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I remember Vietnam veterans often coming to my home years ago to sell light bulbs, you know those bulbs that are now banned? I bought them every time and I think I may still have at least a dozen in the cabinet. It’s not very well known that about 25% of transitioning veterans are interested in starting a new business and just need the right startup funding guide for veterans to help them. This is why I always try to help them but Trump? Humm, not so much.
TWS: Donald Trump is skipping tonight’s debate because, according to Trump, Fox News and Megyn Kelly have not been nice to him. Trump plans on holding a rally to benefit veterans instead, but The Federalist reports that Trump is funnelling all donations for veterans to his personal Donald J Trump Foundation–a charity that has treated veterans as an afterthought in recent years.
From The Federalist:
“Honor their valor,” the website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, states. “Donate now to help our Veterans.”
The website, which is nothing more than a single page with stock photos and a credit card donation form, claims that “100% of your donations will go directly to Veterans needs.”
There’s only one problem: 100% of the money raised on the site goes directly to Donald Trump’s personal non-profit foundation, according to a disclosure listed at the bottom of the page.
“The Donald J Trump Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization,” the disclosure reads. “An email confirmation with a summary of your donation will be sent to the email address provided above.”
Trump’s spokeswoman said that “Mr. Trump has made significant financial and in kind contributions to many Veterans organizations, personally and not through the Donald J. Trump foundation.” She declined to provide an estimate of how much Trump has personally given to veterans.
*** Wait, 300 words does not tell the whole story, there is more.
DailyBeast: Instead of debating his presidential rivals Thursday, the GOP frontrunner is hosting an event ‘to raise money’ for veterans. That’s rich, say the disabled veterans he tried to eject from the street outside Trump Tower.
“[Trump] will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians,” the Trump campaign announced.
Never mind that for more than a decade Trump sought to deprive veterans in need of their meager livelihood because he found them unsightly nuisances who should not be allowed anywhere near his gleaming headquarters on Fifth Avenue.
The Trump who now extols veterans spent years clamoring for New York City’s politicians to take action and ban even those street vendors with special disabled veteran’s licenses from the environs of Trump Tower.
As was reported in the New York Daily News, Trump wrote in a letter to the New York State Assembly back in 1991, “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?”
He went on, “Do we allow Fifth Avenue, one of the world’s finest and most luxurious shopping districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously downgrading the area?”
He was still at it in 2004, when he wrote a letter to Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
“Whether they are veterans or not, they [the vendors] should not be allowed to sell on this most important and prestigious shopping street,” Trump declared.
He warned, “The image of New York City will suffer… I hope you can stop this very deplorable situation before it is too late.”
Michael Daly/The Daily Beast
Army Veteran and Street Vendor, Sean Williams.
The state Legislature had originally accorded a special vendor’s license to disabled veterans in the aftermath of the Civil War. Trump and other moneyed folks were not able to get the vendors banned, but the authorities did cap the total number of veterans with special licenses and restrict the number who could work on particular streets at a given time.
Peddlers were largely banned from Fifth Avenue, but they continued to sell their wares on the side streets.
On Wednesday, they included 48-year-old Sean Williams, who served in the U.S. Army from 1987 to 1992, and now sells hats and scarves on East 43rd Street, just off Fifth Avenue.
“I was going to re-enlist, but I had kids,” he said.
Williams has been supporting his family by peddling for the past 12 years, commencing around the time Trump wrote the mayor to say vets should not be allowed to sell on his street. Williams had no trouble characterizing Trump’s efforts.
“Despicable,” he said. “He never served. And not his kids.”
Williams uttered another word when he learned that Trump was using a veterans event to offset his absence from Thursday’s Republican debate.
“Wow!”
Michael Daly/The Daily Beast
Planters in front of Trump Tower to ward off street vendors on Fifth Avenue, New York.
Two blocks uptown, at East 45th Street just off Fifth Avenue, Annette Seck was also selling hats and scarves. She served in the Army from 1980 to 1985.
“Talk about Private Benjamin…” she laughed.
Her son, now 27, also served in the Army and was deployed to Iraq. He returned with no physical wounds.
“He’s all right, I think,” she reported.
She worries that the war might have had unseen effects.
“I’m looking at him hard,” she said.
