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President Trumps strategy to confront Iran is easy to understand: impose maximum pressure to gain maximum leverage ahead of negotiations to dismantle its nuclear program and address its malign activities all while avoiding a military entanglement or pursuing a policy of regime change.

Irans leaders, for their part, recognize that Mr. Trumps strategy has already sent their economy into a tailspin and could bring down their regime if sanctions are not soon lifted. The recent regime-perpetrated murder of about 1,500 Iranian protesters demonstrating against the governments austerity policy revealed a destabilized Islamic Republic increasingly afraid of its repressed citizens.

The Iranian regime doesnt need to trust America or Mr. Trump to strike a deal; it just needs to act as a rational actor to avoid collapse. Unlike the 2015 Iran deal, which was a fragile nonbinding political agreement subject to the ebb and flow of American politics, Trump could offer to submit a binding treaty to the Senate for ratification.

Tehrans conventional options are limited because it cannot win a direct military confrontation with the United States. So instead the regime pursues headline-grabbing provocations to foment political debate in open democracies in Europe and the United States while avoiding direct military retaliation. The list of Iranian provocations over the past year includes the downing of an American drone, mine attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and a cruise missile strike on Saudi oil facilities. On the nuclear front, Irans slow but steady effort to shrink its breakout timeline raises alarm bells in Western capitals without provoking an American or Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities.

Each of these escalation points appear designed to bait Mr. Trump into reinforcing the false narrative that there are only two choices when it comes to Iran: war, or a return to the flawed 2015 nuclear deal. If Iran could make war seem imminent, so the thought goes, it might indirectly force Mr. Trump into relieving sanctions (assuring the regimes survival), perhaps even without entering direct negotiations.

To his credit, President Trump recognized those traps for what they were and exercised strategic patience. Indeed, Mr. Trump could have responded to each provocation with a proportional military response. After a day of flag waving, the national mood might well have shifted against Mr. Trump, forcing him to offer sanctions relief prematurely without achieving any long-term national security objectives.

This may indeed have been what Qassim Suleimani thought he would achieve following the killing of an American contractor and an attack on the United States embassy in Iraq. Instead, Mr. Trump surprised Iran by striking its top terror strategist, and then surprised it once again by responding to Irans ballistic missile retaliation with a return to strategic patience. Mr. Trump emerges from the past few weeks in a stronger position. The maximum pressure campaign remains fully intact with political space to increase the sanctions pressure even further. Iran faces a backlash at home and abroad after its downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet. Mr. Trumps critics who warned that his policies would spark a third world war now seem to have gotten ahead of themselves.

Many wrongly believe the United States has already reached full maximum pressure on Iran. In truth, several critical pressure points remain untapped. The administration this month rolled out fresh sanctions targeting Irans construction, mining and manufacturing sectors, along with the first step in a crackdown on violators of American sanctions on Iranian metals and petrochemicals. Sanctions targeting Iranian state shipping lines are set to take effect in June and could be expedited for more immediate impact.

Another potential target: Irans financial sector in its entirety. In 2018, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, proposed legislation imposing sanctions on Irans financial sector, which the United States recently determined to be a primary jurisdiction of money-laundering concern. The effect could be destabilizing, immediately cutting off all non-sanctioned banks inside Iran from international commerce, forcing their disconnection from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT and rendering all remaining foreign exchange reserves held outside Iran inaccessible for any purpose.

Additional steps could be taken to deprive Iran of the strategic benefits still enjoyed under the nuclear deal and related United Nations Security Council resolution particularly, the scheduled lifting of key restrictions on its nuclear program, missile development and conventional arms transfers. Irans recent expansion of uranium enrichment coupled with its consistently violent behavior provides the United States and Europe with ample pretext to trigger the deals snapback clause, which would restore prior Security Council resolutions on Iran and eliminate a key disincentive to an Iranian decision to negotiate. The United Kingdom, France and Germany the Iran deals European contingent recently initiated the process to do just that.

To be sure, its possible that Irans supreme leader will never authorize direct negotiations with the United States, even in the face of his regimes imminent economic collapse and international political isolation. But if Mr. Trump can succeed in achieving true maximum pressure and restoring international restrictions on Iran, a phone call from Tehran agreeing to negotiate without preconditions could likely follow.

Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg), a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, most recently served as the National Security Councils director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction.

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Trump Has an Iran Strategy. This Is It. - The New York Times

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) The chief of Irans powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Monday that it will retaliate against American and Israeli commanders if the US continues to threaten top Iranian generals.

I warn them to withdraw from this field, Gen. Hossein Salami told state television, adding if they do not, they will definitely regret it.

The US killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the expeditionary Quds Force, in a drone strike outside of Baghdads airport in Iraq on January 3. Five days later, Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing American troops, causing injuries but no fatalities among soldiers there.

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Soleimani was responsible for Iranian proxy forces across the Mideast. The US alleged that he was plotting attacks on American targets.

Soleimanis replacement, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, has said he would carry on with his predecessors work.

