TOP STORIES
US Slaps Sanctions On Network It Accuses Of Moving Billions For Iran's Military | Reuters
The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on nearly 50 entities and people it accused of moving billions of dollars for Iran's military. The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said those targeted on Tuesday constitute a "shadow banking network" used by Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both of which are under U.S. sanctions. The network helped the MODAFL and IRGC - which earn money notably from the sale of oil and petrochemicals - gain access to the international financial system and process the equivalent of billions of dollars since 2020, the Treasury said. The Treasury said the revenue generated by the MODAFL and IRGC through networks of Iranian exchange houses and foreign cover companies supported the provision of weapons and funding to Iran's proxy groups, including Yemen's Houthi group, and the transfer of drones to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine.
As Iran’s Presidential Vote Looms, Tensions Boil Over Renewed Headscarf Crackdown | Associated Press
Seemingly every afternoon in Iran’s capital, police vans rush to major Tehran squares and intersections to search for women with loose headscarves and those who dare not to wear them at all. The renewed crackdown comes not quite two years since mass protests over the death Mahsa Amini after she was detained for not wearing a scarf to the authorities’ liking. A United Nations panel has found that the 22-year-old died as a result of “physical violence” wrought upon her by the state. Amini’s death set off months of unrest that ended in a bloody crackdown, and for a time morality police disappeared from the streets. But now videos are emerging of women being physically forced into vans by police as lawmakers continue to push for harsher penalties. Meanwhile, authorities have seized thousands of cars over women having their hair uncovered while also targeting businesses that serve them.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, during a visit to the Pentagon on Tuesday, urged the U.S. to continue cooperating against "Iran and its proxies" after the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated the U.S. won’t likely be able to help Israel defend itself against a broader Hezbollah war as well as it helped Israel fight off an Iranian barrage of missiles and drones in April. "The President, the Administration, and you, Mr. Secretary, have been with us since day one," Gallant said according to a release from his office after the meeting. "This includes working together to defend Israel, against a massive attack, by Iran and its proxies." "Today, we are at a crossroads that will impact the entire Middle East," Gallant continued. "I am here to discuss the ways to achieve our common goals – ensuring the security of the State of Israel and projecting the powerful ties between our countries." Israeli officials last week warned about a possible full-scale war with Hezbollah, claiming the two forces were on the "brink." An IDF spokesman blamed "Hezbollah’s aggression" for driving the two forces to such a desperate place.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Iran’s Elections ‘Completely Controlled By Supreme Leader’, Leading Regime Critic Says | France 24
Ahead of Friday's snap presidential elections in Iran, a leading critic of the regime has spoken to FRANCE 24 about the vote and how little the result is likely to change things in the country. Kasra Aarabi, from United Again Nuclear Iran, told us that all six candidates allowed to stand have been personally approved by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He also spoke to us about the regime's race to obtain the nuclear bomb, saying the West only has eight months to prevent that from happening. He joined us for Perspective.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Global Powers Denounce Iran's Nuclear Ambitions At UN Meeting | The Jerusalem Post
Following a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday, a coalition of countries, including the United States and major European powers, denounced Iranian nuclear ambitions and called on Tehran to adhere to the agreed-upon limits established nearly a decade ago. The US, its European allies, Iran, and Russia issued statements after the semiannual meeting on the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The original JCPOA signatories include Iran, the five recognized nuclear powers (the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France), and Germany. While the US withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under the Trump Administration, Washington pledged on Monday “to use all means necessary to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.” France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the three Western powers still party to the agreement, expressed concerns about Iran’s recent “statements about its capacity to assemble a nuclear weapon.”
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
U.S. Sanctions ‘Sprawling’ Shadow Banking Network For Supporting Iranian Military | Associated Press
The U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday it is imposing economic sanctions on 50 people and firms across Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands that have been acting as a “sprawling shadow banking network” for Iran’s military. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the entities and individuals are involved in the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemicals, which have helped Iran’s military and government gain illicit access to the international financial system. The income pays for weapons and funding to proxy groups, including Yemen’s Houthis, as well as drone transfers to Russia, Treasury said. Iran is accused of supplying Russia with drones that are used to bomb Ukrainian civilians as the Kremlin continues its invasion of Ukraine. Included in the sanctions are Seyyed Mohammad Mosanna’i Najibi, an Iranian-Turkish money-changer, 27 cover companies controlled by Najibi based in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands, and a Tehran-based currency exchange business, among others.
Iran Election Hopefuls Struggle To Offer Fix For Economic Woes | Reuters
Candidates in Friday's Iranian presidential election have vowed to revive the flagging economy, but voters see little prospect of relief from a cost of living squeeze without an end to sanctions and an easing of Iran's international isolation. The daily struggle of ordinary Iranians to make ends meet is a persistent challenge for Iran's ruling clerics, who fear a revival of protests that have erupted periodically by lower and middle-income communities angry at enduring hardship. The reinstatement of U.S. sanctions in 2018 hit Iran's oil exports, slashing government revenues and forcing it to take unpopular steps such as increasing taxes and running big budget deficits, policies that have kept annual inflation close to 40%. Although the country has avoided total economic meltdown, thanks mainly to oil exports to China and higher crude prices, petroleum exports are still below their pre-2018 levels.
