Conservative Iranian Media Attacks Saudi Policy Toward Lebanon

Mahmoud Nabavian, a cleric and a hardliner politician representing a constituency near Tehran told a local website that while the United States has forces in the Persian Gulf, “We should not remain within our borders”.

He added that the reason “enemies cannot make Iran insecure is that we have expanded our borders and now Iran’s borders are in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.” He rejected Western demands that Iran should negotiate over its role in the Middle East, arguing that “They want to take the region from us.”

Nabavian also dismissed another Western demand that Iran should discuss its ballistic missile issue. “They want to take our missile power from us so we will have nothing if enemies attack us.” The ultraconservative lawmaker went on to say that Iran should never agree to negotiate with the West over its regional policies and missile power.

Predictably, Nabavian also dismissed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, saying that the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) brought no benefits for Tehran. He said the issue is not just sanctions imposed by former US president Donald Trump, but the same anti-Iran agenda was pursued by the Obama administration.

Ambassador Yun Kang-hyeon visited a private hospital in Tehran on Sunday and donated Covid masks, in what conservative media in Iran and several prominent citizens criticized as an insensitive act.

Some media outlets called the ambassador’s donation a “humiliating act” as Seoul has refused to release $7 billion of Iran’s money frozen by two of its banks, since the US imposed banking sanctions on Iran in 2018.

The embassy tweeted pictures of the ambassador’s visit to the hospital showing a few cartons of masks. This led to negative reactions, with Alef conservative website not only criticizing the embassy but also attacking the private hospital for accepting the gift.

“Is anyone in this hospital reading newspapers or following the news to know what South Korea has done to us during sanctions?”, the newspaper asked.

Iran foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh also reacted to the news on Monday calling the donation “a joke”.

Since October 26, Iran has been trying to fix a payment system at all gas station nationwide that suddenly broke down, creating a major disruption. The system provides a limited amount of cheap, subsidized fuel to every citizen and the without it, people have only one option, paying double for freely sold fuel.

Officials and local media initially said it was a cyberattack, but that raised questions, since reportedly the payment system is not connected to the Internet.

By Monday, 20 percent of all locations still could not sell the cheaper gas, as gas stations were gradually coming back to full operations.

The spokesman of parliament’s security committee, Mahmoud Abbas Meshkinzadeh, announced Monday that government agencies have not reached a concensus over the cause of the disruption and are not certain if it was a cyberattack from abroad or infiltration and sabotage from within Iran.

Iran International never reported the incident as a proven cyberattack, since there was never independent confirmation and relying only on statements by Iranian officials in a security-related matter would be a mistake.

Meshkinzadeh’s statement about lack of a conclusion came as a top Revolutionary Guard commander, Gholamreza Jalai, in charge of Iran’s civil defense organization said Saturday that analysis showed Israel and the United States were behind the disruption, although no forensic evidence has been found.

“We are still unable to say forensically, but analytically I believe it was carried out by the Zionist regime, the Americans and their agents,” Jalali said.

Meshkinzadeh said that the oil ministry, the intelligence ministry, civil defense officials and others held a meeting at parliament’s security committee to discuss ways to deter cyberattacks, but the overall conclusion was that the cause of the incident with gasoline distribution remained unclear.

He added that infiltration and sabotage is not a far-fetched scenario, and the parliamentary committee will do a more in-depth study and will issue a final report.

Iran has been the subject of mysterious attacks since July 2020 that twice caused explosions in its high-security Natanz uranium enrichment facility, causing major damage. Most observers and major international media outlets, as well as Iranian officials, have pointed fingers at Israel, which routinely neither confirms nor denies such reports.

Another spectacular operation that happened in public and showed the level of alleged Israeli infiltration, was the Hollywood thriller-style assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist and official, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020. All accounts eventually said that a sophisticated, remote-controlled machinegun installed in a van parked alongside the road opened fire on Fakhrizadeh’s approaching vehicle, killing him on the spot.

Two ballistic missiles were used in the attack late on Sunday in Marib province, the governor's office said in a statement.

Fighting between government forces and Houthis has escalated in recent months. The United Nations says some 10,000 people were displaced in September by fighting in Marib, the internationally recognized government's last northern stronghold. It is calling for a humanitarian corridor for aid.

Negotiation this year between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two regional powers involved in the war, has not produced a breakthrough for peace in Yemen.

A coalition of forces led by Riyadh intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Iran-aligned Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

The Houthi movement said in October they had seized new territory in the energy-rich provinces of Shabwa and Marib, gains confirmed by sources, as it presses an offensive likely to further complicate international peace efforts.

“With regards to the issue of how we’re going to respond to their actions against interest of the US, whether they are drone strikes or anything else, is we’re going to respond,” Biden said in a press conference following the G20 summit in Rome.

A Us base in Syria came under attack recently with drones suspected to have been launched by Iran-backed militias.

Officials said on October 25 that the US believes that Iran resourced and encouraged the attack, but that the drones were not launched from Iran. They were Iranian drones, and Iran appears to have facilitated their use, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.

Iranian backed militias have also attacked bases hosting US troops in Iraq, recently using drones more often than rockets.

The US Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned two senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and two affiliated companies for supplying lethal drones to insurgent groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Ethiopia.

Biden's threat comes as the US and its European allies urge Iran to return to nuclear talks aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran deal.