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This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

President Donald Trump and the monarch of the repressive Saudi regime spoke on the phone for more than an hour on Sunday. According to a White Housestatement,The two leaders reaffirmed the longstanding friendship and strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The official Saudi Press Agencyreportedthat Trump and Saudi King Salman stressed the depth and strength of the strategic relations between the two countries.

The two agreed to greater military intervention in the Middle East, and the creation of so-called safe zones in Syria and Yemen. The details of how such zones would be created are not clear, but if they were instituted, it would likely take direct U.S.military involvement.

Hillary Clinton ran her 2016 presidential campaign against Trump on a pledge to create a safe zone in Syria, though she had previously acknowledged that instituting a safe zone could kill a lot of Syrians and lead to American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.

Reutersreported, citing a senior Saudi source, that the two leaders agreed to step up counter-terrorism and military cooperation and enhance economic cooperation.

The White House said Trump and Saudi King Salman also agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of radical Islamic terrorism.

Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally since the 1930s, is a theocratic absolute monarchy that brutally represses all internal dissent, beheads nonviolent protesters and funds and spreads extremist Islamismthroughout the globe. A leaked 2014 email from Hillary Clinton revealed,citingWestern intelligence sources, that the U.S.-backed regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported the genocidalmilitant group ISIS.

Saudi Arabia also has the worlds second-largest oil reserves, plays a leading role in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and has been offered more than $115 billion inweapons dealsby the U.S. government in the past eight years. U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia continue uninterruptedunder Trump.

While agreeing on Middle East policy, Trump and King Salman took a hard line against Iran, Saudi Arabias arch nemesis. The White House said they agreed to address Irans supposed destabilizing regional activities. Reuters reported, according to the Saudi source, that, Trump agreed with Riyadhs suspicion of what it sees as Tehrans growing influence in the Arab world.

Trumps administration is full ofanti-Iran hawks.

Saudi Arabia, which speaks of itself as the home of Islam, has remained silent on Trumps extremist anti-Muslim policy, while massive protests have errupted throughout the U.S. and the world. Iranians are the group most affected by Trumps immigration ban, whereas Saudis are not targeted.

The Saudi Press Agency summarized the discussion, writing, The views of the two leaders were identical on the files that were discussed during the call, including the fight against terrorism, extremism, their finance, formulating the appropriate mechanisms for that, and confronting those who seek to undermine security and stability in the region and interfere in the internal affairs of other states.

The White House noted that President Trump likewise voiced support for the Kingdoms Vision 2030 economic program, a plan to revamp the Saudi economy that includes few political reforms and does not guarantee equal rights for women, who face systematic subjugation.

Both leaders expressed a desire to explore additional steps to strengthen bilateral economic and energy cooperation, the White House statement added.

The Saudi Press Agency said the two leaders invited each other to visit their respective countries.

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Trump and the Saudi king discuss major pact to confront Iran - Salon

Iranian leaders are working to give a terrorist proxy the ability to launch guided missiles at Israel's most important secular and religious sites, according to a top Republican.

"What they intend to do is transfer a GPS capability to what right now are dumb rockets and dumb missiles," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said Wednesday during an event with the Israel Project. "If they succeed in this, they can pick the tallest buildings in Tel Aviv, the main landmarks in Jerusalem, the airport, the ships in the harbor."

That warning punctuated Royce's call for President Trump to prepare to reverse some of the economic concessions that the Obama administration made while negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. And the crackdown has bipartisan support, as Royce's Democratic counterpart on the committee emphasized throughout the panel.

"I hope that the new administration will slap sanctions on them and they'll certainly have my support if they decide to do it," said New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Engel and Royce predicted that Israel would have to go to war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, a terrorist group funded by Iran, and reiterated that President Obama miscalculated by doing a deal with the regime. "I think from day one [of the talks] that they played us like a fiddle," Engel said of Iran.

But Engel cautioned against walking away from the agreement entirely, because Iran has already received the infusion of cash it sought from the agreement. "If we were to simply walk out of the deal now, they'd have all this money without really doing anything and I don't think we should let them off the hook," he said.

That requires swift condemnation of Iranian support for terrorists and other destabilizing activities, according to the lawmakers. The regime tested a ballistic missile over the weekend, which the lawmakers called a violation of their obligations under the terms of the nuclear deal.

Royce suggested that Trump should warn Iran that if it conducts another test, the Treasury Department will bar international banks from conducting dollar transactions with the regime. And a message should be sent to international companies that hope to do business in Iran.

