Biden Admin Weighs Dropping Iran's IRGC From Terrorism List

Gen. McKenzie told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that such a step would bolster security cooperation between Israel and its fellow Arab CENTCOM members, including Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

He said the most pressing and significant issues all the states in the region confront regarding Iran are air and missile defense, and Israel’s entry into CENTCOM “has great opportunities, particularly in the area of integrated defense”.

Referring to threats by Iran's ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drone program, he said, "Everyone in the region is seized by the Iranian threat, and they want to be able to defend themselves against that threat — that threat is primarily in the air”.

Describing the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program as an "exigent threat", McKenzie added, "They have over 3,000 ballistic missiles of various types, some of which can reach Tel Aviv. Over the last five-to-seven years, they have invested heavily in the ballistic missile program. Their missiles have significantly greater range and significantly enhanced accuracy.”

"Iran continues to pose the greatest threat to US interests and the security of the region as a whole. Through its proxies and clients, Iran has fomented conflict, an arc tracing from Yemen through the Arabian Peninsula, across Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and to the very borders of Israel," he noted.

In its Monthly Oil Market Report, Opec put the price of Iranian crude sold in February at $93 a barrel, a 9 percent increase on January and a 62 percent increase on the 2021 average of $57.52.

Iran has been steadily increasing oil exports since late 2020 despite US sanctions that officially have remained in place but not enforced sufficiently.

Opec said Iran’s crude production in February rose by 44,000 barrels a day (bpd) from January to 2.546 million barrels, albeit a lower increase than for Saudi Arabia and Libya, whose increased output respectively of 141,000 and 105,000 barrels accounted for most of a rise across Opec countries.

The Opec report put Iran’s average 2021 production at 2.405 million bpd, an increase from 2 million in 2020, but still lower than the 3.8 million before the US imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018, which threatened punitive action against third parties buying Iranian crude and slashed Iran’s exports.

Oil Minister Javad Owji said earlier this month that output could reach a maximum level within two months of agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and ease US sanctions. Iran has already over 100 million barrels in storage ready to meet demand for its exports.

According to a report published by Haaretz on Tuesday, six Israeli drones struck the base in Mahidasht region near the western city of Kermanshah in a covert operation that may be the motive for Tehran's Sunday missile attack on Erbil, along with the recent airstrike near Damascus that killed two IRGC officers.

The report said the mid-February attack caused major damage to the Islamic Republic’s drone fleet, with some estimates saying that hundreds were destroyed.

Until recently, neither country had gone public about years of covert drone war between the two archrivals.

Lebanese television station Al Mayadeen, with links to both Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic, reported the Israeli attack for the first time on Sunday, saying the bombing of the Kermanshah drone site prompted the retaliatory attack in Erbil, which claimed it targeted a secret Israeli intelligence base.

Press TV quoted the secretary general of pro-Iran Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba as saying that the Kurdistan region authorities “provide Mossad agents with refuge” which makes it allowable for any party to target the “Zionist spies.”

Some Iran-backed sources said the Erbil attack had several casualties but according to official reports no one was killed but the missiles damaged some residential buildings.

With 11-month talks in Vienna struggling to reach agreement on reviving the 2015 deal, a complication was added March 5 when Russia foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced Moscow wanted assurances that any sanctions over Ukraine would not affect its economic and other relations with Iran.

Price said that while “we are not at that point, and…hope not to get there,” Washington was open to “engage bilaterally [with Iran] on these pressing and urgent matters.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meeting with visiting Iranian foreign minister on Tuesday said US suggestions that Moscow was blocking efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal were untrue, following talks with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amira-Adollahian in Moscow.

Lavrov made a surprising statement saying Russia had received written assurances from Washington that sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine would not hinder cooperation within the framework of the deal, which lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Washington has not mentioned any assurance granted to Moscow, whether just to facilitate the implementation of a revived JCPOA or otherwise.

Rising tensions with talks paused

Tensions in the Middle East have been raised with the pausing of the Vienna JCPOA talks, leaving US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran continuing and the expanded Iran nuclear program running.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates, both lukewarm over the US approach to the Ukraine crisis, have made a joint approach to Washington seeking greater military aid.

Iran, which fired missiles Sunday at an alleged Israeli base in Erbil, northern Iraq, Sunday in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike March 7 in Damascus that killed two Iranian soldiers. Tehran has also paused talks with Saudi Arabia after the Saudis announced the beheadings of 81 people, around half of whom the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said were Shia who had taken part in political protests.

Greater impunity

Price said Monday that the Iranian missile strike was “clear violations of Iraq’s sovereignty” and a taste of how Tehran might act “with far greater impunity if it were not verifiably and permanently constrained from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Noting that the Vienna talks over JCPOA revival had involved “complex negotiations” that could now be “something close to the finish line,” Price stressed there were still “outstanding issues… the hardest issues” left to resolve.

Added to these, Price said that there were “now some external factors that are weighing on where we are” –a reference to Lavrov’s demand that any sanctions over Ukraine should not affect JCPOA implementation, in which Russia has been expected to play a central role, especially in shipping out Iranian enriched uranium in excess of JCPOA limits.

JCPOA ‘best vehicle’

“You may have seen the statement from the E3, our French, our German, our British partners, that came out over the weekend,” Price explained. “It said, ‘Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA.’ We would certainly endorse that statement.”

In stressing that Washington’s preference was for agreement in Vienna as “the best vehicle to achieve our policy objectives,” Price echoed the statement from Antony Blinken March 9 that Washington and Moscow had a common interest in limiting the Iranian nuclear program through reviving the JCPOA.

Price floating the notion of a bilateral US-Iran agreement might be an attempt to upset Moscow or disorientate Tehran. But the spokesman gave no indication as to why bilateral talks with Iran outside the Vienna process might suddenly overcome the outstanding issues that negotiators have failed to resolve in 11 months.

Iranian state television said an Israeli officer first contacted a neighbor of an employee of the uranium enrichment plant and managed to recruit them both after paying them in cash and digital currency.

Revolutionary Guards security agents were monitoring the network and were able to break it up before the sabotage could be carried out, arresting an unspecified number of people, the television said.

The state news agency IRNA said a new agency called Revolutionary Guards Nuclear Command, which it said had been set up to oversee defense and security matters at nuclear installations, was involved in the operation to stop the planned sabotage.

Iran has accused Israel of carrying out several attacks on facilities linked to its nuclear program and of killing its nuclear scientists over the past years. Israel has neither denied nor confirmed the allegations.

Iranian security agencies in the past have claimed arrests of spies and “terrorists” but have not produced any evidence and or follow up information about trials and possible sentences.

Israel confirmed reports late Monday that several websites, including its government site, were disrupted by a "broad cyberattack". The Iranian IRGC cyber army has attacked Israeli websites in the past.

With reporting by Reuters