Her other worry is the business. The hyper-luxury enterprises such as Tiffany’s might be booming, but sidewalk stands that cater to the less wealthy 99 percent are way down.
“This is the worst year ever,” she lamented. “The money’s not there. People aren’t buying like they used to.”
She is aware of Trump’s efforts to chase the peddlers from the street. She counts the continued presence of her and her comrades as a defeat for The Donald.
“He lost, because of a lot of veterans in the street,” she said.
She then pondered the possibility of victories for The Donald, not just in the primaries but in the general election.
“If he gets elected, I’ll die,” she said simply.
Up on East 51st Street, just off Fifth Avenue and across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, another hat and scarf vendor had a Disabled American Veterans sign on his cart. He declined to give his name or particulars, but he was quick to offer a word of his own regarding Trump hosting a veterans event on Thursday night.
“Disgusting.”
He was understandably dubious of Trump’s newfound fondness for those who served.
“Now he’s different,” the peddler said. “He’s born again.”
The peddler did not expect that this born-again Trump would now favor allowing disabled vets to sell their wares on the golden avenue where his tower stands.
“First class war vets, second class back-at-homes,” the peddler said.
He then added, “Go take a picture of the planters.”
He meant the large cement planters that Trump has placed outside the tower, not to ward off possible terrorists but to keep away peddlers.
As has been reported by The New York Times, Trump had used somewhat smaller planters to fill a marble bench in a stretch of the lobby that was ceded to the public in exchange for him being allowed to build 20 stories higher than zoning would have otherwise allowed.
City officials noted that the planters on the bench prevented the public from sitting there. Trump responded with a 1984 letter that presaged the ones he would write regarding disabled vet vendors.
“We have had tremendous difficulties with respect to the bench—drug addicts, vagrants, et cetera have come to the atrium in large numbers,” Trump wrote in the letter, as cited by the Times. “Additionally, all sorts of ‘horrors’ had been taking place that effectively ruined the beautiful ambience of the space which everyone loves so much.”
The city fined Trump, who subsequently removed the bench altogether. He replaced it with an elegant version of a hats and scarves stand such as disabled vets might set up on Fifth Avenue if they were allowed.
“THE TRUMP STORE,” the sign reads.
One item that no self-respecting disabled vet peddler would stock was on display on Wednesday afternoon: Trump’s book Crippled America. Vet peddlers who were crippled in service of America would likely only shake their heads on seeing the rest of the title.
How to Make America Great Again.
One disabled veteran who has been sidelined by medical troubles in recent days is Dondi McKellar. He was in the Navy during the 1980s, serving aboard the USS Boulder. He has been selling bubble blowers in the street since 2004.
“Everybody got their own thing, but bubbles make me happy,” he told The Daily Beast on Wednesday evening.
McKellar is the chairman of the veterans committee at the Street Vendor’s Project and an active participant in the effort by Veterans 4 Veterans to relax current regulations. The idea is to restore fully the promise the New York state Legislature made in 1894 that disabled veterans would be free to sell goods in the street.
“We’re part of why we have the freedom we have,” McKellar noted. “This country we served should give us the opportunity to come out and vend.”
He wishes big-business folks were able to recognize the vendors as fellow business folks.
“We have to start somewhere,” McKellar said.
Meanwhile, people in New York should keep an eye out for the yellow licenses or the blue licenses that signal a vendor is a disabled veteran.
“I would appreciate it,” McKellar said. “All my fellow veterans would as well if that would give you a reason to come over.”
He figures we should all rejoice at the thought of disabled veterans struggling to make their way on the same block as Trump Tower.
“It is what makes America great, we have such a great variety of everything,” McKellar said.
He does not expect that the day will come when Trump would welcome him.
“He wouldn’t have liked me in front of his establishment,” McKellar said.
He suspects Trump might be that rare person who proves immune to the charm of his bubbles, which seem to make almost everybody smile.
“If he gets upset with my bubbles…” McKellar began.
McKellar then said, “He get upset with Megyn Kelly, so I don’t put it past him.”
Afghan Taliban Claims “Infiltration” of Numerous Fighters into Afghan Military
SITE: The Afghan Taliban detailed numerous attacks via “infiltration” of its fighters into Afghan military ranks, a tactic the group described as “largely expedient.” The English statement was posted to the group’s website on January 26, 2016.
