Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

What About that Hillary Office Created at State?

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As Hillary’s emails are released and investigated, as those emails are analyzed for perspective and as the FOIA requests filed by the media are processed and fulfilled, a new condition and picture is emerging on what Hillary was really doing in her role as Secretary of State with the cooperation of her agency and inner circle. In summary, it was more crony business missions versus global diplomatic achievements.

Clinton Opened State Department Office to Dozens of Corporate Donors, Dem Fundraisers

By Stephen Braun
November 30, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton opened her office to dozens of influential Democratic party fundraisers, former Clinton administration and campaign loyalists, and corporate donors to her family’s global charity, according to State Department calendars obtained by The Associated Press.

The woman who would become a 2016 presidential candidate met or spoke by phone with nearly 100 corporate executives, Clinton charity donors and political supporters during her four years at the State Department between 2009 and 2013, records show. Many of those meetings and calls, formally scheduled by her aides, involved heads of companies and organizations that were pursuing business or private interests with the Obama administration at the time, including with the State Department while Clinton was in charge.

In addition, at least 60 of those who met with Clinton have donated or pledged program commitments to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. A dozen have been among Hillary Clinton’s most reliable political fundraisers, bundling more than $100,000 in donations during her failed 2008 presidential campaign or providing larger amounts to Clinton-allied super political action committees this time. And at least six entities represented in the meetings paid former President Bill Clinton lucrative fees for speeches.


The AP found no evidence of legal or ethical conflicts in Clinton’s meetings, in its examination of 1,294 pages from the calendars. Her sit-downs with business leaders were not unique among recent secretaries of state, who sometimes called on corporate executives to aid in international affairs, according to archived documents.

But the difference with Clinton’s meetings was that she was a 2008 presidential contender who was widely expected to try again in 2016. Her availability to luminaries from politics, business and charity shows the extent to which her office became a sounding board for their interests. And her ties with so many familiar faces from those intersecting worlds were complicated by their lucrative financial largess and political support over the years — even during her State Department tenure — for her campaigns and her husband’s, and for her family’s foundation.

Among those she met with or spoke with by phone were chief executives such as General Electric Co.’s Jeff Immelt, PepsiCo Inc.’s Indra Nooyi, FedEx Corp.’s Fred Smith, former Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack and former Citigroup Inc. chairman Sanford Weill. There were also billionaires: investors George Soros and Warren Buffett and diet pioneer S. Daniel Abraham. Major Democratic Party fundraisers included entertainment magnate Haim Saban, real estate developer Stephen J. Cloobeck and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.

In its response to detailed questions from the AP, the Clinton campaign did not address the issue of the candidate’s frequent meetings with corporate and political supporters during her State Department tenure. Instead, campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said “Secretary Clinton turned over all of her work emails, 55,000 pages of them, and asked that they be released to the public. Some of that will include her schedules. We look forward to the rest of her emails being released so people can have a greater window into her work at the department.”

The State Department turned the Clinton calendars over to the AP earlier this month, documents the AP sought for two years under the Freedom of Information Act. The department censored many meeting entries for privacy reasons or to protect internal deliberations, making it impossible to discern all the identities of those who met Clinton. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the agency’s redactions of the calendars or the arrangements for Secretary of State John Kerry’s daily schedules.

The AP has also sought detailed planning schedules that aides sent Clinton before each day’s events, but the State Department has declined to search through the files of some of Clinton’s close aides at the time. The State Department’s release of Clinton emails has so far turned up at least 155 planning schedules, called “minischedules,” but they account for only a tiny percentage of Clinton’s four-year stint — 7 percent of the 1,159 days covered by those email releases.

Merrill said Clinton was not sent the planning “minischedules” every day or when she traveled, “which would account for why you see some on some days and not on others.”

The AP also found at least a dozen differences between Clinton’s planners and calendars involving visits by donors and longtime loyalists. In one example, a June 2010 Clinton planning schedule that the State Department released uncensored shows a 3 p.m. meeting between Clinton and her longtime private lawyer, David Kendall. But Clinton’s formal calendar lists the 20-minute session only as “private meeting — secretary’s office,” omitting Kendall’s name.

