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The email coercing Democrats in Florida to vote for President Donald Trump seemed legitimate at first. It was sent from an apparently official email account, was personally addressed and even included the recipients home address. However, less than a day after the email was purportedly sent by far-right group the Proud Boys, U.S. officials revealed it to be part of an Iranian campaign to interfere in the U.S. election.

The influence campaign which also targeted voters in Alaska, Pennsylvania and Arizona showed a new level of Iranian sophistication, according to three Israeli cyberexperts who spoke with Haaretz and are knowledgeable about how hackers from the Islamic Republic operate.

They all say the bogus email marks a new type of cyberoffensive by Iran, but add that it raises further questions.

The case also highlights how difficult it is to attribute such cyberattacks nowadays, just as the United States ramps up its efforts to fight attempts by Russia, China and Iran to meddle in the November 3 election.

Last Wednesday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Russia and Iran have both tried to interfere in next weeks election.

The announcement followed a string of other statements by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials in recent weeks, revealing attempts past and present to undermine Americas voting system. These came through cyberattacks on voting networks and infrastructure, and disinformation campaigns. Though officials believe Russia is the bigger threat, both Russia and Iran are acting with what officials say is the clear intent to undermine the integrity of the electoral process.

Something new

According to Israeli web intelligence expert Dana Segev Moyal, the Proud Boys operation was different and more complex than past campaigns attributed to Iran.

Most of what we know publicly about previous attacks attributed to Iran is that they were usually either more complex technologically for example, cyberattacks on infrastructure or, when they were social influence campaigns, they tended to focus on spreading disinformation on social media.

Segev Moyal, who focuses on disinformation and has studied Irans past activities in this area, says were seeing something new this time: Weve never seen an email campaign targeting voters of a specific state with a specific message from a very specific organization, she notes.

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At minimum, this shows a pretty detailed understanding of American politics. I doubt your average Israeli or Iranian knows who the Proud Boys are. You need to do research and follow American politics closely. The extremist group made headlines after the first presidential debate, when President Trump refused to denounce it.

Boaz Dolev, a cybersecurity expert whose ClearSky firm has revealed Iranian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns in recent years, agrees. He calls it a very rare attack.

What makes the attack so unique, according to both experts, is that it was actually quite simple from a technological perspective, but very complex in strategic terms.

Contrary to what people think, this attack doesnt actually require any hacking, Segev Moyal explains. Voter registration details are available online if you know how to find them. Whats interesting here is that they fused and corroborated different types of data to mount an influence campaign. Thats just not the type of planning weve seen up till now, she says.

In 2018, Dolevs ClearSky revealed a massive Iranian disinformation campaign. However, that operation was more in line with what we would term fake news and included a network of more than 70 pseudo-media outlets that covertly spread Iranian state propaganda in 15 different countries a far cry from the complex and hyper-targeted influence campaign now being attributed to them.

Though both experts say its hard to draw a direct line between the email campaign and Iran at least based on the information currently available they state that, much like Russia, Irans capabilities and techniques are always changing, making it that much harder to prove.

Dolev offers one recent example that surprised him: A few weeks ago, his firm revealed an Iranian cyberoperation in Israel that tried to pass itself off as a criminal (as opposed to state) offensive. Operation Quicksand, as it was labeled, also showed new modes of operation that hadnt previously been linked to Iran.

Theres a certain chain of attribution people in the world of cybersecurity know how to do, he explains. You can link a certain technology or technique to a certain team, and you can link that team back to certain states.

What I can tell you about the Iranians is that the last time we came out and said it was them [in Operation Quicksand], at first I didnt think it was them, because technologically it showed they had taken a step forward in terms of their actual capabilities. It was a professional job that I hadnt seen in this context before. But then you get some more information that allows you to make the attribution.

In the case of the Proud Boys email campaign, it was Reuters and the United States that made the attribution with the help of information provided by Google and Microsoft. All the experts Haaretz spoke with said that without reviewing the actual information, they couldnt independently confirm or deny the attributions veracity.

As Dolev puts it, experts in his field are constantly updating and revising their assumptions about what certain players can or cant do. So now we know Iran is an agent that has better technological capabilities than we had previously thought, he says, referring to Operation Quicksand.

