key languages. Political leaders such as Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labor Party, and Pablo Iglesias of Spain’s Podemos, have appeared on and/or consulted for IRIB stations. IRIB’s importance to the regime is clear from its budget; despite dire economic conditions, the agency will receive almost $1 billion this year, a significant increase over $488 million a year earlier. The budget also allows the transfer of available additional 150 million euro, almost $165 million, from Iran’s National Development Fund to IRIB.

Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad
Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at FDD specializing in Iran’s economy and financial markets, sanctions and illicit finance.

Alireza Nader
Alireza Nader is founder and CEO of New Iran, a nonprofit and nonpartisan advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.