Biden Aide Sullivan Says US, Israel Need joint Strategy Amid Iran Talks

As related by the first-century BC Roman philosopher Cicero, the tale of Damocles and his sword represents dangers hanging always above the heads of the powerful.

Nour News, which is close to the SNSC secretary Ali Shamkhani, said in an editorial that “Western” parties to the Vienna nuclear talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) had hardened their approach with the phrase ‘time limitation.’

Both the US, which left the JCPOA in 2018 and the three western European JCPOA signatories − France, Germany, and the United Kingdom − have intimated they will soon leave the Vienna talks if Iran does not agree to their proposals, although they have not set a specific deadline.

Referring to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Iran envoy Robert Malley's warnings Tuesday of time running out, Nour News said under the headline "Why the West Doesn't Want to Admit Progress in Talks" that they were hanging a Damocles sword over Iran.

Hardline website Jahan News also called their statements "a psychological war operation" aimed at encouraging the Iranian public to put pressure on Tehran’s negotiators to make concessions.

Malley told CNN Tuesday that “we have some weeks left but not much more than that."

Asked if Iran was “playing for time,” he replied. "If it's their plan I strongly urge them to revisit it."

Malley claimed Iran was “nearing the capability” to develop a nuclear weapon through expanding its nuclear program, referring to steps taken since 2019, the year after the US quit the JCPOA and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. Malley said that within weeks there would be no deal to be revived and "a period of escalating crisis" would follow.

Blinken spoke Tuesday of a window rapidly closing. "It's getting very, very short,” he said. “Being able to recover full benefits of JCPOA, by [Iran] returning to compliance with it, is getting increasingly problematic by advances that Iran makes every single day in its nuclear program."

Nour News noted that the US emphasis on closing windows and time running out did not include lifting “unjust and illegal sanctions,” which had to be “one of main pillars of an agreement.” The site pointed to Iran’s nuclear program being “peaceful” and “advancing in accordance with the [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Nour News wrote that no party in the JCPOA talks – which include China and Russia: the US participates indirectly – should think one “pillar” of the 2015 agreement could remain in place, meaning restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, while they were engaged in "destabilizing the other pillar," meaning the lifting of international sanctions.

Nour said it would be "very mistaken" to think Iran would abandon its call for "full, effective, and verifiable lifting of sanctions and a guarantee" that the US would not renege on the deal as it had done before.

Blinken on Tuesday called Donald Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 as "one of the worst decisions made in American foreign policy in the last decade" given that the JCPOA had "put Iran’s nuclear program in a box." He conceded that Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ had not pushed Tehran into further concessions but rather to expand its nuclear activities and continue to “act aggressively in the region.”

Defenders of a tough policy on Iran argue that Tehran will never make a deal that would permanently stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons or reduce its destabilizing activities in the region. Negotiations with and concessions to Tehran would provide time and resources for it to pursue its current policies.

The coalition said on Wednesday it had helped get the sick ambassador out of the country before he died.

Iran said on Tuesday that Hasan Irloo (Irlu), its ambassador to Houthi-run north Yemen, had died of Covid-19 after his evacuation from Yemen, and accused Saudi Arabia of delaying his departure from the capital, Sanaa.

The coalition, which has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement since early 2015, said in a statement it had facilitated Irloo's repatriation and had arranged for an Iraqi medical plane to fly him from Sanaa to Basra in Iraq.

It said it began facilitating Irloo's transfer from Sanaa on humanitarian grounds, considering mediation from Oman and Iraq, within 48 hours of being informed of his health condition.

It had provided permits and logistical support for the Iraqi air force C-130 medical evacuation plane that took Irloo out, coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki said.

The coalition did not say in the statement what medical condition Irloo had been suffering from. He was buried in Iran on Wednesday.

Fars news agency affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard repeated Wednesday that Saudi Arabia’s “delay caused the martyrdom” of Irloo, quoting the Houthi foreign minister Hisham Sharaf.

In his funeral ceremony on Wednesday, deputy commander of the IRGC, Ali Fadavi, portrayed Irloo as a longtime “fighter in the resistance front”, a term the Islamic Republic uses to describe its allies and proxies in the region. He accused the United States and “its allies” of delaying Irloo’s evacuation, saying that when he was finally brought to Iran he had been suffering from Covid “for a long time”.

Last week controversy ensued after a Wall Street Journal report said that the Houthis had asked Iran to withdraw Irloo. Both Iran and the Houthi leadership denied the report, insisting that the ambassador suffered from Covid and needed to receive medical attention in Iran.

But speculations on Iranian social media continued that Irloo had been perhaps killed or injured in Yemen and both Tehran and Riyadh preferred to say he was evacuated for medical reasons. Saudi Arabia has been conducting a fierce air campaign on suspected military and Iran-related targets in and around Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powerhouses, are bitter rivals but they launched direct talks this year as global powers try to salvage a nuclear pact with Iran and as UN-led efforts to end the Yemen war have stalled.

The bilateral talks have not resulted in any breakthrough, Iran said on Sunday. The two countries severed diplomatic ties in January 2016, after mobs in Iran attacked and ransacked Saudi diplomatic missions.

Last December, the US Treasury blacklisted Irloo and described him as an official of Iran's elite Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and a pillar of Iranian efforts to project power in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

Two Yemeni political sources and a foreign source have said Irloo had recently kept a low profile due to illness and political tension.

With reporting by Reuters

"Seminaries must use the money coming from people who pay willingly. Seminaries must be independent [from the government]," Ayatollah Mostafa Mohaghegh-Damad, a professor of Islamic law at Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran, said in a speech on a book dedicated to the Centenary of the Qom Seminary. "Today one of the problems of the seminary is its dependence on the government."