Nonetheless, he says, when it comes to disinformation campaigns, most of their capabilities are actually basic even if their cyberoffensives against organizations have been stepped up and are better than we initially thought.

In this case, though, as Segev Moyal explains, the operation was actually complex: In addition to finding all the [voter] emails and cross-referencing all the different data sets, they also had to find a Proud Boys server that was vulnerable and actually produce an email campaign.

Proud Iranian boys?

The few details made public about how the email campaign was traced back to Iran show how complex such operations can be both for the perpetrator and those trying to thwart them.

According to Reuters, it was a series of dumb mistakes that revealed the attacks origins. For example, one of the emails sent out (there were a number in the campaign) included a video that purported to show how the hackers managed to obtain voter registration details. A few lines of code viewable in the video, as well as an IP address that was not blurred out, were traced back to websites and techniques previously used by Iran.

However, its exactly this type of slapdash error that also prompts questions. For instance, some reports have shown screen captures of the email. In one of them, theres a glaring typo in the subject line: Voteing with an e, Segev Moyal says. Its strange that someone would make such a big effort but then make such a silly mistake, she adds.

A third expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of their work and the issue, added that certain aspects of the operation actually look more similar to Russian operations.

This appears to be a scenario also examined by the United States: Either they made a dumb mistake or wanted to get caught, said a senior U.S. government official who spoke to Reuters when the story broke last week. But they added: Were not concerned about this activity being some kind of false flag due to other supporting evidence. This was Iran.

Segev Moyal notes that this is not something we can say is definitely not Iran they can do that but there are also others who do such things. However, both she and Dolev refuse to call into question the American findings, saying that without further information, they simply cannot know for certain.

For Segev Moyal, one possible explanation is that, oftentimes, such campaigns are not really intended to succeed but merely to sow distrust and help create the sense that the U.S. electoral process is exposed to manipulation.

In this case, the video itself was also posted online. Social media analytics firm Graphika told Reuters that two Twitter accounts began posting links to the video last Tuesday evening and attempted to attract the attention of some media and political organizations. One account described itself as Trumps Soldier and shared a link to the video with the comment: It seems they hacked [the] voting system.

This also highlights how much the disinformation efforts piggyback statements being pushed out by the U.S. president himself.

When you look at this as an influence campaign that wants to sway public opinion, this could make sense, Segev Moyal says. This was not really a cyberattack on voter infrastructure no one, for example, is suggesting [the Iranians] or the Russians can alter the election results themselves.

From this perspective, the true goal of the email campaign was perhaps to fuel the narrative that Americas electoral system is exposed.

For Dolev, one of the most interesting aspects of the attack was the U.S. response and the governments decision to reveal the operation so quickly.

This is a new American policy and were also seeing it in regards to the Russians, he says, citing recent indictments against hackers operating for the GRU (the Russian armys intelligence branch). By revealing the operations, Dolev adds, the United States is in a sense fighting back, as publicity can counter the effectiveness of such influence campaigns.

During an influence campaign, the target countrys goal can be to respond as publicly as possible, Segev Moyal says. It helps restore public confidence, and show that everything is under control and voting systems have not actually been compromised. Like the operation itself, this type of response also aims at hearts and minds.

Here is the original post:
Iranian meddling in U.S. election shows new skills. But is it really Iran? - Haaretz.com

LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian hackers suspected of emailing threatening messages to U.S. voters last week and spreading false information about compromised election systems ran a disinformation campaign last year targeting the Middle East, Facebook Inc FB.O said on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen placed on a keyboard in this illustration taken March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

U.S. officials blamed Iran last week for thousands of threatening emails and an online video that purported to show hackers breaking into a voter registration system just days before the U.S. presidential election. Tehran has denied the allegations.

Facebook said it had suspended one fake account which attempted to share the video on its site. That account in turn led to more than 20 other accounts on Facebook and Instagram, revealing a dormant disinformation operation that had targeted countries including Israel and Saudi Arabia in 2019, the company said.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebooks head of cybersecurity policy, said the newly-discovered accounts were largely inactive, but had previously attempted to spread claims about an alleged massacre at last years Eurovision Song Contest in Israel.