The Clinton campaign could not explain those discrepancies but said the candidate had made a good faith effort to be transparent by giving her work-related emails to the State Department for public release.

The calendars offer hour-by-hour depictions of Clinton’s hectic diplomatic schedule in Washington and her foreign tours crammed with meetings with dignitaries. Even so, she found time to meet CEOs, loyalists and donors.

“It shows Hillary Clinton marrying her political interests with the business and policy interests of powerful people,” said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “These are the people you cultivate to lay the groundwork for running for president.”

Clinton favored a select group of visitors — at least two dozen — for repeated meetings. Abraham, the billionaire behind SlimFast diet products and chairman of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, met with Clinton at least three times and was slated to meet her three other times, according to her calendars and schedules. Clinton’s calendars showed they met at her office in May 2009 and October 2010. Clinton also spoke at an Abraham Center event in April 2010.

Abraham has given $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and donated $1.2 million in 2012 to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Clinton in 2016. Abraham told the AP that he assumed that he and Clinton discussed Mideast policy during their contacts.

Teachers’ union chief Weingarten met Clinton three times, in 2009, 2010 and 2012. Emails released by the State Department show that Weingarten’s policy aide, Tina Flournoy, messaged Clinton at her private account in mid-September 2009 saying that “Randi and would like to visit you re: child labor issues — if that’s possible, whom should I contact to schedule?”

Clinton responded: “I would love to see you and Randi. I’m copying Lona (Clinton’s scheduling aide) to see how soon we can schedule. Hope you’re well.”

Less than three weeks later, Weingarten and Flournoy — now chief of staff to Bill Clinton — met Hillary Clinton for a half hour, according to the calendars. That year, the union spent nearly $1 million lobbying the government on issues that included child labor in Uzbekistan. The union also spent at least $1 million in both 2010 and 2012, the other years Weingarten met with Clinton.

“We discussed a range of issues with Secretary Clinton — including the growing refugee crisis, expanding access to education globally and curbing child labor practices,” said Kate Childs Graham, speaking for the union.

Weingarten’s union endorsed Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid in July, and Weingarten is on the board of Priorities USA Action. The union has also given $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and committed, along with two banking partners, to launch a $100 million loan fund to expand classrooms for young children under the auspices of the charity’s Clinton Global Initiative.

PepsiCo CEO Nooyi also had at least three scheduled contacts with Clinton. In February 2010, Nooyi and GE’s Immelt met Clinton as part of the State Department’s efforts to secure corporate money for an American pavilion in China’s Shanghai Expo in May of that year.

PepsiCo spent $6.8 million in 2010 on government lobbying. Nooyi talked twice with Clinton by phone in 2012, a year when PepsiCo spent $3.3 million on lobbying Congress and federal agencies, including State Department officials, on issues such as trade pacts and Russia legislation.

PepsiCo spokesman Jon Banner declined to discuss conversations or meetings the firm’s senior leaders may have had. A top executive with PepsiCo’s main rival, Coca-Cola, which donated $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, also discussed the Shanghai event with Clinton in a 2009 conference call along with executives from PepsiCo and several other firms.

Nooyi is not a prominent Clinton political supporter, but PepsiCo has been active with the Clinton Foundation. PepsiCo’s foundation pledged in 2008 to provide $7.6 million in grants to two water firms as a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. The Clinton charity also listed a PepsiCo Foundation donation of more than $100,000 in 2014, the same year the soda company’s foundation announced a partnership under the charity to spur economic and social development in emerging nations.

A dozen other executives and political supporters met or were in phone contact with Clinton at least twice during her State Department tenure — among them Immelt, Saban, Soros and Clinton intimate and now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, according to the calendars.

Another was Alfonso Fanjul, one of four brothers who run a Florida-based sugar and real estate conglomerate and are politically active in the state’s Cuban-American community.

Fanjul, whose family subsidiaries include Domino Sugar and Florida Crystals, was a Florida co-chairman for Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992, supported Hillary Clinton’s 2008 run and has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Florida Crystals spent $1 million lobbying the Obama administration in 2011 and nearly that amount in 2009, 2010 and 2012 on issues related to sugar and its use as a biofuel.

