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TOP STORIES
France and Germany agree that Iran must reverse its
ballistic missile program and end its "hegemonic temptations"
across the Middle east, the French foreign minister said on
Monday.
The Supreme Court is indicating it could prevent survivors
of a 1997 terrorist attack from seizing Persian artifacts at Chicago
museums to help pay a $71.5 million default judgment against Iran. The
justices heard arguments Monday in an appeal from U.S. victims of a
Jerusalem suicide bombing... Several justices sounded skeptical that
the survivors could invoke a provision of the Foreign Sovereign
Immunities Act in their quest. That federal law generally protects
foreign countries' property in the U.S. but makes exceptions when
countries provide support to extremist groups. The victims say Iran
provided training and support to Hamas, which carried out the attack.
Iran refuses to pay the court judgment.
Iran-allied Houthi forces claimed to have killed Yemen's
powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday, while Saudi-led
fighter jets pounded areas of the country's capital in the intensifying
and bloody battle for control of the city.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
The European Union's top diplomat says the United States
stepping away from a landmark nuclear deal would be counterproductive
and insisted other disputes with Tehran should be tackled
otherwise.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
A senior official at Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
(AEOI) said the country has managed to gain the technology to build
nuclear batteries.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
Turkish-Iranian business tycoon Reza Zarrab's testimony in
a US court has received extensive coverage in Iranian media; however,
this coverage doesn't stem from his real charge in the United States,
which is bypassing the sanctions against Tehran, but rather because he
has been linked to a controversial billionaire tycoon who is now in
jail in Iran: Babak Zanjani.
MILITARY MATTERS
North Korea's demonstration of a ballistic missile capable
of reaching most of the United States prompted gloomy commentary in
Israel about the failure to halt Pyongyang's nuclear program and, by
analogy, the seeming impossibility of stopping Iran's nuclear program.
As Haaretz commentator Anshel Pfeffer put it, Kim
Jong-un "proved that a dictator who wants a nuclear weapon badly
enough," and is ruthless and determined enough, "will
ultimately achieve it." Yet the North Korean example proves no
such thing because it says nothing about the efficacy of the one tactic
America never tried: military action, or at least the credible threat
thereof. North Korea has proven, if anyone had still any doubts, that
sanctions and negotiations alone can't stop a determined dictator from
acquiring nukes. In contrast, the jury's still out on military
action.
IRAQ CRISIS
Iran warned on Monday against any attempts to dissolve the
Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, and
considered any calls to dismantle those units, which include militias
loyal to Tehran, as a "conspiracy."
GULF STATES, YEMEN, LEBANON, AND IRAN
Was Iran responsible for the killing on Monday of Yemen's
former president and Earth's ultimate political chameleon, Ali Abdullah
Saleh?... Iran has the key motive to want Saleh dead. After all, it was
just two days ago that Saleh pledged to abandon his never-natural
Iranian supported Houthi allies and work with Saudi Arabia to end
Yemen's two and a half year civil war.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that Yemenis
would make those attacking their country regret their actions as a
Saudi-led coalition pounded the rebel-held capital with heavy air
strikes... His comments came a day after the killing of ex-president
Ali Abdullah Saleh by Iran-backed Huthi rebels triggered a renewed
Saudi-backed offensive on the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was President of Yemen for decades
and once compared governing the country to "dancing on the heads
of snakes," was killed on Monday at the age of 75. His death will
instantly transform the political landscape in Yemen, a country that's
been gripped by conflict for three years. Saleh was killed amid clashes
with his erstwhile allies in Yemen -- the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
He had joined forces with the Houthis in 2014, prompting Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates to launch an offensive against what was
never more than a marriage of convenience.
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