U.S. intelligence agencies are still analysing who exactly in Iran commanded the operation and its intent, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week.

Gleicher said on Tuesday his team found a small number of technical links to a disinformation network suspended in April that was attributed to Irans state broadcaster, as well as connections to individuals associated with the Iranian government.

Facebook also said it had suspended two pages and 22 Instagram accounts run by people from Mexico and Venezuela that used fake identities and other forms of so-called coordinated inauthentic behaviour to post about current events and politics in the United States.

Some of the accounts posed as Americans and posted in Spanish and English about topics including race relations, feminism and the environment, Facebook said. They were identified following a tip from the FBI, it added.

While it was not clear who was behind the activity, some accounts posted captioned pictures previously used by the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization U.S. prosecutors have said played a key role in Moscows efforts to sway the 2016 U.S. election.

Gleicher said both networks, as well as a third operation targeting Internet users in Myanmar, had been caught before they could attract significant followings.

But he said malicious actors were increasingly using concerns about their own election interference attempts to further sow distrust and division.

We call it perception hacking, he said. Rather than actually breaking into a sensitive voter database or using a large social influence campaign, you just play on everyones fear that it exists.

Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Edward Tobin

See the rest here:
Facebook says suspected Iranian hackers behind U.S. election threats operated in 2019 - Reuters

SecDef Esper is still in India on official business, his team tweeted this morning. If you missed Tuesdays D Brief, you can catch up on why Esper and State Secretary Mike Pompeo are in New Delhi this week here.

President Trump is campaigning in Arizona today, with an airport rally planned for noon in Bullhead City (90 minutes south of Las Vegas), and another planned about three hours later in Goodyear (just outside Phoenix) before Air Force One takes POTUS45 to his Florida property at Mar-a-Lago. The Associated Press previews Trumps day as well as the schedule of his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden here. Reuters has its own campaign trail preview, here.

By the way: COVID infections are up 20% from last week, and Three dozen states reported that the average number of people currently hospitalized with Covid-19 rose by at least 5% over the past week, CNBC reports today, citing data from Johns Hopkins University and The Atlantics Covid Tracking Project.

New warning: As the nation did after Memorial Day, we are at another critical point in the pandemic response, the U.S. Navy admiral in charge of testing said this morning on the TODAY show.

Cases are going up in most states across the country, Adm. Brett Girior said. Hospitalizations are up, although were still tens of thousands of hospitalizations below where we were in July, but that is rising. And we are starting to see the increase in deaths.

White House science office: The pandemic is over. In a Tuesday statement, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said ending the COVID-19 pandemic is among Trumps major first-term accomplishments.

Thats mind-boggling, one unnamed official with the White House coronavirus task force told The Daily Beast in response. Theres no world in which anyone can think that is true. Maybe the president. But I dont see how even he can believe that. We have more than 70,000 new cases each day.

U.S. stocks have started badly today in anticipation of possibly needed lockdowns across the country, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. The selling was broad based and appeared to favor the safest assets, especially short-term government bonds and the U.S. dollar. Along with stocks, oil and emerging market currencies tumbled. Whats more, Investors also remain leery about the U.S. election, and whether delays in counting mail-in ballots may lead to uncertainty in the days after the Nov. 3 election. More behind the paywall, here.

And on the other side of the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin just mandated mask-wearing as coronavirus cases spike across Russia, CBS News reported Tuesday. Thats because the country recorded a record-high number of new cases on Monday, with 17,148, and October has seen more confirmed cases in the country overall than any other month, CBS writes.

FWIW, Russia has the fourth-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, behind the United States, India and Brazil. A bit more, here.

Raytheon Sheds People, Offices, Divisions as Pandemic Crushes Commercial Sector // Marcus Weisgerber: The companys defense business is one bright light.

The October (or November) Surprise Neither Trump Nor Biden Wants // Jane Harman: We need independent, scrupulously apolitical intelligence analysis in the White House that can compete with our worst instincts.

