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BY: Adam Kredo April 12, 2017 5:00 am

U.S airline manufacturer Boeing is coming under renewed criticism following disclosures that its latest deal with Iran is being inked with a senior regime official and leading member of the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has sponsored terrorism across the Middle East and is responsible for helping to kill U.S. soldiers.

Boeing's latest dealwhich the Washington Free Beacon first reported last week has been put under a critical review by the Trump administrationis being inked with Iran Aseman Airlines, which is owned and controlled by the state. The CEO of Aseman Airlines is Hossein Alaei, a "prominent and longtime member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," or IRGC, according to several members of Congress who are petitioning the Trump administration to cancel the sales.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) expressed concern that Boeing's sale of around 60 new planesto Aseman Airlines will bolster the IRGC's global terrorism operation and help the Iranian regime transport weapons and troops to conflict areas such as Syria.

The lawmakers calledon the Trump administration to immediately suspend licenses permitting these sales and conduct a review of Iran's effort to use commercial aircraft forillicit activities.

"Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, has systematically used commercial aircraft for illicit military purposes, including to transport troops, weapons, and cash to rogue regimes and terrorist groups around the world," the lawmakers wrote. "The possibility that U.S.-manufactured aircraft could be used as tools of terror is absolutely unacceptable and should not be condoned by the U.S. government."

Rubio and Roskam asked the administration to "suspend current and future licenses for aircraft sales to commercial Iranian airlines until your administration conducts a comprehensive review of their role in supporting Iran's illicit activity."

Instead of granting Boeing a license forthese sales, the United States should take immediate steps to "revoke authorizations and re-impose sanctions on Iranian airlines found guilty of such support, and should bar U.S. companies from selling aircraft to Iran until the Iranian regime ceases using commercial airliners for illicit military purposes," according to the letter.

The latest information about Boeing's deal with Aseman Airlines and IRGC leader Alaei has only heightenedconcerns about the danger of the Trump administration approving thesales.

Alaei served as commander of the IRGC Navyuntil 1990. During that time, Alaei oversaw the harassment of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and efforts by the IRGC Navy to plant mines in international waters.

Alaei also served as the head of the IRGC's general staff and a deputy minister of defense before assuming control of Iran's Aviation Industries Organization, which is currently subject to U.S. sanctions.

Alaei serves as a lecturer at Iran's ImamHossein University, the IRGC's national defense college, which also has been sanctioned by the United States.

"With his deep ties and service to the IRGC, Hossein Alaei's position as CEO of Aseman therefore casts a dark shadow on the corporate ownership of and control over the airlines, and raises significant concerns that Iran Aseman Airlines is part of the IRGC's economic empire and a tool used to support its malign activity abroad," according to Rubio and Roskam.

Boeing also ispursuing deals with Iran Air, the country's flagship carrier, and Mahan Air. Both have been sanctioned by the United States.

These carriers have been accused of using "commercial aircraft to transport weapons, troops and other tools of war to rogue regimes like the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al Assad, terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and militant groups like the Houthi rebels in Yemen," the lawmakers wrote.

Boeing could bolster Iran's illicit activities and help the country revamp its aging fleet of planes, according to the lawmakers.

"There is no reason to believe Iran has ceased its malicious activity," Rubio and Roskamwrote. "Compelling evidence indicates that commercial Iranian airliners remain pivotal in delivering military support to terrorist groups and dictatorships around the Middle East."

"Iran's commercial airlines have American blood on their hands," they wrote.

Original post:
Boeing Trying to Sell Planes to Leading Official of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - Washington Free Beacon

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In the first few weeksof the Trump administration, some senior figures began floating a new plan: President Trump's improved relations with Moscowwould help the White House force a split between Russia and Iran, bothstaunch allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"If theres a wedge to be driven between Russia and Iran, were willing to explore that,"said asenior administration officialto the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon in February aboutthe"emerging strategy."

But a few weeks later, it's clear that the White House has neither the diplomatic savvy nor the conditionson the ground needed to create such a wedge. The American airstrikes launched last week against a Syrian airfield has ratcheted up the tension between the United States and Russia. The strike wasintended to deliver a "message" to Assadand his allies that the United States will no longer tolerate chemical weapons attacks on civilians, but it has also rallied Assad's patrons around him.

The joint command center that coordinates Russian and Iranian forces as well as other militias fighting for the Assad regime issued a statement on Sundaysaying the United States had crossed its own "red line" by bombing theSyrian government air base.