Fanjul met Hillary Clinton for a half hour in October 2009. Gaston Cantens, a spokesman for the firm, said Fanjul sought the 2009 meeting because he was having “customs issues coming in and out of the country and wanted help.” Cantens said Fanjul’s entry and exit problems eased.

Clinton met Fanjul again at a 10-minute “pull-aside” during a Brookings Institution luncheon in June 2012. The event honored Saban and his wife, Cheryl, who both bundled donations to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and whose family foundation has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The calendar doesn’t say what they discussed, but the event came two months after Fanjul returned from a trip to Cuba with a Brookings delegation. Fanjul, a Brookings trustee who had been a longtime foe of U.S. trade with Cuba, has publicly reversed course on the issue and is now open to investments there.

Cantens said Fanjul and Clinton discussed topics “related to Brookings,” but added: “I’m not saying Cuba didn’t come up.”

NYT’s: Obama’s Hypocrisy on Syria

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Imagine, the New York Times printed this…..so could it be that some even in the liberal realm of media believe that Barack Obama has failed in his policy or lack thereof with regard to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey and beyond? Seems someone at the NYT’s allowed some op-ed space to a Republican.

President Obama’s Hypocrisy on Syria

by Peter Wehner, New York Times:

IN 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency promising that he would heal our political divisions. Instead, Mr. Obama has been as polarizing as any president in the history of modern polling. The debate over the Syrian refugee crisis illustrates why.

The civil war in Syria has created one of the worst refugee crises since World War II, and the president has instructed his administration to admit at least 10,000 refugees in fiscal year 2016. Republicans in Congress, in the aftermath of the massacre in Paris on Nov. 13, called for a pause in this process, in part because of their fear that terrorists might pose as refugees. The president, rather than trying to persuade his critics, mocked them.
“Apparently they’re scared of widows and orphans coming in to the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion,” Mr. Obama said. “That doesn’t sound very tough to me.” According to the president, the most potent recruitment tool for the Islamic State isn’t jihadist social media or battlefield victories but Republican rhetoric. “They’ve been playing on fear in order to try to score political points or to advance their campaigns,” he said.

The president flippantly dismissed worries about the vetting process despite the fact that, as James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said in September, the possibility that the Islamic State might infiltrate operatives among Syrian refugees is “a huge concern of ours.”

Administration officials also acknowledge that there are limitations on determining the history of Syrian refugees since we’re in no position to collect vital information from Syria. Even if the president believes the case for accepting refugees overrides those concerns (as I basically do), he should acknowledge their legitimacy.

What made Mr. Obama’s assault on Republicans particularly outrageous is his hypocrisy, by which I mean the president’s failure to act in any meaningful way to avert the humanitarian disaster now engulfing Syria. It’s not as if options weren’t available to him.

In 2012 Mr. Obama rebuffed plans to arm Syrian rebels despite the fact that his former secretaries of defense and state, his C.I.A. director and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supported them. He repeatedly insisted he would not put American soldiers in Syria or pursue a prolonged air campaign. He refused to declare safe havens or no-fly zones. And it was also in 2012 that Mr. Obama warned the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, that using chemical weapons would cross a “red line.” Yet when Mr. Assad did just that, Mr. Obama did nothing.

The president, perhaps fearful of offending the pro-Assad Iranian government with which he was trying to negotiate a nuclear arms deal, chose to sit by while a humanitarian catastrophe unfolded. As Walter Russell Mead wrote in The American Interest, “This crisis is in large part the direct consequence of President Obama’s decision to stand aside and watch Syria burn.” Some of us find it a bit nervy for the president to lecture the opposition party for heartlessness because cleaning up after his failure raises security concerns.
A reasonable approach would take account of both the humanitarian crisis in Syria and the concerns of critics of the president’s proposal. Doing so might result in a pause in the process to reassess our security procedures, make improvements where necessary and then proceed. Under the leadership of the new speaker, Paul Ryan, the House has passed just such a proposal with a broad bipartisan majority — 47 Democrats sided with Republicans — but Mr. Obama has promised to veto it if it passes the Senate. In his Manichaean conception of politics, such balance has no place, it seems.

