Iran Proposing Information-Intelligence Agreement With Russia

Similar to previous rounds of protests, which have become more frequent on the backdrop of economic hardship, pensioners called on the government to increase pensions by 38 percent, as stipulated by the Supreme Labor Council. Retirees are demanding pension increases more on par with rising prices of essential foods, saying that the current payments are not in line with decrees by the Council.

According to videos published on social media, about 20 cities across the country, including capital Tehran, Kerman, Ardabil, Esfahan, Rasht, Mashhad, Tabriz, Khorramshahr and Ahvaz, were the scene of large protest rallies.

The retirees gathered in front of the governorate buildings or the provincial offices of the Social Security Organization, which is in charge of paying pensions.

They chanted slogans against President Ebrahim Raisi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf such as “Death to Raisi” and “Death to Ghalibaf” as well as other insults about the clergy, whom many people blame for the dire situation in the country. 

With food prices rising faster after four years of United States’ ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, Iranian workers and retirees have been holding regular protests or strikes to demand higher salaries. Last month, Iran’s currency fell to a historic low of 333,000 rials to the US dollar in June.

During the past weeks, widespread protests by workers,shop owners, and teachers protesting against poverty, inflation, and low wages, have been met with heavy-handed crackdown and numerous arrests by the security forces.

In a statement published on Saturday, the ministry listed 61 senators and representatives – democrat and republican -- as well as former and current officials for supporting the group, which the Islamic Republic calls ‘Monafeqin’, using the Quranic term that means ‘hypocrites’. 

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Senators Ted Cruz and Cory Booker, as well as the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, are on the list.

Several of the individuals were previously blacklisted by the Iranian government for other reasons. 

Iran is furious about the group’s influence among Western politicians, particularly in the US, especially following the sentencing of a former Iranian jailor to life imprisonment by a Swedish court over executions of political prisoners in 1988, and repeated cyberattacks on Iran’s infrastructures some apparently by MEK. 

Iran’s foreign ministry accused Sweden of giving into pressure by the MEK, that Tehran considers a terrorist organization. Most of the approximately 5,000 prisoners summarily executed in prisons were members of MEK serving their sentences.

The Islamic Republic holds the MEK responsible for bombings and assassinations in Iran in the 1980s and for its alliance with Saddam Hussein until his overthrow in 2003. 

In April, Iran sanctioned 24 more Americans in a largely symbolic move, as months of talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal have stalled.

In a similar move announced in January, Iran imposed sanctions on 51 Americans, many of them from the US military, over the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq.

The United States’ release of satellite imagery Saturday showing Russian officers in Iran in June and July reviewing drones (unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs) reflects Washington’s disquiet over the Iran-Russia relationship. Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Adviser, said last Monday that Tehran planned to supply “several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs, on an expedited timeline.”

But Washington is also uneasy with the continuing Russia ties of both Saudi Arabia, which coordinates oil supplies with Moscow through Opec+, and the United Arab Emirates, which has become a haven for Russian money. Israel too has resisted US-led efforts to impose sanctions on Moscow.

“The United States is going to remain an active engaged partner in the Middle East as the world grows more competitive, and the challenges we face more complex,” Joe Biden said at the summit of nine Arab states in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “It’s only becoming clear to me how closely interwoven America’s interests are with the successes of the Middle East…We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”

Biden repeated that the US would not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon, while his expressed preference for diplomacy came with a commitment not to deploy US forces. “Today, I’m proud to be able to say that the era of land wars in the region, wars involving huge numbers of American forces, is not underway,” he said.

The summit began with some Arab leaders concerned over Washington’s commitment to the region, especially since the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer after a two-decade military presence. All hedge in one way or another. As well as coordinating global oil supplies with Russia, Riyadh has around $65 billion annual trade with China, and has since last year opened dialogue with Iran to reduce tensions.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said Saturday he was unaware of any discussions on a Gulf-Israeli defense alliance, which some have speculated as the logical outcome of air-defense cooperation under US supervision.