What Clintons Foreign Affairs Article May Mean for the Defense Budget // Todd Harrison: Her approach, more rebalancing rather than modernizing, avoids a simple zero-sum frame of defense vs. non-defense spending.

Trumps Border Wall Is Costing Taxpayers Billions More Than Initial Contracts // Perla Trevizo and Jeremy Schwartz, ProPublica: Federal spending data shows modifications to contracts have increased the price of the border wall by billions, costing about five times more per mile than it did under previous administrations.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Send us tips from your community right here. And if youre not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1968, the Cuban missile crisis came to an end when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the USSRs nuclear-armed missiles from Cuba.

The U.S. Army is sending cavalry troops to Europe for a nine-month rotation known as Atlantic Resolve, which involves multinational training events across more than a dozen countries, according to the service. The new forces and their equipment are from the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, out of Fort Hood, Texas. They're replacing the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team from Fort Stewart, Georgia's 3rd Infantry Division.How the coronavirus changes things: Before departing the U.S., Soldiers will conduct pre-deployment Restriction of Movement and COVID testing, the Army said in a statement Wednesday morning. While traveling, all Soldiers will wear masks and follow strict hygiene measures. Once in Europe, Soldiers will again quarantine and test before traveling throughout the continent.Big picture: U.S. Army support to the Atlantic Resolve mission consists of approximately 6,000 Soldiers assigned to armored, aviation and logistical task forces overseen by a Division Headquarters (Forward) based in Poznan, Poland, the Army said Wednesday. These heel-to-toe deployments ensure U.S. Army forces maintain a consistent, combat-credible presence to deter [Russian] aggression in the region. The deployment of ready, combat-credible U.S. forces to Europe is evidence of the strong and unremitting U.S. commitment to NATO and Europe.

Back stateside, military troops wont be passing out coronavirus vaccines on Americas streets, said the Army general in charge of the federal governments effort to quickly secure and dispense a vaccine, Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday.Dont get it twisted: There will not be this vision that some people have that there will be Army trucks driving through the streets delivering vaccines, said Gen. Gustave Perna told the audience at a virtual event Tuesday with the convservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington. That is not feasible or the right way to do it.So what will the U.S. military be doing? The answer is, in many ways, what its already doing, Perna explained. And that, Stripes reports, involves providing planning, contracting and logistical analysis necessary to move some 300,000 doses of a Food and Drug Administration-approved coronavirus vaccine across the country to be given to Americans. More here.

Pennsylvanias governor just authorized National Guard troops to help police protect property and quell unrest in Philadelphia, where protests have began after police shot a Black man on Monday, the Washington Post reports today. The shooting was captured on video, here.Wallace was armed with a knife when he was shot and was advancing toward a pair of officers who had demanded that he drop the weapon. His family said he suffered from mental illness and angrily questioned why police had not used nonlethal methods to subdue him, the Post wrote on Tuesday.Thirty police officers were injured and 91 people were arrested overnight Monday amid looting and arson, and authorities were bracing for more potential violence Tuesday night. Protests, led by Black clergy members, that began late Tuesday afternoon at the scene of the shooting were peaceful.

Iran is building an underground centrifuge assembly plant after its last one mysteriously exploded at Natanz back in July, the UNs International Atomic Energy Agency told the Associated Press on Tuesday.Take a look at some of the new construction via satellite imagery from Planet (here) along with commentary and analysis from Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International StudiesIn case youre wondering, Iran also continues to stockpile greater amounts of low-enriched uranium, but does not appear to possess enough to produce a weapon, the IAEAs Director-General, Rafael Grossi, said.Worth noting: Iran has continued to allow IAEA inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities, including Natanz, AP writes. More, including enrichment requirements to obtain enough to make a weapon, here.What timing: Two U.S. House lawmakers want to give Israel bunker-busting bombs that could strike Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Politico reported Tuesday after Jewish Insider got the scoop. The legislation, offered by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.), would make it possible to transfer the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator to Israel as a defense against Iran if Tehran pursues nuclear weapons, Connor OBrien wrote. More from Politico, here.

