Free Republic

When President Trump announced in May that he was going to withdraw the United States from the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration and five other countries negotiated with Iran in 2015 and reimpose sanctions on the country, the decision was fraught with potential disaster. If Mr. Trump’s approach worked too well, oil prices would spike and hurt the American economy. If it failed, international companies would continue trading with Iran, leaving the Islamic Republic unscathed, defiant and free to restart its nuclear program. But the policy has been effective without either of those nasty consequences, at least so far.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday he would reluctantly comply with renewed US sanctions on neighbouring Iran, but recalled his country's 12 years under international embargo... Iraq is the second-largest importer of Iranian non-hydrocarbon products, buying some $6 billion (5 billion euros) worth of goods from its eastern neighbour in 2017. It also buys in Iranian-generated electricity in efforts to deal with chronic power cuts that have been a key factor sparking mass protests in recent weeks... Iranian private companies recently cut off power supplies to Iraq's oil-rich coastal province of Basra over outstanding payments... The sanctions are expected...

Videos at link. On Monday morning the White House officially announced the reinstatement of sanctions on Iran after the U.S. left the nuclear agreement earlier this year. “Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world,” President Trump said in a statement. During an interview with Fox News, National Security Advisor John Bolton detailed the move and called on the regime to end its "belligerent" behavior. "This is an indication of how strongly we feel that the Iranian nuclear weapons...

Full Title: 'Death to the dictator!' Violence on streets of Iran as police use tear gas on furious protesters, including chador-clad women, demonstrating against 'corrupt regime' ruining the country while waging ideological war abroad Protests have broken out in a number of cities against Iranian regime this week Comes after the dramatic drop of Iran's currency and other economic problems 'The nation is forced to beg while the leader lives like God,' protesters chanted 'Death to the dictator!' Violence on streets of Iran as police use tear gas on furious protesters, including chador-clad women, demonstrating against 'corrupt regime' ruining the...

Aix-en-Provence (France) (AFP) – The world’s third largest shipping container firm CMA CGM has decided to withdraw from Iran due to the threat of US sanctions, its Chief Executive Rodolphe Saade said Saturday. “Because of the Trump administration, we have decided to end our service to Iran,”

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal, despite repeatedly telling Congress and the public it had no plans to do so. An investigation by Senate Republicans released Wednesday sheds light on the delicate balance the Obama administration sought to strike after the deal, as it worked to ensure Iran received its promised benefits without playing into the hands of the deal’s opponents. Amid a tense political climate, Iran hawks in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere argued...

The courage in facing Iran and countering its policies is no longer just measured by the decisions taken outside it. Some states decided to directly confront national security challenges posed by Iran’s policies in the region and elsewhere — namely Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, the United States, European Union and Great Britain. In Yemen, there are popular and tribal elites, parties and blocs that support the legitimate power and confront Iran and its project. In Iraq, Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr re-established the country’s political identity in a manner that opposes Iran’s project that aims to dominate over Mesopotamia. Lebanon might be...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement on Monday put an end to bargains. Officially, Washington has begun its war on the Iranian regime. The weapons of economic sanctions threaten the entire regime and do not only restrain it. The French Total left the gas fields in the Gulf and moved on. Head of the Italian company ENI told the company’s board that they shut down their offices in Tehran and stopped searching for oil and gas. Airbus signed a contract to sell Iran 100 airplanes and only three jets arrived in Tehran’s airport as part of this historic deal...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech on Monday outlining President Trump's new strategy to counter the Islamic Republic of Iran: Intensify the Iranian regime's ongoing liquidity and political crisis to induce fundamental changes in behavior across a range of malign activities. In short, maximum diplomacy backed by maximum pressure. Pompeo's speech today was a reply to the critics of the administration's Iran policy who have argued that Trump had no "Plan B" for the day after his May 8 decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. That deal gave the Islamic Republic patient pathways to...

SOFIA (Reuters) — French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out on Thursday any trade war with the United States over its withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal as a wave of European companies quit business with Tehran, fearing the global reach of U.S. sanctions. European Union leaders united behind the 2015 accord, and Brussels announced it would launch a legal process banning EU-based firms from complying with the sanctions that U.S. President Donald Trump has reimposed on Iran. However, corporations face the choice of trading with the biggest economy in the world, the United States, or with Iran, risking sanctions and...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The European Commission has launched a process to protect the interests of EU companies investing in Iran as part of its commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal. However, a number of firms are already pulling out to protect their far larger US investments from sanctions. ...snip However, multinational companies have not waited for EU leaders to find a way around US sanctions. Some have already begun cutting trade with Iran. On May 16, French oil company Total announced its intension to end its project in Iran unless it is exempted from sanctions after the US pulled...

