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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faces sentences on seven verdicts of misusing billions of dollars in government funds while in office, the public prosecutor at Irans Supreme Audit Court said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.

In one case, dating back to Ahmadinejads second term in office between 2009 and 2013, the misused funds amounted to more than two billion dollars, the prosecutor, Fayaz Shojaie, said in his interview with the newspaper Etemaad.

The verdicts have been announced to the parliament, Shojaie said. The Supreme Audit Court operates under the supervision of the Iranian parliament.

It is not clear whether Ahmadinejad was formally tried by the court and is facing sentencing, or whether the Iranian parliament must now follow up on the court's verdicts.

Ahmadinejad gained support among poor and working class Iranians by promising to share the countrys oil wealth with them. Subsidy reforms implemented in his second term were aimed at delivering subsidies to the most needy while cutting their overall cost to the government.

Shojaie said that he did not believe the funds Ahmadinejad allegedly misused could be recovered.

"In the effort of fixing the damages the decision has been issued and finalized. But the damages and harm from his decisions are so big that we dont have a way to carry it out," Shojaie said. "So what can we do? He in no way has the assets that would cover this amount."

He did not say what would happen if the money could not be recovered from Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad could not immediately be reached for comment.

Despite his popularity among some segments of the Iranian population, Ahmadinejad angered hardliners by clashing publicly with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on a handful of issues during his second term.

Ahmadinejad submitted his name to run as a candidate in the Iranian presidential election in May, but he was disqualified by the Guardian Council, a governmental body that vets candidates.

Half of the members of the Council are appointed by Khamenei who, without naming Ahmadinejad, hinted that he had advised him not to run.

Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh, editing by Larry King

See original here:
Former Iranian president Ahmadinejad facing sentencing over misuse of funds - Reuters

A statement from Irans Revolutionary Guard said the USS Nimitz made a provocative and unprofessional move. There was no immediate comment from Washington. Photograph: Cole Schroeder/AFP/Getty Images

Irans elite Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that US navy ships came close to its vessels in the Gulf and shot flares.

The USS Nimitz and an accompanying battleship drew close to a rocket-bearing Iranian vessel on Friday and sent a helicopter near a number of vessels close to the Resalat oil and gas platform, the Guard said in a statement published by its official news site, Sepah News.

The Americans made a provocative and unprofessional move by issuing a warning and shooting flares at vessels, the statement said. Islams warriors, without paying attention to this unconventional and unusual behaviour from the American vessels, continued their mission in the area and the aircraft carrier and accompanying battleship left the area.

The US navys Bahrain-based fifth fleet said the incident happened while one of its helicopters was on a routine patrol in international airspace. The aircraft saw several Guard vessels approaching US ships at a high rate of speed and sent out flares after receiving no response when it tried to establish communications, the navy said. That prompted the Iranian boats to halt their approach.

After communications were established, the US saw the Iranians conduct a gun exercise, which involved firing weapons into the water away from US ships, said a navy spokesman, Lt Ian M McConnaughey.

The navy described the encounter as safe and professional.

Last Tuesday, a US ship fired warning shots when an Iranian vessel in the Gulf came within 150 yards in the first such incident since Donald Trump took office in January, US officials said.

In a statement on that incident, US Naval Forces Central Command said the patrol craft, the Thunderbolt, fired the warning shots in front of the Iranian vessel after it ignored radio calls, flares and the ships whistle.

The vessel belonged to the Revolutionary Guard, the statement said, adding that it stopped its unsafe approach after the warning shots were fired.

A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Iranian boat was armed but its weapons were unmanned. The Thunderbolt was accompanied by other vessels including those from the US coast guard.

Years of mutual animosity had eased when Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran last year as part of a deal to curb Irans nuclear ambitions. But serious differences remain over Irans ballistic missile programme and conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The Trump administration recently declared that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal, but warned that Tehran was not following the spirit of the accord and that Washington would look for ways to strengthen it.

During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the US navy in the Gulf would be shot out of the water.

