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Feb. 3, 2017, 7:38 a.m.

President Trump imposed sanctions on Iran on Friday, delivering on his promise to take a harder line with the volatileU.S. foe.

The sanctions, on 13 people and 12 companies, came a day after he put Iran on notice for testing a medium-range ballistic missile and for attacks by Iran-funded Houthi militants on a Saudi frigate. The early test from Iran has put pressure on Trump, followinga campaign spent denouncing the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers negotiated by the Obama administration.

Irans continued support for terrorism and development of its ballistic missile program poses a threat to the region, to our partners worldwide, and to the United States. Todays action is part of Treasurys ongoing efforts to counter Iranian malign activity abroad ..., said John E. Smith, acting director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.We will continue to actively apply all available tools, including financial sanctions, to address this behavior.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that Iran is "playing with fire."

They don't appreciate how 'kind'President Obama was to them. Not me!Trump continued.

That followed angry words from Iran, which has been incensedover Trump's temporary ban on travel from the country, along with six other majority Muslim nations.

Ali Akbar Velayati,senior advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei anda former foreign minister, was quoted by the Tasnim news agency Thursday calling Trump a puppet, a novice and an extremist.

This is not the first time when an inexperienced man is threatening Iran, he said. The new administration of America will realize that threatening Iran will not work, and empty and baseless ranting should be stopped.

Trump has spent weeks before and after taking office stirring other countries with his fiery rhetoric in tweets, speeches and phone calls. Some of his domestic actions halting all refugees as well as foreign visitors from seven countries and taking the first steps toward a border wall also have sent a strong message to friends and foes around the world.

But Fridays action marks the most direct step aimed at penalizing another nation, underscoring the aggressive foreign policy approach Trump has promised to take.

The move marks a period of renewed tension after the 2015 deal to prevent the state from building a nuclear program. Trump campaigned on tearing up the deal, which he called terrible. Israel opposed the deal, as did many conservatives in the U.S.

But if Trump attempts to unravel it alone, analysts say he would have a hard time getting cooperation to reimposeinternational sanctions from allies who backed the deal. The sanctions were crucial to getting Iran to negotiate the nuclear deal.

The Trump administration said the launch of a missile Sunday from a site 130 miles east of Tehran which exploded 650 miles away violated United Nations resolution 2231, forbidding any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons by Iran.

Iran denied it violated the resolution. The U.N.has yet to weigh in.

Trumps national security advisor, Michael Flynn, announced the administrations objections Wednesday. Trump followed that up Thursday with a series of tweets.

Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile. Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them! Trump wrote .

7:38a.m.: This story was updated with comment from the Treasury Department.

Originally posted here:
Trump slaps sanctions on Iran after ballistic missile test - Los Angeles Times

The Treasury Department placed new sanctions Friday on Iran, the first move by the Trump administration in response to a ballistic missile test that led the White House to announce it was putting Iran "on notice."

The sanctions were imposed on 25 people and entities involved in helping develop Iran's ballistic missile program, or assisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force in supporting groups that the United States considers terrorist, such as Lebanons Shiite Hezbollah militant group. The administration said the sanctions are not a breach of U.S. commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, that was negotiated by Iran and six world powers, including the United States.

"Iran's continued support for terrorism and development of its ballistic missile program poses a threat to the region, to our partners worldwide, and to the United States," said John Smith, acting director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "Today's action is part of Treasury's ongoing efforts to counter Iranian malign activity abroad that is outside the scope of the JCPOA. We will continue to actively apply all available tools, including financial sanctions, to address this behavior."

[Trump administration puts Iran on notice]

Earlier Friday, Iranian officials responded to the Trump administration by calling the warnings and reports of new sanctions provocative. Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, posted on Twitter that Iran is unmoved by threats.

The comments from Iran came before the official announcement of new sanctions but reflected the escalating tensions between the two sides over the past few days. A senior Iranian cleric, Ahmed Khatami, said Friday that if the White House expanded sanctions on Iran, it would be a clear violation of the nuclear deal.