What we have seen and heard from Mr. Obama during the Syrian crisis — self-righteousness without self-reflection, taunting, exasperation that others don’t see the world just as he does, the inability to work constructively with his opponents — have been hallmarks of his presidency. The man who promised to strengthen our political culture has further disabled it.

The president doesn’t bear full responsibility for the fractured state of our politics. The causes are complicated. They predate the Obama presidency, and Republicans have certainly played a role. (For some on the right, compromise is in principle capitulation.)

Yet it was Barack Obama who in 2008 wanted us to “rediscover our bonds to each other” and put an end to the “constant petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics.” He utterly failed in that and has to own his part in it. According to a new Pew Research Center study, 79 percent of Americans view the country as more politically divided than in the past.

Today our political discourse barely allows us to think clearly about, let alone rise to meet, the enormous challenges we face at home and abroad. Trust in government has reached one of its lowest levels in the past half-century. Americans are deeply cynical about the entire political enterprise; they are losing faith in the normal democratic process.

This creates the conditions for the rise of demagogues, of people who excel at inflaming tensions. Enter Donald J. Trump, who delights in tearing down the last remaining guardrails in our political culture.

Mr. Obama is hardly responsible for Mr. Trump, and it’s up to my fellow Republican primary voters to repudiate his malignant candidacy. Not doing so would be a moral indictment of our party. But in amplifying some of the worst tendencies in our politics, Mr. Obama helped make the rise of Mr. Trump possible.

Will Christians Take on the Radical Mosques?

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The challenge for the United States is to understand what is factually happening in Europe and then look inward. It is time to reckon with the truth and the genesis of militant Islam festering in America. With more than 900 active Islamic State cases being investigated by the FBI in America, there is no denial about where it manifests, mosques and social media. Check your state here.

Has the time arrived for all religious sects outside of Islam to compete for the hearts and minds and if so, who is going to take heed? Europe has an issue that is out of control and there is but one group that is taking a forward leaning posture.

Mysterious ‘Christian State’ Group Threatens Muslims in Letter To Brussels Mosque

Newsweek: A mosque in Brussels received a letter from a previously-unknown group calling itself the “Christian State” this week threatening to kill Muslims and attack their businesses in the country, according to French and Belgian media reports.

The letter arrived on Monday to a mosque in the Molenbeek district of the city, the area linked to a number of radical Islamists suspected of involvement in the deadly Paris attacks of November 13.

According to French daily Le Parisien, the anonymous letter said that “no mosque and none of your businesses will be safe” and threatened that “brothers [Muslims] will be slaughtered like pigs and crucified as our Lord converts their souls.”

It also warned that the group “ will avenge our brothers who fell in the various [Paris] attacks.”

Belgium Europe France The alleged letter sent by the “Christian State” to the Brussels mosque. Twitter / @MarwaanTunsi

The Attadamoun Mosque in Molenbeek, which received the letter, is in the hometown of the three Abdeslam brothers linked to the attacks that left 130 people dead.

Salah Abdeslam, 26, remains at large; Brahim, 31, killed himself when he detonated a suicide vest at a Paris restaurant and Belgian police released Mohamed after he was detained over a possible connection to his brothers’ actions.

The “Christian State” group named on the letter is not known and it remains unclear who and how many people are either in the group or were responsible for the letter. Other Belgian media reports indicated that two other Brussels mosques had also received a version of the document.

Jamal Habbachich, the president of Molenbeek’s mosque association, which includes 16 of 22 mosques in Brussels, said he found the letter in a postbox at the mosque and subsequently filed a complaint with Belgian authorities over the death threat. He added that he would request police patrols at all of the city’s mosques, especially for Friday prayers.

“In the current climate, with fear in everyone’s minds, it is disturbing,” he told Le Parisien when asked about the letter. A video posted by Le Parisien shows Habbachich printing off a copy of the letter, marked by the initials E.C., or “Etat Chrétien” [Christian State].

He told Belgium’s RTBF broadcaster: “There are two situations when you receive this kind of letter. It is a document written by someone unbalanced, or it is a very serious threat. What also concerns me is the name of the author of the letter, which uses similar terminology to that of the Islamic State.”

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel last week said that the government may close “certain radical mosques” in the Molenbeek district over fears that it was the location where the Paris attacks were launched.