In January, near the end of Barack Obamas term, the USS Mahan fired shots toward Iranian fast-attack boats as they neared the destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz.

Also on Saturday, Irans parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy held an urgent meeting with deputy foreign minister and senior negotiator Abbas Araghchi to review measures the country may apply in response to sanctions the US Senate approved on Friday and sent to Trump for signing.

Araghchi told state TV the decision was a hostile breach of the nuclear deal.

It is a breach of the deal in articles 26, 28 and 29, said Araghchi. A strong answer will be given to the action by the US.

The articles in question say the US administration, acting consistently with the respective roles of the president and Congress, will refrain from re-imposing sanctions or any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.

The new US legislation imposes mandatory penalties on people involved in Irans ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure would also apply sanctions to the Revolutionary Guard and enforce an arms embargo. Democrats said the sanctions would not conflict with the nuclear deal.

On Friday, the US, France, Germany and Britain, who brokered the deal with Iran along with China, Russia and the European Union, said they were raising concerns with the United Nations over Irans launch on Thursday of a satellite-carrying rocket.

In a joint statement, they said Irans launch was inconsistent with a UN security council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal.

On Saturday Irans foreign ministry said the missile launch was part of domestic policy of the country, deterrent and at service of regional peace and security.

More:
Encounter between US and Iranian ships 'safe and professional', navy says - The Guardian

Trump. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

On Friday, North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, leading to an eruption of concern from the security community. The Trump White House, however, has this week focused its belligerence lesson Pyongyang and the weapons it has, and more on Iran, despite the nuclear weapons it is prevented from getting.Last week, Secretary of State Tillerson pleasantly surprised his critics by certifying that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 deal that iced its nuclear ambitions and subjected it to intense inspections and restrictions for the next decade and more. This week, his boss fired back:I would be surprised if they were in compliance at the next review in 90 days, PresidentTrump told The Wall Street Journal.

This has less to do with Iran and more to do with Trumps frustration with his own Cabinet for supporting the deal reportedly so great that he commissioned a parallel working group of lower-level, less-experienced officials to advise him before the next review.

So the threat of a major conflict with Iran is high because the administration wants it that way.Mostif not all of the administrations key national security players, and their allies in Congress, see stepped-up U.S. military activity in the region as important to confronting Iran. Far from believing that the Iran deal contained the most serious U.S.-Iran flashpoint, theybelieve Iran, even without nuclear weapons, poses an existential threat to the U.S. and our allies. They believe that regime change switching out Irans theocracy for a (hypothetical) secular democracy is the only way, long-term, to deal with that threat. (Hands up if you recall hearing that one before about a country beginning with I.)

This belief, by itself, isnt the problem. Many, though far from most, Iranians, share their longing for a government that is more liberal and democratic, and less allied with extremist groups elsewhere in the Middle East. And though there is often hyperbole in the accusations, they are grounded in truth: Iran supports armed extremist groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, and to a lesser extent Yemen including the worlds most potent non-state fighting force, Hezbollah. Irans government mistreats its people badly though not, say, worse than our Saudi allies. The anti-Tehran faction believes that its worth putting pressure on Irans willingness to comply with the nuclear deal in order to push on these other issues while the Obama administration believed the U.S. and the region could live with problematic behavior but not with nuclear empowerment.

No, the problem is that the combination of a highly militarized standoff, multiple shooting wars across the region, and an administration that combines high rhetoric and low predictability is a recipe for escalation.

Just Tuesday, a U.S. Navy vesselfired warning shotsat an Iranian boat, apparently operated by the hard-line Revolutionary National Guard forces, that came within 150 yards of it. Such incidents had decreased significantly during 2016, but still occur with some regularity.As far as we can tell, the hotline communication Secretary Kerry developed with Iranian foreign minister Zarif has been discontinued.The Iranians are well aware though most Americans are not of the stepped-up tempo of U.S. military operations in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, and the heightened presence of ground and naval forces.