This undated photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader shows Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Salamis comments come in response to remarks from the US special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, made to a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper at the Davos economic forum last week.

Asked about Ghaanis pledge, Hook was quoted by the daily Asharq Awsat daily newspaper as saying if he follows a similar path of killing Americans, he will meet the same fate.

He said any any attacks against American personnel or interests in the region will be met with a decisive response.

I think the regime now understands that they cannot attack America at will, and expect to get away with it.

Hook was quoted as saying. So we will hold the regime and its proxies accountable for any attacks on Americans, or on American interests in the region.

Brian Hook, US Special Representative for Iran and Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of State, takes questions from the media at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, January 7, 2020. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Salami said both the US and Israel should know that if they threaten our commanders, none of their commanders will find safety.

He added that Irans reaction to continued threats would be completely different from the past but did not elaborate.

Later, the head of Irans judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, vowed to bring Soleimanis killers to trial and punishment for this terrible crime.

Excerpt from:
Iranian general warns of retaliation against Israel if US threats continue - The Times of Israel

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) The chief of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Monday that it will retaliate against American and Israeli commanders if the U.S. continues to threaten top Iranian generals.

I warn them to withdraw from this field, Gen. Hossein Salami told state television, adding if they do not, they will definitely regret it.

The U.S. killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the expeditionary Quds force, in a drone strike outside of Baghdad's airport in Iraq on Jan. 3. Five days later, Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing American troops, causing injuries but no fatalities among soldiers there.

Soleimani was responsible for Iranian proxy forces across the Mideast. The U.S. alleged that he was plotting attacks on American targets.

Soleimani's replacement, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, has said he would carry with his predecessor's work.

Salami's comments come in response to remarks from the U.S. special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, made to an Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper at the Davos economic forum last week.

Asked about Ghaani's pledge, Hook was quoted by the daily Asharq Awsat daily newspaper as saying if he follows a similar path of killing Americans, he will meet the same fate.

He said any any attacks against American personnel or interests in the region will be met with a decisive response.

I think the regime now understands that they cannot attack America at will, and expect to get away with it, Hook was quoted as saying. So we will hold the regime and its proxies accountable for any attacks on Americans, or on American interests in the region.

Salami said both the U.S. and Israel should know that if they threaten our commanders, none of their commanders will find a safe place to live.

He added that Iran's reaction to continued threats would be completely different from the past but did not elaborate.

Later, the head of Iran's judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, vowed to bring Soleimani's killers to trial and punishment for this terrible crime.

Story continues

___

Associated Press writer David Rising in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this story.

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Iranian general warns of retaliation if US threats continue - Yahoo News

The following is a contributed article by Benny Czarny, CEO and founder of cybersecurity firm OPSWAT.

President Trump's unexpected and controversial decision to kill Qassim Suleimani, an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was met with immediate speculation about Iran's capacity to strike back. While opinions differed on the retaliatory timeframe and targets, almost all of the talking heads agreed that America's digital assets, especially those powering critical infrastructure, are at severely heightened risk of cyberattack in this post-Suleimani world.

Iran's cyber capabilities are relatively well-known and improved steadily in the latter part of the 2010s. The Center for Strategic and International Studiesexplains that "years of constant engagement with Israeli and Saudi Arabia have improved Iran's cyber capabilities, and experience with covert action gives Iran the ability to conceptualize how cyberattacks fit into the larger military picture."

A big part of the Iranian cybersecurity threat is its strategic prioritization of high risk, high reward critical infrastructure targets essential to the American way of life. In fact, a new report by Wired revealed that a hacking groupaffiliated with Iran and its proxies has been probing American electric utilities for the past year.

While security analysts don't believe that Magnallium, the identified hacking group backed by Iran, has the ability to break down the front door of a grid's control center, it's clear that the reconnaissance needed to eventually do so is underway, and was even before Suleimani's death.

If there's perhaps one mutually agreed upon benefit to come out of the Suleimani killing,it's the heightened dialogue on critical infrastructure cybersecurity. While U.S. power companies are much more secure now then they were a decade ago, vulnerabilities continue to be identified at the same time threats continue to increase in frequency and sophistication.

That's why as we begin this next decade, the energy industry must prioritize cybersecurity training for employees at every level of their organization and embrace a holistic Zero Trust approach that emphasizes prevention strategies over reactive detection methods.

As public and private enterprises look to new cybersecurity solutions to mitigate the risks, global cybersecurity spending is expected to grow to $133.8 billion by 2022,according to International Data Corporation. The White House's 2020 budget alone includes more than$17.4 billion for cybersecurity-related activities, a 5% increase over 2019.

However, we'll need to do more than throw money at the issue.

The problem lies in the fact the energy sector has become an increasingly attractive target both for nation-states like Iran engaged in geopolitical campaigns as well as profit-motivated criminal syndicates. That's largely due to the fact that much of our nation's energy sector is built upon a tangle of legacy industrial control systems that were intentionally designed as closed, 'air-gapped' systems.

