Top Ukraine Official Urges 'Liquidation' Of Iranian Arms Factories

Madani was arrested in May accused of “formation and management of anti-government groups”, “holding gathering and conspiring to commit crimes against the country’s security" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Madani − whose research interests include poverty, drug addiction, child abuse, and prostitution − belongs to the banned Nationalist-Religious Alliance, a small non-violent religious opposition groups that favors political reform and welfare economics.

He has been sentenced and imprisoned several times for membership in the group and for “propaganda against the state.” In 2016, he was exiled to the southern port city of Bandar Abbas after four years of an eight-year prison sentence served at Evin prison, Tehran.

Iran has arrested hundreds of university students, writers and cultural leaders during 100 days of anti-regime protests that began in September.

He has been associated with various opposition groups in Iran, and in response to his criticism of the government’s handling of the COVID pandemic, he was stopped by the IRGC in January this year from traveling from Tehran to take up a post at Yale University.

Madani, 61, a sociology professor at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University, has published several books on social issues in Iran.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, an outspoken critic of the government in foreign policy, nuclear talks and energy, says predictions by Iranian officials that Europe would plunge in cold and darkness this winter and they would run back to nuclear negotiations with Iran have turned out to be "illusions."

Some Iranian officials including Mohammad Marandi, who accompanies Iranian nuclear negotiators, have been saying since last summer that "a hard winter in Europe" will force European powers to come back to the negotiating table. Marandi had predicted: "The winter is coming, and the EU will have to face a paralyzing energy crisis."

The hardliner editor of the ultraconservative Kayhan daily had also said in the summer that after "only two months" the United States and Europe will beg Iran to resume the negotiations and will surrender to Iran's terms.

The flawed argument was being used to justify Tehran’s hard position after 18 months of multilateral talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with the West, which would lift crippling sanctions imposed on Iran.

Hardline officials were making these claims while Europe needed natural gas, something Iran does not produce enough of to export and has no way of shipping it to Europe. On the contrary, Iran is suffering from a natural gas shortage this winter like every year. It shut down several cement factories this week only to save gas for homes.

Falahatpisheh, the former head of parliament's foreign policy and national security committee also criticized Iranian officials in an interview with the moderate conservative Khabar Online website, saying that "They are selling Iran's oil at a discounted price and still take pride in it."

The former lawmaker said that Iranian officials and hardliner commentators have been taken by surprise as their misplaced predictions in foreign policy did not come true.

Falahatpisheh also noted that while Iran counts on Russia as a "strategic ally," Russia has been selling oil at a discounted price, and Iran has no solution for its oil other than offering even more discounts than Russia. He added that Iranian officials take pride in selling oil despite US sanctions and call it a "victory", while what they are doing is wasting Iran's wealth to the tune of millions of dollars a day.

Tejarat (Commerce) Daily in Tehran quoted some oil market experts as saying that Iran has been lately selling its oil at the price of $37 per barrel while the market price for oil is around $79.25 per barrel. According to estimates, the production of every barrel of oil costs Iran nearly 30 dollars due to its aging equipment after years of token investments.

On the other hand, Iran's neighbor, Saudi Arabia invested some $82 billion in infrastructure in the past ten years to preserve its supremacy in the oil market.

Falahatpisheh in his interview argued that "Iran needs a new spirit in its foreign policy. In today's world only the countries are successful that have managed to reduce tensions with other countries." He suggested that Iran's first measure should be to settle differences with other countries and take serious steps toward détente. He said: "I believe the US and EU's current policies will not last forever. These policies are mainly meant to reduce Iran's bargaining power. However, the West will return to negotiations when and if they see that Iran has resolved its internal crisis and everyone, including all Iranian officials, are behaving in a way to serve the country's national interests."

Ali-Akbar Alvandian, secretary of cement producers’ association told the website that natural gas flows to many factories have been reduced and the alternative fuel, mazut, which is a dirty variety of diesel is also hard to procure.

Iran, which has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves is unable to meet domestic demand, especially in cold and hot months when energy consumption rises to its highest levels.

Power generation stations also receive less gas and resort to burning the highly polluting mazut, which has blanketed Iranian cities in a thick layer of pollution in recent weeks. As a result, the government has restricted mazut shipments to cement and other factories.

Lack of natural gas also hurts Iran’s petrochemical industry, which is a significant source of export earnings.