We are living in a world full of wolves, like the United States, and in such a world we need arms to defend ourselves, Khatami said, according to Irans official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The sanctions are the first concrete evidence of the Trump administration's intention to take a more aggressive and confrontational approach with Iran. The action was triggered by the Jan. 29 test of a medium-range ballistic missile, in what is widely considered to be Tehran's probing of how far the new administration is prepared to go. Tehran denies that its missile tests violate a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Iran to abstain from testing weapons systems designed to be nuclear-capable.

But the sanctions could undermine the nuclear agreement and goad Tehran into declaring it dead. It would be difficult for the United States to walk away from the deal, as President Trump once vowed to do, without isolating itself from allies that want to do business with Iran.

During last years presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly slammed the nuclear agreement, which restricts Iran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of nuclear-related international sanctions.

Trump has said the Obama administration turned a blind eye toward Tehran's continued ballistic missile tests and destabilizing activities, so as not to derail an agreement that was an important part of President Barack Obama's legacy. Iran has insisted it is not violating the nuclear agreement by conducting tests of missiles that it claims are purely for defensive purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.

A senior administration official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity under its ground rules, characterized Friday's sanctions as an "initial" step in an ongoing effort to force the government in Tehran to act differently and stop being a threat to U.S. allies in the region.

"Iran has to determine its response to our actions," the official said. "Iran has a choice to make. We are going to continue to respond to their behavior in an ongoing way, at an appropriate level, to continue to pressure them to change their behavior."

The sanctions targeted several individuals allegedly involved in laundering money for Hezbollah in Lebanon. The administration official also criticized Iranian-armed Houthi forces in Yemen for attacking Emirati and Saudi ships and acting aggressively toward U.S. ships transiting the Red Sea.

"They continue to threaten U.S. friends and allies in the region," the official said.

[Trump and Iran trade warnings]

The sanctions won immediate praise from opponents and skeptics of the nuclear agreement.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called them "long overdue."

This announcement makes clear that it is a new day in U.S.-Iran relations and that we will no longer tolerate Irans destabilizing behavior, he said. A coordinated, multi-faceted effort to push back against a range of illicit Iranian behavior is long overdue."

The sanctions followed a tit-for-tat exchange of threats between the United States and Iran on Thursday as both nations sought new footing in a power struggle that could jeopardize the landmark international nuclear accord, which Trump has called the worst deal ever negotiated.

When asked whether his administrations tough new posture could mean a military strike, Trump answered, Nothings off the table.

That followed the White House broadside Wednesday in which national security adviser Michael Flynn warned that Iran is on notice over the test launch. He also cited Irans support of the Houthi rebels, who are battling a U.S.-backed government in Yemen.

This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Irans supreme leader, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying Thursday. Iran does not need permission from any country to defend itself.

Speaking to reporters, Velayati brushed off what he called Trumps baseless ranting and pledged that missile tests would continue as Iran sees fit.

The exchange surrounding the missile test is the most substantive between the two countries since Trump took office two weeks ago and suggests that each nation is willing to escalate tension at the outset.

The posturing on the U.S. side appears to be mostly an attempt to seize the upper hand in what Trump officials have said will be a far tougher, less forgiving relationship with Tehran. Flynn directly accused the Obama administration of emboldening Iranian aggression and regional ambitions, and Trump has ridiculed his predecessor for seeking more cordial, if wary, relations.

Trump is under political pressure to make good on campaign pledges to get tough on Iran, while Iran has a history of testing the resolve of new U.S. leaders. The Iranian leadership also faces domestic political pressures with a presidential election due this spring.

[Iran bars U.S. wrestlers in response to Trumps travel ban]

It will take him a long time and will cost the United States a lot, until he learns what is happening in the world, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised address Wednesday, in which he also accused Trump of discrimination and recklessness.