The statement cited two examples of successful attacks within the ranks of the Afghan National Army. One alleged attack by an infiltrated fighter resulted in the killing of a commander and four soldiers in Helmand province. In the second attack described in the message, three fighters purportedly killed nine soldiers, also escaping with weapons and ammunition.
The message, which claimed that many in the Afghan military “are now discerning the prevailing realities and amalgamating with Mujahidin,” concluded:
Infiltrated assaults are highly valued by Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate in their Jihadi operations and tactics as the enemy can simply be targeted inside their fortified bases and sanctuaries. They become confused and demoralised. And eventually, either they abscond from the battle-field or surrender to Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate.
*** This is not a new phenomenon as it was noted in 2012:
Military: Taliban infiltration of the Afghan army and police is much worse than the U.S. military and NATO have admitted and was the main factor in the surprise move to limit contacts with Afghan security forces to curb insider attacks, former ranking U.S. officials in Afghanistan said.
“I would put the percentage rather higher” than the 25% figure for enemy infiltrators and sympathizers that U.S. commanders have estimated, said Ryan Crocker, who stepped down as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in July.
Crocker, who said he held secret meetings with the Taliban in fruitless efforts at a peace settlement, described Taliban leaders as “tough, smart and resilient,” and noted that they have embraced infiltration as a main tactic.
“I think we underestimate at our peril” the number of Taliban “sleepers” in the ranks of the Afghan National Security Forces that the allies have been pressing to take the lead security role, Crocker said in remarks Monday to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A former senior advisor to the U.S. military in Afghanistan lined up with Crocker’s assessment that Taliban insurgents were more widespread in the Afghan military and police than NATO would have it.
NBC: Intelligence analysts say Khorasan refers to battle-hardened al Qaeda fighters who have travelled from Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to Syria. Beyond that, accounts differ.
U.S. Central Command said the group was using civil war-ravaged Syria as a haven from which to plot attacks, build and test roadside bombs and recruit Westerners to carry out operations.
While Khorasan has been in operating in Syria for over a year, their attention has been focused beyond that country’s borders.
“They’re in Syria but they’re not really fighting in Syria,” said Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst. “They’re using it as a place to find Western recruits.”
The core group is believed to be small – probably no more than 100, according to Leiter. They have one main mission: To attack Western targets.
But isn’t there already an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria?
Al Qaeda’s recognized affiliate in Syria is Jabhat al-Nusra – but that doesn’t mean there’s not room for Khorasan. Khorasan’s motivations are “very much in line” with traditional al Qaeda and it maintains close relations with Nusra, according to Leiter.
Intelligence analysts acknowledge disagreement over how separate or linked Nusra is to Khorasan. Still, the relationship appears to be symbiotic — Nusra focuses on internal operations within Syria, while Khorasan plans for external operations.
Director of National Intelligence James Klapper last week said that Khorasan poses a threat to the U.S. equal to that of ISIS, according to The Associated Press.
“Khorasan is less of a threat to the region and more of a threat to the U.S. homeland than ISIS,” Leiter said. “Unlike ISIS, the Khorasan group’s focus is not on overthrowing the Assad regime. These are core al Qaeda operatives who … are taking advantage of the Syrian conflict to advance attacks against Western interests.”
It is apparent we don’t know enough with regard to who is in this country, why they are here and how they are being used and exploited as bargaining tools by the White House and John Kerry advancing Iran’s position in the world. John Kerry and the State Department have given into every request and thrown in so much more to sweeten the pot, but to what end is the big question.
IranWatch: Arrested on June 8, 2010, in connection with an indictment filed on June 2, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, charging Modanlo, along with Iranian citizens Hamid Malmirian, Reza Heidari, Mohammad Modares, Abdol Reza Mehrdad, and Sirous Naseri, with conspiring, between January 2000 and November 2007, to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA); convicted, on June 10, 2013, of conspiracy to defraud the United States, violating the Iran Trade Embargo, and money-laundering; the remaining defendants in the case have not been arrested (as of June 2013).