The Qom Seminary, established by Sheikh Abdul-Karim Haeri-Yazdi in 1922, is the largest Shiite seminary (hawza) in Iran with over 75,000 students. Seminaries were self-funded before the Islamic Revolution but like many other religious institutions, they now receive huge sums annually from the government.

In his speech, Mohaghegh-Damad, a moderate religious figure and a member of Iran's Science Academy, cited examples of prominent Shiite religious leaders who have emphasized the importance of separating religion from politics.

The budget allocated to religious institutions in the first budget bill presented to Parliament by President Ebrahim Raisi recently is noticeably higher in comparison with the previous year's budget – at least on those instances where clear figures have been noted.

For instance, the budget proposed for the Seminaries Services Center has doubled. The Seminaries Services Center is to receive 2.8 trillion rials which is higher than the 2,157 trillion rials allocated to the Department of Environment and many other government bodies including the Crisis Management Headquarters. The Center also receives funding from the Supreme Leader's office.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Seminaries Services Center to be established in 1991 to provide housing assistance, health insurance, and similar services to seminary students, who are the future clerics and whose loyalty is important for the regime.

Critics say that in some cases the budgets proposed for government bodies and state entities is difficult to calculate from what is discernible in the budget bill, which does not provide sufficient details.

The government says its budget bill is based on restrictive monetary policies.

Based on the details provided in the bill, the budget of the Islamic Propaganda Organization itself has increased by 43% in comparison with the previous year and reached 11.7 trillion rials. Many other large and small institutions have also been allocated huge increases of up to 124%.

The budget allocated to Al-Mustafa International University of Qom, the Islamic Propaganda Bureau of the Qom Seminary, and the Artistic School of the Islamic Propaganda Organization have not been announced this year.

The Al-Mustafa International University, a state-funded university-style Shiite seminary with branches in many countries, received a budget nearly 5 trillion rials last year, or around $100 million based on the official exchange rate that was applicable at the time. This is higher than the budget of any university in Iran.

The Al-Mustafa University pays for hundreds of foreign students from China to Africa and Latin America who come to study and then return to spread Iranian Shiite teachings in their countries.

Hassan Marashi, the secretary general of the centrist Executives of Construction Party told the economic website Eghtesad News on Tuesday that Rouhani should have resigned as his government was formed based on the idea of holding a dialogue with the United States, but Iran's foreign policy needed to change track in 2018 after Donald Trump left the JCPOA.

"When diplomacy failed, there was no reason for Iran continuing diplomacy," Marashi said. Meanwhile,Marashi acknowledged that the pull-out by Trump was a hard blow to the Rouhani administration. It also emboldened Rouhani's political rivals to start attacking him.

"I told the Supreme Leader that we needed to change course after Trump's pull-out, and then I heard that Rouhani had suggested that he should resign, but the leader did not deem the decision fit for the situation," Marashi added.

In another development, while Rouhani's hardliners have been demanding to put him on trial for his failure to sort out the country's economic and foreign relations problems during his presidency, another reformist figure has suggested that he should welcome a trial.

"I would have welcomed the trial if I were him, " said Mohammad Ali Abtahi the chief of staff of former President Mohammad Khatami in an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency ILNA on Tuesday, adding that the call for Rouhani's trial is a blame game to divert attention from the new government's failure in solving the country's economic problems.

Abtahi added that the lawmakers who found their way to the parliament with revolutionary slogans have not been able to bring about any positive change and the economic crisis has been deepening on daily basis during the past six months.

"They have also not managed to solve the problem the issue of nuclear negotiations and the markets are still waiting for a positive sign from Vienna, and this is against the Majles and the administration's claims about separating the fate of the country's economy from what happens in the course of the negotiations,” Abtahi argued.

Speaking of responsibility about the current situation addressed both to President Rouhani and former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, former government spokesman Ali Rabiei, who is a swell informed veteran intelligence ministry official, summarized what Iran's hardliners call "the current situation"in his Telegram Channel and on the proreform Fararu news website.

Rabiei highlighted Iran's current situation as "the undesirable situation of economic hardships that make life difficult for decent Iranians, an unprecedented inflation worsened by the instability of Iran’s currency and other markets since 2018, widespread poverty that defies all the revolutionary slogans, the social fatigue and insecurity felt by various walks of life in Iran, a rise in emigration by elite Iranians, as well as a decline in respect for revolutionary values."

Rabiei also pointed out that decline in political participation is so bad “that in a city such as Tehran only around 7 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in the 2020 parliamentary election and in some cities the number of votes cast for the winner was barely higher than the number of those who worked at the polling station."

"Add to that the loss of Iran's geopolitical advantage, having no place in the international economy and depriving the nation of the opportunities international economy and modern technology can offer," Rabiei stressed.

During a meeting with businesspeople and contractors active in road and infrastructure construction in the country, Rostam Ghassemi added that the allocated budget can hardly provide the salaries of employees.

“Today, living conditions are such that if a worker does not receive salary for one month, he will not be able to eat even an egg,” the minister said.

Attracting private sector investments for the transportation sector is one way to address the budget shortfall the minister said but added that parliamentary authorization would be needed.

The ministry’s total budget for the next year is already 66 percent more than that of the current year, at roughly $4.8 billion at today’s market exchange rate, but high inflation in the past three years have eroded the value of the national currency.

Earlier in the month, President Ebrahim Raeesi submitted the fiscal 2022-23 budget bill to the parliament, projected to stand at about $50 billion.

This year's large budget deficit is expected to persist into next year.