Rouhani, considered a cautious political reformer, presided over the partial warming of the three-decade freeze in U.S.-Iranian relations under Obama.

Rouhani said that Trump, in temporarily halting travel to the United States from Iran and six other Muslim-majority nations, is trampling on all international principles and commitments.

Iran had earlier vowed reciprocal measures for the ban, and the missile launch Sunday was widely seen as a test of the new U.S. administration.

It is not clear whether the launch violates a U.N. Security Council edict, but the Trump administration maintains that it does. The United States called an emergency Security Council review of what it called a provocative breach.

Erin Cunningham in Istanbul contributed to this report.

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Trump administration sanctions Iran over missile test - Washington Post

Wall Street Journal

In Washington's Get-Tough Stance, Iran's Hard-Liners See Opportunity Wall Street Journal Iran's most ardent anti-American politicians are seeking to take political advantage of the White House's tougher, more confrontational approach to the Islamic Republic, as the Trump administration on Friday imposed new sanctions against Tehran.

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In Washington's Get-Tough Stance, Iran's Hard-Liners See Opportunity - Wall Street Journal

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn at the White House on Wednesday.CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY CAROLYN KASTER / AP

On Wednesday afternoon, President Trump picked his first foreign-policy fightand signalled whos currently in charge of thosedecisions. Some seven hours before the former ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson was sworn in as Secretary of State, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn strode to the podium in a packed White House Briefing Room and, without advance notice, issued a combative warning to a foreign power. As of today, he declared, we are officially putting Iran on notice. It was the first time the former lieutenant general had appeared publicly on behalf of the Administration, and his performance was in keeping with his feisty reputation and his well-known antipathy toward Iran. Flynn was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency by President Obama partly for his defiant views on the Islamic Republic.

As a Presidential candidate, Trump frequently lamented thedisastrous nuclear deal negotiated, in 2015, between Iran and the worlds six major powers, and vowed to rip it up. In the past week, however, career U.S. diplomats have told the new Administration that Tehran has so far fulfilled its commitments under the agreement. Flynns showdown on Wednesday confronted Iran on two other grounds. The first was a failed Iranian missile test, on January 29th, that Flynn charged defied U.N. Resolution 2231. The next day, Flynn said, Houthi rebels in Yemenwho are backed by Iranattacked a Saudi vessel. It was the latest attack in a civil war that became regional after a Saudi-led coalition launched Operation Decisive Storm, in 2015, against the Houthis.

The Obama Administration failed to respond adequately to Tehrans malign actionsincluding weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms, Flynn told reporters. Instead of being thankful to the United States for the deals brokered under Obama, Flynn said, Iran is now feeling emboldened. The United Nations has also been weak and ineffective in restraining Iran, he said. On Thursday, at a meeting with executives from Harley Davidson, Trump said military action against Iran is not off the table. Nothing is off the table, he told a press pool.

In the past two weeks, Trump has demonstrated that hes sticking to his promise of America first, even when it antagonizes allies like Australia and Mexico or undermines a hard-fought nuclear pact involving the worlds five other major powers. Trump, in a series of early-morning tweets, issued his own challenge. Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a lifeline in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion, he said. Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile. Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!

The Trump White House, Flynn vowed, will more vigorously hold Iran to account for actions that undermine security, prosperity, and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East and place American lives at risk.

Flynns challenge marks the end of the U.S. experiment in engaging directly with Iran, which began under Obama after the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a centrist, in 2013. The two Presidents talked by telephone just weeks after Rouhani took office, when he came to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. That exchange quickly led to the start of diplomacy between Iran and the worlds six major powers, to insure that Irans nuclear program did not produce a bomb. For the next two years, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spent more time with each other than with counterparts from any other nation. The negotiations produced the most important non-proliferation agreement, later endorsed by the United Nations, in more than a quarter century.