Allegedly attended meetings with Iranian officials that facilitated contact with POLYOT, a Russian government-owned aerospace enterprise, which led to the launch of an Iranian satellite on October 27, 2005; allegedly chairman and managing member of New York Satellite Industries, LLC, which allegedly received $10 million from a front company, Prospect Telecom, as consideration for facilitating the agreement between Iran and POLYOT, as well as for providing telecommunications services as part of that agreement; New York Satellite Industries allegedly used Modanlo’s home address as its business address; allegedly served as chairman and president of Final Analysis, Inc., and was president of its subsidiary, Final Analysis Communication Services; reportedly was refused entry into Russia for attempting to acquire technical documentation on satellites and missiles to be transferred to Iran in violation of Russian export controls.
An Iranian-born naturalized U.S. citizen and a mechanical engineer; 52 years old (as of June 2013).
Reuters: Nader Modanlo was facing five more years in federal prison when he got an extraordinary offer: U.S. President Barack Obama was ready to commute his sentence as part of this month’s historic and then still-secret prisoner swap with Iran. He said no.
To sweeten the deal, the U.S. administration then dropped a claim against the Iran-born aerospace engineer for $10 million that a Maryland jury found he had taken as an illegal payment from Iran, according to interviews with Modanlo, lawyers involved and U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.
The surrender of the U.S. claim, which has not previously been reported, could add to scrutiny of how the Obama administration clinched a prisoner deal that has drawn criticism from Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers.
A Washington-based spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on discussions over the $10 million, which the jury found that Modanlo was paid to help Iran launch its first satellite in 2005. Modanlo says the money was a loan from a Swiss company for a telecoms deal.
In the prisoner swap, five Americans held in Iran were released at the same time as seven Iranians charged or imprisoned in the United States were granted pardons or had their sentences commuted. The deal accompanied the Jan. 16 implementation of a landmark agreement that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Even after receiving the improved offer on Friday, Jan. 15, Modanlo said he didn’t budge at first. He wanted a chance to clear his name in court, he says.
“I was mostly disappointed that I have to give up my right to appeal,” Modanlo, 55, told Reuters in one of his first interviews since being released.
“If they believe in their justice system why would they deprive me of it? Let them prove me wrong.”
As part of their clemency agreements, all of the Iranians had to renounce any claims against the U.S. government. All but one had been accused of violating the economic sanctions the United States has enforced against Iran for decades.
Modanlo’s reluctance to accept Obama’s offer became an eleventh-hour complication to an otherwise carefully staged deal with Iran that had been negotiated in secret for months by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart.
He only agreed to accept the clemency offer on Saturday, Jan. 16 as the clock ticked toward what U.S. officials said was the final deadline, according to Modanlo and U.S. officials.
He was freed the next day from a federal prison near Richmond, Virginia. The release marked an abrupt conclusion to his case after a sprawling, decade-long investigation into Modanlo’s role in brokering Iran’s access to space technology. U.S. federal agents had pursued evidence from the suburbs of Washington to Switzerland and Russia.
Modanlo was serving the longest sentence of any of the seven Iranians and had the most extensive, established connections to Iran’s government.
He was also the only one known to have initially declined Obama’s offer, according to interviews with lawyers for the men.
An official at Iran’s interests section in Washington, Iran’s de facto embassy, testified in Modanlo’s defense at his 2013 trial. The same Iranian representative, Fariborz Jahansoozan, was instrumental in brokering the prisoner exchange in recent months, lawyers for those involved have said.
“This story is done and over with,” Jahansoozan said when reached by Reuters, declining to discuss the case in detail. “Please let it go and move forward.”
After two years in prison, Modanlo says he is finding that hard. “I know this cloud is going to be over my head forever,” he said.
AMERICAN DREAM SOURED
Modanlo grew up in northern Iran, the son of a wealthy landowner. As a child, he remembers watching the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 that put American astronauts on the moon and being inspired to become a space engineer.
Decades later, after moving to the United States and becoming a U.S. citizen, Modanlo had become a space entrepreneur with a company valued at $500 million.
He helped launch an American satellite from a Russian rocket in 1995. His company, Final Analysis, focused on the emerging field of low-orbit satellites for data services.
But a series of missteps drove the company into bankruptcy in 2001, and Modanlo was sued by a former partner, who accused him of selling missile technology to Iran.