On Thursday, Brussels’ Grand Mosque, which Saudi Arabia gifted to Belgium, was evacuated after packets of white powder caused a security alert. Authorities later revealed that the powder was flour.

A four-day lockdown of the European capital came to an end on Wednesday as Belgian authorities lowered the maximum security threat level to “serious” due to fears of a Paris-like attack. Police remained on the streets and metro stations and schools continued to reopen, Michel said on Thursday. France held a national day of mourning for the victims of the coordinated shooting and suicide bomb attacks on Friday.

WH and State Dept. Admitted the Ploy of Iran Deal

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Deal or no deal? No deal, no signatures, no vote, no sanctions, no burdens on Iran.

TheTower: Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, warned that if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) doesn’t close its file of past Iranian nuclear violations, the Islamic Republic will stop complying with the terms of the nuclear agreement it reached with the P5+1 powers, Iran’s semi-official PressTV news service reported on Thursday.

Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday that the IAEA’s Director General Yukiya Amano has decided to release a report on the Iranian nuclear program on December 1, and the Agency’s Board of Governors will review the report and make a final decision in a meeting on December 15.

Araqchi said the report by Amano should result in the closure of the PMD issue.

“In case Yukiya Amano or the Board of Governors presents their report in such a way that it does not meet the stipulated commitments, the Islamic Republic of Iran will also stop [the implementation of] the JCPOA,” he said, in reference to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1.

The IAEA has been tasked with the monitoring and verification of technical issues under the JCPOA. Full article here.

***
NationalReview: President Obama didn’t require Iranian leaders to sign the nuclear deal that his team negotiated with the regime, and the deal is not “legally binding,” his administration acknowledged in a letter to Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) obtained by National Review. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.
Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry, in which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned and wondered if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement. Frifield’s response emphasizes that Congress did receive the final version of the deal. But by characterizing the JCPOA as a set of “political commitments” rather than a more formal agreement, it is sure to heighten congressional concerns that Iran might violate the deal’s terms. “The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran’s understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose — and ramp up — our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments,” Frifield wrote to Pompeo.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discouraged his nation’s parliament from voting on the nuclear deal in order to avoid placing legal burdens on the regime. “If the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is sent to [and passed by] parliament, it will create an obligation for the government. It will mean the president, who has not signed it so far, will have to sign it,” Rouhani said in August. “Why should we place an unnecessary legal restriction on the Iranian people?” Pompeo cited that comment in his letter to Kerry, but Frifield did not explicitly address it in her reply. “This is not a mere formality,” Pompeo wrote in his September 19 letter. “Those signatures represent the commitment of the signatory and the country on whose behalf he or she is signing. A signature also serves to make clear precisely who the parties to the agreement are and the authority under which that nation entered into the agreement. In short, just as with any legal instrument, signing matters.” The full State Department letter is below:

Letter from State Department Regarding JCPOA

Its Iran and Russia, Where Obama/Kerry Willing Accomplices

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A review is in order where Iran and Russia are allowed to manage all events in the Middle East including the continued nuclear grace provided by Barack Obama and John Kerry.

The Persian Puppeteer: Iran pulling strings in Syria and across the Middle East

by: Tom Walpole

Russia’s intervention in Syria has pushed the war back to the forefront of international media and escalated violence on the ground. Yet for all the column inches detailing the end of American hegemony in the Middle East and psycho-analysing the motives of Putin, the ongoing participation of Iran in the conflict has been largely consigned to footnotes. Russian bombs lead the headlines, whilst the prospect of an Iranian–backed Government offensive into land cleared by Russian air superiority is often consigned to mid-article statements.

The high-profile death in early October of Hossein Hamedani, the most senior Iranian commander to be killed in a foreign operation for over 36 years, highlighted the presence of Iranian troops in Syria. Not that Iranian involvement in Syria is a new phenomenon. Despite denying the presence of conflict troops in Syria, 18 high-ranking officers in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have been killed in Syria in the last three years. Now Iranian troops are bolstering a Syrian state offensive on rebels in the Homs province. Before his death, General Hamedani was quoted as saying that a 130,000 strong force from the Basij (Iran’s paramilitary group) were ready to go to Syria if needed. Aside from the provision of troops, Tehran has also been funding the training of a new Syrian National Defence Force (NDF). IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari has stated that the NDF now comprises of 100,000 fighters.