"What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines," read the statement. "From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well." The Russian military has also shut down its hotline to U.S. forces, which the two countries used to keep their aircraft in Syria out of each others' way.

While this is very likely symbolic bluster,top Iranian and Russian officials have indeed conferred after the U.S. strike. Unsurprisingly, they don't seem ready toshift their strategy in Syria.

Meanwhile, the White House is ratcheting up the rhetorical pressure on the Kremlin. "I think what we should do is ask Russia, how could it be, if you have advisers at that airfield, that you didnt know that the Syrian air force was preparing and executing a mass murder attack with chemical weapons?"said Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, on Fox News. U.S. officials alsotold the Associated Presson Monday thatRussia probably hadadvance knowledge of last week's chemical weapons strike, something Moscow denies.

This all means that Secretary of State of Rex Tillerson, who will visit Moscow this week, is probably in for an awkward trip. As my colleague Carol Morello reported, Tillerson still intends to push for Russia to distanceitself from Assad, even if there's little chance of success.

"This is a big cold shower," said Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst with the Rand Corp., to Morello. "Even if behind closed doors they might engage on other issues in a more pragmatic manner, the public posture is going to be one of emphasizing how they disagree about [Syria]. [Vladimir] Putin is not going to want to be seen as chummy with the U.S. secretary of state."

The idea of coaxing Russia away from Iran is "certainly not going to go anywhere now," said Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Indeed, he said, "the opposite result has been achieved."

In many respects, Iran and Russia aren't natural allies. There's much that divides them, not least hundreds of years of historical rivalry. Both countries are energy exporters vying for similar markets. Both governments harbor larger ambitions of geopolitical dominance in the Middle East. And, of course, there are always going to be limits to any alliance between the Islamic republic and a Russian leadership partiallyanimated by a brand ofChristian nationalism.

"Russia is hardly interested in Irans so-called Axis of Resistance, which stretches from Iran to Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria and essentially consists of Shia forces," noted Mohsen Milani in Foreign Affairs last year. "Given its ambition to become a great power in the Middle East, it cannot alienate the Sunni countries. Nor is Russia interested in antagonizing Israel. In fact, relations between Israel and Russia are exceptionally friendly."

But Russia and Iran need each other in Syria to buttress Assad."The glue is their common enmity toward the United States" and Washington'simperatives in the region, Vatanka said.

"At the moment, it is going to be difficult to drive a wedge between Russia and Iran," wrote Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in February. "Too many interests hold them together." And after the events of the past few days, those bonds seem even harder to unwind.

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Visit link:
The Russian and Iranian ties that the US can't seem to break - Washington Post

Iran says it expects its oil production to reach around four million barrels per day (mb/d) by next March.

Irans Oil Minister says he expects the countrys overall oil production capacity to reach around four million barrels per day (mb/d) by next March.

Bijan Zanganeh emphasized that this would be materialized once a series of new oil development projects came on stream.

The new projects, as he named, included several key fields located in West Karoun region as well as Azar and Oil Layer.

Zanganeh told reporters after a cabinet meeting that Azar was already producing 15,000 barrels per day (bpd), stressing that this could increase to as much as 60,000 bpd in the near future, Irans IRNA news agency reported.

He added that the output at Oil Layer was also at around 25,000 bpd which, as he suggested, would increase higher in the near future.

Zanganeh further emphasized that Irans production of condensate a form of ultra-light oil that has found a pivotal position in Irans oil exports was expected to increase as more projects in South Pars came on stream.

He said Irans average exports of oil and condensate stood at above 2 mb/d over the Iranian year that ended on 21 March 2017.

After the removal of sanctions early last year that had kept Irans oil production at around 2.9 mb/d since 2011, the countrys oil production started to rise by multiple hundred thousand barrels within a matter of a few months.

The latest figure on Irans oil production that was reported by Reuters recently put the countrys average oil production after the removal of sanctions at around 2.7 mb/d.

See original here:
Iran's oil output to reach 4mb/d next March - Press TV

"We're calling (Russia and Iran) out," Haley told "State of the Union" anchor Jake Tapper. "But I don't think anything is off the table at this point. I think what you're going to see is strong leadership. You're going to continue to see the United States act when we need to act."

Haley's comments came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told lawmakers he would look into stepping up sanctions on both countries, whose leadership supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who US officials say is responsible for a chemical weapons attack against civilians last week.

But the Russians are denying that Assad had anything to do with the chemical attack. A spokesman for the Russian defense ministry said the US had no proof of chemical weapons at the air base.