Remember the Saudi-led, U.S.-backed war in Yemen? It never stopped, and this week the monitoring group Airwars alleged that the U.S. has conducted at least 190 armed actions, mostly airstrikes, in Yemen since President Trump took office in 2017, resulting in a minimum of 86 likely civilian deaths, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.One reason this matters: All told, the U.S. military has acknowledged only up to a dozen possible civilian casualties in Yemen during Trumps presidency, the Posts Missy Ryan writes.

Almost 6,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first nine months of the year, the UN said Tuesday. The Taliban were responsible for 45% of civilian casualties while government troops caused 23%, it said. U.S.-led international forces were responsible for 2%, Reuters reports.How does that compare to previous years? The toll is so far 30% lower than in the same period last year, according to the UN. But more alarming at this point is the fact that, as Reuters writes, violence has failed to slow since the beginning of talks between government negotiators and the Taliban that began in the Qatari capital of Doha last month. More here.

Want a two-page primer on the Pentagons new effort to link everything on the battlefield, otherwise known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control, aka JADC2, or the related Army-Air Force project theyve dubbed Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, aka CJADC2? The Congressional Research Service has you covered, here. (Tip of the hat to USNI News for hosting the PDF on its site, here.)

Another day on Capitol Hill for Big Tech CEOs. The chief executives of Google, Facebook and Twitter are testifying today before a Senate committee to explain a bit about how the platforms moderate content. Catch the livestream here.

Get smart on how politicians target you using things like your credit score in a fairly wide-ranging analysis from the Washington Posts tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler. He received so many different campaign emails this season that he decided to look into what he calls the voter data economy, in which candidates, parties and nonprofits quietly collect, buy and exploit a ton of information about you.Cutting to the quick, he writes, Privacy may be a cornerstone of American liberty, but politicians on both sides of the aisle have zero problem invading it. And as it stands, there just arent many laws designed to protect our data from politicians.Voter registration and participation info was already available to campaigns. But now, campaigns have access to data on your income, debt, family, ethnicity, religion, gym habits, whether you own a gun and what kind of car you drive.Blame that phone of yours. Whats new here is that political campaigns have begun tapping into commercial data brokers and murkier social media and smartphone tracking techniques, Fowler reports, adding, The scandal that erupted around Cambridge Analytica, which scraped data from Facebook while working for Donald Trumps 2016 campaign, was just the tip of the iceberg. Read on for what he calls the five major sources of personal data that fuel the political machine, here.

And lastly today: Are arctic farts making climate change worse? The Guardian: Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean known as the sleeping giants of the carbon cycle have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast.So what? Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years, which is prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating. Read, here.Meanwhile, at NOAA: The Trump administration has recently removed the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nations premier scientific agency, installed new political staff who have questioned accepted facts about climate change and imposed stricter controls on communications at the agency. Read on, here.

The rest is here:
Today's D Brief: COVID is rising again in most states; Iran's new construction; Border-wall costs, up; Muzzling NOAA; And a bit more. - Defense One

Tue, Oct 27, 2020

Elections 2020byAli Fathollah-Nejad and Amin Naeni

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during the opening ceremony of Iran's 11th parliament, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Tehran, Iran, May 27, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

The outcome of the November 3 US presidential election will reverberate far beyond the United States, especially in Iran, where it may influence the fortunes of rival political factions as well as the results of Irans own presidential elections next June.

The Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign has imposed unprecedented economic sanctions against Iran and severely undercut the credibility of the reformist camp. Massive popular disillusionment with so-called moderates made it easier for hardliners to win control over the Iranian parliament in February. Now, due to the reluctance of many Iranians to participate in future electionsout of disappointment at the failure of reformists to fulfill their promises of economic progress and political reformhardliners are hoping to gain the presidency as well.

Reformists and moderates are pinning their hopes on a prospective Joe Biden administration to instill life back into their camp, awaken them from a political coma and help them stage a comeback at the ballot box. Bidens expressed willingness to recommit Washington to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would bring about some urgently needed sanctions relief for Iran, has created the expectation among the reformist and moderate camp that their landmark achievement can survive, and with it, their political fortunes. In this vein, Irans leading reformist daily Shargh has written: the reformists, who until recently were devoid of any hope [regarding their political future], havewith the rising chance of a Biden victorycome to believe that it may not be too late for reformists [to rebuild their power] and make the JCPOA work. The papers editor-in-chief continues that the only way for the 2021 [Iranian presidential] victory by reformists is Bidena revival of hope. The latter term was the motto of the moderate/pragmatist camp in two previous presidential elections, won by Hassan Rouhani.