The Trump Administration now seems to be charting a separate course from its partnersBritain, China, France, Germany, and Russiaon Iran. We are communicating that Iranian behavior needs to be rethought in Tehran, a senior Administration official told reporters at a subsequent special briefing on Iran. The official also suggested that Washington was even considering support for opponents of the regime.

Flynn has been an outspoken advocate of ousting the theocracy. In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2015, he said, Regime change in Tehran is the best way to stop the Iranian nuclear-weapons program.

Flynns statement on Wednesday coincided with the conclusion of a visit by the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, to Tehran. Ayrault brought with him dozens of businessmen, to explore new deals now that many international sanctions have been lifted. In the face of all the challenges our world is faced with, France refuses to turn in on itself, or to stigmatize, Ayrault said, in a statement on Monday night. It is making the choice of international cooperation and multilateralism. He met with both Rouhani and Zarif. The nuclear deal, he added, has also deepened exchanges among businessmen, tourists, and students, and was already bearing fruit.

Flynns challenge to Iran provoked new questions. He offered no specifics on what the dire-sounding on notice means. After reading his seven-paragraph statement, Flynn shut his folder and walked out without taking questions. The Administration had apparently fired the first warning shot at Iran even though it has only begun to review its policy options, ranging from economic sanctions to military action.We are only in our second week, a senior Administration official told reporters. We do not want to be premature or rash, or take any action that would foreclose options or necessarily contribute to a negative response.

Iran, however, read Flynns statement as delivered. Were not going to wait for others permission to defend ourselves, Zarif, the foreign minister who negotiated the nuclear deal, said at a press conference in Tehran. Maybe the new [U.S.] government, which has already shown its image internationally, will use this against Iran to start new tension. Rouhani has called Trump a novice at politics who does not understand the way the world operates. On Thursday, Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, vowed that Iran will vigorously continue its missile activity and would not cave to threats, describing Trumps policy as its own form of extremism. The nuclear deal covers only Tehrans ability to make bombs, notits missile capabilities. The Islamic Republic currently relies heavily on missiles because its Air Force, which has had limited access to new warplanes, atrophied after the 1979 Revolution. The theocracy began acquiring or developing independent technology for missiles after coming under intense bombardment by Iraqi missiles during the two nations eight-year war, in the eighties; it has conducted several missile tests over the years, although the number diminished during the U.S.-Iran diplomacy, according to experts.

In its latest test, Iran launched a medium-range missile called the Shahab, the senior Administration official told reporters. The country has had the basic technology to launch a nuclear-sized payload on a medium-range missilewhich could reach Israel and the southeast corner of Europefor more than a decade, according Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence expert. But Iran does not now have the ability to produce the fissile material to make a bomb, or to weaponize it by loading it on a missileand, under the nuclear agreement, it wont for at least fifteen years. Trumps policy assumes that Iran still intends to try, possibly even with the missile that was tested this week. Ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering a payload of at least five hundred kilogramsto a range of three hundred kilometersare inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons, the official said.

In 2015, the Security Council passed U.N. Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology. The resolution is somewhat ambiguous on exactly what counts asa violation, according to a new briefing paper by the Iran Project, a non-government group of former diplomats and experts led by former Ambassador William Luers. It concludes that the latest missile test is inconsistent with the spirit of the U.N. resolution but is not considered a violation.

Some analysts suggest that the Trump Administration is overplaying the threatfor now. Iran hasnt been shooting ballistic missiles at anyone, according to James Walsh, of M.I.T.s security-studies program. It hasnt threatened to use them except in defense. Sure, it would be better if they didnt have missilesthe fewer the betterbut Israel, Iraq, and Turkey have had ballistic-missiles programs, and Saudi has air-ground missiles.

Flynns statement may be more bluster than anything else, Michael Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told me. The test changes very little. He added, What can we do to stop missiles tests short of war, or imposing sanctions on a par with those that preceded the nuclear deal?