But perhaps the greatest vulnerability is the human element. While many energy companies are addressing remote device and network risks, basic security awareness and training often feels like it lags behind.

As we enter the next decade, executive leadership at energy organizations will need to take a hard look at their existing systems, their security practices, and most importantly, their attitudes towards how they approach cybersecurity.

And because threats can now come from anywhere, any piece of connected technology must be treated as potentially malicious. This is the essence of a "Zero Trust" prevention-first mentality one in which trust is never implied and the legitimacy of every file, every device, and every network connection is always questioned.

All employees be they executives, control engineers or accountants must develop a deeper appreciation that any interaction with technology can open a door to a potential cyberattack. It's imperative that CI organizations prioritize cybersecurity training for all employees, emphasizing that every person who interacts with technology also plays an important role in protecting mission critical infrastructure.

To truly prepare for the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks targeting energy infrastructure, the burden will rest squarely on the shoulders of executive leadership to take the lead in showing that all employees, regardless of their role or responsibility, are aware that any interaction with technology has the potential to unleash the next Stuxnet, or worse.

What comes from the Suleimani killing from both a cyber and physical perspective remains to be seen. But Iran and its proxies aren't the only cyber threats that America's energy sector will face in the decade to come.

To mitigate risk, energy stakeholders must begin to make the mindset shift from detection to prevention, for once an attack on energy is underway, it could be too late to respond.

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The Iranian cybersecurity threat is a good reminder for the energy sector to embrace a prevention mindset - Utility Dive

These are tumultuous times in Tehran. On the evening of Jan. 11, protests broke out in front of two of the most prominent universities in Tehran, after the head of Irans military acknowledged that it accidentally shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752, carrying 176 passengers, including more than a dozen Iranian students living in Canada.

Protesters were furious at the governments three-day delay in announcing what should have been known immediately after the crash. They chanted demands for the resignation of responsible officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is commander in chief of Irans armed forces.

Its been a dizzying turn of events. Just days before the tragedy, the Iranian government was hoping to capitalize on massive crowds at the funeral for General Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corpss Quds Force commander killed in a U.S. drone strike near the Baghdad airport in Iraq on Jan. 3, and the launch of Iranians retaliatory missiles on Jan. 7. Instead, the government again has become the target of widespread criticism for what looks like incompetence and a cover-up over responsibility for the deaths of the airliner passengers. They included young mothers, children and at least two newly-married couples who were returning from holidays in Iran.

Accepting responsibility for this disastrous incident, offering full compensation to victims, and making a commitment to conduct an investigation and hold those responsible accountable all promised in President Hassan Rouhanis Jan. 11 statement are the minimum measures expected from a government in such a situation.

Three days of obfuscation and even threats to journalists who questioned the governments previous narratives, however, is perhaps why so many Iranians doubt the governments sincerity in its apology and pledges. Several Iranian social media users have said they are afraid to think that if the plane passengers did not have foreign nationalities and the international community was not pressuring Iran to come clean, the public never would have been told the actual cause of the crash.

These protests have continued in several other cities and at universities, including in Isfahan for a few days, during which security forces used tear gas and batons to contain and crack down against any attempt to expand the protests. Less than two months ago, security forces brutally repressed protests over an abrupt increase in fuel prices that had spread to more than 100 cities across the country, both in rural areas and on the outskirts of big cities. Video footage from November appears to reveal that the security forces violently targeted protesters who did not pose any imminent threat to life, and authorities have refused to accept responsibility or even publicly account for the total number of people killed.

In other words, over the past two months the government has faced street protests with demands supported by large groups of Iranians. The two waves of protests seem to include different demographics one group connected to university-educated students and the ideals of the urban middle class, and the other largely consisting of working- and lower middle-class communities struggling amid deteriorating economic conditions. Both of these groups, however, say they are calling out the governments indifference to its citizens suffering and the governments total lack of accountability for its systematic wrongdoing.

On Jan. 17 and during the Friday prayer sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei dismissed the criticism protestors had raised. Even if the government manages to silence the voices of those criticizing the government over the airplane catastrophe, it most likely will only exacerbate peoples feelings of being marginalized by their own government. And that feeling would deepen the authorities domestic legitimacy crisis.

In the past two years, U.S. policy toward Iran also has played a negative role in addressing the human rights situation, including by imposing increasingly broad sanctions that harm Iranians right to health care. But it is Irans government that has the key responsibility to protect its citizens rights, and it is the Iranian government that has failed to do so and sowed so much distrust between rulers and the ruled. What the Iranian government needs most in this volatile time is the trust of its own people and it needs to actually commit to a transparent, rights-respecting form of governance.

Theres an expression among Iranians and many other Shia Muslims that the sigh of the innocent will go after the cruel one day. I wonder if any Iranian government officials feel that this sigh from the victims of Irans past repression, including those killed in November, has come back to haunt them.

Tara Sepehri Far is the Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. Follow her on Twitter @sepehrifar.

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Iran's cover-up of plane crash compounded its trouble in the streets | TheHill - The Hill