Haley disagreed, telling Tapper that the US government has evidence.

"What we've seen is, you know, in our meetings this week, we were told of the evidence," she said. "We saw the evidence. The President saw the evidence. All of that is naturally classified. And I'm sure when they can declassify that, they will."

"I was trying to give warning and notice to the members of the Security Council and the international community that (Trump) won't stop here," she said Sunday, adding. "If he needs to do more, he will do more."

"Yes, that will part of the discussions when I visit Moscow next week is to call upon Foreign Minister (Sergey) Lavrov and the Russian government to fulfill the obligation it made to the international community when it agreed to be the guarantor of the elimination of the chemical weapons," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week." "And why Russia has not been able to achieve that is unclear to me. I don't draw conclusions of complicity at all, but clearly they've been incompetent and perhaps they've just simply been out-maneuvered by the Syrians."

Haley echoed his comments in somewhat harsher tones on "State of the Union." Asked whether she thought Russia was trying to help Assad cover up the use of chemical weapons, Haley said either Moscow knew Assad had weapons that would be used or they were "played for fools by Assad and kept in the dark."

"So they now have to answer for this," she said. "How can they with a straight face cover for Assad, because if they're covering for Assad, then what are they really saying? They're saying by covering for Assad that they knew that it was there, or they were incompetent by having chemical weapons there in the first place.

"There's a lot of answers that need to come from Russia," Haley said, adding that she thought some of those answers would come during Tillerson's meeting in Moscow.

"When the Trump administration uses the words regime change, they are talking about a military effort to remove Assad," Markey told Tapper. "And that would mean putting American young men and women on the ground in battlefield conditions in order to accomplish that goal. I don't think there's any appetite in the United States for a massive additional military presence."

Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said Sunday that he saw the situation as a "great opportunity" for Russia.

"Well this is part of the problem in Syria, is Russia's sponsorship of this murderous regime," McMaster said on "Fox News Sunday." "And so we would want to appeal rationally to Russia -- this is a great opportunity for the Russia leadership to re-evalute what they're doing. Why they're supporting a regime that commits mass murder against its own people."

Meanwhile, Syrian state media reported Sunday that Russia and Iran are drawing red lines after the US strike.

"We will respond strongly to any aggression on Syria," the two Syrian allies said in a joint statement that flashed in a banner on Syrian state television. "Russia and Iran will not allow America to dominate the world."

The Kremlin also issued a statement Sunday on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's discussion of the situation in Syria by phone. They said the US actions against a sovereign state violatied international law and called for an objective, unbiased investigation of all the circumstances of the chemical weapons incident, the statement said.

"Here's what I think Assad's telling Trump by flying from this base: 'FU,'" Graham said.

Graham called that a "serious mistake."

"[I]f you're an adversary of the United States, and you don't worry about what Trump may do on any given day, then you're crazy," he said.

CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali and Merieme Arif in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Excerpt from:
Haley on Russia and Iran: 'I don't think anything is off the table' - CNN

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ruled out any further US missile strikes against Syria unless, of course, Assad decides to use chemical weapons again.

Russia, in its odd triple alliance with Iran and Assad, has said it will meet force with force if the Americans attack again. Without a blink of irony, the joint HQ of the Russians and their Iranian allies said Fridays Tomahawk missile strike had crossed red lines.

The face-off has led to a renewed build-up of naval power in the Mediterranean and Gulf region. Russia has announced the dispatch of two missile-carrying destroyers.

The US has the George HW Bush aircraft carrier battle group in the eastern Mediterranean. From this the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross launched 59 Tomahawk land attack missiles at the Sharyat air base in Syria in the early hours of last Friday.

Interestingly, Russian air defences made no attempt to stop the Tomahawks, though the Russians were told they were on the way.

Maybe they didnt want to test their S-300 and S-400 air defence missile systems they say are world beaters. Theres more than a suspicion the Americans know how to jam their command and control systems.

The Trump administration is more than concerned about the threats it sees coming from Iran, which has provided the backbone of Assads recent ground operations. Of particular concern is the development of new generations of rockets and intermediate missiles.

Linked to this is the focus of Trumps two leading strategists, James Mattis at the Pentagon and HR McMaster at the National Security Council, on new military developments in North Korea.

Iran and the Pyongyang regime share missile technology. It is now feared Kim Jong-un is planning some spectacular show of force around April 14 or 15, the 105th birthday of North Koreas now dead founder.

Continue reading here:
Backlash over Syria air strikes could see threats from Iran and North Korea - Evening Standard