Modanlo says U.S. authorities used the missile claim to win assistance from Switzerland in obtaining evidence against him. Raids at Modanlo’s Maryland home and office seized a truck load of documents and 120 computer hard drives but no supporting evidence for that claim, he said.
“They knew this was false. They knew I had no missile technology,” he said.
The ensuing investigation uncovered documents prosecutors say showed Modanlo brokered a deal between Iran and Russia to launch the satellite in exchange for a $10 million fee. A Maryland jury convicted him of sanctions violations after a six-week trial. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
In an appeal, Modanlo’s lawyers argued that private communications between the trial judge and prosecutors had excluded evidence that could have changed the outcome.
Robert King, one of the judges who heard Modanlo’s appeal, admonished prosecutors for that practice in an October hearing.
U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said the evidence against Modanlo had been disclosed in court and proved “beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr. Modanlo secretly helped Iran launch a satellite for $10 million.”
Modanlo said he felt certain the appeal would go his way. Then his lawyer told him that he would have to give up that appeal and be stuck with the $10 million forfeiture claim if he took the clemency offer.
“I waive my right to bring a claim against you, but your claim continues for God knows how many years against me?” Modanlo said. “After back and forth a number of times they agreed to take the $10 million off the table.”
After calls from his attorneys and Iranian representatives failed to convince Modanlo to take the clemency, it was a pleading and tearful call from his sister in Iran that finally made him relent, he said.
“If it was for me, I would never have taken the deal,” he said.
I knew this three years ago but never knew the depths of the malfeasance. Imagine how much good the charity good deliver if egos and spending were guided and managed. The salaries at the top have always been outrageous.
Wounded Warrior Project is under fire by former employees who say the group wastes millions in donor dollars on five-star hotels and booze.
“I’ll be damned if I let them drink away the hard earned spending of Americans,” Erick Millette told CBS News.
Action News Jax’s Catherine Varnum spoke with that whistleblower and he showed pictures of some of that lavish spending.
That evidence includes a video of a man identified as the CEO of Wounded Warrior Project, rappelling down the side of a five-star hotel during a conference paid for by the charity.
The whistle blower, who is a decorated veteran, told Action News Jax there were bar tabs of $2,500 dollars all paid for using money meant to help wounded veterans.
The television ads are well known: Veterans, heroes speaking on behalf of locally based Wounded Warrior Project, telling stories of wounded vets needing help.
“I was in a bad place. I was drinking myself to death. I was literally putting a gun in my mouth,” Millette said.
Millette served 2 tours in Iraq, earning a bronze star and Purple Heart. But the Army veteran also came home with a brain injury and PTSD. He turned to the Wounded Warrior Project for help.
“I thought it was the greatest thing. I really did,” Millette said.
After going on a retreat, he got a job as a spokesperson for Wounded Warrior Project, talking up the organization, even getting recognition from the president. But after two years, Millette quit.
“I started to notice just how the donor money was being spent and I became more uncomfortable,” Millette said.
He showed us pictures of a Mexican mariachi band brought in for a party. In one video, Millette said CEO Steven Nardizzi can be seen rappelling down side of the Broadmore hotel in Colorado during an all-expenses paid conference for employees.
Millette said despite living just miles away, he attended mandatory training at One Ocean in Atlantic Beach four separate times.
Catherine Varnum: “You live in Jacksonville?”
Millette: “I live in Jacksonville”
Varnum: “And they made you stay?”
Millette: “I was required to stay in a hotel on site,” Millette said.
Varnum: “Do you have any idea how much money is being spent on what you called the glitz and glamour versus going to warriors?
Millette: “No I don’t.”
“I think it’s an organization that’s saying one thing and doing another. I think they’re preying off the brave men and women who served this country,” Millette said.
Millette said he’s not speaking out as a disgruntled former employee but as a voice for so many others afraid to speak up about out of control spending.
“There’s a saying at Wounded Warrior Project, warriors call us, we don’t call warriors,” Millette said.
According to tax records obtained by CBS News, spending on conferences and meetings went from $1.7 million in 2010 to $26 million in 2014. That’s about the same amount of money the group spends on its combat stress recovery program.