Add to that the package of new sanctions that the president apparently demanded asthe price for certifying the deal this time. Within 24 hours of the certification, the administration put economic sanctions on 18 new Iranian individuals and corporate entities for a range of alleged offenses including harassment of U.S. naval vessels and attempts to build ballistic missiles or steal U.S. software. Most offenses had no direct connection to the nuclear deal. Tehran responded with rage, saying that these sanctions themselves violated the terms of the nuclear deal.

The White House has help from Congress in ratcheting up tensions. The House andSenate have now eachpassed versions ofa bipartisan sanctions bill. While it has gotten attention for the new penalties it imposes on Russian entities and foreigners who collaborate with them to harm U.S. interests on cybersecurity, energy, human rights, and other areas,it also sets a range of new penalties on Iranians for actions related to ballistic missiles, regional terrorism, or human-rights violations. Now we wait to see whether President Trump will sign or veto legislation thatputs on Moscow the very pressures they hope will bend Tehran to the breaking point.

So anyone in Iran who wants to claim that the U.S. is implacably opposed to Irans existing government and actively seeking to undermine it economically, while challenging it militarily, has plenty of data to point to.

Given Irans regional goals, the means it believes are acceptable to employ, and the groups with which it is allied, defending U.S. interests and the nuclear deal was always going to require both strong regional presence and adroit diplomacy. What we have instead, though, is the unpredictable and bellicose rhetoric of the president and his team. Deterrence theory says that countries can be frightened into remaining peaceful if they know exactly what the consequences for aggression would be.

But the range of tweets, offhand remarks, threats, and past ruminations about regime change leave quite a bit of room for Iranian actors to believe that Washington is determined not just to contain their government, but to remove it from power. Michael Crowley points out at Politico that key Trump officials are on the record as saying that Iran will remain a U.S. enemy until the clerical leaders and military officials who control the countrys political system are deposed. And they have continued to make such statements earlier this spring, Secretary Tillerson sparked a public protest from the Iranian government when he told Congress that the U.S. should work with opposition groups toward the peaceful transition of that government.

The nuclear deal was never intended to resolve all the problems between the U.S. and Iran. It was intended to take off the table the question of nuclear weapons, which all sides had identified as the flashpoint that could most easily flare into war. But given both Washingtons differences with Tehran on key issues from human rights to Syria, and this administrations addiction to incendiary and off-the-cuff rhetoric, thats exactly where we (still) are.

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More here:
Trump's Dangerous Game With Iran - New York Magazine

Iranian press has announced a successful launch of the Simorgh space launch vehicle.

A couple days later, theres no sign of an orbital object being tracked from the launch. Its not like the US space surveillance to take so long to catalog a low-earth orbiting object, so I dont think one is forthcoming.

That nothing got to orbit may be either by design or failure. Iran tends not to announce its space program failures, and the video showed at least the early part of the launch went off without catastrophe. In any case, this would be the first successful launch of the Simorgh. We wrote a few pieces on Simorgh last year, in anticipation of its launch then: first, second, third.

Whats interesting about the Simorgh?

So far, all Irans satellites have been launched with the Safir rocket, which is significantly less capable than the Simorgh. The Simorgh is closer to North Koreas Unha, but with two stages instead of three.

Simorghwas meant to be launched in 2010; its conspicuous absence could mean that its development has been harder than anticipated, or that sanctions on ballistic missile and space technologyhave limitedIrans ability to get materials it needs, or that there have been test launches that have failed and not been reported. Last years test may have been one such failure, or it may have been a suborbital test.

Why would Iran want satellites?

A new satellite would be the fifth for Iran, following Omid (2009), Rasad(2011),Navid(2012),andFajr(2015). These satellites were all launched by the Safir rocket.

These were all small satellites, 50 kg or lighter, lofted into such low-altitude orbits that atmospheric drag brought them down within weeks. Ive not seen any data published from these satellites. Perhaps they didnt work as anticipated or perhaps the results were not impressive enough to burnish programs reputation.