Ahmad Naghib-Zadeh, a Tehran University politics professor and a reformist activist, agreed that a Biden victory and return to the JCPOA would constitute a huge success for the Islamic Republic. In a Shargh interview, Sadegh Zibakalam, another prominent Tehran University politics professor, made the same prediction. If Trump wins, hardliners will have the upper hand in Iran, so that the reformists prefer a Biden victory, Zibakalam said.

Against the backdrop of the hardliners parliamentary victory last Februarywhich followed the lowest recorded voter turnout in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolutionEsmail Gerami-Moghaddam, a reformist politician, added that a Biden victory can dramatically increase voter participation in next years Iranian presidential election. Under a Biden presidency, Irans economy will improve, leading Iranians to vote for a moderate candidate, Gerami-Moghaddam said.

For Irans hardliners, however, the question of which US presidential candidate to favor is more complicated. Many are concerned that a victory by incumbent Donald Trump might embolden opposition groups calling for regime change in Iran. Trumps decision to order the assassination in January of General Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is another reason hardliners hate the US president.

At the same time, hardline factions worry that a Biden victory might facilitate a reformist win in Irans presidential elections. Therefore, the emerging line is that hardliners prefer neither Trump nor Biden and that whatever the outcome of the November 3 election, there will be more continuity than change in US policy toward Iran.

Echoing this stance, Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf, Irans parliament speaker and a likely presidential candidate in 2021, said, There is a deep-seated enmity between Iran and the US, hence the victory of either Biden or Trump makes no difference in Americas main policy of hitting Iran. Javan, a daily close to the IRGC, has criticized the reformists efforts to promote the potential benefits of a Biden victory for Iran, decrying it as the Democrats campaign in Iran. For Kayhan, another hardliner daily, it is a big lie that reformists claim Iran will benefit from a Biden presidency.

Clearly, hardliners worry that a Biden presidency might undermine their chances of winning the 2021 elections; hence their fervent critique. However, a recent survey by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) among Iranians familiar with the US presidential contenders showed that most agree with the hardline contention that there is little difference between Biden and Trump when it comes to Iran.

Views of the US election should be seen in the context of various protests over the last three years, in which Iranians have declared that their main problem is with the performance of their own government and not external factors. Echoing such sentiments, reformist politician Ali Soufi criticized his own faction, stating, in 2017 [before Trump withdrawal from the JCPOA], the Rouhani administration started to deviate from its promises, and people reacted to the administration [in nationwide protests starting in December 2017]. But the reformists did not support the people because they have benefited from the Rouhani administrationin other words, reformists have become greedy.

In this vein, Zibakalam had already argued that the reputation of reformists has vanished with the [December 2017] protests, turning them into the big losers of those protests and now reforms died. Similarly, Ebrahim Fayaz, a Tehran University anthropologist, boldly stated that reformists can do nothing, they have no new strategy and must rest at least for eight years.

To conclude, Irans two prominent political factions perceive the US presidential election outcome in light of their own goals for Irans presidential campaign next year. Although the reformists calculation that a Biden presidency will help rebuild their lost power and influence is far from certain to become reality, hardliners recognize the same scenario as a threat to their ambitions to monopolize power. Their anxiety stems not only from ideological persuasion but from past experience. Since moderates won the last two presidential elections by promoting the benefits of the nuclear deal, hardliners are concerned that a President Biden rejoining the JCPOA might presage the same outcome.

Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a non-resident senior research fellow at the AfroMiddle East Center in Johannesburg. He is a former Iran expert at the Brookings Institution in Doha and the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Amin Naeni is a project researcher at Tehran Universitys Department of Regional Studies.

See original here:
The US election through the eyes of Iran's moderates and hardliners - Atlantic Council

The order for Iraqi armed factions to halt their attacks on US interests last week came directly from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Middle East Eye can reveal.