Records on the organization’s own website show salaries for the top 12 employees totaled more than $2.7 million.
The group also posted on its Facebook page, saying in part, “Our salaries are consistent with industry standards and, rather than being excessive, have often fallen at the lower end of compensation paid at comparable organizations.”
According to Charity Navigator, which tracks charitable giving, Wounded Warrior Project spent 60 percent of its donations on veterans. Other veteran organizations average 90 percent. On Facebook, the group responded to several people who commented on their page, saying that number is false.
We reached out to Wounded Warrior Project and received the following statement:
“The CBS News piece had numerous factual errors and misrepresented the good work Wounded Warrior Project does on behalf of this nation’s injured veterans.
“Wounded Warrior Project leads the industry in transparency and reporting publicly our independently audited financial documents. Separate from our financials, we also make public all of our program information and impact metrics. These are readily available on our website for anyone to view.
“Based on our most recently independently audited financial statements, 80.6 percent of total expenditures went to provide 20 services and programs for Wounded Warriors and their families.
“Wounded Warrior Project is a Gold Standard Better Business Bureau accredited charity.
“We provide programs and services to more than 83,000 wounded veterans. Wounded Warrior Project works every day to ensure our programs meet the needs of our wounded veterans. We just launched our Warrior Care Network to help provide world-class mental health care for wounded veterans. Warrior Care Network represents a $100 million investment to ensure warriors struggling with the hidden wounds of war get the help they need. We will commit $500 million to our Independence Program and Long-Term Support Trust – two programs that directly help the most severely injured veterans.”
TEHRAN (Tasnim)– The Iranian embassy in Moscow confirmed on Tuesday that an agreement between Iran and Russia, endorsed by presidents of the two countries, is going to simplify visa requirements for certain nationals from the two nations.
According to a statement released by the embassy’s media diplomacy department, the agreement will ease visa restrictions for the Iranian and Russian merchants, students, and participants in the scientific and cultural programs.
In a statement on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the agreement, which was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran in November 2015, will take effect on February 6.
“The document is aimed at simplifying on reciprocal basis conditions for the trips of the two countries’ nationals,” the statement said.
It would relax visa rules for Russian and Iranian business people, people participating in scientific, cultural and creative activity, for students and teachers, tourists and other categories, it added.
The announcement came a week after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a lasting nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), came into force.
Based on the nuclear deal, reached in July 2015, all nuclear-related anti-Iran sanctions have been removed.
***
Back in 2014, the outset of the P5+1 Iranian nuclear talks, Russia took real notice for the sake of oil.
OilPrice: The recent breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West has seen Russia trying to rebuild its economic relationship with Iran after a dry spell brought about by Moscow’s cooperation on international sanctions. The Wall Street Journal reports that Russian and Iranian officials met on April 27 to discuss deals on electricity worth over $10 billion.
In recent years, the U.S. has gone to great lengths to keep Russia in the international fold as it confronted Iran over its suspect nuclear program. Despite having a long history of economic partnership with Tehran, the Kremlin cooperated with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (the P5+1) to enact painful sanctions on Iran.
Now, with U.S.-Russian relations hitting a multi-decade low, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears less inclined to keep up the pressure on the Islamic republic. Russia and Iran are in talks over swapping Iranian oil for goods and food supplies, which could be worth up to an estimated $20 billion. The deal would see Iran exporting 500,000 barrels of oil per day to Russia, a move that U.S. officials have said would violate sanctions. The two countries are also discussing power deals, including the construction of hydroelectric dams and the export of Russian electricity to Iran.
The pending deals are being seen as potentially undermining to the carefully structured sanctions that have been widely credited with forcing Iran to the negotiating table. If the Iranian economy gets a lifeline from Russia, the U.S. could lose leverage in talks with Iran over a final resolution to its nuclear program.
The P5+1 nations agreed to a six-month temporary deal that relieved some pressure on Iran in exchange for a freeze of the Iranian nuclear program. The two sides have set a July deadline for a longer-term deal.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials are quietly cautioning Russia against dismissing how damaging sanctions can be, as Russia itself becomes the recipient of economic sanctions from the West over its role in Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reports that many top Iranian officials and businessmen have been surprised to realize just how devastating sanctions have been on their own country.