Michael Rubin, academic and former staff advisor for Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon, spoke to ANF English service on the inclusion of one of Erdoğan’s former ministers, Zafer Çağlayan, in the case file of Reza Zarrab, its influence on Zarrab’s case and Washington-Ankara relations, and Erdoğan’s planned visit to the U.S. in mid-September. Rubin remarked that the arrest warrant issued for Zafer Çağlayan could be a sign that Zarrab is talking to prosecutors and giving evidence. He said: “That's Erdogan's nightmare, because if Zarrab is talking, then Zarrab is also likely talking about Erdogan's dealings. And the thing with...

A Turkish businessman whose criminal case became a controversy at the highest levels of U.S. and Turkish government looks like he'll never make it to trial. Even a co-defendant's lawyer last week labeled Reza Zarrab the "stealth" defendant after he and his lawyers skipped a pretrial conference a few weeks before the scheduled date of his trial on charges that he conspired to process hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of financial transactions for Iranian businesses or Iran's government through U.S. banks. Authorities say those transactions are banned by U.S. and international sanctions. Prosecutors and the judge made no mention...

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag says Washington has told Ankara that jailed Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab -- a gold trader who is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran -- is in good medical condition. Bozdag made the remarks on November 16, a day after Turkey announced it had sent a diplomatic note to U.S. authorities inquiring about Zarrab. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons website last week listed Zarrab, 34, as having been released from prison on November 8. But U.S. prosecutors said that posting was an error and he remained...

In August 2016, then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took on critics of her husband’s charitable foundation by saying the former first family “went above and beyond” to disclose their donors to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest when she served as America’s top diplomat. On the face, Clinton’s statement is true. A December 2008 voluntary ethics agreement the Clinton Foundation and incoming secretary of State executed with the Obama administration, before called for, disclosed all donors to the Foundation and its various initiatives, something normal charities don’t have to do. But over the years, the Clintons’ compliance...

Cheryl Moss Herman, an official with the United States Department of Energy, produced a detailed report in 2010 for a Russian nuclear company when she was a private energy and environmental consultant.The document Moss Herman wrote as a consultant in 2010 was for TENAM/Tenex, according to the consulting memorandum she provided to the Russian subsidiary and obtained by Circa. TENAM is a fully-owned U.S. subsidiary of Tenex, which is 100 percent owned by the Russian state controlled nuclear company Rosatom, according to public documentation.Titled “Policy/Legislative Issues Affecting the Business Climate in the U.S. for TENAM/Tenex,” the memorandum discussed the Department...

Just days after US President Donald Trump called for further isolation of Iran, a Norwegian solar company signed a deal Tuesday to invest €2.5 billion in the country over the next five years. “Norway is fully committed to the JCPOA (nuclear deal), and this is proof that we have taken the opening very seriously, and we will see more investment very soon,” Norwegian ambassador Lars Nordrum told AFP. He was hosting the signing at his Tehran residence between Norway’s Saga Energy and Iran’s Amin Energy Developers, who will work together to install two gigawatts of solar panels in multiple sites...

The Obama administration has paid Iran more than $10 billion in gold, cash, and other assets since 2013, according to Iranian officials, who disclosed that the White House has been intentionally deflating the total amount paid to the Islamic Republic. Senior Iranian officials late last week confirmed reports that the total amount of money paid to Iran over the past four years is in excess of $10 billion, a figure that runs counter to official estimates provided by the White House. The latest disclosure by Iran, which comports with previous claims about the Obama administration obfuscating details about its cash...

In an unexpected reversal, President Barack Obama declined to sign a renewal of sanctions against Iran but let it become law anyway, in an apparent bid to alleviate Tehran's concerns that the U.S. is backsliding on the nuclear deal. Although the White House had said that Obama was expected to sign the 10-year-renewal, the midnight deadline came and went Thursday with no approval from the president. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama had decided to let it become law without his signature.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s flag carrier finalized a major deal with U.S. plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes Sunday in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Repubic from last year’s landmark nuclear agreement.