According to commanders of Shia armed factions and politicians, Khameneis orders were explicit and demanded the paramilitaries immediately cease their attacks.

Khamenei's orders were straightforward and clear. All attacks targeting US interests in Iraq must stop, a senior commander of an Iranian-backed armed faction involved in the attacks told Middle East Eye.

'Khamenei's orders were straightforward and clear. All attacks targeting US interests in Iraq must stop'

- Iraqi paramilitary commander

The US embassy in Baghdad, military bases hosting the US-led coalition forces and logistical support convoys have been subjected to almost daily attacks by Katyusha rockets, explosives and sometimes direct fire over the past three months.

Although these attacks have not caused significant losses, their frequency has bothered the Iraqi and US governments and raised the concern of diplomatic missions, especially after the targeting of UN and British convoys.

In response, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened to close Washingtons embassy in Baghdad unless the attackers were brought to heel.

Iraqi officials told MEEthatPompeo also promised to strike dozens of targets, including secret headquarters and sites belonging to armed factions and Iranian-backed politicians.

Besides those threats, Tehran has seen the need to give Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis government some respite. Already it is grappling with a financial crisis sparked by low oil prices, as well as the coronavirus pandemic, and the uncertainty surrounding the governments collapse would cause Iran a fresh headache.

Kataeb Hezbollah, the faction most hostile to the US and accused of carrying out the majority of attacks, was first to respond to Khameneis order. It was quickly followed by Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and other small factions.

"The Americans seek to inflame people against us in various ways, so we decided that thwarting the Americans efforts in this regard is more important than targeting the American embassy, a prominent commander of one of the armed factions involved in these attacks told MEE.

"Calming the Iraqi street, preserving the Iraqi government and the political process is the priority now. Therefore, it was decided to suspend all attacks targeting US interests in Iraq until the danger passes.

The significant shifting in the attitude of the Iranian-backed armed factions and the timing of the announcement of this unilateral truce has raised manyquestions about the real goal of this decision, its conditions, its time limits, the identity of the guarantor party, and, most importantly, who is making it.

Iraq has been one of the biggest arenas of conflict between the United States and Iran since 2003. Both nations control dozens of armed groups, as well as political and military leaders who are working to implement their agendas.

Iraqi officials said the US administration is afraid that armed groups linked to Iran will attack the Baghdad embassy to embarrass US President Donald Trump, who is seeking to win a second term in the 3 November election.

'War is imminent': Iraq's Kadhimi moves to fend off US threat to target pro-Iran groups

It is a scenario that reflects the strategy employed by Tehran over recent months, and Washingtons fears are well-founded.

Armed factions had been encouraged to attack US targets to "pressure Trump and his allies in Iraq" and push him into taking reckless action that could cause him to lose the elections, Iraqi officials and armed factions commanders told MEE.

However, it seems that calculations changed after "the Iranians made sure of the seriousness of the threats that Pompeo conveyed through Iraqi President Barham Salih to strike Iranian interests and their allies inside Iraq", according to a senior Shia leader close to Tehran.

"The Iranians have received very important advice from a common ally that had a clear effect in changing their position," the politician, who was involved in talks with Iran, told MEE.

"The advice is to avoid provoking Trump at this stage as he is serious about his threats and because he is desperate and will not hesitate to do a reckless act that will cost everyone dearly, the politician added.

'All signs indicate that the British were the ones who played an influential role this time'

- Shia politician

"Any military action inside Iraq now means the downfall of the Iraqi government. Iran itself will not be able to deal with the consequences of the fall of the government, especially the consequences of a political, financial and economic nature.

That so-called common ally is Britain, a country believed by Shia leaders to be the real player in the Iraqi arena at present, and credited with persuading the Iranians to avoid provoking the Americans and follow the option of appeasement.

"No clear information is available, but all signs indicate that the British were the ones who played an influential role this time, although they did not appear in the picture as usual, the politician said.

"They have communication channels with all parties, including the armed factions, and they have been negotiating for a long time with the factions, specifically Kataeb Hezbollah, with the aim of stopping the attacks.

MEE has asked the UKs Foreign Office for comment, but received none by the time of publication.