Despite the tough words from Flynn, the United States has not deployed new forces in response to either the Iranian test or the Houthi attack, the Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood said. U.S. defenses in the region are adequate to defend against an Iranian aggression or missile tests, he said.But momentum is building among Republicans on Capitol Hill to aggressively squeeze Iran. New bills have recently been introduced in both the House and the Senate to impose multiple layers of new sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, human-rights abuses, and missile program. The Iran Nonnuclear Sanctions Act of 2017, which was introduced in the House on Wednesday, warns, The United States will no longer stand idly by and allow the Mullahs to flout international law and threaten the peaceful coexistence of nations with its reckless, belligerent behavior.

Trump would almost certainly sign the kind of punitive new legislation that Obama once indicated he would veto. And while the new moves on Iran do not yet destroy the Iran nuclear deal, they could certainly begin to destroy the diplomacy and spirit that produced it.

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Trump Puts Iran On Notice - The New Yorker

DUBAI Iran said on Wednesday it had test-fired a new ballistic missile, prompting a tough response from a senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Iran's defense minister said the test did not breach the Islamic Republic's nuclear agreement with world powers or a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the pact,

Iran has test-fired several ballistic missiles since the nuclear deal in 2015, but the latest test was the first since Trump entered the White House. Trump said during his election campaign that he would stop Iran's missile program.

"The recent test was in line with our plans and we will not allow foreigners to interfere in our defense affairs," Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan told Tasnim news agency. "The test did not violate the nuclear deal or (U.N.) Resolution 2231."

Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, said the United States was putting Iran on notice over its "destabilizing activity" after it fired the missile.

"As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice," Flynn said, without explaining exactly what that meant.

Flynn said the missile launch defied the U.N. resolution that called on Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

A U.S. official said Iran had test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday and it exploded after traveling 630 miles (1,010 km).

The Security Council held an emergency meeting on Tuesday and recommended the missile testing be studied at committee level. The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, called the test "unacceptable".

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that Tehran would never use its ballistic missiles to attack another country.

Some 220 Iranian members of parliament reaffirmed support for Tehran's missile program, calling international condemnation of the tests "illogical."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is against weapons of mass destruction, so its missile capability is the only available deterrence against enemy hostility," the lawmakers said in a statement carried on state media on Wednesday.

The state news agency IRNA quoted Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran's National Security Council, as saying Iran would not seek "permission from any country or international organization for development of our conventional defensive capability".

The Security Council resolution was adopted to buttress the deal under which Iran curbed its nuclear activities to allay concerns they could be used to develop atomic bombs, in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

The resolution urged Tehran to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons. Critics say the resolution's language does not make this obligatory.

Tehran says it has not carried out any work on missiles specifically designed to carry nuclear payloads.

The test on Sunday, according to U.S. officials, was of a type of missile that had also been tested seven months ago.

Iran has one of the Middle East's largest missile programs but it has been dogged by a poor record for accuracy.

However, Hossein Salami, deputy head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said on the day of the test that the country was now one of the few whose ballistic missiles were capable of hitting moving objects.

This would enable Iran to hit enemy ships, drones or incoming ballistic missiles.

Some of Iran's precision-guided missiles have the range to strike its regional enemy Israel.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran's new missile test a "flagrant violation" of the U.N. resolution. He said he would ask Trump in their meeting in mid- February for a renewal of sanctions against Iran.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Giles Elgood)

TOKYO U.S. President Donald Trump's defense secretary on Friday reaffirmed America's commitment to its mutual defense treaty with Japan during a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

SEOUL U.S. President Donald Trump's defense secretary warned North Korea on Friday of an "effective and overwhelming" response if it chose to use nuclear weapons, as he reassured South Korea of steadfast U.S. support.

WASHINGTON The Trump administration said on Thursday that Israel's building of new settlements or expansion of existing ones in occupied territories may not be helpful in achieving peace with Palestinians, adopting a more measured tone than its previous pro-Israel announcements.

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Iran confirms missile test, drawing tough response from Trump ...