Iran needs around $40 billion of investment and Western technology to boost its gas production, which has been gradually falling. At the same time due to extremely low prices for consumers, gas and electricity usage increases by around 6 percent annually.

Without resolving its disputes with Western powers, Iran would not be able to provide the investment and acquire the technology needed for revitalizing its natural gas production.

Putin congratulated Netanyahu on forming a government while the new Israeli leader told Putin that “he hopes a way will be found quickly to end the war [with Ukraine] and the suffering it has caused.”

The two also discussed the Islamic Republic’s attempt to entrench itself militarily in Syria, which borders Israel. During his previous term as prime minister, Netanyahu worked out a deconfliction agreement with Moscow whose army operates in Syria, to allow Israel to conduct aerial attacks against Iranian targets and their proxies without tangling with Russian forces. Netanyahu told Putin he “is determined to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and to halt its attempts to establish a military base on our northern border.”

Since Netanyahu left office in 2021, Moscow has stepped up its military alliance with Tehran, which has provided Russia with armed drones for its invasion of Ukraine.

After Netanyahu won the election on November 1, Zelensky called Netanyahu, as did US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak but it took weeks until Putin’s first public call. 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky told The New York Times on December 21, that Netanyahu's "personal relationship" with Putin could affect the "historical relations" between Israel and Ukraine. He added that “if he wants to maintain the historical relations between Israel and the Ukrainian people, you have to do everything you can to save as many people as possible."

Speaking at a press briefing, Blinken said the US was working alongside “the many countries that share our fundamental interests and values.” In the Middle East he cited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, and Israel. Blinken extended “congratulations to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu on announcing the formation of a new government.”

Netanyahu's relations with the Biden Administration was not as close as his friendship with former President Donald Trump and tension with Palestinians could spike because of the influence of religious parties in his government.

“Nato has never been stronger or more united,” Blinken said. “We doubled the number of battlegroups along Nato’s eastern flank…the Russian war machine is in dire straits.”

Both Iran and Russia, Blinken said, shunned diplomatic solutions. “We have to see some meaningful evidence that Russia is prepared to actually negotiate and negotiate,” he said.

Blinken acknowledged Iran had abided by its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), until the US in 2018 left the JCPOA. But he attributed the failure of talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA solely to Iran not being “willing or able to do what’s necessary.”

With growing talk in Washington and Tel Aviv of a ‘military option’ against Iran, Blinken noted the challenges the US faced in downsizing its Middle Eastern military presence.

Marginal events, significant developments

David Barnea, head of Mossad, at the Israel’s intelligence agency awards Thursday, attacked the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement as “absurd” and looked forward to a government in Tehran that was as close to Israel as was the Pahlavi Shah before the 1979 Revolution.

A review of “significant regional developments…including the current situation in Iran” was the center of Friday’s virtual meeting between US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, according to a White House statement. Given their “shared commitment to countering Iran’s threats to the region,” the officials “discussed the broad array of economic sanctions imposed in recent months against Iran” and “reviewed ongoing cooperation and exercises between the US military and Israel Defense Forces.”

Gabi Portnoy, an Israeli cybersecurity official, dismissed as a “marginal event” the hacking of Israeli security footage of a bombing in Jerusalem November – attributed to an Iranian hacktivist group ‘Moses Staff.’ In remarks reported by the Times of Israel Friday, Portnoy said Israel security agencies “didn’t do the minimum required.”

Artificial intelligence, unmanned vessels

In a press briefing Thursday, General Michael Kurilla, Commander of the US Central Command - which covers the Middle East and which has included Israel for a year – said adversaries would be combatted both by “values-based relationships” and the military use of artificial intelligence, including “unmanned systems...[like 100 naval] surface vessels and undersea vessels.”

The US had a “very strong military-to-military relationship” with Saudi Arabia, Kurilla said, exemplified by his discussion that morning with General Fayyad Al-Ruwaili, the Saudi chief of staff. Egypt, Kurilla noted, had a “large, modern, and powerful military” due in part to US training and equipping over 30 years.

“We’ve got to cultivate deep, abiding partnerships that can serve as a hedge against threats in the region while deterring Iran from its worst, most destructive behavior,” the CENTCOM commander said, as Tehran continued “to violate [US] sanctions,” and to “undermine regional security and stability through militia groups, ballistic missile capabilities, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones], and routine threats to international waterway.”