It is clear that Iran continues to be one of the biggest supporters of the Assad regime, providing the troops and training needed to continue a civil war now four and a half years old.  Iranian wealth is also being diverted, in the forms of lines of credit and oil transfers, vital after Islamic State captured the last major government-controlled oil field in September.

Why is Iran invested in Syria?

As a close ally of Iran, losing the Assad regime would drastically curtail Iran’s influence in the Levant. The creation of a Sunni-led Syria would see the country align closer to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, Iran’s regional rivals. Supporting Assad is thus critical to maintaining the regional balance for Iran. Crucially, an allied Syria provides a secure passage for Iran to support Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a movement armed with Iranian weaponry. Hezbollah forces have also fought hard in Syria to defend its Iranian lifeline, a decision that has caused sectarian tension within Lebanon itself. Hezbollah and the Assad regime have traditionally made up the centrepiece of Iranian foreign policy since the 1979 Revolution; the axis of resistance against Western and Israeli power in the Middle East. Losing Assad means losing one member of the axis as well as access to the second, a move leaving Iran hosting a party for one. Losing this influence would have real significance, leaving the Shi’a regime in Iran alone and at odds with the Sunni States of the Middle East led by Saudi Arabia.  Iran’s involvement in Syria is considerable, but it cannot be regarded as blind loyalty to a beleaguered ally. Iranian calculations have a much more international perspective.

An Iranian Resurgence

Punishing EU and UN sanctions on Iran reduced the Iranian rial to an all-time low against the US dollar in October 2012. Bans on oil imports particularly stung Tehran, whose uranium-enrichment strategy threatened to ostracise itself from the international community. Increasingly strained relations with Turkey, as well as the crisis in Syria, have all contributed to an internationally-isolated Iran.

So what has changed?

Russian and Iranian forces have taken the initiative in Syria, giving the imperilled Assad regime more security than it has enjoyed at any point during the war. The power vacuum of a post-Saddam Iraq has been readily capitalised on by Iran, who has increased economic ties with its neighbour and began to fund Iraqi Shi’a militias. A Shi’a dominated Iraqi government has been more receptive to Iranian influence, and Baghdad is now seen by some as a new member of the axis of resistance. In addition, the fight against ISIS has helped forge alliances between Sunni and Shi’a militias, a welcome turn for a country characterised by sectarian violence. Iran has, despite its own refutations, been accused of sending 30,000 of its own troops into Iraq to fight ISIS.

As well as gaining political traction in Baghdad, Iran has increased its support for the Houthis of Yemen after supporting the Shi’a group for several years with military aid and training. Joined by their hatred of Saudi Arabia’s blend of Wahhabism, the Houthis declared themselves part of the axis of resistance in 2015. However, Tehran did try to hold back the Houthis from attacking the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in 2014 for fear of invoking too great an international response. President Obama explained that Iran is:

“Making constant, calculated decisions that allow it to preserve the regime, to expand their influence where they can, to be opportunistic, to create what they view as hedges against potential Israeli attack, in the form of Hezbollah and other proxies, in the region. I think what Iran has been doing in Yemen is a perfect illustration of this.”

Through rational policies and calculated foresight, Iran has managed to establish influence in Iraq, secure its ally in Syria and fund proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and to a lesser extent Palestine, where it continues to provide weapons to Hamas despite disagreements over Syria. Added to this, Iran has managed to thaw its relationships with Jordan and Egypt, relations which had been frozen since the 1979 Revolution.

Paying the Bills

Funding campaigns and militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen is not cheap. To finance their growing presence in the Middle East, Tehran has looked to the wider international community. In a bid to end the bitter sanctions, Tehran has sponsored a concerted ‘charm offensive’ at the UN, a process signalling an end to Iran’s more isolated past. The nuclear deal signed in the summer is a cornerstone of this new, diplomatic strategy. The deal, which sees Iran trade reduced nuclear capability for sanctions relief, has been heralded as a major diplomatic victory for the Obama administration. Agreements on the nuclear programme have led to the potential lifting of economic sanctions in early 2016, paving the way for international trade and investment. Indeed, the signing of the nuclear deal has opened the floodgates to a deluge of European trade missions to Tehran.