The Simorgh is larger and more capable than Safir, and can put heavier satellites at higher orbits. Larger satellites mean more capability, and higher orbits mean they will stay up for longer. Iran is a large country with tough geographybig deserts & mountains. Its prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, and has adversarial neighbors. It could benefit from satellites for national security purposes as well as for economic & social development.

Posted in: Space and Satellites Tags: Iran, missiles, satellites, simorgh, space

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Link:
Simorgh Launch: Iran's Bigger Ride to Space Gets off the Ground - All Things Nuclear

Sixteen years ago a new president, George W. Bush, focused his attention on domestic issues, especially tax reduction, not on foreign policy. Bill Clinton warned him that al-Qaida planned more terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Then, on Sept. 11, 2001, New Yorks World Trade Towers were collapsing and the Pentagon was severely damaged by an al-Qaeda hijacked jet.

Now another new president, Donald Trump, focuses on health care and tax reform. But unlike in 2001, his administration is preparing for war.

Three potential flash points are now visible: North Korea, whose missile threats alarmed Japan, South Korea and the United States; Russia, whose military incursions into eastern Ukraine and the Baltic region caused NATO to respond; and Iran, which intends to extend its influence across the Middle East by undermining Arab regimes and installing governments friendly to Tehran.

A military clash in Northeast Asia seems less imminent today than two months ago, following Pyongyangs missile threats against U.S. bases in Japan. Deployment of major U.S. naval and air power to the region and pressure on China to rein in its belligerent Korean ally have cooled tensions.

Similarly, armed conflict with Russia seems less likely than it did earlier, for two reasons: The U.S. and NATO deployed troops to Poland and three Baltic States to warn Moscow that the tactics it used in Crimea and eastern Ukraine would be met with force. Russian planes continue to harass NATO forces in the Baltic Sea, but Moscow recently took steps to avoid accidental clashes.

Iran is a different challenge. And unless Tehran changes course, it may trigger armed confrontation with American forces in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Tehrans Revolutionary Guard has paramilitary units that support Shiite forces in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, work to undermine pro-American governments in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Arab Gulf States and potentially Jordan and Egypt. Revolutionary Guard forces are not under the authority of Irans elected government in Tehran, but instead report to the countrys top clerical leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

America maintains two important overseas air and naval bases in the strategically vital Persian Gulf: a large Navy installation at Bahrain and a major Air Force base in Qatar. Iranian speedboats regularly challenge U.S. warships in the Gulf, and one of them may precipitate a clash that results in armed conflict.

Neighboring Iraq, however, is the most dangerous flash point for conflict between Washington and Tehran. This emerges as ISIS is driven from major cities, including the newly liberated Mosul. Iraqs Shiite militias, bolstered by Iranian Special Forces, plan to fill the political vacuum left in liberated areas and push Iraq into Tehrans embrace. Baghdads moderate prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, will be powerless against this outcome unless Saudi Arabia and other Arab states fully support U.S. actions to back his government and Iraqs new army.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a congressional committee recently that Irans leadership plans to extend its hegemony in the Persian Gulf at the expense of Saudi Arabia. Our policy toward Iran, he said, is to push back on this hegemony and work toward supporting those elements inside Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government. Some suggested this is a call for regime change in Tehran.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine general with wide experience in Iraq, called Iran the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East. Most defense experts agree it was a mistake for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Iraq in 2012. Washington reversed course in 2016 and now has 5,000 advisers, trainers and intelligence specialists in Iraq. They assist Iraqs military in their drive to oust ISIS from remaining strongholds after Mosul was liberated. Mattis thinks more troops may be needed to stabilize Iraqs security and reduce the chances that Tehran will prevail in its quest to gain control.

Is the Trump administration preparing for military action against Iran? If diplomacy does not soon deter Tehran, armed conflict should not be ruled out.

Nuechterlein, a political scientist and author, lives near Charlottesville. He writes an occasional column, focusing on foreign policy and politics, for The News & Advance.

Read more here:
The Next Foreign Crisis? Iran - Lynchburg News and Advance