Irans volte-face coincided with a series of meetings, both open and surreptitious, held by UN Special Representative to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert with commanders of Iran-backed armed factions.

The last of which, with Kataeb Hezbollah leader and Popular Mobilisation Authority (PMA) chief of staff Abdulaziz al-Muhammadawi "Abu Fadak" earlier this month, prompted observers to link these meetings with the truce declared last week.

However, the truth is that Hennis-Plasschaert failed to reach any result in these meetings, commanders told MEE.

How Iraq's Kadhimi used Iran visit to stake a claim for sovereignty

Abu Fadak refused to meet with Hennis-Plasschaert three times, only eventually relenting at the request of Kadhimi, two of the commanders close to the Kataeb Hezbollah leader told MEE.

"Hennis-Plasschaert had nothing to do with the announced truce, despite her meeting with Abu Fadak focusing on the attacks against US interests in Iraq, a prominent PMA commander close to Abu Fadak and familiar with the talks told MEE.

She asked Abu Fadak to intervene, but he refused. He said that he cannot be a mediator between the factions and the Americans.

The commander said the US made a great mistake when it killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Kataeb Hezbollah co-founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike on Baghdad airport in January. The pair were the two most important people responsible for preserving the balance in Iraq, and could have stopped these attacks with a word, he said.

"The Americans are the ones who started this mess, and they have the power to end it by leaving Iraq. The solution is for the Americans to leave within a reasonable time limit, not three years as they are requested, the commander added.

"Abu Fadak offered the Americans a withdrawal time limit of two to three months, guaranteeing them full protection and assistance in transporting their equipment, machinery and personnel to Kuwait if they agree.

Hennis-Plasschaert was subjected to widespread criticism in Iraq for meeting Abu Fadek, accused of implicitly recognising his power and influence. But her mission was not, in fact, a complete failure.

The UN envoys dialogues are credited by some for providing a way out for the rest of the factions to agree to the ceasefire without seeming beholden to Iran.

"[Hennis-]Plasschaert was the joker of the negotiations that led to the armistice between the factions and the American embassy, a commander of one of the factions involved in the attacks told MEE."She played the role of mediator and was the indirect channel of communication between the two parties

"She worked to find a middle area in which the two parties could meet. Therefore, it was decided to stop the attacks and calm the situation until negotiations mature, and then the time limit for withdrawal and truce will be determined."

The commander stressed that the UN and Hennis-Plasschaert provided the armed groups no guarantees, but the envoys mentality as a former Dutch defence minister has created a kind of understanding between us and her.

"At this stage we are confident that she will succeed in managing this file," he said.

The United Nations mission in Baghdad told MEE it had no comment at this stage regarding the allegations over Hennis-Plasschaerts negotiations.

Unusually, Khameneis order was not transmitted to the armed factions through regular channels or Iranian officials working on Iraq.

Instead, due to its importance, the commanders of the most prominent factions, including the Badr Organization, the oldest Iranian-backed Shia group in Iraq;Kataeb Hezbollah; and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the most powerful faction, were summoned to Qom to meet Khamenei, at least three of the factions leaders told MEE.

There was more than one meeting with Khamenei.

'Khamenei says that Kadhimi is Shia, regardless of whether he is bad or good from our point of view'

- Senior paramilitary commander

One was with Badr Organisation leader Hadi al-Amiri, and another with representatives of Kataeb Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, al-Nujaba and Iranian advisors, in addition to the person in charge of the Iraq file.

"The essence of the orders that were issued were to preserve power in the hands of the Shia. That is, to preserve the position of the prime minister and the current government, a senior commander of an Iranian-backed armed faction told MEE.

"Mr Khamenei says that Kadhimi is Shia, regardless of whether he is bad or good from our point of view, and he will eventually leave this position sooner or later. But the position must remain in the hands of the Shia.

The commander said Khamenei warned any attacks now could threaten Kadhimis rule, and therefore everyones political strategies.

Therefore, any activities that might threaten the Iraqi government or place it at the mercy of the Americans must be stopped immediately, he said.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

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EXCLUSIVE: Iran's Khamenei ordered end to Iraqi attacks on US interests - Middle East Eye