Aside from European investment, the easing of sanctions serves to release Iran from its main source of wealth: oil. Tehran now expects to increase oil production of 500,000 barrels a day by late November, with production to increase further in 2016. These developments will only build on the recent changes in Iranian economic fortunes, for, after two years of recession, the Iranian economy made a comeback in 2014. Ambitious Iranian development plans call for 8% annual growth from 2016-2021, but the World Bank does calculate that an Iran free from sanctions could see healthy GDP growth of 5.8 % and 6.7 % in 2016 and 2017 respectively. It appears that Iran is economically prepared for its more prominent role in the Middle East.

Consequences

In the perennial ideological and political battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a resurgent Iran only increases tensions. Characterised by an increase in hostile rhetoric, relations have soured even further in 2015. Iranian backed successes in Syria, Iraq and Yemen all directly impede the influence of the Kingdom. Indeed, Iran’s re-emergence on the oil-producing stage could further antagonise relations between Tehran and Saudi Arabia by biting into The Kingdom’s ability to control world prices.

Israeli-Iranian relations remain irrevocably bitter. The Syrian crisis serves as yet another messy point of conflict, with Israel even killing an IRGC General in an airstrike in January, despite claiming that the Iranian General was not the intended target. However, the nuclear deal did strain US-Israeli relations, with Obama ignoring Israeli lobbying against the deal. Creating cracks in the special relationship is another bonus for Iran.

In the last 3 years Iran has moved from a position of economic turmoil and political isolation to one of considerable regional power whilst normalising international relations, especially with Europe. There are hidden risks. Domestically, unemployment remains high and youth unemployment has frequently been the catalyst for political anger in the region. There is still no sight of victory for Assad in Syria, while the Islamic State continues to provide a source of extremist violence. The Houthis have not secured Yemen and a peace deal is now on the table. Sudan has also joined the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi rebels. The presence of Sudanese troops in Yemen complicates the situation for Iran, with Tehran and Khartoum used to a close military relationship.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Iran can no longer be dismissed as a Persian Pariah, a rogue state akin to North Korea. Iran has successfully and astutely capitalised on dwindling Western presence in the region and looks economically sound enough to continue its larger role in the Middle East.

MEMRI: In a November 25, 2015 interview on Iranian television, Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that he recently held talks with IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano on “closing the Possible Military Dimension (PMD) dossier”, and the latter filled him in about “some of the points he is to present” in the upcoming IAEA report on this issue. Araghchi noted that he had also spoken with the Americans and Europeans in Vienna, and had understood from them that “they too were heading towards closing the PMD dossier.”

It should be recalled that Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and a member of the nuclear negotiation team, said in a June 21, 2015 interview on Iranian television that Iran had “reached understandings with the IAEA” on the PMD issue, and added: “Now there is political backing [of the P5+1], and the [PMD] issue should be resolved.” He stated further: “By December 15, [2015], at the end of the year, the issue [of the PMD] should be determined. The IAEA will submit its report to [its] board of governors. It will only submit it. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will continue independently of the results of this report. We have reached understandings with the IAEA… The technical issues are now being resolved in a political framework. They have set a time frame and, God willing, the issue must be resolved by December 15.” In response to the interviewers’ remark that the IAEA has “a bad record” (in terms of cooperating with Iran), Salehi stated: “In short, they [the IAEA] will be the losers. As I have said, the issue has received political backing. The work of [the IAEA] must be reasonable. They cannot do anything unreasonable. When there is no political backing, they do whatever they want, but now there is political backing, and the issue should be resolved.” According to Araghchi, “if the Security Council does not close the PMD dossier, the process of implementing the JCPOA will stop. Hence, the P5+1 must decide between the PMD and the JCPOA… In the past, the P5+1 chose the JCPOA. The [Supreme] Leader [Khamenei]’s letter on Iran’s implementation of the nuclear steps [a document published by Khamenei in October 21 detailing 9 additional conditions for Iranian compliance with the JCPOA][3] likewise emphasizes that they must choose between the JCPOA and the PMD.” The full report is here courtesy of MEMRI.