‘Much diminished president'

Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the US, gave on US television Friday a withering assessment of Biden as a “much diminished president.” Saudi state media made light of Biden’s words at the summit Saturday over human rights and highlighted remarks from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pointing to US hypocrisy over Jamal Khashoggi, murdered by the Saudis in 2018, given its own treatment of detainees in Iraq.

In another meeting, Biden invited Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, to visit the US – two days after reportedly the UAE July 14 arrested Asim Ghafoor, Khashoggi’s lawyer, while in transit in Dubai.

Biden’s differences with the Saudis over Iran were smoothed over. A joint statement noted Biden’s commitment to “supporting Saudi Arabia’s security and defense” and committed the two sides to “further deter Iran’s interference in the internal affairs of other countries, its support for terrorism through its armed proxies, and its efforts to destabilize the security and stability of the region.”

JCPOA or tougher action?

But while the statement “stressed the importance of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon” it made no reference to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which Biden remains committed to restoring in the face of Saudi opposition. Differences between Biden and the Israeli leaders over the need for tougher action against Iran broke through displays of mutual congratulations earlier in the week when the US president was in Israel.

Putin’s visit to Tehran, due Tuesday, will see a trilateral meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While Syria will be high on the agenda – under the ‘Astana format’ of the three countries – Erdogan has also been active in mediating between Russia and Ukraine.

Speaking Friday by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart Dymytro Kuleba, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reportedly expressed “opposition to Russia’s attack on Ukraine” in what appeared a shift in Tehran’s language if only for public consumption. There are also hopes in Tehran that Putin can offer assurances over Russian grain supplies disrupted by the Ukraine crisis.

According to a decree issued by Ali Khamenei on Saturday, Mohammad-Reza Modarresi Yazdi and Mehdi Shabzendedar Jahromi were also reinstated as the Islamic sharia law experts in the body, in charge of checking legislation approved by the parliament with the Constitution and sharia, and approving the candidates in various elections. 

The council -- also called Constitutional Council – is composed of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic Law) to be selected by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists, from among the jurists nominated by the Chief Justice, who, in turn, is also appointed by the Supreme Leader. They ensure the compatibility of the legislation passed by the parliament with sharia and the Constitution.

The Council is charged with interpreting the Constitution, supervising elections, and approving of candidates for the Assembly of Experts, the President and the parliament. But in fact, critics of the council say that it is simply a tool under Khamenei’s control who engineers elections by having the institution reject candidates. 

Jannati has also been the chairman of the Assembly of Experts - which is in charge of selecting a Supreme leader since 2016, and is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, tasked with resolving differences or conflicts between the Majlis and the Guardian Council. 

In 2020, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Jannati, along with four other members of the council for preventing free and fair elections in Iran.

The document was inked between Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud and Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar on Friday, July 15, ahead of Saturday's Jeddah summit of leaders of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council member states, and leaders from Jordan, Egypt and Iraq and the United States.

Signed between Saudi Electricity Company and the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, the electrical interconnection will link Arar in northern Saudi Arabia to Yusufiya near Baghdad and have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts and a voltage of 400 kilovolts, with a length of 435 kilometers.

The project constitutes a step to establish a regional market for electricity trade as the Persian Gulf Interconnection Authority also signed a contract to connect its network to the electricity grid of southern Iraq. This contract includes construction of lines from the authority’s substation in Kuwait to the al-Faw station in southern Iraq to supply it with about 500 megawatts of energy from the Persian Gulf countries. Construction work will take about 24 months with a total transmission capacity of 1,800 megawatts.

Iraq has been working with Saudi Arabia on electricity sharing since at least 2020, and in January, they signed a memorandum of understanding on connecting their power grids, prompted by Iran cutting its electricity and gas exports to Iraq.

Despite its immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet energy needs, especially from neighboring Iran, which currently provides a third of Iraq's gas and electricity needs.