"If there's another test, all you companies out there in Europe and beyond know that we have a know your customer law in the United States," Royce said. "And guess what would be out of compliance with know your customer? Any conduct with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps."

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The bipartisanship of the panel was diluted only by Engel's worry that Trump might not recognize Russian President Vladimir Putin as a threat to the United States and a supporter of Iran.

"They're all in it together," Engel said. "Russia and Iran have collaborated, it's my belief that they collaborated all during the negotiations on the JCPOA [nuclear deal] and I think that that's the old line of the axis of evil, I think this is the axis of evil today. And we have to confront it."

Top Story

President Trump and his daughter Ivanka departed the White House for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Wednesday afternoon to witness the arrival of Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, who was killed during an intelligence gathering raid in Yemen last weekend.

Owens, a member of the Navy's SEAL Team Six, was killed in a clandestine raid at an al Qaeda facility that Trump had authorized early Sunday morning. The operation left four additional U.S. service members wounded and marked the first military fatality under the new administration.

Trump, who was to be joined by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., upon arriving at Dover, had a "very somber and lengthy" conversation with Owens' family on Tuesday.

02/01/17 3:38 PM

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Royce: Iran prepping smart bomb attacks on Jerusalem - Washington Examiner (blog)

Missiles on display in northern Tehran in 2014. A reported missile test by Iran on Sunday has led some American officials to accuse the country of violating a U.N. resolution that accompanied the 2015 nuclear deal. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Missiles on display in northern Tehran in 2014. A reported missile test by Iran on Sunday has led some American officials to accuse the country of violating a U.N. resolution that accompanied the 2015 nuclear deal.

U.S. officials say Iran test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday, the first known test since President Trump took office which could provide an early assessment of how the new administration will interpret and enforce the terms of the international deal to curb Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities.

In a statement to the media on Monday, Iran's foreign minister insisted that Iran's missile program is not part of the nuclear agreement, even as he declined to confirm or deny the missile test. NPR's Peter Kenyon reported that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad-Zarif said the missile program is purely defensive.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement calling the test a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed as a side agreement to the 2015 nuclear deal. The statement did not provide any additional information on the reported test, instead linking to a Fox News article quoting unnamed U.S. officials.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that he did not know the "exact nature" of the test, including the type of missile used.

On Monday, the U.S. mission to the United Nations wrote in a statement, "In light of Iran's January 29 launch of a medium-range ballistic missile, the United States has requested urgent consultations of the Security Council," AFP reported.

The meeting is expected to take place Tuesday afternoon, NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

The nuclear deal between Iran and six countries, including the U.S., was reached in July 2015, and required Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The specific issue of ballistic missile tests came up during the nuclear negotiations. A U.N. Security Council resolution in 2010 had expressly prohibited Iran from "any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches."

In the final days before the nuclear deal was reached, the biggest remaining obstacle was Iran's desire to have U.N. weapons and missile sanctions rolled back, as The Two-Way reported.

Then-Secretary of State John Kerry eventually agreed to a missile-specific side agreement to the nuclear accord. In place of an outright prohibition on missile tests, the agreement stated that Iran was "called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."

A recently released status report on the nuclear deal and missile program from the International Crisis Group think-tank described the missile language as "non-binding," and concluded:

"Controversy and concerns over issues outside the nuclear accord, mainly Iran's growing regional posture and ballistic-missile tests, have often overshadowed that the [nuclear accord's] two key components restricting and rigorously monitoring Iran's nuclear program and sanctions relief are working and delivering concrete results."

Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner told The Associated Press on Monday that the U.S. was looking into whether Sunday's reported missile test violated the side agreement, and that the U.S. would "hold Iran accountable" if it did.

The disagreement about what is and isn't allowed under the agreement cuts both ways. After the nuclear deal lifted many sanctions on Iran last year, the U.S. government imposed new sanctions specifically targeting the country's ballistic missile program, as we reported.

"Iran and the U.S. disagree over whether such penalties violate the nuclear accord," NPR's Camila Domonoske reported at the time. Iranian officials warned the U.S. that financial penalties would be viewed by Iran's leader as a violation of the nuclear deal, but U.S. officials contended that non-nuclear missile program sanctions fell outside the accord.

President Trump has attacked the nuclear deal. Addressing the pro-Israel group AIPAC in March during the presidential campaign, he said, "My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran."