Iran's Presidential Hopefuls Pledge To End To Western Sanctions Ahead Of Election | The National
Iran's presidential candidates discussed the country's foreign policy on Monday in a three-hour televised debate ahead of the vote later this week. Iranians will head to the polls on Friday to vote for the country's next leader after a helicopter crash last month killed president Ebrahim Raisi and other officials. There are six candidates to choose from, the majority of whom are hardliner loyalists. All candidates vowed to lift western sanctions and put forward various pathways to revive a nuclear deal that collapsed in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the most prominent contender, said he would return to negotiations and a new deal would "definitely" be reached but under a gradual policy that would ultimately result in the lifting of sanctions.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iranian-Swede In Tehran Prison Announces Hunger Strike | Afp
Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmad Reza Jalali, who has been on death row in Iran for eight years, will begin a hunger strike this week, his wife told AFP on Tuesday. Vida Mehrannia said her husband "thought the only way anyone can hear his voice in the world is to just start a hunger strike" on Wednesday. Two Swedes were released by Tehran on June 15 in exchange for Hamid Noury, a 63-year-old former Iranian prisons official who was handed a life sentence in Sweden in 2022 for his role in mass killings in Iranian jails in 1988. The two Swedes were EU diplomat Johan Floderus, held in Iran since April 2022 on espionage charges, and Iranian-Swede Saeed Azizi, arrested in November. But Jalali, on death row in Iran since 2017 after an espionage conviction, missed out on the swap. In an audio message sent to AFP on June 19, Jalali criticised Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for his decision "to leave me behind under huge risk of being executed".
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Javad Zarif, Negotiator Of Iran Nuclear Deal, Backs Reformist Presidential Candidate | The Guardian
Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister and probably the Iranian politician best known to the west, has thrown himself into the campaign to elect the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the country’s president. Zarif emerged from academia back to frontline politics to face heckling at public rallies, outright bans from one university and allegations that he is seeking to settle scores with those who thwarted his foreign policy when in office between 2013 and 2021. At moments, Zarif’s fiery tongue, and his determination to defend the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal, has threatened to dominate the brief campaign, leaving the mild-mannered and consensual candidate, a heart surgeon and long-serving MP, in the shadows. The regime itself is torn. It is desperate for interest to be generated in the election to boost the regime’s legitimacy but also keen to prevent the country’s divisions from spiralling out of control.
Iran’s Reformist, Hard-Liner Candidates Clash Over Foreign Policy In Last Debate | Al Monitor
Iran's six presidential candidates engaged in their final live debates on Monday and Tuesday, as the country's supreme leader urged apathetic citizens to disappoint enemies by voting in Friday's snap presidential election. The Reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, was cornered by his firebrand hard-line rivals when they were all asked to present their foreign policy agenda in the debate aired live by multiple TV and radio channels across the state broadcaster. Taking the center stage was the contentious, factional question surrounding the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which has been on life support since it was ditched by former US President Donald Trump in 2018, sending shock waves across Iran's sanctions-hit economy. The hard-line candidates — Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, Saeed Jalili and Alireza Zakani — took turns attacking former moderate President Hassan Rouhani for his handling of the accord and his overall pro-Western policies. They underlined their own approach of sanctions neutralization through prioritizing regional alliances over engagement with Western powers.
CHINA & IRAN
Does China Have Favorite In Iran's Presidential Election? | Al Monitor
Since the helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Raisi, China has been closely watching the development in Iran’s domestic politics. The most significant question is: Who will Raisi’s successor be? In China, it is widely acknowledged that supreme leader Khamenei will be in firm control of the future domestic and foreign policy directions of Iran, regardless of who wins in the June 28 election. However, the next president of Iran will hold sway in the country's foreign policy strategies, including in its relationship with China. China is most concerned with whether the next president will maintain Iran's anti-West, anti-US position while also pursuing a stronger economic relationship with Beijing. That position has been the anchor of the bilateral alignment between Beijing and Tehran and the shared vision that laid the foundation for the cooperation and collaboration between China, Russia and Iran as a counter to Western influence. In this sense, maybe no presidential candidate would be able to override any policy determined by country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but his political conviction will inevitably affect the Chinese calculus and therefore the scope and depth of the China-Iran cooperation.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Australian Iranian Community Calls For Designation Of IRGC | Iran International
The Australian Iranian Community Alliance (AICA) has called on the Australian government to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. The appeal, addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, was published on Tuesday, in the wake of Canada's recent designation. AICA, which consists of 26 organizations and groups in Australia, made the call in response to a letter from the Australia-Iran Friendship Association that protested Canada's designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The AICA said the group is a supporter of the IRGC and the Islamic Republic and urged the Australian government to recognize the true nature of the IRGC and align with international allies to take a firm stance against activities that threaten global security. The US designated the IRGC in 2019 and last year, the UK said Iran was among the country's number one foreign threats, though has not yet designated the group, in spite of calls from lawmakers.
CYBERWARFARE
Israel Says Iran's Cyber Attacks Intensify Globally | Iran International
Israel’s National Cyber Directorate says Iran poses a significant cyber threat worldwide, escalating attacks at three times the rate since Hamas’s October 7 massacre. The attack by the Iran-backed group saw around 1,200 mostly civilians murdered and over 250 taken hostage. Gaby Portnoy said on Tuesday that the cyber attacks by Iran targeted a wide array of nations, including the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Austria. Speaking at the annual Cyber Week conference at Tel Aviv University, Portnoy revealed that Iran also targets its allies. “We have identified that Iran is attacking its allies and other countries for information extortion and damaging digital services. The information stolen from government systems is then used for Iranian cyber-terrorism,” he stated, Iran violating international law and endangering civilians in the process. Portnoy named several Iranian-linked hacking groups, such as Homeland Justice, based in Albania, and Imperial Kitten, operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.