Later, however, Trump advocated for renegotiating some parts of the deal or treating it as he would a bad business contract, "policing that contract so tough that they don't have a chance," Peter Kenyon reported last fall.

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Reported Missile Launch Is Early Test For Trump Administration's Approach To Iran - NPR

New York Times

Iran Warns US Not to Escalate Missile Dispute New York Times The warning, made by Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, came a day after American and Israeli officials accused Iran of having conducted a missile test that they said had violated a United Nations Security Council resolution. The United ... Iran will not use ballistic missiles to attack any country: foreign ministerReuters Trump-Travel Ban-The LatestYahoo News Iran will not use ballistic missiles to attack any country, says country's foreign ministerEconomic Times Aljazeera.com -Press TV -The Times of Israel all 220 news articles »

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Iran Warns US Not to Escalate Missile Dispute - New York Times

Iran President Hassan Rouhani give a speech inside the Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak office during official visit in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Oct. 7, 2016Mohd Samsul Mohd SaidGetty Images

Zeinabs son Bahman has been studying for a PhD in Virginia since 2014. So when the chance came to visit him this January, she leapt at it. She applied for a visa at the U.S. consulate in Dubai via a travel agency in Irana common way to obtain documentation.

That's where her passport was, ready to be processed, when Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning Iranians and nationals of six other majority Muslim countries from the U.S. was signed. Her dreams of seeing her son have vanished. "I was so, so happy and now I am so, so sad," says the 60-year-old, who now faces separation from her son until he finishes his studies in two years. "Everyone always said America was the beacon of freedom, but after this I'm not so sure."

Thousands like Zeinab who did not want to give her last name for fear of impacting her son's status in the U.S. feel personally targeted by Trump's order, especially as relations between the two countries had experienced an uptick since the nuclear deal in 2015 between Iran and 6 major world powers including the United States.

Now those improved relations are under threat, as Iran's conservatives see the order as an opportunity to score political points with only months to go before a presidential election. Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, an MP and part of the loosely knit coalition of hardliners and conservatives called Principalists, said it violated the terms of the nuclear deal he and others like him are highly critical of. Any action by America that prevents the creation of appropriate political and trade relations after the nuclear deal is a direct violation of it, he was quoted as saying by the Tasnim News Agency on Monday.

Irans moderate President, Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking re-election, took a more cautious approach and only reminded everyone of the futility of building walls between nations perhaps mindful of the fragility of a nuclear deal which he has staked his presidency on, but that Trump has promised to tear up:

Rouhanis muted response prompted his political opponents to take swings at his moderate international policy, which was based on his campaign promises of rapprochement with Western powers. Mr. Rouhani, Trump wont understand your metaphors on walls, I propose you speak to him as roughly as you speak to your internal critics, said Ezzatollah Zarghami, the former head of Irans state TV during Ahmadinejads presidency and a critic of Rouhani.

This government had promised to bring back honor to the Iranian passport, not only has that not happened but America is treating Iranians as a colonized nation, Akbar Ranjbarzadeh, another MP from the Principalist faction, said according to the semi-official Fars News Agency on Jan. 26.

Rouhani swept to a victory in the 2013 elections on a platform of upheaving the economy and better relations with the world. He had hoped that the nuclear deal, which led to the lifting of stringent sanctions imposed on Iran, would help him achieve both but the average Iranian has yet to see a meaningful effect from the deal on their livelihoods.

Now, he's trapped between a rock and a hard place. His foreign minister Javad Zarif has promised reciprocal measures, but should Rouhani do so too harshly he runs the risk of Trump moving to nullify his most significant achievement in office.

This executive order is an insult to Iranians, the government must definitely respond to this act, says Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst and professor at Tehran University, But it is important that the world sees that Iran, unlike the Trump administration, is behaving in a responsible and moral manner.

The nuclear deal , with its promise of roaring global trade and international investment in Iran as well as the sight of Iranian officials meeting and negotiating as equals with their American counterparts after 37 years of non-existent relations, was expected to help Rouhani cruise to a victory in his re-election bid in May.

But with the visa ban in place now and more hostile actions by the Trump administration highly possible, the elections seem wide open. In many instances Rouhani has not achieved the results he had hoped for and promised in his first term and Trumps actions will certainly have a detrimental effect on this, Marandi said.

Even as Iranians like Zeinab come to terms with being denied entry to the U.S., perhaps few will feel as personally targeted by the order as the country's President.

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Iran's Rouhani Left Exposed by Trump's Travel Ban - TIME